Woodslane Witch. Chapter one and 2
THE WOODSLANE WITCH
By:
Matheus H. Macedo
One
There once was a town called Woodslane. Though it was a large place it had just a few inhabitants, for it was mostly made of farmlands. Over the years the town has changed and grown. Dirt roads have been paved and many of its trees have been cut down. Even the name of the town was rewritten. But over a hundred years ago, this was a place where one could wander out at night and have no hopes of finding their way home until dawn, for the darkness that settled in Woodslane after the sun went down was a curious one.
The townsfolk had a story explaining the night as they had one for almost everything else that ever happened, including lightning. This story was told in parts and some times tidbits. It was the, gather round, light the fire, this is what you get for doing your chores story. The, you didn’t finish you diner so you don’t get to listen, story. In a time without the modern diversions of today, this was the greatest weapon a mother had to use to achieve complete control. But at the Hathaway house, this story was told more rarely than one would expect from a mother with six children. But there was a reason for Mrs. Hathaway’s wariness.
Unlike other mother’s in town, she hardly ever used the story as a treat for her children after a good week of hard work. It’s not that she was a particularly bad or neglectful mother. Actually she was one of the best mothers any child could have. She cared for them when sick; she bathed the young ones all at one, and tickled them without any regard to the soapy water which splashed on her garments. The story being so scarcely told was also not due to the children being misbehaved. Everyone knew that the only children who would not put tacks on teachers’ chairs were the Hathaway children. The reason why Mrs. Hathaway hardly ever told the story of the Woodslane Witch was because she believed it.
When she was a girl, her mother told her the story to keep her from going out into the woods. Mostly, it worked. She was terrified of the way the trees looked at dusk and the sounds the dry leaves made when they were blown about by the wind. She happily kept out of there and if it were up to her, she never would have gone inside. But children are naïve and without authority they can be wild.
The schoolhouse was locked when they got there that day. No one was inside. So they waited, for hours, until they could take no more of the stinging winds that callously hinted at another cold winter’s coming. But the children had woken and walked and they needed an excuse for why their teacher hadn’t shown. Maybe she has a cold, one girl said. Maybe the Woodslane Witch cut off her head, a boy shouted.
This was the first time any of them had mentioned the Woodslane Witch outside the home. Some of the children didn’t know the story, for some of their parents were part of it.
She lives here, in the woods, I’ve seen her!
Liar!
Prove it!
They shouted and taunted each other until they came upon the agreement that one of them should go into the woods and retrieve some proof. It seemed this was the only logical conclusion.
I’m the oldest, so I’ll stay here to make sure no one gets lost on the way home.
And I’ve already seen her.
I have a stomach ache.
They made such excuses until they chose Chloe Hathaway, who was the only one without a valid excuse for not wanting to go into the woods and retrieve proof of a witch. All she said was she didn’t care if there was proof. But one of the boys told her she would feel safer at night once she knew for sure.
They taunted her until she had nowhere to go back through the only path that led into the woods. It was dry and cracked, a long thin weed grew from the center of it like some menace daring anyone to crush it. The wind had blown so much dirt over it; it hardly looked like a path at all. The children didn’t know it hadn’t been used since before any of them were born. The day Chloe went into the woods was a day that many things would change. It would also become a blotch on the town’s history and a new chapter in the story of the Woodslane Witch.
Two
Chloe’s mother sat by the fire knitting as she did with most of her free time. The sun had begun to go down, but in those days the darkness was still mostly natural, and the full moon gave good light for anyone who’d lost their way. This too would change after tonight. There was pounding on the door and Mr. Hathaway motioned for his wife to stay still. He went to the door holding a fire poker in his hand but when he opened it he found only children.
She didn’t come out, it’s not our fault, she never came out!
Mr. Hathaway and four of his lifelong friends, including the town priest, went into the woods from the path where the children told them Chloe had entered. They carried torches and makeshift weapons with them. Each man trying to act as if he feared nothing but each one of them knowing there was something to fear. Each of them knowing what it was.
The children who led the men here were let into the schoolhouse for safety. On the way back to the woods they detoured to pass by the schoolteacher’s house only to find the old woman had been dead for hours. They took the key and went on. They children peered through the cracks in the wood as all five men went trudging through the dead leaves.
Chloe! The men called. For a while there was only the sound of the girl’s name being called echoing through the trees. Then there was something else.
What was that? One of the kids asked.
Shh.
Listen.
