A Wick With Two Ends

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. A candle had never burned in that window. Well, at least not since little Francis went missing.

It was years ago. Many. Nobody truly knows how long ago the candle burned, but everyone remembers it clear as day. It burned and burned brightly. Three days straight. Until the wick gave out to the rotting window sill beneath it, allowing the cold air outside to re-glaze the window with a thin layer of ice, sealing the memories of little Francis inside the house forever.

Her father, Everett worked as a coal miner, just like most of the fathers did in Middleton. Twelve hours of back-breaking work in near pitch dark, scraping coal tunnels and loading up mine carts, just to be yelled at by a foreman that your rubbery arms aren't moving fast enough and that you need to produce more output or find a new job. And since Everett was the highest-producing coal miner, his foreman needed him to fill more mine carts so that he would hit his management bonus tier. If Everett slacked, Santa wasn't going to be delivering many presents under the foreman's tree, and with a family already loathing the foreman, if Santa didn't deliver, the foreman would be out on the streets.

"Faster, Everett," the foreman, Garrison, barked at Everett. "Faster you worthless human!"

Everett tolerated the dehumanizing environment because it was an ends to a mean. Hard work meant that his family had a roof over their heads and food on the table. And being that it was 1848, he was thankful to even have a job, and a family to worry about. All of the kids her grew up in the orphanage with were either dead or on their way across country to search for an elusive mineral known as gold. Strike it rich and live high on the hog! he would hear his friends say. He wasn't about to leave his family and search for something that might not even be there. At least with coal, he knew the mine had a life of about fifty years, which was longer than he would live, meaning he had job security.

That is, as long as he could stay alive.

But he truly hated his boss, more so because of the life events Everett had missed, rather than the demeaning insults he had to taken from Garrison.

Little Francis was nine years old, and he had missed eight of her last birthdays because Garrison decided that coal took priority and there was always going to be another birthday, so quit your crying.

It was Francis's ninth birthday. Daddy was supposed to stop by local pharmacy to pick her up a new toy doll, one actually made in France. All the girls at school had one and this was her chance to fit in. She was elated at the thought.

The doll had a porcelain head, a wooden body, and articulated limbs. To her, it was going to be like having a real baby without the crying and diaper changing.

With the pharmacy closing at five, Everett knew he had to punch out by four so he could make the two mile walk to the pharmacy before it closed. Convincing Garrison was going to be his only problem. But he wasn't actually worried about that. He was tired of missing out on Francis's birthdays. He had decided that if Garrison didn't let him leave early, he would just walk out on the job. If he had to, he would work at the local hotel or take the bus to the slaughterhouse and work even harder hours for less pay. It was the sacrifice he was willing to make for his little girl.

"Hey, boss," Everett said, meekly. "I need to get to the pharmacy before it closes at five today."

"And?!" Garrison barked back. "Why can't the misses do it?"

"Daughter is sick and she is caring for her." Everett lied. Who cares. He was sick of the mind games Garrison played with him. "I need to pick up medicine and I need to walk there before they close."

"Oh," Garrison said, displaying an iota of compassion. "Didn't know there was an illness. My assistant is leaving at four to make a bank run. I can have her give you a ride and then drop you off at home. How does that work?"

Oh shit! How would that look if he walked into the pharmacy for medicine and came out with a fucking doll? Maybe he could say that is was needed to cheer her up. But what if Francis was playing outside like she always was during daylight and the assistant saw her? They would know he's lying. But did he really care? He was already prepared to walk away from his job.

"No thanks," Everett said. "The walk will do me some good."

"Don't be foolish," Garrison said, nudging him on the shoulder. "It's twenty degrees out. Colder than a witches titty. Besides, we are almost at our quota and I can't have you goin on and freezing to death."

Everett stared at Garrison, contemplative. He couldn't figure out where this burst of compassion was coming from.

"Well, then, how can I say no to that. Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it," Garrison said. "Literally, don't mention it. I don't need these other gents thinking I have a good heart or anything. You got it, Everett?"

Everett didn't say a word and just saluted to his superior.

