City of Ghosts

J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan says, “To die will be an awfully big adventure” (Epigraph). Peter Pan is a mythic character who longed to live forever, chasing endless bliss in Neverland. Most children share this childlike illusion of immortality and bound through life with an insatiable taste for adventure and thrills. However, through serious illness or injury, some children become conscious of mortality and come to understand the fragility of life at an early age. When Cassidy Blake set out on a bike ride to photograph the budding spring landscape with her camera, she had no idea she would end the day in the hospital after nearly drowning in the river. Though her body recovered, the emotional and spiritual wounds of the event stay with her. The gentle tapping of the Veil represents the manifestation of her repressed trauma; each time she answers the call, she relives the harrowing event all over again. Through Cassidy, the author explores how a traumatic event or illness in childhood can leave an indelible mark on a child’s body, mind, and spirit.

Cassidy’s bike accident and near drowning did not leave any physical scars or disfigurement, but when her buried anguish rises to the surface, she endures real and visceral sensations, feeling the stabbing cold of the water and the burning in her oxygen-starved lungs as if they were happening all over again.