Hell is a forest deep and dark. Its earth is cold, its trees are stark.
Among the shades dwells the Hunter's face, please send another in my place.
My Uncle Teddy gave me a book of Old World fairy tales when I was little. It was filled with stories full of blood and terror far different than the modern versions you see today. But there was this poem at the end of the book that was different than the rest, and that was the thing that always stuck with me, always spooked me even when I got older.
I thought of it again when I was sitting at my uncle’s wake three weeks ago. Staring at strangers milling around the casket and funeral sprays, my eyes landed on a photo display that had been set up showing various pictures of my Uncle from a little boy on up to his mid-fifties when he died. It reminded me that I didn’t really know him very well.
He only visited a couple of times when I was 8 or 9, and while I know he called and checked in with my father periodically, my main sense of the man was a vague impression from stories of my father’s childhood and that book of fairy tales. I suppressed a small shiver. Was that poem part of the book or written in? I couldn’t remember now. And what kind of man was my…
“He is a wonderful man, isn’t he, Dilly?”
I snapped out of my reverie to see two old women standing stoop-shouldered and solemn just a few feet away. They reminded me of a pair of wizened buzzards tucking into a good meal, except I supposed funeral stalking old women fed more on despair than spoiled meat. Chiding myself for the unkind thought, I offered a weak smile as I saw they were looking at me.
“Oh yes, a truly singular man of truly singular talents, Milly,” the other one offered, her eyes not leaving my face.
Swallowing, I accepted they weren’t going to just go away, and so I decided to engage them in the hopes of getting it over quickly. “So you two knew my Uncle well?”
Milly gave a low throaty chuckle that spoke of cigarettes and bourbon earlier in life if not now. “Oh yes. Fairly well. We’ve been clients of his for years.”
I felt a small flicker of interest at that. “Clients? You know, I always wondered what my Uncle Teddy did. He always had a lot of money from what I heard, but I never knew from what. Can you tell me what kind of work he did?”
The two women exchanged a glance and then a giggle. It was a short, nasty sound like schoolgirls sharing the secret of the cat they had just lit on fire. I felt myself recoil slightly and was about to make an excuse and go when Dilly started speaking again.
“He is an artist, my dear. Painfully talented. The thing we use him for are our memoriam dolls. I have one made every year.” She said this last with some amount of pride or boasting in her voice, but I had no idea what she was talking about. Whatever it was, it clearly rankled Milly, whose mouth drew down into a sullen frown.
“Not everyone got all of their father’s and husband’s fortunes, Dilly. And besides, Theodore always said that once every five years was quite sufficient. “
Dilly sniffed, her painted on eyebrows arching slightly. “Well, time will tell, I suppose. I prefer to have the least amount of time in the woods as possible.”
I froze. “The woods? What woods?”
Dilly looked at Milly again before giving me a sly smile. “Oh, nothing for a sweet, young girl like you to worry about, I’m sure.”
Milly leaned forward and touched my forearm, sending a crawl of flesh up to my neck as I stepped back. “We just wanted to come by and tell you what a remarkable man you uncle is. Good to meet you.” And then the pair were gone back into the crowd.
Is, not was. She kept saying is. It could have been a simple mistake, of course, but it didn’t feel like that. Not from those two at least, and not over and over. As I looked around, I realized I was getting a similar, unsettling vibe from many of the people that were there. A lot of them were older, and almost all of them were wealthy-looking. But that wasn’t what bothered me. They all seemed to know each other and they all kept looking at me. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but now I could see the furtive glances, the shared looks, the sense that everyone else in the room was in on some joke that I didn’t even know had been told.
I wanted to pay my respects to my uncle, and I was the only family member left to do it, but fuck this. I left the funeral home and got in my rental car. It was too late to get a flight that night, but my plan was to be gone by the next morning.
I woke up slapping at my phone, momentarily disoriented by the strange surroundings of my hotel room. At first I thought it was my alarm, but then I realized it was a phone call. I didn’t recognize the number and almost didn’t answer at all, but when I did I heard the rolling Southern accent of an older man. He identified himself as Hershel Myers, my uncle’s attorney. He needed to meet with me before I left town on matters dealing with my uncle’s estate.
On the drive to the lawyer’s office, I admit to feeling some level of excitement that I might be about to get a large random inheritance from the cliché rich dead uncle I barely knew. I didn’t know Teddy well enough to feel guilty for not mourning him more, and I could certainly use the money. But sitting across the desk from Myers, I felt a growing unease. It sounded stupid even as I thought it, but he somehow reminded me of those creepy old women from the night before.
He was talking to me with an oily cheerfulness, his ruddy cheeks perched above swaying jowls that hung like meat in a butcher shop window. He was making small talk at first, talking about how great a man my uncle is—again, is, not was—and how he had counted Uncle Teddy as a dear friend for decades. Blah, blah, Mr. Creepy. Show me the money so I can go take a shower.
