Note: This is my entry for Writer's Jam 1. I used the prompt of Headstone.

Additional Note: Now that the judging has been complete, I've made some minor edits to correct some typos.

I'm still blown away that my story won.

The Figment and the Ghost:

I called her 'Fig,' short for 'figment,' because that's what I thought she was at first.

It had been a long day of carrying supplies to my cabin. I was stocking it up during the late summer, getting it ready for when I'd move in for the trapping season in the fall and winter.

The normally dry creek bed that I tended to use as an ad hoc pathway had seen a particularly wet summer, turning it into a muddy morass which made the trip there and back more exhausting.

I was now back at the temporary camp that I had constructed as a staging area a little ways outside of town. It was nothing more than a spot with a lean-to and a cache of supplies to be ferried to my cabin. I was hunkered down over a crackling fire, chasing away the evening chill of a promised fall that had crept in during the closing summer nights. I was tired, I was aching, and I was more unfocused than usual.

I'm not sure how long she had been there, peeking out from behind the tree and watching me. I'm also unsure about what drew my gaze to that particular area of the surrounding forest, but when I looked up, I saw her gazing intently at me and my camp. I immediately froze, my hand still holding a stick that I had used to poke the coals in the fire.

I blinked several times, believing the exhaustion of the day had caught up to me. But unlike those apparitions that blinked in and out of existence as sleep took hold, she remained.

Once I realized she was real, my stomach sank. I thought the group of youth who had been giving me trouble in town had tracked me down and were planning some sort of cruel joke. They had ransacked one of my camps earlier in the spring and had no qualms about pestering me for fun.

We stared at each other for several moments, unsure what the other would do. Then, she spoke in a quiet voice.

"Are.... are you 'The Ghost?'"

I raised an eyebrow. 'The Ghost' was the nickname that some children in town called me. I would often catch them following me as I made my rounds through town, the older ones whispering rumors to about how I spirited naughty children away. Their parents never corrected them, using me, my... unusual appearance as a way to keep their kids in line. "Be good or I'll get 'The Ghost' to take you away," I'd hear them say.

I scanned the surrounding forest, searching for the group that had probably bullied her into approaching my camp, even cocking my ear to see if I could hear giggles. But after a moment, I realized she was alone.

I stood, which made her slink back behind the tree. I must have been a sight, towering over her, wrapped in the furs of my trade, my pockmarked face illuminated by the firelight.

"Aye lass, I'm "The Ghost."

She lingered behind the tree a moment longer.

"You're not going to take me away are you?"

"Have you been naughty?" For some reason, I decided to play into the rumors. Thinking this might be the best way to get this over with and get on with my night.

"N... no...."

"Then you're fine."

She finally pulled herself out from behind the tree. She looked to the ground, fidgeting.

"Girl, I've had a long day, and I expect I'll have a longer one tomorrow. Why are you at my camp?"

"I... I need your help," she mumbled.

"My help?"

She nodded, mumbling something.

"Come closer girl, I can barely hear you," I beckoned her forward.

She nodded and timidly stepped out of the forest and into the light of the fire.

I stared at her and my heart sank. She was one of the girls from town alright, I had seen her tagging along with some of the other children. If I remembered correctly, her family had recently moved to a farm on the outskirts, inheriting it from the old widow who had passed three springs ago. It had taken the lawyers a long time to track down a living family member willing to take the property on, and apparently it ended up being some distant cousins from the next country over.

I recalled grumblings in the town when her family moved into the farmstead. Legal or not, giving what was thought to be valuable farmland to outsiders had not sat well with some of the locals, who thought the widow's property should be divvied up between the local farmers. Some of them had actually started to work her land while the farmstead was empty, hoping for some sort of squatters rights. Her family had chased them off after they moved in, creating even more animosity. I kept my opinions on the topic to myself, as I had no real love for the townsfolk.

But with this girl having come to my camp, I knew something was very wrong.

She could probably be described as waifish at the best of times, but now her face and eyes were sunken to the point where she appeared downright ghoulish. I saw her clothing was ripped and torn in several places. Mud caked her from head to toe, her long golden straw-colored hair a tangled mess.

"Good gods girl, what happened to you?"

I saw several different emotions flash across her dirt-streaked face.

"My.... my parents.... the farm..." she trailed off.

"There's something wrong with your family? Your farm?" I asked.

She nodded.

"And you're parents need help?"

She shook her head no... I heard her make what I can only describe as a squeak, trying to keep herself from crying.

"Dead... they're dead."

Her shoulders began to shake and she collapsed to her knees, sobbing with her face buried in her hands. Her news had put me at a loss of what to do. I needed answers for sure, but as she was, pressing her might do more harm than good.

I cast my gaze around camp, looking for something that might comfort her. I settled on placing my fur cloak around her shoulders. I might not be able to do much for her mental state, but I could at least be sure she was warm.

She clung into the fur of the cloak, her knuckles going white in a death-grip, hugging the material into her. She kept sobbing for some time, froze to the spot where she had sank to the ground.

I boiled some tea, and then held a tin mug of the warm liquid in front of her. The steam rose wispy into the cool night air. She stared at it a moment before taking it.

I watched her sip the tea for a few minutes, giving her some time to calm down enough to talk.

"Lass, I know something terrible has happened to you, and I can only guess what. But why did you come here of all places? I'm only a trapper."

