Creepy - The Snipe Hunt & Christmas in Trelawny

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

The Snipe Hunt***Written by No One of Consequence and Narrated by Nate DuFort ***Christmas at Trelawny***Written by: E.E. King and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***Content warning: Suicide and Suicidal Ideation***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. The Snipe Hunt. Written by no one of consequence.

And narrated by need to fort. When I was little, my father took me and my scout patrol camping deep in the mountains. This wasn't all that unusual. We did this sort of thing all the time. But this camping trip was different. There were six of us kids, and each of our fathers came with us. Normally, it was only one adult for every four kids with a minimum of two adults. I wasn't going to complain. I loved backpacking trips.

The fathers all seemed to have elaborately carved cedar walking sticks, with rubber stoppers on the bottom. I hadn't been surprised by this. Our fathers were friends from childhood and were scouts together. We hitched on our heavy-duty backpacks and hiked out for at least six miles before we made it to our campsite. I call it a campsite,

but really it was just a clearing in the woods, large enough for us to set up our tents. Once camp was completely set up, we set out to gather plenty of firewood. Our fathers, they each spent time finding a stick to their liking, and sat around our makeshift firebed. As I worked to build the impending fire,

I watched as each man stripped their cedar sticks of bark and began to whittle them. I didn't think much of it at the time, just took the discarded bark and used it for tender. Most of us kids were at that age where we hated being referred to as kids. The change was taking hold of us, cracking voices and all. I remember hating it so much. The cracking voice part, I mean.

Nothing embarrassed me more than when I'd be talking in the pitch of my voice suddenly changed mid-sentence. I got so self-conscious about it that I rarely talked. Before that, I'd been one of those kids that never shut up. After that stage, I started talking again, but not nearly as much as before. I guess that part of puberty taught me to choose my moments for conversation, as opposed to saying every thought that came into my head. We had our evening meal together, around the fire as we usually did. After dishes were cleaned, we sat around the fire again and watched it like it was our favorite show on TV.

Even to this day, I can still sit around a campfire and just watch it for hours. It was getting late, and I thought the adults would tell us to turn in, but they didn't. Instead, each father gave their son the stick they'd been working on. They were decently sized at least an inch thick and four feet long. One end had been sharp into a point, while the other was blunt. That end had been carved into a criss-cross pattern, giving texture to the handle. The center of the stick was carved with a design that I couldn't understand at first. It was a creature I'd never seen before, a serpentine thing with fur and short, stubby legs.

At first, I thought it was a fox with an exaggerated body, but that's not what it was at all. Our fathers began telling us the legend of a creature that lived in those woods, a dangerous species that had claimed countless lives over the centuries. At a glance, it's a small thing that seems timid and unimposing, but has the mentality of a grizzly bear. Within striking distance, it becomes a ferocious monster that will not stop until one of you are dead. Very few adults believe the creature exists.

Children are often two-frocious, frightened and weak to take on the hunt. Teenagers are far too sullen and preoccupied with typical young adult obsessions like clothes, hairstyles and girls. Adolescents, going through the change, they're the most accepting of the hunt, seeing it as a chance to prove they're becoming an adult. That's why we were there, for us to take a rite of passage and uphold the tradition. The creature we were after was none other than the infamous snipe.

Upon hearing this, I immediately saw it as a joke. When we were even younger, our scoutmasters used to take us on snipe hunts. They'd give us sticks and bags to capture the critters, teaching us odd calls and noises to lure the non-existent creatures out. It was a big practical joke they'd play on us, sending us into the dark woods for a few hours. After a few hunts, we learned it was a trick, but I got the scoutmasters back a year prior to this camping trip.

I managed to capture a squirrel, and we all rushed back to the campsite screaming. It was chaos, and the scoutmasters were worried until they figured out we were claiming to have captured a snipe. They could clearly see something was moving in my bag, and when I dumped it out, they all jumped back as the squirrel ran past them. From that point on,

we were the ones administering the snipe hunt to the younger scouts. The fathers could see we didn't believe them, but then they did something rather unexpected. They took up their walking sticks and removed the rubber stoppers to reveal sharp points. The points were blackened and shiny, sharp as a razor. From a leather pouch I'd never seen before, my father produced a palm full of powder and threw it on the fire. The flames leapt up in a flash, as if the power was some kind of low-grade explosive.

