Witch's Cabin

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

Seamus held his audience captive, as always from around the crackling bonfire, the rising embers punctuating each ghostly syllable.

Each summer the whole family came up to our grandfather’s old cabin in the woods. While the adults busied themselves with catching up, the cousins sat around the campfire, each of us trying to tell the scariest story. At thirteen, Seamus was the oldest of us, often tied for the best with our twelve-year-old cousin Naoko, who got plenty of practice during Obon when she visited father’s parents in Japan.

I was the youngest at nine, and every time either of them started I felt myself tense in both excitement and fear. I loved this tradition, but I often went to bed with nightmares, the spooky backdrop of the remote Cape Breton woods and massive lake helping in my immersion. But I would not be “the baby” tonight.

“The kids couldn’t remember if they had ever seen anyone in that cabin, but there across the lake, a lone candle flickered. They remembered stories their parents told them about the witch that lived there. Agnes MacDonald. No one knew how old she was when she finally croaked, but it seemed she was always old, and lived alone.

“Did the witch’s ghost come back to claim her cabin? That and a million other questions ran through the kids’ minds. Finally, curiosity got the better of them and they went to investigate. Wolves howled in the distance, and haunting calls echoed over the lake. The kids huddled together, afraid they’d lose each other in the darkening forest. Why did we do this? Some of them wondered. A sudden chill swept across the soil and a shriek filled the air. Was it a banshee, were they all soon to die?

“They had come too far to quit now, the pathway to worn-down cabin now in their sights. They had to know why that candle flickered in the window. Slowly, they crept up to the door and with a loud creeeaaaakkk it opened.

“The only sign of life inside was the flickering old-fashioned candle in the window. Shadows and cobwebs covered the creaky floorboards. They entered slowly, wondering who lit the candle. Whispers echoed off the walls. ‘Turn back!’ they cried, but still they pressed on.

“‘Wait,’ one of the cousins said after a while exploring. ‘Where’s Catriona?’”

I shuddered at the sound of my name. Why did Seamus always have to kill me off in his stories?

“Really?” groaned twelve-year-old Eileen. “Dude, she’s a kid!”

“I-I’m fine,” I assured my older cousin. “Finish your dumb story, mine’s so much better!”

“Sure, it is, Kitty,” Seamus ruffled my hair and laughed.

I pouted, I hated being called ‘Kitty’. That’s what grown-ups called me. The jerk.

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes. “So, anyway, the kids start looking for the youngest cousin and she’s nowhere to be found. Another shriek fills the air. They look around and suddenly there’s this gnarled old woman standing in the window holding a candle. She has wild white hair and skin, and is in a white dress, but she’s covered in blood and ash and where her eyes should be are just two bloody sockets.

“‘Come into the light where I can see you,’ she approached them. ‘Come and face me, trespassers!’

“No one knows what happened next,” Seamus continued, circling the bonfire for greater effect, stalking each of us. “But their parents say they heard the screams from across the lake and they were never seen again.”

“My turn!” I announced jumping from my log, nearly elbowing Naoko as I leapt. “Sorry.”

“Oh, but I’m not done yet, Kitty,” Seamus aimed the light from the phone at his face for further effect. “I haven’t gotten to the scariest part.”

“But the kids are dead?”

“They say that every so often, on a moonless night you if you squint across the lake you can see the orange flicker in from beyond the trees. It’s said Agnes MacDonald wanted vengeance on the cottagers who burned her than left her to rot in a cage for ravens to pick out her eyes. And it all happened right…HERE!”

Something grabbed me from behind and I shrieked, I turned back to see Seamus had some how gotten behind me and began cackling. I could feel the tears starting to pool in my eyes and I turned away.

“Jesus, Seamus!” Eileen groaned once more.

“Oh, come on,” Connor, Eileen’s twin brother, rolled his eyes. “She knew what she was signing up for, didn’t you, Catriona?”

I sniffed and nodded.

“Did that really happen here?” asked Fionn, at eleven he was almost as young as me.

I held out hope that the tiny red haired asthmatic boy would be as afraid as I was. Though the glint in his hazel eyes told me he was more excited than anything. I knew because all six of us had our grandfather’s eyes, even Naoko and the twins.

“It did!” Seamus didn’t break his storytelling voice. “Way back in the olden days there was a witch named Agnes MacDonald who was dragged out of her cabin by villagers. First they tried to drown her, but when that didn’t take they tried to burn her alive. Yet MacDonald still lived, finally, slowly, they raised her up in an iron cage in the tallest tree and trapped her there. Ravens pecked out her eyeballs and feasted on her flesh, as she died, they say as she died, she vowed vengeance on all who live in her forest.”

