2020-07-25 - Ghost Stories, She Said

Ghosts in the cemetery and mass murderers of times past. Bodies dumped in the pond and bones quietly turning green in the water. Enough to pique the interest of a certain leaf on the wind slash folklorist, even if his area of expertise is 1700s Scandinavian folklore rather than suburban horror stories. This isn't Castle Rock, Maine, he tells himself, and I am not Stephen King. But what the hell, there might be a story worth blogging about here all the same.

The Dane wanders the shelves and studies the folders and brochures near the librarians' desk. You can tell a lot about a community by looking at what kinds of things get advertised locally. This little town clearly has an active cultural life of a sorts; there's brochures about church services, various eateries and shops, some nature walks, and of course, there is the Casino which is apparently new and attracting a bit of tourism. In a way, it all reminds him of home, though by Danish standards Gray Harbor would be a mid-sized town rather than some pit stop in the middle of nowhere between Portland and Seattle. Everything is so much larger over here across the pond. And yet, people are the same everywhere.

There's a curious contrast and some strange qualities to the locals Ravn has met so far. The gallery owner, welcoming and open and cheerful. The pawn shop lady at the coffee bar, telling him in all but so many words to get on the next Greyhound out of town. It wasn't so much what she said, as the way she was saying it. A lot of things went unsaid in that conversation, he suspects. Ravn has some experience reading between the lines from conducting interviews and doing research; when people are offered an opportunity to boast about their community but go quiet and speculative instead of gushing about their favourite places and activities, it tends to mean that there is indeed quite a few things scribbled between those lines in invisible ink. I should take the unspoken advice, he thinks. But I won't, because I don't know how to walk away from a story.

It doesn't hurt that the library has computers for public use either. Even a dinosaur of an old Windows machine is preferable to typing out a blog post on a cell phone.

The weather's warm but not hot, the humidity of recent nights backing off to leave the day qualifying as pleasant and the idea of jeans an acceptable one. The pair on the curly-haired young man now wandering in the general direction of the computers are bright red and rather slim, the latter of which is a fair description of him, as well. They are not held up by a pair of black suspenders, because those are dangling unused, but they're doing a fine job of staying up on their own. All in all, this is probably for the best. There are also Docs, and a white lace tanktop under an unbuttoned overshirt that starts out green at the shoulders and turns into a solid pile of tomatoes as it goes downward, but possibly the oddest part of the ensemble is a largish rubbery bag, which appears to aspire to be a chicken. Except for being open so that a fair quantity of various books can fit inside it.

The man is humming something half-under his breath as he approaches, though it pauses long enough to give another patron a cheerful greeting as he passes by, and stops entirely when he passes Ravn, so that he can remark on one of the restaurants visible in the currently perused brochure: "The Grizzly's pretty cool, only, don't order the omelette."

"The Grizzly sounds like somewhere that serves roast bear," the other man comments in a voice tainted by a touch of an accent that's not quite British BBC speaker but certainly wishes it was. He looks up and his grey eyes are immediately caught by -- the chicken.

He's a tall type, blond, pale-eyed Caucasian, who should perhaps re-evaluate his choice of clothing; not only do black jeans, boots, turtleneck and blazer not do his complexion a lot of favours, but it's also turning out to be a swelteringly hot day and he's probably going to regret those sartorial choices eventually. Could be in his late twenties, possibly early thirties; a bit of a morning-after stubble and a laid back air makes it hard to pin him down exactly, though a keen eye might suspect that the man's casual appearance is a deliberate choice. Not a speck of colour on him, though at least the cover of the cellphone on the desk he's sitting at sports a bright pink Hello Kitty cover to break up the monotony.

Blinking once or twice the man in black clearly decides to keep any thoughts about the bizarre poultry carryall to himself -- heaven knows I've seen some strange outfits elsewhere, never going to forget the Soho drag queens or being followed down the street in Los Angeles by a clown with a papier mache knife.

