My Mother Told Me Stories

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. As I crept up the narrow stairway the chilled air brought goosebumps to my skin. The light of the cabin grew further and further away. My feet fumbled on the unsteady wooden stairs. I startled as the wind howled behind the narrow walls. A hand slithered from the shadows and grasped my arm. It was as dark as charcoal and as wispy as a cloud. With fingers so cold they shot through my arm like daggers. I felt the hand wrench me towards the shadows. The thick fog stuck to my arms like viscid honey. Everything went dark. I felt wiry hair scratch at my neck and the sharp nails of the hand dig into my skin. The air was dark but filled with sounds of whispers and shrieks. I pried my free arm out and trailed my fingertips along a cold brick wall. The air grew colder and I shivered as the arm continued to twist and pull. I saw a light. A familiar light, a light like the cabin.

My mother told me stories of the little town, where fog was thick, where shadow people traded at the market and days could last for months. I remembered her speaking the words to me.

“Juliette, you know there are many strange things in the world.” I could see her face and the sweet words slip from her lips in perfect eloquence. “Many things you will understand when you are older, and many things that your mind with never comprehend.”

The darkness started to disappear around me. Through the fog and the lights, I saw a town. With crowds of people as dark as the night sky and others that could only walk on ground and walls. The light crept up the arm and revealed a person. With bruised sunken eyes and engorged lips, with veins that crawled up its face like snakes. As it opened its mouth to talk I saw its teeth. Yellow and defective. Bits of meat and rotten food hung from its gums and brought a foul smell to my nose. I wriggled and squirmed. As I freed my arm from its grasp, I ran. I scraped my feet on the cold ground and felt strikes of pain shoot through my legs. I ran and ran. My mind was in a spiral and my throat was filled with blood. I could see all the people chasing me. The ones on the walls and the ones on the ground. They were right next to me and I could see their hands on my skin. But I could not feel it. All I could feel was an unbearable cold. A cold so bitter it was as if my bones were frozen. Rigid movements as I ran caused me to stubble. As I fell I could see one, one of the people. The people that walked on the walls and on the floor. The people that traded at the markets. People as dark as the night's sky, with hands as black as shadows and as wispy as clouds, right beneath me, but it wasn't someone else, it was me. There was a moment of shock before I hit the ground and felt my whole body grate on the stone.

I woke up. Drenched in sweat. I could see the cabin light and the rickety stairs. The narrow walls, and the shadows. And I saw it. As dark as charcoal and as wispy as a cloud. So cold that my teeth chattered and the skin on my arm froze like a corps in a morg. It was the hand, clawing and scratching at my arm.