Trembling With Fear 08/29/21

Eloise by Matthew Gorman

I’d seen dozens of pictures of the Sequim Witch Cabin throughout my life, but when I journeyed at last to the peninsula, there was little left standing. Just a heap of rotting wood being slowly reclaimed by the conifer forest. 

The refuse of past visitors — old beer cans and food waste, the dayglow orange caps of hypodermic needles — nestled about me in the underbrush, and what remained of the original structure was covered in the crude graffiti of wannabe occultists.

Disappointing didn’t began to cover it.

After college, I’d tooled about for years, working odd jobs for quick cash, and spending my time exploring the strange, verboten places tucked away inside the uncharted recesses of the North American landscape. 

Sometimes, I’d go with friends, or with a girl I was seeing, but mostly I’d just go it alone. There was a certain thrill in being left to rely solely upon one’s own grit and cunning should anything untoward occur.

I’d always wanted to make the hike out to the Witch Cabin, tucked back miles away inside the Olympic National Forest, and now I had. Four hundred bucks in travel expenses and a nasty, cold water shave in the fly-specked mirror of a rented cabin, and all I had to show for my efforts was this. 

Old wrappers and rotting logs.

Irritated, I stepped through the spot where a door might once have been and unbuckled my belt. In the midst of those pathetic ruins, I proceeded to relieve myself as the crows glared reproachfully from the branches high above. Perhaps, I mused somewhat morbidly, I was pissing on the very spot the witch had sacrificed her infant victims.

By most accounts, the witch in question had been one Eloise Herrin, rumored to have died sometime in the seventies, though the County Clerk had no record of her burial.

Before her demise, she’d been blamed for a rash of infant kidnappings in the area, as well as for the untimely deaths of livestock, but she’d never been formally charged with a crime. It was of popular opinion that chickens would not come near her for anything. 

Mad-eyed and unkempt, she was said to have sworn her allegiance to Satan, and would spit at or even upon anyone who wore a crucifix. 

It might have all been bullshit, but the legend remained.

“How d’ya like that, Eloise?” I said, shifting my stream from side to side across the rotted floorboards. Venting my annoyance in liquid form.

From the trees, the crows began to squawk and cry. Four or five to a branch, like a row of burnt out Christmas bulbs. A few took wing and departed, but most of them remained.

My blood froze with the sound of their uproar. But a moment later, I felt foolish. They’d been startled by the sound of my voice, I reasoned, and nothing more.

Having seen all there was to see, I wolfed down a few handfuls of trail mix, slugged back some water, and headed for home. I’d kept my cabin for another night, and the bed there, however lumpy, sounded glorious about now. 

****

That night, Eloise came for me.

I found myself within a darkened forest, lost and bewildered. Each way I turned felt rife with the promise of danger. The sky, vast and empty, offered no stars to guide me, and I was beginning to lose all hope. I sensed that I was dreaming, but the night air felt cold upon my skin. 

Far above me, the tapered crown of a Mountain Hemlock shifted in the breeze, the swaying silhouette of a witch’s hat.

I heard the sound of beating wings from somewhere behind me, and when I turned to look, she was there. Her body naked and pendulous, slathered in filth. Her limbs, barren tree branches twisting against the wind. I met her gaze, and saw the fire that lived within.

She snatched my jaw with one hideous hand, and began to squeeze. Tighter and tighter until the pressure and pain became unbearable. I stared, paralyzed, into those baleful, burning eyes as the bones inside my mouth began to crack. 

I woke screaming with the taste of copper on my tongue.

It was daylight, and I was drenched in sweat. My body felt hot and cold all at once, as if I’d fallen prey to fever as I slept.

A sharp tap upon the cabin’s window nearly stopped my heart. I watched the shadow of a  crow depart against the sunlit wall beside me. 

Had it come and tapped its beak upon the glass? I wondered.

Tap! It came again. Then Tap! Tap! A pause, then several more to follow. I saw now that tiny objects were colliding against my window.

Were the crows dropping pebbles against the glass? 

I threw back the covers and stepped from bed. My eyes squinting from the sunlight, I approached the window, hoping to catch them in the act.

Tap! Tap! Two more tiny objects hit the pane. 

I peered out the window and saw that the trees around the cabin were filled with crows. Hundreds perhaps. And every one of them completely silent.

A shudder ran down my spine.

From the bristled boughs of a Douglas Fir, two birds took flight and traveled towards me. I saw that each had in its mouth something small and white.

Tap! Tap! They dropped their cargo deftly against the glass as they passed overhead. 

I looked down to see that several of the objects lay scattered along the outer sill, and as I did, I saw the hairs of my chest had become a mat of crusted gore. It was only then did I register the pain.

The tiny objects were teeth, their torn and bloody roots still glistening in the sun.

One look into the mirror above the rusted sink only confirmed my horror. Eloise had punished me gravely for my disrespect, and she had taken them from me.

She’d taken every last one.