Instead, he offers a smile that seems friendly enough; "So what's wrong with the omelette? Too much grease, not enough mushrooms?"

Aidan has clearly stolen all the colour, leaving none for innocent visiting Danes. Although there's no bright pink right now. Maybe that's on loan. He looks mid-to-late twenties himself, and flops down easily into the chair of the computer one over from Ravn as though bones were an optional feature he hadn't bothered to upgrade to. The specified options get a shake of the head, though he takes a moment to consider his answer before he replies. "I don't know. I think it might be cursed." It should sound like a joke, but instead it sounds like this may be a genuine option.

He sets the chicken down, and gives the computer a poke to make it come alive, though he's still angled in the chair to make conversation easier. "Everything else there is really good. Like, the burgers are awesome, the shakes are really good even if you make weird combinations, the coffee's exactly what you want when you order coffee in a diner, the specials are actually kinda special, the hashbrowns and pancakes and fried eggs and scrambled eggs and everything are great, for real. But the omelettes? They're like God decided to punish you for your Frenchy aspirations, and never the same way twice." It is confusing. "It could just be Gina messing with us, I guess, 'cause she seems like she prolly would, but she's not the one cooking it, she just owns the place."

The other man cannot help but chuckle at the staccato commentary; the locals here are nothing if not friendly at least. "Cursed with excellent cooking -- what a horrible fate! I'll make a note to avoid the omelettes, though. How's the pie?"

Ravn leans back in his seat a bit as if deciding that whatever he was doing at the dinosaur computer can probably wait a bit, particularly in the presence of a chatty native. On the whole he seems like a pretty laid back fellow, and anyone stealing a glance at his screen might note the open text editor; looks like a typical Wordpress interface, so user friendly it borders on the confusing. "So, what's to do in Gray Harbor, besides avoiding omelettes, and -- according to a lady I bumped into earlier -- looking for dumped bodies in the pond?"

"Oh, the pie is awesome," Aidan says, with an enthusiasm that suggests a man who likes a good pie. And probably also a mediocre pie. Possibly even a barely passable pie, despite the physique. Maybe there's a painting somewhere in an attic surrounded by books about Weight Watchers and eating low carb. "Also there's a french bakery place downtown that's really good, if you want, like, classier pie. Or chocolates, or those little shiny sandwich cookies?" Whatever they're called, the tone says, backed up by a tiny shrug.

It is probably fair to guess these qualify for the list of things to do, though he doesn't list them again. He doesn't list any, to start with, instead cocking his head a bit at the other example given. "Did you come looking for dumped bodies?" he inquires, as if this would be only slightly stranger a reason than enjoying the seaside or an interest in Northwest lumbermills. Granted, it might be only slightly stranger than the latter. His computer's awakened, and a couple absent clicks reveal that, as well as acting as proper (if slow) computers, they're also one way to access the library database.

"Naw, actually I thought I was going to Portland," the foreigner replies with a small shrug, the kind that says funny how things turn out, innit? "Hitched a ride but the truck driver kicked me out here instead. I was going to get on a Greyhound from the bus stop but I figured I might stay around a day or three, take a look at the place -- not like I'm going anywhere in particular, just putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where I end up."

He seems amicable enough, and of course, if he's some kind of tourist that might explain the accent. "Talked to a lady yesterday who told me that looking for bodies in the pond is a bit of a local passtime, though I rather think she was pulling my leg. If you ever end up in Scotland people'll warn you not to disturb the wild haggises in the highlands -- figured it was a similar thing. Taking the piss out of tourists seems to be a thing anywhere I've been."

As an afterthought he adds, "Name's Ravn, by the way -- tourist, folklorist, devourer of pies." It's pronounced something along the lines of Raown, definitely not an English name.