#

The ride in Garrison's horse-drawn carriage was murder on the kidneys. Every time they hit a bump, he wasn't sure if he was going to piss himself or throw out his back. Garrison's assistant, Molly, sat in the spring-loaded seat while Everett was relegated to the non-spring-supported rear of the carriage. It was unusual for a woman to be driving a carriage, but she was a little rough around the edges. In fact, there were at least a dozen men in mine that she could beat at arm wrestling. It was those meaty arms that allowed her to take control of a horse and not let the horse control her.

"How you holding up back there, Mr. Winters," Molly asked Everett.

"First time on one of these contraptions and I'm hoping it'll be my last," he said, his voice shaky from the ground beneath.

"You get used to it," she said. "My first time, I just about pissed myself."

Inside he chuckled. She must have been reading his mind.

Everett scowled and studied the horizon in the distance. "Did you see that?" he asked.

"See what?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the road ahead. "All I see is dirt ahead." She hee-yawed the horse to speed up.

"No. Wait!" he ordered her. "Look out there. It looks like there's a little girl in the field. By herself. If it is, we can't just leave her out there. There's nobody around for miles."

"Whoa!" she ordered the horse to stop. "Good boy."

She looked in the direction that he was pointing. "Where at?"

"Right over there," he said as he jumped off the carriage. "She's right there. Blue dress. You can't miss her."

Molly's eyes weren't the best. She squinted and stared off in the distance. "Well look at you with the eagle eyes. Let's go see what's she doing out here and get her over to the sheriff's office. Maybe she's just lost."

"Yeah," he said, quietly. "Lost. Sure."

As he stepped onto the field where the little girl was, the hair on his arms was electrified, like it gets when you're around static electricity. But it was 1848 and science wasn't as common, so he had no clue why his hairs were standing on end. Perhaps it was an internal malady. He ran his hands over his arms, trying to lay the hairs down, but they still sprung up.

He glanced up the girl in the field and noticed that she was standing right in front of him. She was about seven, almost Francis's age. Same baby teeth and all. But her eyes didn't show recognition. They showed a hollowness that only fear can cause. The look on a child's face where you innately know something bad has happened. After all, kids were either smiling or crying. But rarely did they look defeated.

He reached down to grab her hand to ask her her age and he was immediately zapped with electricity. It was like he had stuck his finger in a light socket; a light socket that didn't even exist, yet. His jaw clinched tight. His eyes opened wide. He muscles constricted.

Then he saw an array of lights in his peripheral vision. Dull at first, then brilliant and colorful. He couldn't turn toward them, to see them completely, because his neck muscles were rigid. He wondered why Molly hadn't come to his aid.

As though the little girl had read his mind, she magically turned his head toward the carriage and instead seeing the carriage with Molly and the horse, he saw the front of his cabin. The cabin in the woods. The cabin that was miles away. And there was Francis, chasing butterflies and imaginary friends, as she usually was. Then a little girl showed up in the front yard. In fact, the same little girl who was sending thousands of volts of electricity through his body with her cold, tiny hands.

Francis stopped dead in her tracks as she noticed the little girl appear. The little girl walked into the forest, and Francis followed, as though she had trusted the little girl for years. The little girl lead Francis right up to Mammoth, the massive oak tree.

The little girl stopped at the hollow mouth of the tree that was about three feet tall. It was big enough that kids could walk into the hollow tree and hide from seekers. Aside from bees and spiders, the hollow tree housed nothing more. Everett always told her to stay out of the massive tree because it could fall over any day now.

But on this day, she didn't listen. She followed that little girl right inside the tree and for some unknown reason, the tree immediately burst into flames. Spontaneously combusted. But it was only as though the surface of the tree was on fire, like it was covered in a fire gel that made it look like it was burning, but the fire really caused no damage.

Everett mustered up the energy to turn his head back toward the little girl who was still holding him with her cold hands. As he looked down at her, her face turned from a cherubic smile to that of an old lady with a hideous laugh and a gummy smile. The side her mouth foamed. Drool ran down her chin. It was a grotesque sight. And in an instant, the little-girl-old-lady just disappeared into thin air, releasing Everett's arms and giving him back control of his limbs.

Everett scanned his surroundings, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Molly was gone. The carriage was gone. The road...also gone. But the field looked exactly the same. He was just alone now.