Silence. The callings had ceased. Each child could hear the one next to them breathing shallow, frightened breaths. The schoolhouse became as furnace. Then it came again. The sound was just a remnant, an echo, which had been passed and bounced from tree to tree until it oozed through the cracks in the schoolhouse wood. But still, it was clear enough for them to know what is was. Each tried to deny in their own way. But when it came again and again there was no denying, only the attempt to comfort each other.
The men in the forest screamed. Only one of the children had ever heard a grown man scream out I pain. Myles was working in the barn, feeding and grooming the horses when he heard his father yell out. When he came out he his father was on the ground. His arm lay four feet away in the dirt. Myles was the only one who knew what a grown man in pain sounded like, and still he thought the sounds coming from the woods now were much, much worse.
The children huddled and cried, scurrying as far back from the door as they could. Then the lock at the door clinked and clanged and the children screamed in terror. Something pounded on the door on the other side desperate to get inside. Finally the door opened and the children all but fainted but it was only the priest. He held Chloe in his arms and checked to see if all the children were safe. He saw them only by the frail light of his torch, because outside, the night grew strangely darker by the minute. They stayed in the schoolhouse until dawn. The children hadn’t noticed the blood on the priest until sunlight crept into the building but none of them mentioned it to him, or each other.
The priest was the only one who came out of the woods that day. He returned Chloe to her mother and apologized but not having Mr. Hathaway with him. He told her he just couldn’t quite find him out there.
From that day on the priest was a different person. Mass was a thing of the past. He secluded himself in the church and never left. Then came the day when one of the children’s concerned father’s came to talk to the priest to ask why his son was so afraid of the dark. The man entered the church but he could not have guessed it had ever been a church. The pews had been ripped out of their place and the painting had been burned. He followed a foul stench into the back room where he found the priest, huddled and crying. He had wounds all over. The smell was almost unbearable. It seemed the priest hadn’t left this room in weeks, not even to relieve himself. The man noticed writings of blood on the wall but he could not read.
What can I do father? The man asked. But the priest only mumbled something in Latin. The man ran to the doctors house but they were too late. The priest had cut his own throat. The man asked what was written on the wall, it looked to him like the same word over and over. The doctor looked at it and for the first time, believed it.
Cursed. He said. The walls all read, cursed.
By:
Matheus H. Macedo
One
There once was a town called Woodslane. Though it was a large place it had just a few inhabitants, for it was mostly made of farmlands. Over the years the town has changed and grown. Dirt roads have been paved and many of its trees have been cut down. Even the name of the town was rewritten. But over a hundred years ago, this was a place where one could wander out at night and have no hopes of finding their way home until dawn, for the darkness that settled in Woodslane after the sun went down was a curious one.
The townsfolk had a story explaining the night as they had one for almost everything else that ever happened, including lightning. This story was told in parts and some times tidbits. It was the, gather round, light the fire, this is what you get for doing your chores story. The, you didn’t finish you diner so you don’t get to listen, story. In a time without the modern diversions of today, this was the greatest weapon a mother had to use to achieve complete control. But at the Hathaway house, this story was told more rarely than one would expect from a mother with six children. But there was a reason for Mrs. Hathaway’s wariness.
Unlike other mother’s in town, she hardly ever used the story as a treat for her children after a good week of hard work. It’s not that she was a particularly bad or neglectful mother. Actually she was one of the best mothers any child could have. She cared for them when sick; she bathed the young ones all at one, and tickled them without any regard to the soapy water which splashed on her garments. The story being so scarcely told was also not due to the children being misbehaved. Everyone knew that the only children who would not put tacks on teachers’ chairs were the Hathaway children. The reason why Mrs. Hathaway hardly ever told the story of the Woodslane Witch was because she believed it.
When she was a girl, her mother told her the story to keep her from going out into the woods. Mostly, it worked. She was terrified of the way the trees looked at dusk and the sounds the dry leaves made when they were blown about by the wind. She happily kept out of there and if it were up to her, she never would have gone inside. But children are naïve and without authority they can be wild.
The schoolhouse was locked when they got there that day. No one was inside. So they waited, for hours, until they could take no more of the stinging winds that callously hinted at another cold winter’s coming. But the children had woken and walked and they needed an excuse for why their teacher hadn’t shown. Maybe she has a cold, one girl said. Maybe the Woodslane Witch cut off her head, a boy shouted.
This was the first time any of them had mentioned the Woodslane Witch outside the home. Some of the children didn’t know the story, for some of their parents were part of it.
