Tales from the Jar

The Girl

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Since that night the girl had continued to visit the cabin, the mysteries inside pulling her back night after night. With a sharp pop she dislocated her thumb, she barely flinched. Tugging, she removed her hands from the chains that bound her to her bed and slipped off into the night.

The Man

With a soft thump the window in her room clicked shut. The man listening with his ear pressed against the door felt his stomach drop. This was the 6th night that she’d snuck out. He felt the heat of his blood rushing to the surface of his skin. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or fear that was overtaking him. He rushed downstairs to the kitchen, his bare feet plopping hard against the brown wood. When he got to the kitchen window he could just barely make out the soft pink of her tattered dress disappearing in the thick of the brush. A defeated sigh brought him to his knees. There was no use in chasing her. She’d be back before the sun rose. She always was.

The Girl

The girl wore shoes this time. A pair of brown flats that were weathered and worn on the side. They were her mothers, and they were too big. . Last time the branches underneath her feet had torn through her socks, slicing her skin as she barreled in the darkness. The girl didn’t know how long she’d been running. She only knew that she was close. Up ahead for just a faint second she caught a glimpse of yellow light before it was hidden again behind the trunk of a tree. She ran faster, careful not to stumble and fall over the too huge shoes. It wasn’t long before that light popped into view again. This time she didn’t lose sight of it. It grew closer and closer until the bright light of the candle was all there was. She came to a stop.

There it was. The cabin. Her own personal discovery. Her little glimpse into the outside world that The man tried so hard to hide from her. At the thought of him the snack she’d eaten earlier threatened to hurl itself back up her throat. She shifted her focus back on the greying cabin that sat like a giant shadow in the large clearing. It was surrounded only by trees, and a rubble dirt path that lead into the woods. Quick and as nimble as a mouse she slithered into the small opening of the cabin door to wait.

The Woman

With her cane the woman pushed open the door to the cabin. Flipping a switch, warm light flooded the room. She stood in the doorway for a moment taking in her surroundings. Up in the rafters she heard a soft creak.

Ahhhhh, she smiled. The trickster. Her nightly visitor was back once again.

Concealing the smirk on her face she sauntered into the room.

The Man

The clock read 12. It had been two hours since she’d left. There he sat, in her spot, the plate of uneaten food taunting him. Yes, she needed to get home. She needed to get home now.

The Girl

From the rafters the girl watched the old woman walk into the cabin. For a moment, on instinct, she held her breath. Only choosing to breathe when the woman sat on the pile of velvet cushions that were in the middle of the floor. It was the only clean spot in the dusty cabin. Everything else was covered in a thick coating of beige dust that permeated every inch of the room. Everything about the cabin intrigued the girl. So much so, she’d snuck in every night just to watch the old haggard woman as she performed her nightly rituals. Though, that wasn’t the real reason why she came every night. The cabin held a bigger mystery.

The jars.

In shelves all around the cabin were a multitude of clear mason jars. There had to be over a hundred of them. If the girl knew how to count, maybe she’d know for sure. But there was so much that the girl didn’t know. This however, was one mystery that the girl was going to figure out. Each of the jars held something different. When the woman was gone she’d sneak down to catch a peek at them. They held an assortment of trinkets and oddities that made no sense to the girl. Things like strands of hair, old toys, socks, a button, and other miscellaneous items that had no rhyme or reason. In one there was even the carcass of a dead rat.

Each night she would watch the woman go to the shelves and grab a jar. She never opened them. Instead she would bring it back to her spot on the floor, hold it close to her lips, and chant unrecognizable words into them. This she did for a few minutes or up to an hour. Then she would stop, take the jar and put it back on the shelf, before exiting the cabin and wandering off into the night.

Like clockwork she watched the woman stand up from her cushions. She walked over the wall, her eyes probing the shelves, as if she was looking for a particular jar. When she found it, she reached up and plucked it from where it sat on the shelf, blowing out a bit of dust as she did so.

As she brought it over to the cushions the girl leaned forwards. However, her heart caught in her chest when the woman did something she hadn’t been expecting. With a loud pop she twisted the lid off the jar, dumping its contents onto the small table in front of her.

The girl barely caught the gasp that threatened to escape.

A small smile stretched across the woman’s lips. Looking up at the rafters her piercing eyes locked onto where the girl sat in the dark. When she opened her mouth to speak her voice was like old leather,

“C’mon down girl. I have a story to tell you”

The Man

He was going to be sick. He wiped the sweat gathered on his brow before jumping up from the table making his chair scrape hard against the floor. In a few hours the sun would start to rise. She always made sure to come back before sunrise. It was their unspoken agreement. He rushed up to her room. He began to clean. He could occupy his time with getting everything ready for her return. He picked up the muddy clothes from the night before and threw them into the white hamper on her bedside. Removing the chains off her bed, he straightened the covers leaving a corner peeled back so that she could slip in with ease on her return.

She would return wouldn’t she?

No, he couldn’t let doubt ease into his mind. She wouldn’t leave him willingly.

