Devil's Fetch

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. The person looking back had all the right details to my face, and character in the mannerisms for how I move. Yet, that smile… the smile was where the deceit was loudest, how those eyes smiled…

***

Curfolk was a village of strange traditions. At Christmas, the Murmurers would come knocking. They were supposed to be people you knew, but hidden in costume and in eery masks. They wouldn’t speak a word, only make mumming and murmuring sounds. By tradition, one had to invite them inside. They'd stand across from you at a table, as you sit. And you'd gamble with dice. At the end, in absolute silence, they would then leave your house.

They also had Wassailing at New Years. There was last year's cider poured to the roots for the apple orchard. There was a Wassailing Queen and fun activities the whole village particiapted in.

Curfolk, unsurprisingly given then love of festivals and holidays, had Maypole festivals in spring. The festivals and holidays never seemed to stop. There were many more.

If anyone in the village didn’t participate in the many traditions, that person would begin to find stones, resting on their gates. No one ever claimed to leave them, and the village saw them as a bad omen. It was an odd little village, but proud of its traditions.

Finally, there was Devil’s Fetch. It was similar, yet quirkily different to Bloody Mary. Liam had convinced me, as part of an ‘initiation to the village’ to do it one evening. Gwen, his wife, was to do it with me, as despite living in Curfolk with Liam for two years, had never done it.

Instead of a bathroom mirror, Liam took Gwen and I to an abandoned farmhouse. The farmhouse, where Curfolk's Devil's Fetch originated from.

The farmhouse was originally built in the fifteenth century, and rebuilt after a fire in the eighteenth. It was abandoned around one hundred years ago, which added to the creepy factor of the tale.

The people of Curfolk say the fire was to burn out the curse of Devil's Fetch. But it didn't work. So the farmhouse, which sits on the best, fertile soil, stands abandoned. Liam said it was just industrialisation and modern living that lead to the farmhouse being abandoned, but still added flare to the tale.

The farmhouse was a mere fifteen-minute walk from Curfolk Commons. It was through one of the trails in the woods that sat at the back of them. My cottage, which I had just started renting, backed onto the commons. So it wouldn't be a far or long walk to do.

Liam and Gwen were over at my place for a house-warming evening. I had spent all of summer and most of autumn at theirs. I was between places, since my last relationship imploded. I could work remotely, so Liam, my cousin, suggested: why not there, in Curfolk, with them.

I guess I embraced the simple village life that boasted more community events than any city could. So I found my little cottage to rent and signed the lease.

We set off. The leaves were crips and their crunching was satisfying to hear, as we made our way to what Liam called, ‘the most haunted, abandoned farmhouse’ that I would ever visit.

A little ghost story in a creepy old building wasn't a half-bad way to spend Halloween evening, so close to midnight. Especially in village that seemed to have a tradition for every other holiday and festival, except for this one.

“Right. So as I said, it’s called Devil’s Fetch.” Liam explained as the farmhouse came in sight through the trees, “You go up to the mirror, in the bedroom, at the end of the hall upstairs. Careful with your steps, the floor boards are very old and very wet. And you say ‘Devil’s Fetch’, three times, while looking into your own eyes…”

“Ha! So it is a Bloody Mary rip off!?” Gwen cackled.

“You think it’s funny!” Liam smiled as he poked his wife’s stomach as she cackled. "Well you just volunteered to go first… But here is the catch: You can’t look away. Not until someone comes into the room and says your name, three times.” Liam took a serious tone. "You always need to be looking into your own face, better yet, just your eyes."

"Say our names three times? Like being jinxed? When you say something the same time as someone, to be unjinxed?” It was my turn to laugh with derision at what seemed like a childish ghost tradition.

Liam turned to me, and with complete seriousness, “The Devil will try to deceive you; try to make you look away. If you look away, even for a second, before someone says your name, three times, the Fetch can get you. And into Hell you go, for the Devil to do with as he pleases.”