Smoke drifted off it in a nauseating wave of stench that had us six adolescents gagging for a few seconds. They told us there's no call to draw in a snipe, like we were told with those old games. But the burning ashes of their dead would attract at least one of the pack. For a prank, this was getting a little too elaborate. I know as we got older that pranks and tricks would get more intricate, but what they were doing didn't have that feel to it.

This felt all too real. But you know how it is at that age. We weren't the sort to believe in such things anymore. That was for children, and we were becoming young adults. I expected them to send us out into the dark with our sticks while they stayed by the fire. Instead, they told us to stick with the fire and keep our guard up. If one of the creatures were to make its way to camp, they wanted us to attack it with our cedar sticks. Apparently, metal weapons would only hurt.

a snipe, not kill it, and a wounded snipe is an extremely dangerous thing. They took up their walking sticks, gave a knowing nod to each other, and went off in different directions. None took flashlights or any sort of light, just dissolving into the darkness, like warriors of old. Still thinking this was nothing more than an elaborate prank, we sat around the fire, not saying a word. Things like this don't exist outside of scary campfire stories, but it still had us looking over our shoulders. Part of me expected the adults to meet up somewhere in the dark

and sip from flasks as they laughed about how freaked out they'd made us with this legend. I sat there with a second stick, poking at the fire, and adding on more wood as needed. John was writing in his old blue tome, probably making a scary story about the snipe. He was always writing in that book, creating scary stories to tell around the campfire. I always enjoyed his stories. Mike was staring into the fire with his headphones on, only covering one ear. I could hear the tunes of Aero Levine's first album playing on his CD player.

It was hidden in his kangaroo pouch. and the headphone cord ran underneath the hoodie. He was having a smoky'd snake from his father's pack. He only had one ear covered so he could hear if the father's returned. He'd gotten into Averill's music largely due to his sister, Megan, a fiery redhead I'd later come to know as my girlfriend and eventual wife. Mike claimed that Averill's music spoke to the angsty teen within him, and it wasn't just for girls.

The other three were doing as they were told. Their backs to the fire and sticks at the ready. I could tell it was half-hearted, but as the time grew on, they were becoming more fidgety. Our fathers had been gone for nearly two hours. Any minute now, they'd come bursting out of the darkness

to scare the shit out of us. But they never did. There were noises coming. from the woods, but nothing like the footsteps of booted feet. These were the scurried movements of small critters, which happens all the time in nature. But there was an ominous feel to the night. It wasn't just the legend that made the night feel off, but the growing cold as the clouds left the sky. I'd check the weather myself before we left, and there was supposed to be complete overcast. Instead, the three-quarter moon shone down upon us, providing light that hadn't been there

an hour ago. The fire was giving us plenty of light, but this illuminated the woods. And once I turned my back on the fire, my eyes began to adjust to the dimmer light. There were little to no leaves on the trees. So the light filtered through surprisingly well. Not enough that we could make out much, but we could go walking through it without running into tree trunks. Of course, none of us were going to leave the fire. With my focus entirely on the woods, I began to see things, my eyes playing tricks on me. I swore I could see an impossibly thick snake moving on the ground. But this was the wrong time of year for snakes. Then it stopped, about 15 yards from the fire, just on the other side of our tents.

I got the other's attention as it stood up from the ground. It had to have been at least three feet tall, and had glowing blue eyes. I rubbed at my tired, frightened eyes, but the thing in the woods didn't go away. All six of us stood there, our eyes locked onto those blue eyes. eyes. The same eyes our fathers had warned us about. Ryan, the smallest of us, started screaming and flailing in a panic. The thing in front of us had been a distraction, and another of the creatures had snuck up on us. As Ryan twirled around in circles, I caught sight of the black fur on his back. He tripped over his own feet and landed hard on the ground, rolling around,

doing everything he could to get the thing off his back. We finally. sprung into action. Kevin and Ricky tried to pull the thing off Ryan, but it swiped at them with sharp claws. John and Mike started hitting at it with their sticks, but nothing deterred the beast from holding on to Ryan. It picked its head up, looking more like a feline than a canine, and bared teeth at us with a growling hiss. I could tell it was about to bite into Ryan, and I made my move. Before, we'd been worried about accidentally stabbing Ryan in our attempts to kill the snipe, but with its head up, I had a good angle. I drove the pointy end of my cedar stick just under its jaw and put my full weight into the movement. Driving that stick into its neck,

I didn't stop until it came out the other side, and I rolled over it, ripping it from Ryan's back. When I got back to my feet, I saw the impossible creature pinned to the ground. My stick not only threw its neck but stuck straight into the dirt. Somehow, it wasn't dead and spent several minutes trying to free itself. All it succeeded in doing was making the wound bigger and killing itself faster. Mike and John checked on Ryan's wounds, saying they weren't too bad. His jeans and jacket took most of the damage, but there were some scratches and minor punctures. Using the skills achieved from our mandatory first aid merit badge, they disinfected the wounds and banished him up.

