Flicker

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The cabin rested on a hill in the forest overlooking a small village. The candle flickered across the trees for all the villagers to see. It was there, that the whispers grew and the people cleared the streets. Shutters drew and tightened by trembling hands.

The cabin had not always been abandoned. Legend has it that a young widow and her daughter had made the cabin their home. That sunflowers grew taller than the roof and the mother and her daughter would sell the seeds in the village at the market. When the mother had become ill, the daughter, now almost a teenager, took the trip to the market on her own. When night fell, the girl did not return. Her mother, weak in her sickness, lit a candle hoping that her daughter would see it and find her way through the dark. She never did return home. And the woman grew bitter and suspicious of the villagers. So she kept to herself, never returning to the village again.

The years passed and the sunflowers died. The old woman in her grief, would search the forest sun up until sun down for any trace of her daughter. The wind carried her shrieking calls "Syliva!" through the leaves of the trees and down the path, into the village.

A group of teenagers had setup camp in the woods one night. When they awoke, one of them was missing. The village people searched for any sign of the missing teen. There was none. They came upon the old woman who sat at the door of her cabin in a rocking chair. She was chanting a children's song in a raspy worn voice. The village people, suspicious of her black eyes, demanded that she tell them what she had done to the teen. She just stared back at them and continued to sing. The villagers decided that she had either been possessed or gone mad with grief. It was in this moment that someone in the crowd cried, "Witch" and the rest soon followed. The old woman continued to sing. The villagers tied her to a tree and set fire to it. The flames flickered over the faces of the villagers and the old woman continued to sing the painful children's song. The flame grew so high it spread light through the whole forest. The song stopped and the flame went out. The villagers made their way down the path toward the village and from the shadows, stepped the missing camper. She had wandered off from camp early in the morning to investigate a nearby ravine when she fell and hit her head. She awoke when the fire had lit up the night sky and found her way to the path.

Over the next few months the villagers claimed to hear the woman still in the woods, calling for Sylvia. The calls got louder as the anniversary of the old woman's death approached. No one in the village would speak of it. For fear that she could hear them. And then it happened exactly one year later. The sky grew dark and the candle flickered in the window. When morning came the candle had been blown out. The air was filled with another mother shrieking her missing child's name. Every year since, a child is taken when the candle flickers over the forest. Some say they can hear the children calling Sylvia's name in the wind all year long.

It is believed that the old woman lights the candle with the fire of nearby campers. And for that reason, fire's have been forbidden in that forest for many years. And each year the villagers watch the hillside on the anniversary to make sure the candle does not light. And another year passes safe from the woman's curse.

Until a group of campers who decide they did not believe in ghost stories, light a fire, on this particular night. And the the candle in the window of the cabin ignites.