At the Sound of the Toll...

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window." Seth paused for effect and took a long drink from his heavy tankard. He thunked it on the table so that ale slopped over the side, and he grinned at the little girl sitting on the lap of one of the other men sitting at the table. She stared wide-eyed at the storyteller, holding onto his every word as though her life depended on it.

Anna felt apprehension seeing them tell the village’s ghost story about the cabin in the woods on the west side of town to a girl of what she judged to be nine or ten. While she didn’t mind hearing the men tell creepy stories to older women in an attempt to earn their company for the night, she hadn’t the slightest idea what their intentions were with this girl. She visited their table more often than she normally would, even on a mellow night, to refill their tankards and resupply them with fresh bread and cheese.

“Now it’s been said,” Seth continued, “that when a candle appears in the cabin window, it means that the one seeing it is about to die.”

The girl gasped slightly, and the men tittered. “So when ol’ Nathan Turner saw it, he about dropped dead in fright jus’ seein’ it! The others tha’ were with him, o’course, didn’t see a thing because it can only be seen by the one who the spirit of the banshee inside calls to. It’s said that her screams sound like a screeching bell that separates your soul from body and muscle from bone.”

“Bong!” one of the men said. A couple of the others laughed.

If the girl was horrified, her face didn’t show it. She sat upright on the man’s lap, her back straight as though poised to answer a teacher’s question. Her white dress fell to below her knees. She had long blonde hair that flowed undone down her back. Her eyes, though, were what captivated Anna’s attention; midnight blue with flecks of purple in the iris.

Anna felt a strange pull toward her that she couldn’t explain. She’d seen children playing in the inn before, but none of them captured her attention like this one. She had always wanted a child and had earlier that day felt slightly down over not having had one yet, so she supposed that might have been the reason. She did have standards, after all. Stonehaven was a small village, and there just weren’t any decent men left. Wasn’t the fact that these men were trying to scare a poor young girl proof of that?

“The others that were with Nathan kept tellin’ him to go touch the door. And you know what? He went on and did it! ‘Course none of the others knew that poor Nathan had no choice, ‘cuz once you see that candle, you can’t stop yerself from goin’ in.

“And so he goes and opens the door; sumthin that no one’s ever done before. And then…” He leaned in toward the table and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Them boys that was outside heard the tolling.”

Anna held her breath. She knew this part of the story and worried how it would affect the girl. She longed to intervene and save her from what she was about to hear.

“Bong.”

He paused.

“Bong.”

Pause.

“Bong.”

The other men started chanting. “At the sound of the toll, you forfeit your soul. At the sound of the toll, you forfeit your soul.”

As they said this over and over, Seth continued his story. “You see, all they heard was the tolling of a bell, but poor Nathan Turner, he heard the banshee’s screams. And each of those screams shook him to his bones, threatening to burst his body into a million pieces.

“One of the lads peaked in the window where the candle was said to have been, and do you know what he saw?”

The girl shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“He saw poor Nathan’s chest explode as his soul was forced from his body and into the gaping maw of that befouled spirit.”

“At the sound of the toll you forfeit your soul.”

Anna was done. “Alright that’s enough! You all are a bunch of soulless crooked-nosed bastards! Scaring a poor little child like that! How dare you!”

The girl looked up at Anna curiously, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t look scared, but that was hardly the point.

“Aww Anna, don’t be like that. We was only havin’ a bit o’fun,” Seth pleaded. “And she’s the one that asked fer the story anyways.”

“I don’t care! You ought to know better! Out! All of you!”

She gestured for the girl to come towards her. “Come along dear, I’ll take you home,” she said warmly.

The full moon hadn’t yet fully risen, but it illuminated their walk out in the village of Stonehaven all the same. A cool breeze tousled their hair and dresses. The town was quiet except for the activity back at the inn. No one was out. Nearly all of the townsfolk had closed up shop for the night. Anna and the girl walked in silence for a time, then Anna asked for her name.

“Ionia,” she said.

“Well that’s probably one of the prettiest names I’ve ever heard. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

Ionia said nothing. She merely looked up at Anna for a brief moment before turning her face back to the road.

Anna felt her face go red. Icy dread that she was failing at the conversation began to wend its way through her stomach.

“I-I’m sorry that Seth and those men scared you,” she said. “They didn’t hurt you did they?”

Ionia shook her head. “No. I’m not hurt. I’m not scared either.” Her tone was oddly flat. It might have been perceived as annoyance. The thought constricted Anna’s throat, and she figured it might be better to not say anything.

“Can I ask you something?” Ionia said abruptly as they entered a more desolate region of the village.

Anna was caught off guard. “Of course dear.”

“Was that story real?”

Surely she didn’t think that Seth and those other men were serious. She considered the tale a mindless fantasy meant to frighten the ignorant and spur on the foolish into seeking out the cabin for a bit of fun, never something to be taken seriously.

“That story has been told and retold so many times. I myself have heard three different versions of it. It’s the kind of thing that happens with myths and legends. You shouldn’t put a lot of stock in it.”

“But isn’t the cabin a real place?"

“It’s the kind of story that develops over something that is unknown. In this case, probably no one knew who lived in the old cabin, so someone likely started letting their imaginations run wild. I envision loads of children playing games where they would dare each other to run up to the porch and touch the door and run away real fast.”

Ionia nodded. “My brothers used to do something like that to me,” Ionia said. “I would always hear them talking about who was going to go knock on my door while I was reading. When I would answer, there wouldn’t be anyone there. I know they just ran away, but sometimes I would imagine it was a ghost.”

“I’m so sorry dear,” Anna said believing that Ionia was recounting some horrific tale of sibling oppression. “Where are your brothers now?”