"I... I didn't mean to come here..." she mumbled.

"What?"

"I didn't mean to come here," she said again, looking up at me. "I... just ended up here."

"Lass, you're going to have to tell me what happened, from start to finish."

"The farm... some men came... They were shouting about us being outsiders. That we didn't belong there. There was a fight... my father... my mother.."

I watched her in silence, waiting for her to finish.

"Then they came for me... saying something about having some fun... I ran..."

"And you ended up here?"

She nodded.

"We have to get you to the sheriff then."

She shook her head. "He... was one of the men."

My blood ran cold.

"My... my parents, they strung them up."

I could see her emotions were starting to overwhelm her again. As for myself, I could feel anger bubbling up inside. I was only a single man though, an outsider at that. The townsfolk only tolerated me because I kept to the deep woods for most of the year.

"You asked for help lass... What do you want me to do?"

She looked up at me, tears streaking down her face, "I... I know there's no going back..."

I nodded. If the Sheriff was onboard with whatever happened, bringing her back to town would be a death sentence for her.

"Lass, you can overwinter with me at my cabin, and I can take you somewhere safer in the spring when I go to sell my furs. It will be very rough living for sure and I warn you, it will be some very lean living as well. I've only really stocked enough supplies for myself."

She nodded. "My... my parents...."

"Lass, I hate saying this, but they're not going anywhere. If they were strung up like you said, they are being made an example of."

"Bu.. but they need to be buried."

"Aye lass, they do at that." I nodded. "Lass this is going to sound cruel, but you're going to have to leave them for now. If I go to your farmstead to bury your folks, people will put together that you probably ended up with me after you ran off. Best that you disappear. Best everyone in town thinks you died here in these woods."

She looked like she wanted to argue, but I held up a hand.

"Listen lass, you're going to have some long days in that cabin by yourself while I walk the trapline. You're going to need a way to keep yourself occupied. We're going to be walking up a creek bed to get there, and while we do, I want you to keep an eye out for any stones that catch your attention. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded, staring into the fire.

"What's your name lass?"

She told me. It was the only time she would ever tell me her real name. I can't even recall what it was, but it was a foreign name and stood out. Even if I took her to another town, someone with such a foreign sounding name might attract attention and it would be possible that word would get back that she was still alive and travelling with me. I explained this to her.

"I... I can't be me?" She asked.

"It's too dangerous. I'm going to call you Fig, okay?"

"Fig?"

"Short for figment. When I first saw you, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me."

She shrugged. With everything that had happened, I guess a name change wasn't the biggest thing she was worried about.

We traveled to my cabin the next morning.

***

I closed the journal of the man I knew as Ghost. I knew he could write, as he had taught me, but I didn't discover his journals until after he had passed. On his deathbed, he had told me about a section of floor in his cabin that could be opened. When I pulled up the loose boards, I discovered a small cache of money and his journals.

I looked around the cabin that he had brought me to for safety all those years ago. That had been a long and hard winter. Having to share the food supplies which had only been meant for a single person had been rough. Thankfully, his trapping and hunting brought enough meat to keep us going.

As for the stones, after he taught me how to write, he wanted me to carve my parents names into them. He couldn't bring me back to the farmstead so he wanted me to have "portable headstones" to carry around. He told me when the time was right, I could lay them in a peaceful spot and put my parents souls to rest.

He did try to take me to another town when the spring came, saying that it would be better if I was around other kids. He made some attempts to pawn me off on people who might take me in, but I really don't think he tried that hard. I get the feeling that he enjoyed having me around.

When the next winter came, he begrudgingly ordered more supplies then usual and there was no more talk made of me going anywhere else.

The years passed. I grew and he showed me how to work the trapline, how to hunt, and how to be independent. Eventually, I struck out on my own, building my own cabin and working my own trapline over the winters. We would meet in the spring, talk about our adventures, and help each other with supplies.

Eventually this latest spring came, and he wasn't at our normal meeting area. After a few days, I set out to his cabin. When I found him, I discovered he had gotten sick over the winter and had wasted away to almost nothing. That once large, proud man broke my heart as he lay there, withered away. I did what I could to comfort him in those final days, but he finally passed about a week later.

I set his cabin on fire, his body still inside. It's what he wanted. As I walked back towards my own camp, I searched the streambed for a stone. I already carried the portable headstones of my parents, and one more wouldn't make my pack heavier. When I got the chance, I'd carve his name into it.

I thought about that man. That man that the children mockingly called Ghost. The man who they said would steal children away in the night if they were wicked. The man the townsfolk were so cruel towards because he looked different. I gave a soft smile, realizing that in a way, he did steal me away, stole me away to safety.

I thumbed the rock that I would carve his name into. It felt warm to the touch, like he was there with me. I thought about the stones that held my parents name and gave some thought where I would eventually lay them.

I looked to the west, to where the farmstead was. I never went back there since that terrible night, but now I thought about going. That farm was mine, and I now knew how to hunt and trap. How to survive on the outskirts. I could go... and be a ghost - a wicked, vengeful figment... driving off whomever dared to take my family away from me.

And then, I could lay my parents and my Ghost to rest. I could place their portable headstones in a quiet corner of a field near the stream.

I picked one one more rock, as there was one more headstone to make. I would carve my old name into it. That girl was dead. She died that night that Ghost took me in. I was Fig now, as he named me.... a figment... the daughter of a ghost.