Marwolaeth

The sound of the engine was almost deafening in the silence of the property. The house was the only building for miles, tucked away in a tiny corner of the countryside. When I’d asked for directions to Marwolaeth, a name I could hardly pronounce, the locals had shrunk back from me in fear. They asked what business I had going there. I was the new owner of the property, and I told them so. One woman crossed herself; another clutched her child to her side, burying him in her skirts.

“That house is haunted.” The first woman whispered, as if she feared saying the words too loudly. “You should not go there alone.”

“I think I’ll be fine.” I said, before politely asking for directions again. An older man gave them to me, sending me five miles down the road until I reached a tree that had been struck by lightning, where I was to make a left and follow the road until I found the house. Now that I was here, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would even want to come to see the house. It had fallen into disrepair: the shingles were cracked and falling off the roof, the walls were broken in places. I was sure there was a rodent infestation inside, but I would never know unless I looked.

Marwolaeth had belonged to a distant uncle and had come into my hands after his death. As far as I knew, it had been vacant for many years. My uncle had lived in the city, but kept the house and its extensive property. Broken glass crunched under the weight of my boots as I walked up the front path; the window set into the door had been smashed in, rendering the set of keys that had been sent to me unnecessary. I suppressed a shiver at the thought of stepping into the house. But a storm was brewing and the slight shelter of the walls, those that were still intact at least, would be welcome defense against the wind.

The stench of rot and decay crashed over me. This house had clearly seen better, drier days. No room had been left untouched by the elements, or by the vandals I suspected had visited from the village. I doubted the birds and deer were throwing rocks through the windows. The stairs creaked ominously as I made my way to the upper floor, which was similarly ruined. Outside there was a clap of thunder and it began to rain. Water leaked through the cracks in the roof, dripping on my head as I walked down the hall.

The first door I opened appeared to have been a bedroom. A moldering mattress with ruined velvet hangings crouched in the center of the room, dark wood furniture crowding along the edges. But what drew my attention was the massive iron chest. When I kicked it with the toe of my boot, it echoed faintly, as if it was full to the brim. The lock disintegrated in my hands when I tugged on it. A great cloud of dust erupted from the chest. It stung my eyes and flooded my lungs, but when the dust cleared I was able to examine the treasures within. Yellowing silk nightgowns, an ivory fan, a small chest of jewelry, all these I set aside, digging deeper into the chest until it was empty, save a small leather bound book at the very bottom. The binding was badly damaged from the ravages of time and the ever-persistent damp. The pages, however, were mostly intact. According to the neat, precise handwriting on the first page, the book belonged to a Miss Edith Montgomery. The distant uncle who’d owned this house was also a Montgomery.

Having nothing better to do than flip through a dead woman’s diary, I settled on the floor next to the bed to read it by the dim light coming through the cracked window. At first it was rather boring, describing this ball and that tea and a number of other social engagements she’d attended. But scattered between the mentions of petticoats and fans, was the description of the house. Marwolaeth was old when she lived in it, making it older still as I sat in it now. As I continued to skim the pages, I noticed the entries taking a darker turn. She’d been hearing noises at night, a strange scratching that echoed through the house. Her father brushed it off as a vermin problem.

Then she began to see…something. She wasn’t sure what it was, as she could never get a good look at it. Whatever it was, it had hands, long, skeletal hands that whipped out of sight as soon as she noticed them. I found myself fearing for her safety as well as her sanity. She didn’t dare tell her father she’d seen something, just in case he thought she was mad and sent her away. I thought she was mad, too. She mentioned a love of novels; maybe that was giving her an overactive imagination.

That idea quickly flew out of my head as I read the next entries. There had been a number of livestock deaths in a matter of days, starting with chickens and moving onto goats and horses. They’d all been found strangled with a strange pattern around their necks, like handprints with too-long fingers. Her father blamed a drifter from the village, who was then arrested. But the deaths continued. Edith’s horse, Cariad, was found dead beneath her window. Edith began to sleep with the candles burning around her, if she slept at all. All night she could hear the scratching in the walls. The people in the village had begun to whisper about a curse on the house, a creature stalking Marwolaeth in the night, a creature that had been there before. Soon no one would come to the house, no matter how much money they were offered.

Things came to a head when a groom was found dead outside the stables, his face frozen in a silent scream, the strange pattern Edith had come to know so well looping his neck. She stole a small knife from the kitchen and kept it clutched in her hand beneath a blanket. She didn’t sleep all night, but kept watch by the window to try to catch the creature in the act. By now she was sure it was a thing, not a person. She stayed by the window for seven nights, watching the grounds for the pale figure that was wreaking death upon her home. But she never saw it. The last entry was scribbled down hurriedly, her normally neat handwriting spiking wildly across the page. She’d seen the creature finally, a horrible thing with jagged teeth and white eyes. The scratching was louder tonight. She was sure it was coming for her, and she was ready for it. She’d stolen a pistol from her father’s study. She’d talked to a woman in the village, who’d told her the creature was called a-

The final page was missing. I opened the trunk again, thinking that maybe the page was stuck to the inside. But it seemed like the diary ended there. What had happened to brave Edith? The house had been abandoned for nearly a hundred years after the date of the last entry. I feared the worst, although I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. A creature stalking the night and strangling livestock? How could I believe that?

Over the sound of the pounding rain, I heard a scratching noise that sounded like it was coming from under the bed. The rational part of me wanted to write it off as some kind of small animal. A house this old, this long in disrepair, a mouse would have certainly taken up residence in the relative safety of the bedroom. I backed away from the bed nonetheless, the fear of what Edith had seen taking over me.

“Nothing’s there.” I assured myself. The storm raged on outside the window, blurring my view of the car and the surrounding trees. From the corner of my eye, I saw a long, skeletal hand reach out of the darkness under the bed.