"I like Portland," Aidan says, "Lived there for a year or two." Grey Harbor, on the other hand, is small enough that he's probably pegged Ravn for at least a newcomer if not a tourist per se purely on the strength of never seeing him before -- though the interest in local brochures may also have been a hint. Even before the accent. "Yeah, though, hitching with truck drivers is kinda iffy. I mean, sometimes it works great and almost always it beats walking, but." But sometimes you get dropped off in Grey Harbor instead of Portland, for a start.

He grins at the mention of wild haggises, but adds, "Oh, right, huh. Aidan, local but kinda not, magician, also devourer of pies. Nice meetin' you! ...Raoun?" It's an attempt at echoing the name, though it's probably closer to sort of drawling 'round' without remembering to put the D on than quite what Ravn said. "Folklorist sounds cool. Where'd you come here from? Your accent sounds a little like my girlfriend, only also kinda not. And which lady'd you talk to?"

Something in Aidan's words sparks a glimmer of interest in Ravn's grey eyes. He turns around completely, ignoring his computer for now and replies, "Yeah, teach me to avoid truck drivers in red MAGA hats, though from what I'm seeing, it's not the worst turn I've taken by accident, even if I did end up called a European shitmonkey. I'm Danish as it happens -- and I think her name was Lilith? Met her in a coffee shop in the mall, talked a bit about this and that, and bodies in the pond," he adds with a chuckle.

Then he glances at the chicken bag for some reason and then back to Aidan. "Magician, are you? Stage show, that sort of thing? I've scraped by a few times doing a bit of sleight of hand myself every once in a while. Never can go quite wrong with a walnut and three empty paper cups in a tight spot." Ah, the tone of a hopeful amateur.

Aidan makes a face. "Yeah, mostly avoid anyone in those hats," he suggests. "They mostly don't like me much, either." Even ignoring the somewhat unusual clothing choices, which probably aren't a huge hit there, his complexion's got a tawniness to it that tends to leave people guessing about his ethnicity. Whatever it actually is, it's not particularly difficult to imagine someone yelling something his way about building walls. Or maybe about terrorists, depending what flavour of xenophobic they might've been feeling that day. "Smaller towns can be kinda dickish about any kind of outsiders even without hats, too. But here's pretty good." The tone's a lot brighter saying so, for what that's worth.

A nod, regarding Lilith: "She runs the pawn shop. There really have been bodies in the pond, though. I mean, not like, super recently, I don't think. But, I mean, the place's been around a while, there's a lot of dead people here. Like, the park and the high school got named after this incident where there was a family having a picnic and this one dude showed up killed the dad and son and I think took the wife and daughter away and no one ever saw them again? Though that was like, I dunno, the '20s or something." He did say magician, not historian. "And I don't think any of them ended up in the pond."

And as far as the magician thing itself, he tilts his head one way and then the other. "Used to be stage, for a while? Like, five or six years I guess? But the theatre troupe I toured with broke up. So before and after that, street magician. Well, I guess technically at the moment, boardwalk magician mostly. But yeah, you never can!" Go wrong with it. "...well, unless there's an ordinance against it, anyway."

"Is there? An ordinance against it, here in Gray Harbor?" Ravn smiles. "Wouldn't want to get in trouble with the law -- that's one thing people keep warning you against doing as a foreigner. Never piss of a small-town sheriff and never argue with a highway patrol officer."

The Dane is definitely not one to upset a certain demographic with his looks; he couldn't be more white if he bathed in laundry detergent. The accent, though, combined with the cultural sense of inferiority of at least some Americans is probably enough to not make him a favoured choice of hitchhiker for a certain kind of people; the kind of people who think that a house from 1950 is old.

"She did mention the pawn shop, yes. Surprised me a little," Ravn admits with a slightly sheepish expression. "I've got a lot of my ideas about this country from TV, unsurprisingly -- I had this idea that someone who runs a pawn shop would be a three hundred pound, bald-headed dude named Brian, covered in tattoos and prone to breaking your fingers if you don't pay up on time. Lilith looked so civilised, I was almost disappointed."

