VENISHA VON MORTIS

"WILLOW" WOODS OF TERROR GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

You’ve seen her apparition stalking the church pews. You’ve heard her gut wrenching screams into the night. You know her by the deteriorating white dress and the mascara streaks dripping down her pale cheeks…but, do you really know how the Weeping Willow at Woods of Terror came to be? Loosely based off the lore of La Llorona, here is her own version of how the story really goes…There was once was a beautiful, young woman named Maria. She was born to a Romani clan that lived at the Woods of Terror forest border. She and her family were descendants of the Sinti, who relocated to NC from Germany to start a new life in North America. It should be known that her opportunistic parents were greedy, had too many children to feed and would do almost anything to financially advance in life. This is how their charismatic daughter began performing in side shows, where Maria would play her tambourine and dance for the nearby villagers. She entranced many patrons and admirers through her act. Here, our sweet Maria dangerously fell in love with a rich local boy (his name is not important; this is HER story) from the nearby village. Sneaking off every chance she could get to rendezvous with the young man. Soon, she became pregnant with his child. Being a prominent heir, his wicked father, Damien, couldn’t risk lowering their social standings by his son marrying a poor girl like Maria and sinister arraignments were made. Hours before their wedding, she was sold by her own clan to Damien. Where he immediately locked her away inside of Brookhaven Asylum. He was a major benefactor of the place and needed somewhere to easily dispose of the girl. Here, she was tortured with heinous experiments and forced to undergo an unwanted abortion procedure, to which, after driving her insane through electric shock treatments, hoards of heavy medications and mind control techniques, they convinced her that she herself had killed the baby. Lost in her madness, rage and inconsolable grief, she would wander the halls of the institution in her dirty wedding gown mumbling prayers for salvation. She escaped from Brookhaven one night after a nurse felt pity for the girl in her state of madness and chose set her free by letting her out through a back door of the asylum. A noble gesture, but the damage had been done. Forsaken and fallen, Maria knew she couldn’t return home again. Still looking for solace, she ran into a decrepit chapel that she found along the way on her trek to her new “freedom”. Once inside, she found herself begging for forgiveness and pleading for her internal agony to go away. In this chapel, she committed the unthinkable and took her own life by drowning herself in the baptismal - this structure was later removed from the church. Maria died that day and the vengeful spirit, Willow, was born. Dubbed the “Weeping Willow” by the townsfolk, this undead bride stalks the pews of the Mortuary chapel looking for her lost lover, along with, sobbing and screaming into the night for the child she lost. Forever tethered to the chapel due to her endless internal rage combined with the traumatic way her spirit departed, she cannot move on to the here after. Trapped forever by time in a moment that she cannot take back. If she cannot know peace, she will be damned if anyone else does. She’s stuck in her own version of hell and someone is going to pay for it. Waiting in the shadows, she will lure both unfaithful men and neglected children closer to her, where she will ultimately destroy them both. The men? It could be a kiss of death that takes their soul or a suspicious supernatural drowning from the inside out. She is the first to rip out the hearts of deceptive men who cannot keep their promises, such as those who remind her of “the unnamed boy” who didn’t fulfill his promise to marry her or Damien who locked her away to be tortured by the male asylum doctors. The children she lures off into an unknown purgatory realm with intentions to love them “forever”. Temporary replacements for the baby she lost. If you listen closely, you may still hear the laughter of little ones ringing through the church at midnight when they come out to play with Mortuary visitors. Willow is easily recognizable by her deathly pale skin and sunken facial features. Her cheeks forever stained black by the tears permanently streaming down her face as she relives her death and the painful moments leading up to it over and over again. Her long black hair shrouds her. Silvery spiked claws adorn her bony fingers. Once Willow appears before you in her tattered and dirt stained, vintage wedding dress and matching veil, it is already too late. You will soon be forever in her grasp. Better start praying while you can. Let this local urban legend serve as a warning to all. Beware how you treat poor beautiful girls. Like it or not, as the great Stephen King once said, “what you bury is what you own and what you own (like vengeance) will always find its way home.”