Lost Swans

In 1888, seven South Dakota schoolchildren were lost in the century’s worst blizzard and never seen again. History called them the “Lost Swans” and their baffling disappearance became the stuff of legend. Fast forward 80 years to 1969. A lonely farm widow makes a macabre discovery on her property. Horrifying as it is, this dark revelation lights up her life. But how long can she hide the secrets of the dead? In this eerie supernatural short story, Chrissie Dickinson creates an evocative piece of gothic Americana that lingers long after the lights go out.An excerpt from Lost Swans:“Oh, I would hate to die like that,” Mrs. Manning thought, leaning against the weathered window frame in her kitchen. She surveyed the frozen landscape. The afternoon was fading. It was getting dark out there. Night was coming. The snow was falling hard now. The children would be rising soon. They always woke up when the snow fell hard.Mrs. Manning cast her gaze further into the distance. On a clear night, if she squinted hard and focused, she could make out the faraway twinkle of light from Randolph Avery’s house. He was her closest neighbor to the north, his farm nearly a mile away. But tonight the sky was so thick with falling snow there was no distant glimmer to be seen. It was already knee-deep out there. Another eight inches were expected to fall. The sky was an unbroken curtain of pinkish-gray, that odd hue that signaled a serious storm. The flakes were hard and pelting. The temperature would drop below zero tonight, the wind chill even lower.Three dogs wagged their tails and hugged close to Mrs. Manning’s knees. She looked down and smiled. “Supper soon,” she said, dragging her fingertips across each of their soft furred heads. Their names were Walt, Wylie and Cody, but mostly she called them the Boys because they operated as a pack. The three sturdy mid-size mongrels were inseparable brothers sprung from the same litter. Everything the Boys did made Mrs. Manning feel safe. They patrolled the perimeter of her farm. They stood sentry at the end of the long gravel driveway. Whenever an occasional stranger stopped to ask directions, the Boys barked, bared their teeth and raised holy hell.The Boys always spent the night in Mrs. Manning’s kitchen, cuddled together on a bed of old quilts she’d piled under a work table. Today she brought them in early, on account of the storm. As the old saw went, it was not a fit night out for man or beast. But no matter how rough the weather got, no matter how inhospitable it became for all living things, the weather would not stop the children from coming. The children were neither man nor beast. They were not living things. They had not breathed the air for nearly a century.Mrs. Manning called the children other names in her mind. The Wanderers. The Travelers. But no matter what she called them, it always happened the same way. They woke with the big bad weather. They were dead but they would not rest in peace.Mrs. Manning shivered even though her kitchen was toasty warm. She sank deeper into the old cardigan she wore over a threadbare apron embroidered with tiny roses. A small crucifix hung around her neck and her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back in a loose bun. The radio on the counter was tuned to an AM country station. A voice rang out through the slight static: Glen Campbell singing “Galveston,” a pretty song about an ugly war.A large pot of stew boiled on a burner of her claw-footed stove, throwing off steam that danced in the air like a heat wave. But even when it got hot in the kitchen, the thought of how the children had come to their deaths made Mrs. Manning shudder.The children. So weak in life. So strong in death. They would visit Mrs. Manning again tonight. They would rise as one from their grave of rags and come to her. She squinted through the window, scanning the deep shroud of snow. “Where are you?” she breathed.

About the Author

I grew up in a haunted farmhouse in Indiana. I know what it's like to live with ghosts. I was steeped in both the Catholic mysticism of my psychic mother and the eastern religions of my older hippie siblings. My childhood was filled with soulful horses, guns, cornfields and an alcoholic father, now on the other side, who I still occasionally talk to.   Learning to read saved my life (thanks Mom) and I've managed to make a living with words. My writing has appeared in numerous publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Boston Phoenix, the Chicago Reader, the Christian Science Monitor, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Outre and Off Our Backs. I've contributed essays to several books including the Da Capo Press collection "Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Reader." I've also been a guest lecturer at Washington University, Columbia College and the Chicago Humanities Festival.   I was a guitarist, singer and songwriter in the all-female post-punk band Sally's Dream. I now direct my musical passion into soundtracks and a video series of my original country-punk-blues songs on my YouTube channel youtube.com/user/ChrissieDickinson.   The spirits I saw as a kid continue to inform my work, as does the Ouija Board I keep next to my bed. I still believe in ghosts.

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