Photo By Gail

The first sightings of a ghostly figure wandering the woods near a newly constructed train line in Freehold, New Jersey began in the 1870s. They were usually described as a lady having glowing eyes or a pair of antlers that twinkled in the moonlight. The sightings were most frequent during the harvest moon in woodlands just outside the farms that bordered the town.

According to legend, her glowing pupils compelled young men to follow the wraith-like shape into the woods. The ones who could not resist were supposedly never heard from again. At least a handful of missing persons cases have coincided with reports of her hauntings.

Another version of the story described her antlers as actually being sprouts of branches that flickered in the wind, and it was the hypnotic effect of the moonlight shining on her leaves that put people in a trance-like state that beckoned them to follow her. Once they walked close enough to see the details of her eyes, her gaze turned them into succulents like “houseleeks” or “owl eyes plants,” and then she ate them.

Art and Story by Travis Louie. Photographed at Harman Projects Gallery on the Lower East Side.