She lives here, in the woods, I’ve seen her!
Liar!
Prove it!
They shouted and taunted each other until they came upon the agreement that one of them should go into the woods and retrieve some proof. It seemed this was the only logical conclusion.
I’m the oldest, so I’ll stay here to make sure no one gets lost on the way home.
And I’ve already seen her.
I have a stomach ache.
They made such excuses until they chose Chloe Hathaway, who was the only one without a valid excuse for not wanting to go into the woods and retrieve proof of a witch. All she said was she didn’t care if there was proof. But one of the boys told her she would feel safer at night once she knew for sure.
They taunted her until she had nowhere to go back through the only path that led into the woods. It was dry and cracked, a long thin weed grew from the center of it like some menace daring anyone to crush it. The wind had blown so much dirt over it; it hardly looked like a path at all. The children didn’t know it hadn’t been used since before any of them were born. The day Chloe went into the woods was a day that many things would change. It would also become a blotch on the town’s history and a new chapter in the story of the Woodslane Witch.
Two
Chloe’s mother sat by the fire knitting as she did with most of her free time. The sun had begun to go down, but in those days the darkness was still mostly natural, and the full moon gave good light for anyone who’d lost their way. This too would change after tonight. There was pounding on the door and Mr. Hathaway motioned for his wife to stay still. He went to the door holding a fire poker in his hand but when he opened it he found only children.
She didn’t come out, it’s not our fault, she never came out!
Mr. Hathaway and four of his lifelong friends, including the town priest, went into the woods from the path where the children told them Chloe had entered. They carried torches and makeshift weapons with them. Each man trying to act as if he feared nothing but each one of them knowing there was something to fear. Each of them knowing what it was.
The children who led the men here were let into the schoolhouse for safety. On the way back to the woods they detoured to pass by the schoolteacher’s house only to find the old woman had been dead for hours. They took the key and went on. They children peered through the cracks in the wood as all five men went trudging through the dead leaves.
Chloe! The men called. For a while there was only the sound of the girl’s name being called echoing through the trees. Then there was something else.
What was that? One of the kids asked.
Shh.
Listen.
Silence. The callings had ceased. Each child could hear the one next to them breathing shallow, frightened breaths. The schoolhouse became as furnace. Then it came again. The sound was just a remnant, an echo, which had been passed and bounced from tree to tree until it oozed through the cracks in the schoolhouse wood. But still, it was clear enough for them to know what is was. Each tried to deny in their own way. But when it came again and again there was no denying, only the attempt to comfort each other.
The men in the forest screamed. Only one of the children had ever heard a grown man scream out I pain. Myles was working in the barn, feeding and grooming the horses when he heard his father yell out. When he came out he his father was on the ground. His arm lay four feet away in the dirt. Myles was the only one who knew what a grown man in pain sounded like, and still he thought the sounds coming from the woods now were much, much worse.
The children huddled and cried, scurrying as far back from the door as they could. Then the lock at the door clinked and clanged and the children screamed in terror. Something pounded on the door on the other side desperate to get inside. Finally the door opened and the children all but fainted but it was only the priest. He held Chloe in his arms and checked to see if all the children were safe. He saw them only by the frail light of his torch, because outside, the night grew strangely darker by the minute. They stayed in the schoolhouse until dawn. The children hadn’t noticed the blood on the priest until sunlight crept into the building but none of them mentioned it to him, or each other.
The priest was the only one who came out of the woods that day. He returned Chloe to her mother and apologized but not having Mr. Hathaway with him. He told her he just couldn’t quite find him out there.
From that day on the priest was a different person. Mass was a thing of the past. He secluded himself in the church and never left. Then came the day when one of the children’s concerned father’s came to talk to the priest to ask why his son was so afraid of the dark. The man entered the church but he could not have guessed it had ever been a church. The pews had been ripped out of their place and the painting had been burned. He followed a foul stench into the back room where he found the priest, huddled and crying. He had wounds all over. The smell was almost unbearable. It seemed the priest hadn’t left this room in weeks, not even to relieve himself. The man noticed writings of blood on the wall but he could not read.
What can I do father? The man asked. But the priest only mumbled something in Latin. The man ran to the doctors house but they were too late. The priest had cut his own throat. The man asked what was written on the wall, it looked to him like the same word over and over. The doctor looked at it and for the first time, believed it.
Cursed. He said. The walls all read, cursed.