Her eyes seemed to drift out of focus. It looked as though her pupils dilated to the point where they covered her whole eye. The stars reflected against their glistening surface. Her mouth hung slightly open. It seemed to Anna that Ionia had entered into some kind of trance.

Anna had seen this happen once before; her sister Emma was attacked by a man when she was twelve. Every time they asked her to talk about it, her face would suddenly go slack as though all the muscles lost their ability to keep her face straight. She stopped looking like herself when this happened. The memory sent chills up and down her arms.

It seemed worse with Ionia. The slackness of her face wrinkled her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes looked gaunt and sunken in, her body looked emaciated. All at once, she appeared to Anna as an aged woman. No, not an aged woman; she looked like the very image of death.

The effect lasted only a moment, but it was enough to send a jolt of adrenaline through Anna. It felt as though her heart needed a moment before deciding to keep pumping. Ionia’s pupils returned to normal and the far-off stare evaporated. Her eyes met Anna’s.

“Dead,” she said. “They died five years ago.”

Somehow, Anna wasn’t all that surprised to hear that. Nor did she really want to hear more about them. She muttered her apology and continued walking, suddenly anxious for this foray to be over. Ionia looked as though she wanted to say more, but she followed in Anna’s wake.

They continued to walk until they reached the cobblestone wall that marked the edge of the village. Anna’s dread increased. She hadn’t realized it, but they had been walking toward the west side of town. They were near to the woods. Anna could see the dark trees looming ahead; a sinister hoard of twisted shapes in the night. The moon cast shadows that, with the cool breeze, made the forest appear to be breathing.

The cabin lay not far beyond the tree line.

Ionia’s eyes were focused straight ahead into the darkness. “Is that it? The place were the cabin is?”

Anna blinked. “W-what?”

“The cabin. Is that where it is?”

“I…” she desperately didn’t want to answer. She wished that she hadn’t thought to save her from Seth. What had she hoped would happen? That she would suddenly become the mother she so longed to be because she decided to save a child from a bunch of big scary men? She only longed for the safety and comfort of her bed now.

She pressed the thumb and middle finger of her hand to her temples, briefly blocking her vision with her hand. “Yes Ionia, that’s where the cabin is.”

When she removed her hand. Ionia was nowhere to be seen.

Apprehension and dread flooded her body as she looked toward the forest. She managed to see the hint of a white dress disappear between two gnarled trunks. Now she knew she was in trouble.

Just turn around, she told herself. She’s not your problem. Just turn around and go home.

But she couldn’t stop her feet from moving. Of their own accord, they seemed to carry her beyond the tree line. The trees glared down at her she shuffled through the brambles and roots. Every creak of a branch gave her the feeling that the trunks were moving in on her. She stumbled several times not being able to see the forest floor. Once or twice she thought she caught the eyeshine of some unknown creature leering at her; mocking her stupidity for chasing a child she didn’t even know through a dark wood with no lantern to guide her way.

She wanted to turn back, but she wasn’t sure if she could find her way out. She wanted to cry out for Ionia to come help her, but her throat would not allow noise to escape. She thought about just stopping and standing there until dawn, but even that ever-so-slight hope could not override her feet seeming to move of their own volition.

Her feet touched steps. Her head snapped up to see the cabin.

A lone candle burned in the dark window.

No! she thought. It’s not real! No! Don’t make me go in there!

Why couldn’t she stop her feet from moving? Tears began falling down her face. Her will had broken. She was no longer in control. The cabin had her now.

The door creaked open. Decay and rot forced open Anna’s nostrils causing her to wretch. The light from the candle illuminated the room just enough for her to barely make out her surroundings. The inside was only a single room; but the heavy wooded remains that covered the floor suggested that there had, at one time, been many rooms in the place. The floor cracked and buckled as soon as Anna stepped on it. On the far wall across the broken timbers was a small hearth.

Ionia stood before the tiny fireplace; her back was to Anna.

Anna’s feet carried her to her side. She suddenly grabbed Anna’s forearm in a vice grip. Her hand was icy. Anna’s body seized up. She couldn’t move.

“I told my brother Nathan to stop knocking on my door so many times,” Ionia said. “But he wouldn’t stop.”

She gripped tighter; her nails dug deep into Anna’s skin. Anna felt warm blood dripping down. A warmth that was quickly snuffed out by the chill of the dead hand that was now holding her.

“And so I had to stop him from doing it.”

She flung Anna hard onto the ground. Her face elongated into a grin that was too large for her face. Her midnight blue eyes became black as coal. Her hair blazed white and seemed to ripple backward from her. An awful wind seemed to blow all around her.

“The others saw what I did to him.” Her voice sounded evil; otherworldly. “They also had to be stopped.”

Her mouth opened wide; her jaw stretched down to her chest. Anna could only see a dark void in the pit beyond her mouth. Her next words happened in a hiss. “And now I must continue to keep my story from being forgotten.”

The wail that emanated started low then rapidly increased in shrillness that climaxed in a violent impact against her skull.

“ScreeeeeeEEEEEEE!!” BONG.

The sound reverberated all around, splintering the timbers. Anna heard the snapping of branches outside.

“ScreeeeeeEEEEEEE!!” BONG.

Anna felt something slam into her chest. But it came not from Ionia; it came from inside her as though something was trying to break out. Anna was involuntarily thrown forward at the internal impact.

BONG.

She felt her rib cage shatter. Her bones popped as marrow and sinew ripped away from her muscles.

BONG.

Her skull began to crack. She felt her nose break. Blood gushed down from each nostril and was blown away by the intense wind.

BONG.

With the final chime, her chest exploded outward. The light that emanated from her body hovered in front of Ionia for a brief moment. Then with a breath like a rattle, she pulled the light into her gaping maw.

A final thought passed through Anna before she entered into that dark nothingness:

At the sound of the toll, you forfeit your soul.