Storytelling Week 13: In Love with a Ghost

It had been another double shift in the ER, and Jack was on his way home. Everyone had warned him of the life of an emergency room doctor, but he didn't care about the long hours. Jack loved the drama and intensity of each situation. Each patient depended on him, and he did everything in his power to get them out of there healthy. There was a park he drove by just before his neighborhood. There were usually only a couple of people out. An older man walking his dog or a young mother pushing her child on a swing... Today, however, a crowd had gathered around the running path. Jack thought this was strange and decided to check it out.

"What's going on?" he shouted as he ran up to the scene.

"Someone hit this woman and ran off! I think he stole her wallet!" squeaked an elderly woman. Tears ran down her cheeks as she started to pray out loud for a miracle. As Jack approached the woman, he noticed she had a gash in her head just above her left ear. She was loosing a lot of blood but could still make it. A man was standing nearby on the phone with emergency personnel. Jack pulled off his scrubs shirt and held it against the woman's head to try to slow the bleeding. The ambulance arrived soon after he did, and he rode back to the hospital with this mystery woman. As he assisted the EMSA team with maintaining her vitals, he could not help but notice how beautiful she was. As she lay there completely helpless, Jack decided that he would stick with her through her recovery. He could not continue living without knowing who this woman was.

After hours in surgery, the woman was stable in ICU. Jack was sitting by her side when a cop walked in. "Any news as to who she isn't?" Jack asked.

"Nope. We haven't found any ID, and she doesn't match any of the missing persons reports."

"Thanks officer. Please let me know if anything comes up."

Nothing came up. A few days later when the woman woke up and was able to speak, she could not remember who she was or what had happened to her. No one came forward claiming her identity. Throughout the next weeks of recovery, the woman had to learn how to walk and write again. Everything was new to her, and Jack was there every step of the way. "What should I call you?" Jack asked her one day.

"What's your favorite name?" she replied.

"My grandmother's name was Genevieve. I've always thought it was a pretty name."

"Then call me Genevieve," the woman decided.

As Genevieve began to heal, she and Jack become close. They laughed together and ordered pizza every Friday night. She would light up whenever Jack came to visit after his ER shift. She was to be released from the rehab center the next week, and Jack offered for her to stay at his place. She gratefully accepted and promised to find out who she was and what life she was supposed to be living. Weeks went by but Genevieve couldn't find anything about herself. No missing persons reports or found wallets...

One day the couple was out for ice cream when a middle-aged woman ran up and hugged Genevieve. "I'm so sorry! I know you're upset with us, but please don't shut us out! We love you and miss you so much!" the woman exclaimed as she held back sobs.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't know who you are," Genevieve said quietly. The woman looked confused for a moment, so Genevieve explained what happened to her. It turned out that Genevieve's real name was Nancy. Her parents had just told her that they would be moving to Spain the following year. Nancy was apparently very upset with this news, so when she went silent for a couple of months, her parents only thought that she was giving them the silent treatment, not that she had gone missing!

Nancy had to relearn everything about herself. She read her old diaries from when she was in high school and listened to all of her old mix CDs. Jack was still by her side, discovering the girl that Genevieve used to be, loving every new thing he found out. Jack proposed to Nancy one year after they met that tragic and miraculous day. She, of course, said yes, and they lived happily ever after.

Author's Note:
This story is based on The Léshy in the Russian Folktales unit. A young woman went for a walk in the woods but never came home. Three years later, a hunter went into the same woods and found a Léshy (Russian forest demon). Once his identity was known, the hunter shot him! The Léshy stumbled back to his cabin before he died from the wound. The hunter followed him and found a young woman who didn't know who she was or where she came from. They returned to the village together, and the priest correctly identified her as his daughter. After realizing that the hunter had saved her, the priest gave his daughter to the hunter as a wife. My rendition of this tale is quite different. It was difficult to follow the plot exactly and modernize it in the way I had it planned in my head. I really loved this story though and wanted to retell it. There was no mention of the Léshy harming the woman in the original story like Nancy was harmed. It was a good way to make her loose her memory though. The hunter and Jack both loved the mystery women and took care of them on their way home. The Léshy, although named after a demon, is a perfect love story of a damsel in distress and her heroic knight.

Bibliography:
The Léshy. Russian Fairy Tales. W. R. S. Ralston. 1887.

"Jack and Nancy." Flickr.