“What on Earth is a ‘Fetch’?” It sounded ludicrous to me.

“Oh I know this one!” Gwen was quite chuffed with herself, “In Irish folklore anyways… I think... It's... It is sort of like an apparition, or a double—which is also an omen of, like death, or really bad things… Am I right?” She had glee in in her eyes, feeling a job well done.

“Similar! Here, it’s an omen as well. It can be good. It represents your fate, but as the Devil sends this one, it’s not a good Fetch to have near you. Make your fate a bad one.” Liam added.

We entered the old and abandoned farmhouse. Gwen went up the stairs first. She shouted “Devil’s Fetch” loud enough for us to hear her downstairs. Three times she called it out. Liam giggled and asked if we should scare her. I chuckled back but we settled best not to scare his wife, her distaste for pranks.

I started to shiver. I tried to hide it from Liam, who had already mocked my shamefully thin parka. It was old, and most the insulation had gone. But I never got a new one. I thought it would be fine, for one more winter.

After five minutes, we went upstairs, and Liam said Gwen’s name three times.

“That wasn’t that bad. I could hear you two giggling and half expected for you both to try and scare me!” Gwen seemed cheery, but there was a nervousness in her eyes.

It was my turn.

Liam threw his arm over Gwen and smiled at her. She planted a kiss on him as they walked out of the room. She yelled out “Good luck!” And Liam added “Just don't look away!”

I wanted my five minutes over and done with, so I loudly called out Devil's Fetch, so that they could still hear me, as I heard them head down the stairs.

“Devil’s Fetch! Devil’s Fetch! Devil’s Fetch!”

I was a few steps away from the mirror. I looked squarely into my own eyes and hoped it would be over soon.

I don’t believe in ghosts and ghouls, but there is still that visceral fear I get from these stories. Feelings, like a scared child, waking from a nightmare.

My palms began to sweat. So I firmed them into my pockets. The hairs on the back of my neck stood, so rolled up my shoulders for the hood of my coat to cuddle my neck warm.

I tried to count the time in my head. After about three minutes, I heard the steps being climbed.

"They are coming to try to scare me.” I thought to myself.

It wasn’t as if they were being subtle. They weren't slowly climbing them, to sneak in. They were running up them, and they giggled like children.

The running pounded rapidly to my ears. It worked. My heart thudded instep with the chaos of foot steps down running down the hall. I didn't want to be caught not looking at myself, so I stared deep into my own face, my own eyes, and tried not to look as they were about to come in.

But the pair never came running into the bedroom. They stopped, just short. And then, the corner of my eye, low and slow, I saw the pair come inside.

“They must be crawling” I thought. I used my peripheral vision to try and see them, without moving my eyes. “Look how low they are. And did they change their clothes?”

They crawled on the floor, now, dressed fully in black, and with little red hats on, I believed.

“He he he he.” A sinister, childlike laugh taunted from one.

“Gwen—“ I thought, “She is probably the one laughing like that. Liam will be the one heavily breathing.”

I was about to tell them off. I was about to threaten to leave if they wouldn’t cut it out.

A flinch.

A movement in the mirror.

Not from the pair behind me, who I was trying to observe still, from the corner of my eyes. But on me. On me, there was movement.

At first, I thought maybe it was a spider that crawled onto me, and that that was the movement I saw. I wasn’t afraid of spiders, but I could use it to throw at Liam and Gwen, to scare them back.

But I couldn’t see where or what it was. I stepped closer to the mirror, to get a better look. It was near my face, so I didn't look away.

The pair continued to crawl behind me, getting closer to me and the mirror as well—probably hoping to catch me looking away.

“There’s no spider…but…my face. There is something wrong with my face….” My thoughts echoed inside my head. I was getting worked up; more scared than I should have been. I didn’t want to speak out loud. I didn't want to give the others that satisfaction. The satisfaction that they got to me, that they scared me half-witless.

