A Visit From Goody Bishop
I wake up shivering. Goody Bishop stands at the foot of my bed. From the stern look on her face, it’s clear she’s been standing there for a while, staring, waiting for me to wake and open my eyes. The perverse delight in her eyes when she notices I’m awake sends another involuntary chill through my body. Briefly looking past her—or rather, through her—the clock on the dresser tells me it’s just a little over half past three in the morning.
I knew when I chose to buy a bronze skull advertised as being cast from a mold of the remains of a Salem witch trials victim that I was taking a risk. But, I didn’t know the extent of that risk. I imagined that maybe I’d wake some mornings to find that the skull had moved from the shelf where I had placed it. I imagined that perhaps I’d see a sad woman standing in my dining room out of the corner of my eye every now and then. I imagined, well, that some spooky shit might happen. The kind of spooky shit that could be explained away the way most spooky shit can be explained away: exhaustion, an over-active imagination—mild paranoia. I imagined that this would be an acceptable trade-off to amplify my “lesbian Morticia Addams” vibes. Something to make boring suburban dykes working for Fortune 500 companies uneasy around me, and make the stygian women I brought back to my apartment swoon. I did not imagine I’d have full-blown spectral visitations in the middle of the night by a 17th century midwife who was unjustly murdered by her friends and neighbors.
The first time Goody Bishop came to me, I had a nightmare. In the nightmare, I was rolled on a wooden cart toward a large tree, my hands bound behind my back with rough rope. Terror ripped through my heart as a noose was thrown over my head and two men held me in place while a third slung the rope over a branch. The entire village looked on as one of the men shouted a few words to the crowd—words that were completely unintelligible with my heart pounding in my ears and panic gripping me. Then, the other two started to pull me up by my neck and roll away the cart. A normal nightmare would have ended there. But, it didn’t. I hung there, kicking and struggling for what must have been an eternity until my legs slowed, my perspective changed, and I stood staring at my still body hanging from the tree, trying to make sense of what had happened as the villagers walked away. That’s when I finally woke up. Tears streamed down my face, and I was angry. The only words I could find in that moment were “It wasn’t right.” I repeated them over and over to myself as if they were all I had in the entire world, as if by repeating them I could fix what had happened to me—to her. When I finally calmed down, I saw her beside my bed. Her face was full of pity, sadness, and shame as she reached out to place her hand on my shoulder and the words “I’m sorry. I needed someone to understand” flooded into me.
That was half a year ago. Following her first visit, Goody Bishop came to me almost nightly. We quickly had to establish some ground rules. She can do this thing—the thing she did the first night—where she speaks to me inside my own head. How can I describe it? It’s like her thoughts… pour through me like ice water through a colander, and the meaning is left behind like slivers of ice in my mind. But, the sensation is disturbing, and always leaves me feeling like I’ve been submerged in Lake Superior in the winter. So, until I can get used to that, we’ve settled into her doing a sort of charades to communicate whatever she needs—unless it’s an emergency.
At the foot of my bed, Goody Bishop’s mouth is moving—she starts by making a wide “O”, pinching her mouth a bit, and then opening it into an “O” again.
“Owo?”
She shakes her head, vehemently. Her frustration is clear. She might have waited here, staring at me for over an hour, hoping I’d wake up. That was one of the other ground rules. We agreed she wouldn’t wake me up on week nights anymore. But, if I woke up on my own, that was fair game. I can see her consider pouring her thoughts into me, but when she sees the reproachful look on my face, she decides against it. Instead, she mimes picking something small up, and biting it. She moves her mouth again—“O-wee-o.”
“Oh! Oreo! Yeah, I’m sorry, they didn’t have any of the regular Oreos at the store. They were all sold out, and I figured you didn’t want the ones with little witch hats on them for Halloween. That felt like it’d be in poor taste. So, I had to get you the Double Stuf Oreos. I know they’re probably too sweet for you—honestly, they’re too sweet for me, and I grew up on them. But, I can go back tomorrow and see if they’ve re-stocked.”
Goody Bishop puts her hands up as if to say, “No! Stop it!” She then pauses to think.
The first time I put out cookies for Goody Bishop, it was honestly an attempt to appease the clearly distraught spirit of a woman who was villainized by her community and blamed for their problems. I can relate, to be honest. So, I lit some candles, and put a couple Milanos on a plate next to the skull. I thought maybe she’d leave me alone. Instead, I created a monster. Now, if I don’t leave out cookies for her at night—Oreos are her favorite—I’m basically guaranteed to wake up shivering with Goody Bishop standing over my bed. She has dodged my questions about whether her presence lowering the room’s temperature is something she can consciously control, but I’m pretty sure it is.
I still don’t know exactly how she eats the cookies—how does a spectral presence eat food? Where does the cookie go, exactly? She doesn’t have an actual mouth, let alone a stomach. But, the cookies are always gone in the morning, and Goody Bishop’s best attempt to explain the concept of ghosts eating food was to pour the image of what I can only call a vast, hungry abyss into my mind. It took me a few minutes to recover from that one, and I can’t say it helped me understand the whole physics of it all. She just shrugged.
Still at the foot of my bed, Goody Bishop is miming eating an Oreo again, but as she chews the imaginary Oreo her face lights up and she gives me a thumbs up.
“Oh! You like the Double Stuf Oreos?”
She nods.
“Better than the normal ones?
She nods again.
“Great, I’ll get them again. But you know, one of these days, you’re going to get a cavity.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Can I go back to sleep now?”
She nods, and fades away. I hear the TV turn on in the living room a little while later as I’m falling back to sleep, but it’s quiet enough that it’s not a problem.
I never really liked having a roommate before, but Goody Bishop is alright.