“Bullshit!” Eileen scoffed. “They never burnt witches in Cape Breton. That crap only happened in Europe.”

“And we definitely would have heard that story before now,” Connor mused. “Good story though, bro.”

Seamus did not like being called out, his freckled face skewed the way our dad’s did when one of us “forgot” to bring home our report cards. “It happened. Dad just said I wasn’t allowed telling that story until Kitty was older.”

Eileen tossed her head back and let out a bitter laugh, I remember thinking that her long black hair might catch fire. “Since when did you think about Catriona while telling ghost stories? I’m still calling bullshit.”

“Well,” Naoko bit her lip. “Mom told me that last summer before coming up. She told me not to tell it though in case it scared Fionn and Catriona.”

“We’re not babies!” Fionn and I insisted in unison.

I silently cursed my aunt wondering why I wasn’t allowed to hear freaking family stories. I loved ghost stories, sure the scariest ones gave me nightmares, but it still wasn’t fair!

“Are you pouting, Kitty?” Seamus teased. “Mom and Dad were right. You are a baby!”

I leapt to my feet stomping. “I am not!”

“Prove it! Why don’t we all go up to the Old Lady MacDonald’s cabin tonight after the grown ups go to bed?”

I hesitated, if the story was true, would the witch’s ghost get me? I pictured Old Lady MacDonald’s bleeding eye sockets and horrifying shriek which sent a chill down my spine. But I couldn’t back down. I didn’t trust my voice not to let out a terrified squeak, so instead I nodded stiffly.

“Seamus, what the hell, bro,” Connor groaned. “She’s a little kid.”

Seamus’s freckled skin flushed, and he looked down, ashamed. Connor was probably the cousin he was closest to, and if he was calling him out, he knew he’d gone too far. Not that I realised that at the time.

“Which is why she shouldn’t go alone!” Naoko piped up. “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost, and there’s one across the lake. Let’s all go!”

“I’m telling you it’s bullshit,” Eileen snapped. “I’m not getting eaten by a coyote because Seamus wants to give Kitty—”

“Catriona!”

“Fine, Catriona nightmares.”

“Actually,” Fionn stood up as well. “I think it could be really fun, like Naoko said, if we all go it’ll be fine. Plus, we’ll get to tell our classes we saw a real live ghost!”

“Live,” Connor chuckled. “Ghosts are dead, my dude.”

“You know what I mean!”

We all burst into laughter before reclaiming our logs around the fire. It wasn’t officially decided, but it seemed that Eileen was out-voted and would have to bear the life-altering title of “chicken”. Something she clearly knew when she snapped at me:

“So, what’s this super scary ghost story that will put Seamus to shame?”

“Well, I—” I had nothing. I was going to tell a Blood Mary story, but there was no chance that would beat Old Lady MacDonald. So instead, I told some strange hybrid of Seamus’s story, Eileen’s Skademagutc tale and Naoko’s onryo story. Looking back, it was a bit of a cluster-fuck, but now I wish that had been the worst thing to happen that night.

The night wound down and the adults helped up extinguish the campfire before we had to go to bed. We slept in the upstairs loft with a sea of toys we’d long since outgrown, my late great grandmother’s porcelain doll collection which stared at us from the hutch, and four bunkbeds sitting along the back wall.

We laid in our prospective bunks and waited for the laughter and shouting downstairs to die down. I clutched my stuffed black cat, Jinxy, to me, secretly hoping they would be up until sunrise. Though it wasn’t likely, my mom and Aunt Colleen had insisted we go to the beach in the morning.

A great thing about Cape Breton was that you could stay at a forest lake house and in less than an hour you could be on a rocky ocean beach ready to swim or collect strange specimens. Something I had been excited about before my brother’s stupid dare.

The laughter finally died, the lights went out and an eerie silence replaced the warmth. The wind cut through the loft rustling the trees, not even a cricket seemed to chirp. I squeezed Jinxy to me and wondered if I could pretend I was a sleep.

I realized how fruitless it was when the creaking of the ladder broke the silence.

“Psst!” Naoko leaned over the side of my upper bunk. “I think they’re sleeping, are you awake, Catriona?”

I nodded and sat up. “Yeah, but Jinxy wants to come to!”

“You’ll just lose her,” Seamus rolled his eyes, unlike me, he did not bother changing into his PJs. “Remember last time?”