One of them gently placed their hands on my lower back. They stood directly behind me, still low to the ground, so I could barely see them with the corners of my eyes. The other continued to crawl and move behind me. The movement was almsot distracting. But I was resolute, and stared at myself.

It dawned on me.

“The smile…” my thoughts were being struck with spikes of adrenaline from panic.

The smile was not of my lips, but my reflection’s eyes. They were ravenously hungry and filled me with mistrust, as they smiled at me.

“A trick, my mind is playing a trick.” I thought.

I took another step closer. The hands on my back never lessened in pressure. They followed me closer to the mirror.

I scrutinised my face, well, my eyes, at least.

That's when I saw it. Once I was close enough to see in the darkness, I saw it.

“My eye—.” The thought finally whispered out of my mouth. What I saw in my eye, or rather not in my eye; I panicked. My eyes were blue, but the right one had a streak of amber in it. Yet, my reflection had it in the other eye.

“My eye.” I spoke aloud once more, still in a whispered tone. My eyes flicked to look away from the mirror. I wanted to show Liam and Gwen. I wanted them to assure me what I saw wasn't really happening.

But as I looked away, a shove came from behind.

My reflexes, as I was hurled towards an old mirror, which could break on impact, caused my eyes to seal my eyes shut and my arms brace forward to catch me.

I never hit the mirror. I fell forward. All the way forward. through the mirror. I landed on the floor. My hands were braced, but the ground slipped from under them. I face planted, and hit my head on the ground.

The ache in my head was throbbing. I rose slowly, rubbing the pain in my head and face. I opened my eyes and looked ahead of me. There was nothing, but pure darkness. A complete lack of light.

Frightened, I turned around. Only, I saw the mirror that I fell through. But... There was me, standing in the room. Through the mirror was my reflection and the room, but around me, the mirror and I were surrounded by only darkness.

I turned my head to look around, but my reflection stood still. A fear I have never felt before bellowed in the pit of my stomach. My reflection… it didn’t move as I moved, then it smiled at me. A devilish grin to match the mistrusting, smiling eyes.

I tried to look behind it, to see Gwen and Liam. They must have seen me fall through the mirror. But they weren’t there. My reflection was alone in the room.

I tried to climb back through, but the mirror was solid. I banged on the glass. My reflection still didn’t move. It only smiled at me.

“We’re coming to get you!” Gwen’s words howled and echoed through the mirror.

“I'm here!” I screamed, but the sound of the words never left my lips.

Liam and Gwen came into the room. I tried to bang on the glass, I tried to get their attention. But it was as if they couldn’t see me. They didn't see me, stuck in the mirror.

Liam called my name three times. My reflection, it’s grin deepened and it pivoted on its feet to turn to them.

“That wasn’t all that bad!” I heard my own voice peel off my reflection’s lips. “Shall we head back, now? Devil’s Fetch, be damned! We survived it.”

I tried to scream, as I banged on the other side of the mirror. But still no sound came out. They never looked at me, or the mirror, as they came and went from the room.

My reflection was the last to leave the room. It did stop, for a moment. Out from under its coat, my coat—a fox's tail slipped out. It stretched it out, gave a wag, to and fro, before it returned under my coat.

I banged on the glass. I screamed and I cried, soundlessly. Nothing.

Soon after, the room through the mirror began to darken into nothing, like the nothing around me. I fell to my knees, and was unable to see my hands in front of my own face. But at least, I could still feel myself being there, I wasn’t nothing, not like my surroundings. Me and the ground were the only sure things that I could feel.

I sat in the dark, completely alone. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I heard it. There was a gnarling growl, somewhere in the darkness behind me. I reached out in front of me, to use the blackened mirror to help me stand, but it was gone.

I heard the growl again, this time, it was closer. I stumbled as I stood.

I ran. I ran and I ran. But the growl always stayed behind me, and always sounded closer than before.

I kept running, from whatever was chasing me. I ran for what felt like forever.

“Is this Hell?” I thought.