"Everyone I've met here has been pretty decent, though." The blond man smiles. "Although -- I mean, every small town's probably got its local story to scare the kids and excite the tourists, you've got this dead and disappeared family, haunted cemetery, and whatnot. Just something about this one that makes me want to stick around and ask questions. People look at you funny here when they think you're not watching, like they're waiting for you to do something strange." He scratches his chin, adorned by a slight morning-after shadow as if he didn't quite get around to shaving today. "Eh, might just be me imagining things. What sort of show did you have going on, then? I never did anything professional, just a few party tricks and the occasional boardwalk hustle to pay for a bus ticket."

He doesn't look like someone who'd need to scam people to pay for bus tickets. He's not expensively dressed, but the casual appearance fails to look entirely, well, casual.

Aidan grins at the description of theoretical-Brian. "Pawnbrokers got it better than other kinds of people making loans that way, 'cause if you don't come pay them back, they don't have to gotta break your fingers, they just sell your stuff. But... I mean, I dunno her all that much, but I bet she could break a finger or two if she really wanted." That at least sounds somewhat closer to a joke than the potentially-cursed nature of the Grizzly's omelettes.

He's been enough places to nod at the remark about all towns having their stories, though the fact that this one is special has him looking a little more thoughtful, and studying the Dane as though a reason that should be so might make itself visible. "You're prolly not imagining things," he says after a moment, the thoughtfulness from the expression having apparently affected the tone, as well. Or some of it might be wariness, perhaps? There's another little hesitation, either way, before he goes with, "It's kind of a weird place. But it has that effect on some people, just... that makes them want to stick around a bit and check things out."

Magic, or at least the sort that travels well outside of town, is a topic that's historically gotten him in less trouble, and the return of the grin suggests the greater comfort with it and he shakes his head. "Anyway, nah, no ordinance here, though it's still good advice. I mean, we don't have a sheriff I don't think? But pissing off cops pretty much never goes great. When I was with the troupe, me and one of the other guys used to do some of the bigger illusions you need good props for, and we kinda shared a Lovely Assistant... the troupe'd do these children's matinees and we'd do magic for the opener, usually. I just did tech stuff for the other shows. Here, I mostly do more close-up stuff. Card tricks and scarves and turning things into other things and mindreading tricks and all that kind of thing." A small pause, "...and the occasional hustle to pay for a bus ticket or meal or something, before I got back here." Hey, a guy's gotta eat. And travel. Presumably even if he's got a pretty decent blazer.

"Sounds like you're a lot more professional about it than I ever was." Ravn holds up a hand covered in a black kidskin glove and lets a coin dance back and forth on his knuckles; a trick that, while simple, he's clearly mastered to near-perfection. "It's mostly something I picked up to impress girls and pass the time at university."

He cants his head speculatively. "You're not wrong, though. I do kind of get this 'can't get on a bus and leave just yet' feeling about this town. Might end up having to find out where to stay, hell, even find something to do for a while. What's the job and board situation like around here?"

"Well, there's only a few things I'm kinda good at and I kinda make not really a great employee," Aidan says, the tone bordering on apologetic but staying just barely on the side of matter-of-fact. He looks quite pleased to see the coin dancing, however, a touch of delight in the grin, even if it isn't a particularly complicated trick. It's beautifully done, and he just plain likes magic. "Well, I mean, there's worse ways to impress girls, for sure."