Me, I couldn't take my eyes from the thing I'd just killed. Before that point, the only living creatures I'd killed were fish, partly for the fishing merit badge, but mostly because they were good eating, and I never passed up the opportunity to go fishing. It was definitely a life-altering experience. I'd been in life or death situations before, but nothing like this. Repelling off a 50-foot rock wall, traversing two points about 100 feet across and 40 feet up, but nothing alive trying to kill me and those around me. While I was coming to terms with what happened,

Kevin and Ricky were watching out for the other snipe we'd seen. It was about a half hour later that our fathers came back. At first, I barely noticed their presence. I remember hearing them all talking, but I just sat there, staring into the fire. I'd added more wood to it and was poking at it with the fire stick. My father sat next to me and asked if I was all right. Aside from being a little freaked by what had happened, I was mostly numb. The adrenaline faded a while ago.

and I kept playing it over and over in my head. He told me I'd done good and that he was proud of me. The man who tanned my hide for taking a sip of his beer not three months ago handed me an unopened can of beer. He told me to sip it while he and the other fathers tended the dead snipe. I sat there with my five friends around the fire, each one of us nursing our own beer. I hadn't realized that our fathers had brought back three more dead snipe with them,

but the ones they killed were nearly twice the size of the one I killed. Only adolescent snipe are bold enough to come right up to a campfire and attack the people around it. We watched as our fathers laid out large square of plastic, skinned the carcasses, and cut strips of meat off the flanks. When they got to my kill, they collected some of the blood in a glass before skinning it. The small strips of meat they took from it

were immediately placed on six long metal skewers. We were each given a skewer and told to hold it over the fire for only a few minutes, constantly turning them. The smell of that meat cooking was heaven to my nose and it made my mouth water.

By the time the meat was done, the rest of the bodies were tied up in the plastic and hung in a tree 30 yards away from camp Each father handed their son a half-full shot-glass But the liquid in those glasses wasn't liquor It was the blood they collected from my kill The fathers held up their own shot glasses Set a quick toast to our safety

And down to the shots At a nod from them, we followed suit, repeating the toast and drinking the blood. I expected to gag, but the taste was a little sweet and very savory. As we ate the meat we had cooked, the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten in my life. They told us the drinking of blood was a tradition for everyone's first kill. That weekend, they taught us all the traditions that have been passed down by the generations of our families. Snipe were hunted to the point of extinction hundreds of years ago, mostly because they were the

most ferocious farment that had ever been known. It wasn't until our family started hunting them together that it was discovered how delicious their meat was. The only known remaining pack in the world resides in that stretch of mountains. Every year, our fathers went out the first weekend of January with the sole purpose. of hunting snipe. For more than a hundred years, we've lived in the nearby city and hunted those things with the intent of wiping out their existence. The trouble is their den is hard to find, and they seem to move every few years, but they never go far. Mike got his first killed the

following night. The others got theirs the following year. All the bits of the snipe we didn't eat were taken back with us, and the father's got us together the following weekend for another fire, but this time at one of our houses. We spent the night burning the remains down to ash and turning it into the powder that lived in the leather pouch. That weekend was 20 years ago, and our own sons are getting to that age. I became a park ranger, so I could keep an eye on that stretch of mountains, and do what I can do to keep people from going there. We've kept the tradition alive,

the six of us going out every year now that our fathers have difficulties making the hike with us. We're gearing up for it now, our last year before we take our sons. We still haven't found their den and no matter how many we kill, there are always plenty of the critters.

