Looking for Lucy Keyes
In search of the real story behind the ghostly tale
If you’ve ever found your child after a frantic search at a park, this ghost story is for you.
According to the legend — which I recently stumbled across on Amazon Prime— Lucy Keyes set out after her older sisters one fine spring day. It was 1755 when the four-year-old hurried out the door of her farmhouse at the foot of Wachusett Mountain in Massachusetts. Her sisters weren’t far ahead and the path to their destination, a nearby lake, was about a mile away.
Lucy never did catch up with them. She vanished without a trace and her absence drove her mother mad. The broken woman spent the rest of her life wandering the woods, shouting her daughter’s name over and over. Even after her death, Martha Keyes went on searching for the lost child. To this day, people report hearing her spirit calling “Lucy! Lucy!”
The child’s ghost never says a word in return. But if you look hard enough, you just might see her tiny footprints in the snow.
How much of the tale is true?
As it turns out, quite a lot. You can make up your own mind about the ghosts but much of the legend is based on fact.