Despite being self-professedly bad at proper jobs, on giving it a moment of thought, he's got answers. "Most of the bars and restaurants are usually hiring," he says, "the nightclub, Firefly, too. The casino's still pretty new, so I bet it is also. There's kinda... a lot of people moving in and out of town, and the tourist trade isn't terrible, especially in the summer, so there's usually something going if you're not that picky. If you are, well, kinda depends what you're good at?" His brows lift; he's down to think about where a guy of some given talent might look. Though apparently 'folklorist' isn't one that's giving him any instantly relevant ideas. "Places to live, it depends how much money you've got. But it ranges from, like, sharing a trailer with roomies at Huckleberry -- that's the trailer park; I live there, it's pretty decent -- to, like, the Bayside Apartments. They're the really tall ones." This probably really is enough to identify the trio of buildings he means. "They're stupid expensive, but really nice. Got a friend who li--" a slight falter, "--lived there a while." Shrug. "Where're you staying now?"

"Nowhere," Ravn chuckles. "There was a lady at the art gallery at the mall who let me crash on her couch last night -- but I haven't really worked out anything else yet. Worst case scenario, figure I can always do a night or two on a park bench if I must, the weather is nice enough and I've certainly done so before." He doesn't look like someone who would need to rough it like that, but as a fellow wanderer is likely well aware, you can't always find somewhere to stay when you blow into Somewhere, Ohio at 3am in the morning. "If it's got a place to wash up and some horisontal surface to lie down on, I'm happy enough."

The coin spins; not so much to impress as seemingly because it's just habit for Ravn to toy with something or other, keep his fingers busy. "I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty," he says. "Don't imagine there's a lot of work for a folklorist and hobby blogger in a town like this, so -- might look into bartendering if someone'll hand me a list of how to make the most common cocktails, or hell, clean floors. I delivered pizzas for three months once. Somebody's got to, right?"

"You can crash on mine if you want," Aidan offers with another small shrug; it's the sort of casual that suggests Ravn would not be anywhere near the first person to sleep on the couch in question, even if its owner weren't included in the count. Wanderer solidarity! "It's pretty comfy, and the bathroom's good." Okay, not compared to Bayside. But compared to, say, a bus station, it's fabulous.

He nods again at the potential jobs, watching the coin as it goes. "I know the person who's in charge of Two if by Sea right now; I'll ask her if she's short on people right now. For bartending or floor cleaning. I think the pizza place is okay on delivery but there was this chick who delivered for the Thai place who left a bit ago so they might need someone? I dunno what kinda folklorist work there'd be, but the librarian might. And definitely some of the places on the boardwalk are hiring, 'cause middle of summer. What do you blog about?" That's probably not potential-job-ish, but he's curious.

"Not going to turn down those offers -- of couch occupations and introductions to people who might need temp workers, that is. Maybe I can do you a solid in return sometime, who knows?" The Dane smiles amicably; he does seem a pretty laid-back nature.

Then he glances to the computer monitor which is still displaying its Wordpress interface in a foreign language with some pretty weird letters interspersed between the normal ones in a seemingly haphazard fashion. "I mostly write about folk tales, of course, but I toss in stories from the road as well. Not sure anyone actually reads anything I write but it's a way to keep track of notes and stories without having to lug a journal or a laptop around, you know? If I had any real talent at photography it might do a bit better."

"Maybe!" Aidan agrees, "Or, like, pass it on when you're staying in a place of your own, or whatever, that's good too."

He glances to Ravn's screen when the other man looks there, tilting his head a bit at the language there. It's probably a decent bet he hasn't seen much Scandinavian writing that wasn't connected in one way or another to Ikea. And he may not have dealt with all that much Ikea. Still, it looks neat. "If you hear any interesting stories around, I kinda want to hear 'em."

A look down to the chicken-bag of books, then to the computer he sat at himself, and down to the time where it shows on the bar, before very clearly having a sudden realisation and pulling a phone out of his pocket. It's probably a few years old, a bit beat-up, but serviceable. It's got what is at base a clear plastic case, except covered in a pattern of rainbow-hologram pineapples. The case looks a fair bit newer than the phone. Aidan taps at the screen a few times to bring up contact entry, then offers it over. "Are you trying to get better at it? The photography, I mean. Or just kind whatever?"