It's as if they breed like rabbits. Maybe we'll never be completely rid of them. And to be honest, I'm glad for it. I love the first full weekend of January and hunting with my best friends. Creepy Presents Christmas Inchalani, written by E. King, and narrated by J.V. Hampton Van Sant. It was a grand old place.

all curving mahogany staircases and domed glass ceilings. I'd come at Christmas, come for peace, peace, and time to breathe, think, and finish the damn thesis dangling over my head, like some literary sword of Damocles. It was perfectly normal, they'd said. Many of our most brilliant students suffer from issues of completion. But I could hear the whispers, or rather, I could feel them, creeping out of the night corners like phantom rats gnawing at my fragile sense of purpose and belief. My mother had been haunted by similar demons, as had my aunts, grandmother, and her sisters before her. My lineage reached backward into a pedigree of despair.

They were all gone now, all dead by their own hand before age 30, and all around Christmas. My mother received her medical degree from Harvard. She only practiced for a year before going to Oxford to study history, where she'd met my father, who was finishing his doctorate in physics. They had fallen madly in love, married, and had me. Two years later, on a Christmas trip to the Cornish coast, she had waited into the cold North Sea, never to return. I thought I'd escaped.

I'd been a quiet, calm, studious child, reaching for nothing more emotionally challenging than stones and bones. I had few friends. I was taunted for my thick black eyebrows and unruly dark hair, though now I realize it was not so much my appearance, but my bookish introspection that made me an outcast. At 19, I entered the Earth Sciences Department at Oxford, and a year later, I waded into the pond at Island Wood.

My pockets weighed down with fossils purloined from the lab. My father, now a physics professor at Oxford, was called. Rest and medication were prescribed. And so, I'd been sent to recuperate at Trelawney Manor, the oldest estate in Cornwall. I packed a sketchpad, charcoal, and a panoply of medicines, antidepressants that kept me from feeling joy, mood stabilizers that fogged my brain,

and painkillers to soothe my ankle, which I'd broken in my wade toward eternity. The gray cloud that it enveloped my world had lifted slightly, but only because I was too numb to feel anything as strong as despair. During the summer, Trelawney Manor was a stop for scholars and tourists. In the winter, it was mostly deserted. I'd taken a train to Cornwall and a cab to the manor. The driver was a red-faced man with inquisitive blue eyes. My small bag, which he tossed in the trunk, was dwarfed by his huge, meaty hands. Would he speed away with my belongings, leaving me alone and without clothes,

shoes, or medication? He slapped me on the shoulder, genially, but with such force as to propel me into the polished leather backseat. He was just being affable, but my spirit shrunk from the contact. Welcome to Cornwall. His breath smelled of winter nights by aging pub fires. And Merry Christmas. You've come to the best little county in Great Britain. Not that I'm prejudiced. My name's Charlie.

Lived here all my life I have. And I can tell you just about anything you want to know. He started the cab and peered at me, keen eyes curious. Well, now, I have. Haven't even asked where you're headed. Me, missus always said I talk more than I think. I'm going to Trelawney Manor, I whispered. He made no sound.

I looked up, fearful that a glance might unleash another torrent of unwanted chatter. All color had drained from his ruddy cheeks, leaving him pale as a peeled potato. Do you know it? I asked. Of course I do, he said. And a mighty fine place it is, in the summer, but at Christmas. His voice drifted away like a fading wind. I thought of asking what was wrong with the manner at Christmas,

but I dreaded conversation more than mystery. Trelani's roots reached back to the 16th. Four stories of stone that coiled above the land like an enormous ammonite. The coast was miles away, but to my left it curves sharply inland and looked to be an easy walk from the manor. Charlie pulled up to the grand circular entrance and handed me my bag. If you don't like it here, miss, he said, pressing. a card into my hand. Just give us a call.

There's many a place that I'd be happy for lodgers. I twisted my mouth into what I hoped was a smile. My face felt stiff. The muscles unused from staring into the void. Large wooden doors opened surprisingly easily considering their mass. Behind a walnut desk sat a tight-lipped doughy woman. with an almost unruly halo of bluish-gray curls. It was the only free, even slightly wild, aspect of her person.

The corners of the woman's mouth turned upward as she handed me a key, but the smile didn't reach her cold blue eyes. I'm Mrs. Mulcanny, she said. you're the only one here, and I'll be the one seen to your needs. I serve breakfast at eight, 11 C's at 11.30, luncheon at one, tea at four, and dinner at six. But I never stay overnight. There are many paths through the Moorland, but don't use the track on the left. It leads most direct to the sea, but it's dangerous. Many a sheep, and more than one child has been lost there.