I did. I was distraught, inconsolable, screaming at our parents until they found her abandoned in the park late at night. It was probably best to leave her, but my nine-year-old brain wouldn’t let me go into an evil witch’s cabin without my plush companion.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Eileen groaned. “If I get eaten by a pack of coyotes, I’ll be haunting you!”

“You have got to stop reading the news,” Connor snapped. “We’ll be fine.”

We finally left after whispered bickering, all carrying smartphones. We knew reception was crap in the woods, but we did have the flashlight app which proved more useful than one kid’s flashlight kept in the loft in case of a blackout. We slowly crept down the stairs out the empty cabin and into the forest.

I loved playing along the trails in the day, climbing trees and listening for wildlife, but on the moonless night it was nothing like the forest I had played in. twigs and leaves cracked underfoot, branches reached out for us like witch’s gnarled fingers.

“This way,” Seamus pointed his phone light off the beaten path. “MacDonald’s cabin hasn’t been used in like ever, so the trail’s overgrown.”

“Seriously?” Eileen snapped.

A sudden breeze cut through us, howling over the sounds of the forest. At least the crickets were chirping again, but it was a small comfort. We huddled together, the six of us suddenly aware of how vulnerable we all were.

The canopy overhead grew thicker, blotting out the stars, leaving us with only the dim white light of our phones. Every sound warned us to turn back, the moaning of the wind, the rustling of leaves, and soon, to Eileen’s dismay, we heard the baying of coyotes in the distance.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

“It won’t be too much further,” Seamus assured us.

I clutched Jinxy to me and inched closer to Fionn, who by the light of our phones now looked appropriately frightened. As we huddled together, it seemed Seamus and Naoko were the only one’s still excited.

We continued creeping along the dark forest, which grew more unfamiliar with every step. The wildlife grew louder. Frogs and owls sang discordant melodies, joining the coyotes, who were only increasing in volume. I prayed to whatever higher power there might be that it would just stop.

My heart pounded in my ears as my throat tightened. The temperature suddenly dropped and I cursed myself for heading out with a pair of sandals and my pink cotton night gown.

A shriek cut through the night. I whipped my head back despite myself wondering if I would find those eyeless sockets staring back at me. Relief washed over me when I found Naoko had tripped over a root.

“Jesus, Naoko,” Seamus breathed. “I thought you were a bloody banshee!”

Banshee, that was something I hadn’t thought about. My grandfather used to tell us stories about banshees. Didn’t hearing their shriek mean certain death? I was afraid enough, but now I hoped Naoko’s was the only scream we’d hear.

“Something grabbed me!” she insisted. “It was like icy tendrils around my ankle, I swear!”

Eileen came up and shined her phone on the root systems and undergrowth. I crouched beside my older cousin with Fionn and Connor in tow.

“It looks like you just got caught on a branch here,” she pointed to the branch wrapped around Naoko’s ankle.

I bent over to examine it more thoroughly. Jutting out of the undergrowth was a gnarled branch with five twisted spear like digits reaching to grasp Naoko’s ankle. It looked so...human…

Maybe my imagination was simply playing tricks on me.

“Whoa!” Fionn gasped. “That looks just like a hand in a zombie movie!”

“Like the ones just popping out of their grave?” Connor mused. “I see it.”

Great, it wasn’t my imagination. Naoko stared at the thing, her excitement finally giving way to unease. A witch’s ghost in an abandoned cabin in the woods suddenly felt much less exciting and more frightening.

Some part of me wanted to scream ‘I told you so’ to Seamus, but the fear of grasping trees, ghouls and rabid coyotes silenced it.

“Bullshit!” Seamus cried. “You’re always trying to scare us, Naoko. It’s just a stupid branch, and you tripped. Let’s go to where the real scary shit is now. Please.”

That’s a load of crap! It was normally Seamus trying to scare everyone, especially me. I thought to call him out on it, but saw how face fell upon seeing the branch. For the first time it had crossed my mind that Seamus, too, might be frightened.

We continued along, huddling closer than ever, if even the forest was out to get us, we didn’t stand a chance. The canopy thinned out and the silhouette of a single floor run down cabin came into view.

“Is that a light?” Eileen pointed a flickering orange flame in the dusty window.

We approached with caution, the cabin becoming clearer with every step. The roof seemed to have caved in at parts, the windows were slick with dust and grime, and the stone path leading to the decrepit porch chocked with grasses and root systems.

Seamus ran up the steps, which groaned loudly under his weight. We all cringed watching him, but aside from creaky protests, the steps help him. Seamus took his sleeve and wiped a circle around in order to peer inside.

