My Encounter with the White Lady of Guam

 

 

My Encounter with the White Lady of Guam by J.P. Leddy

 

There I was standing at the edge of the jungle that cascades down Mt Santa Rosa right to Uncle Miguel’s Ranch house. On Guam, ranches are plots of lands in rural areas that families cultivate small gardens or raise livestock.  My grandmother’s family owned adjoining ranches along this part of the mountain so it allowed us grandchildren a whole area to play and explore during our summers and weekends.

 

However this day that I remember and wish I could forget was different.

 

My grandmother’s ranch was at the other end of a trail that ran through a patch of jungle between Uncle Miguel’s house and her ranch house. I have traveled that trail many times before so that day when I decided that I was going to go ahead of my dad and brothers did not seem like a big deal.

 

I entered the trail.  The jungles in Guam are thick.  One thing that you immediately notice is that most of the sunlight is blocked by the thick tropical foliage. However, you still feel the mugginess of the heavy humidity.

 

As I walked deeper into the jungle I noticed something odd…the absence of sound. I mean the silence was deafening. Normally, you would hear leaves rustling in the wind or birds or something. There was no wind. Just stillness.

 

I suddenly felt a chill.  Not the kind you get from an icy wind, but the kind that percolates from inside your stomach and screams out of your mind.

 

My eyes darted around my surroundings. The trees and their branches seem to arch in twisted figures all around me in some sort of nightmarish woven quilt.  I moved faster.  I walked and then ran.

 

My breathing became heavier and faster.  I felt something. I felt like I was being watched. I felt eyes staring at me without seeing them. I do not know why I did it but I stopped. I turned towards the direction I felt I was being observed from and…

 

…through what seem like a narrow grove of bushes in the jungle to my right was a figure.  It was wispy but definitely female.  It was hooded with white flowing hair but I could not make out the face which was in complete darkness. It seemed to be hovering. I noticed a sweet familiar smell in the air. I remembered.  The YlangYlang flower.  Oh my gosh.  The legend. The White Lady. Death.

 

The figure raised its arm and what looked like elongated warped fingers and pointed them at me. My feet took over and I started running.  My adrenalin was pumping speed into that run.  I could feel the tips of her fingers almost touching my neck.

 

The trail seemed so long as I made my way quickly around its windy path.  I wanted to live. I was running for my life. I suddenly tripped. 

 

I got up as I felt something cold almost touch me.   I was frantic now.  I kept telling myself to run faster and faster. The flowery smell was getting stronger.

 

When I saw the opening out of the jungle, I reached for it with everything I had knowing that she was within inches of grabbing me back into the darkness.

 

When I got out, I ran up my Grandmother’s porch.  Her door was unlocked. I opened it and fell unto the floor.  My grandma looked at me and asked what happened. All I said with broken breath was…” the…Wh..ite…La..dy.”   Grandma looked out the window.  She saw nothing.   She opened the front door.   No one was there. At the foot of the door was a small bundle of Ylang Ylang flowers.