Ikea is a Swedish company, meaning that the advertising in its catalogue, most sold printed work in the world, tends to be full of umlaut wovels; Danish conversely seems to drag a's and e's together a lot, draw strange circles above a number of the unmolested a's, and slash half the o's down the middle. It's clearly a very violent language.

"I'm just snapping shots with my cell, really," Ravn says. "I mean, I'm not an artist, it's hardly Instagram-worthy stuff I'm doing. Just, no one reads a blog that hasn't got pictures -- it's better, even if the pictures are pretty shitty." He tabs out a moment, and indeed, the preview of the previous post sports a slightly grainy, rather uninspired picture of a bus station somewhere that's not here; Seattle, maybe.

"I can tell we've got another thing in common though." The Dane grins and holds up his cell in its sparkly pink Hello Kitty cover. "No one ever steals something like this, have you noticed? I only need to watch it around eight year old girls."

Aidan is, alas, entirely unaware of such distinctions, though having the hint the blog's owner is Danish may well improve his vague alphabetical knowledge for future! Unfortunately, probably not also any specific guesses he might have as to where Ikea would be found. (In his experience: Portland, just off the Red Line, near the airport.)

"Yeah, I think probably people get scared off if there's no pictures on a page," he agrees, probably meaning on the web, given the bag of books. Although the one on top does appear to be a cookbook, so it's probably just chockablock with 'em. The photograph is considered a moment before he asks, "Did you find a story there?" Seems initially unlikely, but thinking about it, there's probably a whole lot of stories in your average bus station, really. Though they may not all count as folklore.

He laughs at the rationale for the Hello Kitty cover, and nods. "Goes for crappy-looking old vans, too, if you ever decide to get hold of wheels of your own. I dunno if your odds'd be better or worse if you painted one in sparkly Hello Kitty, though..."

"... I knew a guy who painted a Volkswagen beetle orange and put plywood fins on it to resemble a goldfish," Ravn says with a straight face; it might even be true. Then he shakes his head. "I haven't really heard anything here I'd call folklore in any term my professor back home would recognise, but I'll argue that after a fashion, any kind of story is folklore if enough people are telling it. I mean, it's pretty obvious that Gray Harbor has some kind of horrible-smalltown-secret thing going, though I can't quite make out yet how much of it is just urban legend and how much is made up to give tourists like myself something to ooh and aah at. I guess I'll find out if I stick around, yeah?"

Aidan looks absolutely delighted with that; hopefully it's true, 'cause he really wants it to be. "That's awesome. There should be more cars like that. If you do get to Portland? There's a bunch of art cars around, like, painted up fancy, or with sculptures or found stuff put on them. I saw this one van totally plastered in pennies, every bit of it, and this, like, '50s station wagon with a huge flame-painted fin on top, in like, yellow and royal purple." If he still has the implied crappy van and has not yet done anything like that to it, he's clearly taking a moment to consider it. Probably 'again'.

"...I think you're right, though. I mean, I don't know anything technical about folklore, but... we're folk, right? So whatever stories we're passing on should be lore? 'cause aren't the official kind just ones people started telling longer ago?" There's nothing rhetorical about the way those all turn into questions. "And-- yeah. If you stick around, you'll find stuff like that out." The hint of hesitation returns, but gets pushed away for the time being. Later for that thought, perhaps.

"That's pretty much the definition of folklore, just add a century or two, yeah." Ravn nods. "And maybe some kind of morale -- don't beat your kids, don't talk to strangers, don't piss off the faerie, whatever. I don't know about Portland -- I was headed there, but the more people I talk to here, the more I feel like staying around for a while. It's a weird feeling -- like I need be here for some reason that I haven't figured out yet. Hey, maybe it's the universe's way of telling me it's been too long since I swapped card tricks with another hustler."

He's got no idea what he's talking about; outsiders probably rarely do. Just a pull, a feeling of belonging that he cannot quite put to words and certainly not justify yet.