Once the black mud gets a hold of you, you'll never escape. She said this with an odd satisfaction. You'll be wanting to look at this, she said, pushing a faded red leather book toward me. It's been our guest book since 1602, signed by each and every one of our guests. She said this smugly, as if she had personally supervised the inking of each and every signature. And which part of our rich history will you be investigating while you're with us? Ancient, I said. Pre-Cambrian serpentine.

She didn't reply. Just stared at me out of those probing, cool eyes, as if I were a not very, interesting relic, which she needed to keep safe even if she doubted its value. Or perhaps it was me, floundering in a sea of suspicion and finding it even where there was none. I took the key and turned away. My room had a large bay window that looked out over Cornwall's shaggy moorland and cold raging sea. It smelled faintly, not unpleasantly, of lavender and slightly fermented kelp. Despite my fatigue, I couldn't sleep.

I took the one sleeping pill I was allowed and waited. Perhaps a tiny exploration would exhaust me? The hall was like the inside of a giant chambered nautilus. a creature whose relatives date back to the early place to scene. Swirling mahogany balusters hung with Yuletide holly swept upward to a stained glass crystal coppola. Beneath the dome stood a huge Christmas tree, hung with tinsel. What day was it? Boxing Day? Christmas Eve?

I smelled the library before I saw it, a fragrance of vanilla and almonds. Father said that the smell was caused by the breakdown of chemicals in the paper. Odd that decay should smell so sweet. Perhaps there is a heaven for books that people never dream of, where ideas live on. The thought made me uncomfortable. I liked fossils, facts, the hard clarity of science.

Not these fanciful notions drifting through my mind, obscuring the hard, unwavering light of reality. If I cut down on the mood stable, Would I be clearer? A powdering of stars twinkled through the bay windows. Bookshelves lined the walls, but they were disappointingly bare. I turned to leave, finally wearied, when a slim leather volume caught my eye. It had no legible title, only the indentation of worn

script and a flash of gold embedded in the varnish text. Tragedy at Trelawney was inscribed in the curling letters frontispiece. I took the book to bed, where I fell into a dark dream. Something wakened me. Moonlight poured through my window. Every blade of grass seemed etched into the land. For the first time in months, my mind was equally clear. To the left, where the coast bent closest toward Trelawney,

I could make out dark huddled figures around a small fire. Odd that anyone should venture there, where Miss Malkany had said the cliffs were the weakest, but perhaps my bearings were confused by the wandering clouds and flat light. Perhaps it was some local Christmas custom? One of the figures straightened up and began walking toward my window. It was a woman, as small as I, but so slender and well-formed, she gave the impression of great height.

There was something ominous about the intensity of her focus. She seemed so fixated on me, or at least on my lighted window, as to be ignoring her surroundings, though she walked along the very edge of the roaring waves. I woke late, not leaving my room till safe, P.m. Mrs. Malkany awaited me in a preposterously large dining room, with over-cooked greens, a desiccated turkey, Yorkshire pudding, and a small mince pie. Was I feasting on the remains of some other, more festive Christmas?

You must have needed your sleep. She smiled, but there was a sharpness in those cold blue ones. eyes. I've been ill, I stammered. So I've heard. The blood rushed to my face. I tried not to think about what she'd heard. Depression was nothing to be ashamed of, they had said.

And, and the moon was so Great. I added. Moon, she said. You must have been dreaming. Twas a new moon. Black as a new gate knocker. I spent my days, resting by the window,

studying tragedy at Trelawney, and the venerated guest book. Both books were extraordinary. one for what it said, the other for what it implied. Tragedy at Trelawney was an account of the trial of Truth Device, the first guest of the manor. Accused of witchcraft by her 10-year-old daughter, Grace, Truth had been burned at the cliff's edge on Christmas 1659.

It was a list of dates, prosecution, and death, brutal and horrible. The guest book was different. Its swirls of signatures were open to interpretation. I liked tracing my fingers over the slightly indented curves. The pages filled before typewriters had destroyed the art of calligraphy. There was personality evident in each, essence in ink, a mirror of the soul. I had never much been interested in souls, or philosophy either. Those things less real than science and mathematics.

