The date was May 8th, 1849. After a long journey from St.
Louis, the group of settlers had arrived tired and weak at the base of a
mountain in Idaho.
Only half the original group was still
alive. Their decision to leave in March was a bad one and had cost them
precious lives. Mildred and her family were the first car on the wagon train
and they were able to have first glance at this new land that had been
untouched by the white man.
“Wow, what a beautiful mountain!”
exclaimed Mildred’s sister, Jane.
“Indeed it is,” Mildred agreed. “Not
quite like any others we’ve passed.”
The mountain was a flowing landform
that had a snow-capped top. A flourishing pine forest along the slopes of the
mountain made it seem as though it were something of pure imagination because
of the beauty it had. Many of the settlers had never seen quite a sight and
were very perplexed at how beautiful God could make the world.
Off in the distance, Mildred noticed
something white fluttering in the wind. However, she didn’t think anything of
it because she was so used to seeing unfamiliar things. The journey had
provided Mildred with the experience of a lifetime and she knew how important
that was and cherished it greatly. After a long journey, everyone was glad to
have some room for themselves and to start setting up a permanent settlement.
Everyone went to sleep with the anticipation of settling in tomorrow, but
Mildred had other things in mind.
Mildred wasn’t your typical seventeen
year old girl. She had a very “out of the box” way of thinking and this caused
her to be incredibly smart. She had a very pessimistic view on life and only
had one lifetime best friend. She was also very curious about the concept of
death and had been allowed to explore it more since she had been around so much
death lately.
The next morning, everyone woke up in
high spirits even though the weather was dreary. A foggy, misty day was in place for them, but
no one seemed to mind. Mildred woke her best friend, Sarah, to go explore the
new area they were in. It had rained during the night so the ground was
saturated and the grass was very wet. Sarah’s father, William, caught Mildred
and Sarah before they went out to explore and tagged along, to the dismay of
the girls.
“There’s no telling what is out
there,” William said. “Protection of you young ones is the most important job
of a parent, so whether you like it or not, I’m coming. I can’t believe you
girls still want to go with the weather like this.”
“Just because the weather is terrible,
doesn’t mean the exploration will be terrible,” Sarah snapped back.
“We need to absorb the beauty of this
land before it’s spoiled,” Mildred said.
As they walked off into the fog and
mist, they couldn’t help but feel more alone as they got farther away from the
group. They had that feeling of utter aloneness, the same one they had when
they were lost in the Rocky Mountains. Mildred was the first to notice the
white ruffle and as they got closer to it, they realized it was the body of a
young girl.
“Look! I saw that yesterday! I can’t
believe it is still here,” Mildred cried out.
Mildred and Sarah looked at each other
and they instantly knew something was wrong. How could a dead person perched up
on sticks not have been fed on in the past twelve hours?
“Father, let’s go,” Sarah said.
It was too late though. They were
instantly surrounded by a fog that was so thick they couldn’t see one another.
Total blackness enveloped them all and they soon passed out in a heap, barely
breathing. They woke up in a pit covered by a grass roof and Mildred began to
think this had something to do with the girl on the
perch. Sarah and William were contemplating ways to escape while Mildred was
lost in thought. She had the strange feeling that herself, Sarah, and William
were slightly transparent, but it didn’t seem possible.
“Let’s just bust out,” Sarah urged.
“We don’t know what’s out there!”
William said.
“We have to do something. We can’t
just sit here and die because it’s obvious that we are going to have to get out
of this ourselves,” Sarah said to her father with a bitter and solemn tone.
Mildred had finally awoken from her
“thought coma” and began to converse with William and Sarah.
“William, we have to get out of here.
Whatever that girl was doing on that perch, it’s not good. She’s like a siren
of some sort, just dragging people like us to our doom. There’s something very,
very wrong here,” Mildred said.
William finally agreed and they
prepared to bust out. They pushed the top open and gasped as they noticed that
there was no one around guarding them. The pit had become stuffy and the air
outside of the pit was a welcome relief to them. They made a mad dash for what
they hoped was running away from the pit and girl on the perch.
“This has to be the right way. That
girl on the perch surely couldn’t be following us,” Sarah said in-between her
sobs.
“Speak of the devil,” Mildred said as she said a quick prayer.
“Where are you going?” asked the mysterious girl. “This is your home
now. Don’t you see, you all are just like me: dead.”
Those words broke the heart and spirit of Mildred, William, and Sarah.
Their high hopes of getting out were suddenly shot down and they couldn’t feel
any worse. Then something weird happened, all three of them lost feeling in
their bodies.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have come to Idaho…” Mildred said as they faded
into oblivion.
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