Without giving it much thought, he took off in a full sprint, adrenaline powering him to get home to save his daughter from the burning tree. The French doll would have to wait. Her life was more important, obviously.

#

As Everett sprinted up the street to his cabin, he could see Mammoth up in the distance. And if the vision that the little girl had caused him to see was true, there should have been smoke billowing from Mammoth, but there was nothing. No smoke. No flames. Just a calm breezing dancing over the Autumn leaves and the rustling of the leaves on the ground. But something else was missing from the familiar image. Francis wasn't playing in the yard, waiting to greet Daddy when he got home.

He rushed through the front door and called out to his wife. No answer. He called out for Francis. Again, no answer.

Not wanting to believe the vision he had experienced, he ran to Mammoth as fast as his old boots would let him. He crept up to the tree's mouth and looked inside. It was empty and dark.

He crouched down and crawled inside the trunk, looking around for any sign of fire or his daughter. But neither were apparent.

Then a ring fell from above him and he managed to catch it as it bounced off the inside of the trunk. It was a thin gold ring. He held it in his hand, turning it over many times. He knew this ring. He knew it very well. It was his wife's wedding ring. But why wasn't she wearing it?

He looked up above to where he believed the ring had fallen from, but saw nothing but darkness. He reached his hand up, extending his arm as far as he could hoping to touch some part of the tree above, but there was nothing to touch. He waved his hand around in all directions, trying to reach for the inside of the trunk. That was when he realized the mouth of tree had closed and he saw nothing but darkness in all directions.

He heard a sound behind him. He spun around trying to find a glimpse of anything, but he couldn't even see his hands in front of his face. Then something happened. He got that same static electricity feeling on his arms. He couldn't see his arm hairs, but he felt them rise, almost feeling as though the were going to be ripped from his skin.

Then a flash of light broke the darkness and shocked his eyes. As the light dimmed, he saw the old face of that little girl grinning in front of him. She whispered thank you, and her old face morphed into that of the cherubic little girl he had seen in the field. And as he tried to reach for her, he noticed his arms were being eaten bite by bite, starting with his fingers and slowing consuming him up his arms, until he was completely eaten. And before Mammoth took the last bite of him, Everett realized where his family had disappeared to.

#

Two days had passed since Everett and his family went missing. Garrison showed up at the cabin, searching for his top-performing employee, only to find the entire cabin empty, except for the last bit of a fully-burned candle in the living room window. The town sheriff performed an investigation, too, finding no signs of foul play. It was concluded that Everett and his family had abandoned Middleton since all their belongings were gone.

Just up and gone.

Years later, after the cabin had sat vacant, the candle burned again. But it didn't burn like a normal candle burns. The candle that burned after Francis went missing was now burning in reverse, recreating itself in the process, growing larger and newer with every second that passed.

And as the candle had completely recreated itself, reaching the beginning of the wick, turning new and blowing itself out in the process, a little girl appeared in the window where the candle had burned brightly. It wasn't the little girl that Everett had found in the field.

This little girl was Francis. Not a minute older than she was when she went missing. She placed her hand on the window. The warmth of her hand evaporating the ice that had formed on the window.

There was a look in her eyes. A look like she was contemplating something. Like there was something or someone she was trying to reach out to.

Then a little girl in a blue dress walked up to window and placed her against the glass, covering Francis's hand. Through the glass, their hands were exactly the same size. Although one was cold and one was warm.

Francis's face turned sad. Her eyes were welling up. Her bottom lip quivered. Something was eating at her.

With her other hand, Francis wiped away the condensation on the window, revealing the little girl's face from the field, only her face was looking old even though her body was young. As she blinked, she realized that there wasn't another little girl. The old face she saw in the window was actually her reflection.

She looked past her reflection and saw that Mammoth was smoldering, becoming brighter with flames each second. The flames got angrier and struck out toward the cabin, startling her.

It was time for her to lure a new set of parents to feed Mammoth. As long as she fed Mammoth, she would stay young forever. But she had to feed Mammoth before the candle burned to the bottom or she would be cursed with old age forever.

And so the candle lit.