If you learned a formula or the properties of a stone, you had data that would not never change. A plant that was edible was always edible, but a theory about a soul or God was as malleable as wet tissue. And history looked very different depending upon which version you read. Now, though, sitting on the window seat,

looking over the moors and the frothic see below, I ran my finger over the old signatures, imagining the people who had written them. It may have been a lonely way to spend Christmas, but it was what my soul craved, as well as what the doctor ordered. True to her word, Miss Mulcanny had a huge, largely indigestible breakfast on the sideboard at 8, which gave way to stale granola bars at 1130, followed by tea and dinner. Tea was the only meal I enjoyed, not the dry, hard scones, but the rich, slightly grainy, clotted cream with strawberry jam that filled all the corners in my hungry heart. I began to cut the dose of the antidepressants and mood stabilizers,

trying to find the perfect balance. The painkillers didn't dull my perceptions, but made them sharper, like bottled clarity. I awoke early avoiding the shale and serpentine cliffs that held both the fossil past and my own unfinished thesis. Instead, I tramped the narrow paths of mud and moss till I was tired, and then returned to my window seat, running my hand over the rough penmanship of truth device.

I couldn't say why her signature had such power over her, me, just that it drew me to wonder about its origin, as before I had only wondered about fossils and bones. Then the sky opened and poured for two days. I should have worked on my paper. I could have written letters detailing my progress and health. Instead, I sat in my work. window, inhaling the fragrance of vanilla and almonds that drifted up from the guest book until a signature caught my eye. Nicole Turner, December 1998. It was my mother's.

The same year, she had marched into the sea, never to return. I closed my eyes, seeing in that inner darkness her leaving me, without a backward glance. What had driven her into the cold, unfeeling waters? What had driven me? Nothing solid, nothing specific, just an unbearable sadness, a dark, suffocating curtain. I could not see beyond. It was written into my jeans, engraved by maternal hands, so deeply there was no escape. I began to leaf back through the pages, each name a dark house concealing lives behind inked walls.

And there, 15 minutes before. before my mother's visit, I found another familiar name. Alice Turner, my grandmother, which was as far back as I could trace. With a family like mine, you don't look for ancestors. You're afraid of what you might find. The next day gave way to a sudden, unexpected burst of sun.

The moors glittered. Steam rose from the grassland like departing spirits. There was something almost transcendent in their vast loneliness. I packed a small bag with water, a few perloined granola bars, my sketchpad, my painkillers, a small spade, and set out toward the cliff, where I had seen the night fires burning. I dared not take the most direct route. It looked an easy walk, but I remembered Mrs. Mulcanny's warning.

Without trees as signposts, land and sea flattened into an endless, perspectiveless swath of green and gray. It took me more than an hour, mud sucking at my shoes as if to pull me down beneath the emerald carpet. At the bluff's edge, the ground gave way. The sun was bright, but winter brisk. I shivered, still, having come this far and found this, whatever it was. I pulled out my spade and began to dig. Beneath the grass was a hole, almost a meter deep, and about half again as wide.

The bottom of the hole was covered in black clay and lined with white feathers. It must have been a bird-plucking hollow. Such pits were common at the turn of the turn of. of the 19th century. But no, what I had thought was a dark clay was really a charred body. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I could just make out small, outstretched limbs,

a long, sinuous neck, and a tiny, delicate head that was mostly orbital loaves. It was a carbonized swan, only lacking its beak. There is a legend that swans were introduced to Britain in the 12th century by Richard I, but the bird is native. Ownership was recorded by marks knicked into the beak. Any swan that didn't bear one was the property of the crown.

The penalty for ignoring swan marks or for killing birds was a year's imprisonment. On top of the swan nestled 55 eggs, seven of which contained chicks close to hatching. The shells of the eggs had mostly dissolved, but moisture had preserved the membranes. There was something unutterably sad about the dried yellow embryos, curled in on themselves like pictures of despair. As little as I like to admit it, this seemed like a witch pit. Uncover a nest or discover a den, and there will be a reason for everything, every twig or dropping or bone. But which pits were the product of delusion, the human drama I'd been trying to avoid my whole life.

The killing of swans has been illegal since the 11th. century, and the witchcraft laws were only scrapped in 1951. A shiver snaked up my spine as I imagined someone digging a hole and carefully laying these offerings. What had made them desperate enough to risk death if caught? As I turned the bones over in my hands, I realized that the bones that they realized that the I realized they were bound together with faded orange cord, a synthetic twine not manufactured till the 1960s.