“Guys, this is insane, all I can see are dust and freaking cobwebs. If there is someone other than Old Lady MacDonald then they are not living in style.”

Connor picked up a rock from the ground and followed suit. “We should take a look around inside!”

Eileen and Naoko came up next, Eileen saying it was a bad idea and that it was probably just some homeless squatter, and Naoko said it was a good idea, her fear from earlier having melted away.

“Well,” Eileen huffed. “Do Catriona and Fionn get a vote?”

My older brother and cousins turned to me, five pairs of hazel eyes pleading for my decision. I clutched Jinxy even tighter to me and knew what I wanted. I wanted to go home, ghost stories were exciting, but this was different. But I also didn’t want to live the rest of my days labeled “chicken”. So I did what any self-respecting nine-year-old would do, I abstained.

“I’m happy to do what the majority want,” I forced a smile. “What about you, Fionn?” Oh god, please say “no!”

Fionn mused for a moment and adjusted his glasses before glancing at the candle. “Let’s do this!”

Damn!

We clustered together, Seamus once more taking the lead, reading to bash the door’s murky window in with a rock. He posed to smash the old glass when suddenly, with a loud creak the front door flew open.

But no one was there.

The front room, now bathed in the white light of our phones. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs covered every inch of the cabin. A fireplace stood opposite us with decaying logs still resting inside and a rusting cauldron hanging from within. What looked to be a spoon still sat with in it.

The last person to be here was from a long time ago, but they left in a hurry. The cauldron and rotting wood dinner ware on the table told us that when they left, they never came back. I shuddered when I remembered that Old Lady MacDonald had been dragged from her cabin by angry villagers who accused her of witchcraft.

Was Seamus telling the truth? Did she vow revenge on all who entered here? I shuddered to think of MacDonald’s gruesome end and once again imagined those eyeless sockets staring into my eyes.

We split up to explore different sections of the small one room cabin. Luckily, unlike in Seamus’s story, there weren’t many opportunities to get lost. Seamus and I were by the window, examining the waxy candle, orange flame still flickering in silence.

I stepped forward and heard an audible squelch. I looked and blinked in disbelief, what seemed to be a perfect imprint of a woman’s bare foot appeared before mine. Wet foot prints led up to the open window where the candle sat.

Wait, was that window open before? “Um, Seamus?”

“If you’re scared, Kitty, you can go home,” he groaned.

“No, it’s not that-it’s—” I swallowed. “How did you say the villagers killed her again?”

“Oh!” Seamus beamed at the opportunity to tell the story. “They tried to drown her in the lake first, than burn her, and then she was left for dead in a gibbet. Spooky, right?”

“Well,” I squeaked. “It’s about to get spookier. There are wet foot prints leading up to the window.”

All six of now crouched at the decaying wood floor, staring at the strange foot prints leading to the candle. None of us could deny that these were a grown woman’s foot prints, and worse, very recent.

“Okay!” Eileen shouted, leaping to her feet. “Whoever the hell you are you have ten seconds to cut the crap or I’m calling the police.”

“We don’t have reception out here,” Connor reminded her with a whisper.

“They might not know that, genius!” she spat.

Seamus thought to take another approach, standing from in his spot. “Are you Old Lady MacDonald?”

Naoko jumped on to this with excitement. “Was this your home? Can you do something, maybe show us a sign?”

Naoko got her wish. A sudden breeze swept through the cabin, cutting through our bones and extinguishing the candle.

We were plunged into darkness with only the light of our phones.

A blood curdling shriek echoed through the cabin, Seamus and Naoko got their sign. That scream was not human, to this day, I have never heard anything like that again.

Fear took over and we all poured out of the cabin as fast as our legs could carry us. Not looking back until…

I was no longer carrying my stuffed cat in my arms.

“Jinxy!” I cried. “I have to go back for her!”

“Are you crazy, Kitty?” Seamus snapped. “That thing is out there! You are not going back for a stuffed---”

I didn’t let him finish. I sprinted back to the cabin as fast as I could to save my Jinxy. I hesitated at the door, but forced myself through.

I bent over by the window where we had been investigating and found Jinxy where I left her on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered, hugging her tight to me.

“Get out!” a cold voice rasped.

Cold breath danced down my neck and I slowly turned to face a gaunt, pallid old lady with wild white hair, paper-thin skin, and hollow bloody sockets for eyes staring into mine.

My brothers and cousins look back on that summer fondly, thinking of how we scared ourselves silly. But I still wake every night to the image of those hollow, bloodied sockets staring back at me with centuries of rage.