And there was money to be had, with certain conditions. If I followed those conditions perfectly, I would receive a cashier’s check for $500,000.00. As it fell under inheritance, there weren’t even any taxes to be paid on it. I asked what I had to do and how fast I could do it, and Mr. Creepy grinned.
“I like your spunk, girl. You remind me of Theodore more than a little.” He stood up and went to a large table against one wall of the sprawling office. Picking up a polished wooden box from the table, he brought it over to sit before me on the desk. The wood was of a deep gray with whorls of wood grain tracing their way around a large silver lock that secured the front of the box. Myers handed me a small envelope and I could feel the heft of one or more small keys inside.
“It works like this. Inside this envelope is a key to this box, a key to your uncle’s home and instructions. You go to his home tonight, and follow those instructions at precisely 9 p.m. Not before or after. If you do that, tomorrow morning you will come back here and receive your check for $500,000.00. How does that sound?”
I smiled, my hand greasy on the envelope. “That sounds just fine.”
Hello, Cora. You don’t know me well, but my hope is that you will indulge me in this thing I ask, as you are the only one I can ask. I understand you’ll find this all very strange, but please do it as precisely as you can. Tonight, go to my house. You will find a door on the right side of the front hall that leads to a large empty room with a pattern in the marble of the floor. You will find a small table in the corner containing twelve small branches, a small bottle of lighter fluid, a knife and a box of matches.
Arrange the branches where two point side-by-side in each of the four cardinal directions: North, South, East and West. For guidance, the fireplace in the room is precisely North. Set the other four branches between the outer edge of the cardinal branches so that each branch connects two sets of two.
Set the doll you find in the box in the middle of the branches. Take the knife and prick your finger. Press the blood to the doll’s face. A drop or two will do fine. Douse the doll and the branches in lighter fluid and light it with a match. After it is burning, leave the house immediately and return to Mr. Myers’ office the following morning for your reward.
Thank you for helping me Cora. I wish we had been closer. Perhaps someday we will be.
The box did contain a doll, though it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was a remarkable likeness of my Uncle Teddy, with a face carved out of ivory and a body made from the same strange gray wood as the box that held it. In the middle of the thing’s chest was a small compartment made of smoked glass about the size of a dime. I saw no way to open the glass, but inside it I could see what looked like a small tuft of hair.
For the tenth time since opening the box, I debated just leaving. My uncle’s house was very nice, and the room where I was supposed to burn the doll was actually kind of beautiful, but the idea of doing some bizarre ritual with the weird doll was sending up all kinds of warning signals. I had gotten to the house a bit early and checked it out, and as far as I could tell, no one else was there and there were no signs of cameras. How would the lawyer even know if I did the dumb ritual?
Still, did I really want to risk $500,000.00? And it’s not like I’m superstitious. So what if my rich uncle was eccentric? If his dying wish was to have his creepy effigy burned, who was it hurting?
Fuck it. It was 8:58, and I was behind schedule.
The branches were easy, but the blood was a bit harder. I’m a little squeamish, particularly when it comes to intentionally cutting myself. But I got it done. The tip of the knife was sharp, so a quick poke of my thumb and a thick bead of dark blood welled up almost instantly. Pressing my thumb to the face of the doll, I thought I felt it give under the light pressure I applied, almost as though its surface was made of thin rubber instead of carved ivory.
I pulled my finger away quickly and saw the smear of blood on the creamy surface of Teddy’s face, but then it was gone. It had been absorbed into the doll, which seemed several pounds heavier now. I had to grab it with my bloody hand to keep hold of it, and after fumbling for a moment I sat it down in the middle of the branches I had arranged.
Lighter fluid. Fire. Doll in flames.
And I was going to leave. I should have left. My job was done, and the instructions said for me to leave the house as soon as I got done setting the fire. But I didn’t.
At first I told myself I was making sure that the fire didn’t go out too quickly. That I was ensuring that it was a job completed and well done. But that wasn’t the real reason, or at least not the most compelling one.
I wanted to stay in case something actually happened.
The doll burned slowly at first, but after a couple of minutes the wood of its body began to glow orange with the heat of the flames. The smoke coming up from the doll was a strange green and seemed thicker than it should have been, almost like a liquid being poured up into the ceiling. Then there was a cracking sound and a flash of light.
The doll was gone and my uncle was sitting there, naked and bleeding from a claw wound across his chest. He looked around the room, his expression blossoming with relief as he took it in. Shifting to the balls of his feet, he looked at his left hand, which appeared to be full of some kind of black, wiry hair. Then he looked back up, directly at me.
“Hi there, Cora. You were supposed to already be gone.”
I swallowed and took a step back. “Um, sorry. I can go now.”
He shook his head as he stood up, his expression hard and his eyes unreadable. “I don’t think so. It’s too late for that. We need to talk.”
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Credits
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