Stuck to the twine was a scrap of newsprint. I could just make out a faint headline. Dr. Nicole Stevens to join the history department at Oxford. I imagined generations of women coming here to ask favors of their gods, devotees reaching back into the 1600s in an unbroken chain, but surely my doctor mother had not been among them. I leaned back, hoping for support. But as sweater touched the wet mud,

the anguish of the body superseded the torments of the heart. I sniffed the string on either side of the paper. Not an approved collection practice, but I needed to get back, and I wanted, no, needed this paper. It was the proof that I was not mad. The sun had been, begun to sink into the waves.

Gray clouds blew in like an advancing army, blotting out sea and shore, encasing me in pervasive twilight. My pocket flashlight was dead. An ice-cold raindrops slapped my face. I didn't know how far I'd gone, or even if I was headed in the right direction. I might be walking straight towards the cliff in the sea below. For the first time in forever, I didn't want that. No, I wanted to live at least long enough to discover why my mother's name

had been buried in a witch pit on the Cornish coast and why my mother and grandmother had visited Trelawney Manor. But neither the yearning to live nor the desire to die are enough to make it happen. I stumbled and lay on the wet grass, the rain driving me into the earth. I imagined my body dissolving in the bog, my bones turning to fossils, for some later archaeologist to discover. When I awakened, Father was sitting by my bed.

His pale gray eyes peered at me over wire reading glasses. You were found on the Moors. His voice was as detached as if he were explaining a simple equation to a slow undergraduate. I looked down at my hand. They were empty. Did you see the paper? He shook his head.

All they found on you was your pack, a dead flashlight, and an empty bottle of pain pills. Your fist was closed, but nothing was in your hand. My evidence dissolved in the rain. Did you know Mother was here? I asked. I found her signature in the guest book. He shook his head. I didn't, but she was studying the history of Cornwall.

It's logical she might have visited. His face was proof against necromancy. I would not tell him that my grandmother had also been here. I would not tell him of the witch pit with my mother's name, found up in twine. He would have an explanation. As for the newspaper, he might believe it to be a delusion of my fevered mind. It sounded more reasonable than anything I could conjure. Father had brought me a few sad Christmas presents, a tin of biscuits, and a book on Crowell's Fossils.

It was worse than being forgotten. When I was well, or at least well enough to lie in bed and read, he left. He had classes to teach and papers to write, a life outside of Trelawney and his crazy daughter. Be healthy. His slightly chapped lips brushing against my cheek. Finish your paper, but don't pressure yourself.

My father had made certain I followed the doctor's dosage. It made me foggy. I needed to think. I needed to think. needed to work. I halved my dose of antidepressants and quit the mood stabilizers altogether, but instead of studying the pre-Cambrian shale, I delved into the witches of Cornwall. The witch trials of Western Europe lasted 300 years and killed more than 80,000 witches. Orthodox wisdom attributed the hysteria to a slate of almost supernaturally bad weather,

freak frost, plagues of mice, even a couple of rains of frogs. But it wasn't just the ice age that caused the witch hunt. Protestantism had recently emerged. And what better way to make converts then to combat Satanism. The hysteria began in Germany, with the hammer of witches, a guide on how to identify and interrogate necromancers.

It was ugly stuff. The reason I'd studied rocks and stones was to avoid these dramas. I had enough trouble with the demons in my DNA. A man bends over me, head shrouded by a black hood, piercing blue eyes stare out of the darkness. Is it not true, Grace Device, that your mother, truth, is a witch? Is it not true that her spirit can enter the likeness of a brown dog? He bends my small, pliable fingers backwards.

Wake up, miss, wake up. Someone was shaking me. Mrs. Mulcanny's chill blue eyes examined me. You were having a nightmare, miss. I wanted to ask Miss Mulcanny if she'd seen tragedy at Trelawney. But the word stuck in my throat. A history of Trelawney? I'm sure I don't know what you're referring to.

Had I spoken aloud? I don't know of any such history, miss. Why was she lying? It was almost two weeks before I felt well enough to leave Trelawney. Then, almost against my volition, I found myself wandering toward town, and the Boswell Museum of Witchcraft. As I reached up, the door opened.

An old woman stood inside. I'm Mrs. Evanslare. She smiled, her skin cracking into a million welcoming folds. Welcome to the museum. Centuries have passed, yet in this wee, quiet corner of England, We are unchanged, perched right on the edge of the beyond. She took my hand. A pulse of electricity raced up my arm.

My mother was here once. It felt like a confession. Not here, here, I mean. I stammered. But in cornwall. Wall. What was her name, dear? She leaped backward through a guest book.

Nicole Turner, December, 1998. Did you know her? I whispered. She shook her head. I fear there's things you need Ken to, that only the dead may tell. Come to my house this Wednesday night. We will ask the coven. Mayhap it will put your soul at peace. I shook my head, but even as I did, I knew I would go. I had never been to a seance. While my schoolmates clustered together in darkened rooms over Ouija boards, I read about rock substrates.

My dead were already too close, woven into my jeans like a warning. I called Charlie to take me. He arrived in his old black cab, shiny as a hearse. How good it is to see you, miss. His round red face broke into a smile. Where are you going? To Mrs. Evanslare? His lips tightened.

He said not a word, but sped through the night, stopping so suddenly, I slammed into the rear of his seat. My door opened into darkness. It's that way. Just follow your nose. When you see a slate path, take it. He disappeared before I could ask how to reach him. I stepped down, twisting a little. my weak left ankle and washed down a pain pill with a swig of the whiskey I'd been carrying with me since the witch-pit fiasco. I found the turnoff, not by sight, but by the scent of the moist earth,

and some odd sense of having turned this way before. It wasn't until I got close that I could see the house. A slender stream of smoke rising from the thatch like departing spirits. The door opened before I could knock. Mrs. Evanslayer was bordered on each side by two old women, three plump, one thin, all sharp-eyed, wrinkled by years, yet somehow unfettered to time, Behind them, six wooden chairs formed a half circle. The fire in the large brick hearth cast their faces in an orange glow. Come in, my dear, come in, said Mrs. Evanslayer. She took me by the elbow.

Again, I felt that strange flow of current. The Crohn's bent around me like an undiscovered country. They were made timeless by their obvious belonging. I coveted that sense of rightness. I was a stranger, born out of season, haunted by an idea called home. Mrs. Evans-Lair propelled me toward a chair. i wondered at the fortitude of such women who denied even the comfort of cushions to their old bones take a sip of this dear she poured me a shot of some golden liquid it softened the edges yet made the room somehow clearer only the glinting of eyes beneath his hood shows me that this is a man and not

death himself. Confess, he says. Confess and be saved. A crowd surrounds me. Them I have known since I was but a wee tacker. Yet they gaze on me, as if I am a stranger. In the center, my mother is chained to a pole, clothes torn, breast bare for all to see. I point a small, trembling white finger towards my mother. I have heard her talking to a brown dog, I whisper. Louder, cries the man. She smears the fat of murdered bates on her brooment. I scream.

Witch, says the man. Wish. Echoes the crowd. I hear her voice, the same that used to sing me lullabies, but it is harsh. and raw. If my flesh and bone accuse me, so be it.

And this same curse now be in the blood through the generations. Not one woman of my flesh shall live past my years of 29 Christmas tides. As you have cursed me, I. curse you. Are you all right, me dear? Old faces bent over me, the same faces as were in the crowd. I must go.

Hands grabbed at me. I staggered into the night. In the road, Charlie's cab was waiting. I was saved. I dove into the back seat. In the mirror his eyes met mine. They were the cool blue of my inquisitor. I rolled out into the damp grass. He would not trap me again. I had been given another chance. This time, I would not betray my mother. I could save her. I will save her.

I had left, taking the shortest path towards the coast. Interesting reading material. My father nodded toward a pile on the bed. He leaped through The Cornwall Witches. The main witness against Truth Device was her daughter, Grace, who was but nine years old. He read. And the tale continues, he picked up a newspaper. Witches of Cornwall, 2010.

An archaeologist has unearthed three witch pits in Cornwall. One contained 22 eggs, all with chicks close to hatching. Another held a burned swan. The egg pit dated to, 18th century, the swan pit to the 1980s. And it seems you haven't been taking your meds. My father's voice was as dry as Mrs. Malkany's scones. We pulled you out of the bog on the edge of the cliff.

It's a wonder you aren't dead. You will stay here for a while, where you can be monitored. And no more reading about witchcraft. I know it's a sad place to spend Christmas, but next year will be better. He scooped up the books, kissed me on the forehead, and left.

Christmas. It was not yet Christmas? The door opened. And a tight-lipped doughy woman face framed by an almost unruly halo of bluish-gray curls entered. I'm Nurse Mulcany, she said. I'll be the one seeing to your needs. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration. please visit creepypod.com.

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