The Woman

Slowly, carefully, and slinking with a feline grace the little trickster hopped down from the rafters. It wasn’t fear in her eyes as she crept closer to the woman. Instead buried deep in her dark irises was apprehension with a hint of curiosity. The woman had a feeling the girl wasn’t the type to be easily intimidated. The girl plopped on the red cushion across from the woman. The scent of her was leafy and stale. Her dress a pink mangled mess of rips and tattered cloth. With her wild bushy hair, stuck through with leaves, she looked as if she belonged to the forest itself. If the girl was bothered by the woman’s staring she didn’t let on. Instead, her eyes traced the woman’s figure across from her in return. When the woman spoke again the girl gave a tiny jump of surprise.

“Do you like stories girl” the woman asked.

The girls eyes grew distant for a moment, thinking deeply before giving a small curt nod. On cue the woman picked up the now empty jar that sat on the tiny table in front of them. She held it out to the girl.

“Do you know what this is”

“A jar?” her voice was small, yet raspy like leaves crunching under bare feet.

The woman chuckled knowingly “ Yes, but do you know what it’s for. You’ve observed me long enough surely you must have figured it out”

Surprise and mild embarrassment flickered across the girls face briefly before her eyes turned downward. Her small petite shoulders gave a slight shrug.

The woman paused before she spoke again “What do you know of root work girl”

“Root work?” the girl finally lifted her eyes back to the woman, her curiosity once again piqued.

“Voodoo, witchcraft, magic, or whatever they’re calling it these days” the woman spat unable to hide the disdain in her voice. It pained her to know how belittled and forgotten the work of her ancestors had become.

“Magic?”

The woman gave a shrug of her shoulders “Well yes, if that’s what helps you understand it better. But my people, my ancestors call it root work. A practice so ancient and forgotten to the point that it’s now become mere myth and legend” She paused for a moment. Allowing the girl who was now leaned forward, eyes wide as saucers, time to process the information.

A smile tugged at the corners of the woman’s lips and she continued on. She held up the jar again

“These jars are special. Every single jar in this room contains my root work. Spells, curses, Enchantments, you name, it all sealed shut inside. That’s why these jars can never be opened, root work that’s not contained is free to wreak havoc, and that can be a deadly thing. Especially for curses. However, these jars over time lose their enchantment. Which is why I come in here every night, resealing the ones that threaten to come undone.”

“So every jar has a different story?” the girl asked, almost leaning off the cushion in anticipation. Her eyes greedily soaking up all of the information.

The woman gave a nod “Yes, there’s a story behind every jar in here. Some more tragic than others of course.”

The girl finally leaned back. Her eyes growing out of focus for a moment before narrowing in on the small table with the emptied jar contents in front of them.

“What’s the story behind this one” the girl asked, not taking her eyes from the items scattered on the table.

A wave of satisfaction rolled through the woman skin, releasing a long awaited anticipation that had coiled inside her body. A dark lilt entering her voice she focused in on the girl.

“I thought you’d never ask”

The Man

The man was back in the kitchen, pacing in front of the window. Every minute that passed set his skin on edge. On the countertop the static from the radio filtered in through his brain fog. A few words struggled to break through the mangled signal. But it was one word in particular that made him stop in his tracks.

“….killed….”

He ran to the radio without hesitation, tuning the knob desperately. When the signal broke through, the words now rushing out clearly, he stopped to listen.

“The authorities aren’t sure how long the killer who has now been connected to the string of murders involving several young women found in Wilshire Woods, has been on the loose. However, after the most recent murders, they are advising parents to keep their kids away from the woods while they conduct their search and the culprit is apprehended. These murders have all but shaken the small town of Wilshire……”

The words faded out. The man couldn’t stop the hardening of his chest as something sick pooled in his stomach. Without warning he felt his body moving, as if jerked into auto pilot. He opened the drawer near the sink. The cold steel of the gun barrel filled his hands as he removed it. Moving with the intent of a mad man desperate to save his own, he stuffed it into his pants before heading out into the darkness.

The Girl

As the woman started her tale, the girl watched fascinated while she sorted through the items she’d just dumped out moments earlier. There was nothing special about the items on the table. A lock of black hair tied with a white bow, what looked to be finger nail clippings, and a cross made of two small twigs. The woman picked up the cross, and began to wrap it with a black piece of twine, looping it a few times, before stopping to interlace a piece of the hair from the bow.

“It’s important to note girl” the woman started. Her dark wrinkly skin reflecting mahogany in the warm light of the cabin.

“These jars are never to be opened. And if they are it’s under the rarest of circumstances. Every spell, enchantment, or curse comes with a price.”

She paused to look at the girl pointedly “However, people tend to overestimate how much they can actually handle, and when the price is too much for them to pay they come to me begging me to undo the work. Every time I refuse. Undoing the work comes with consequences of its own, ones I dared not bear inflicting upon myself.”

The woman held up the tiny cross “But this my dear girl. This will be my exception”

“What price will you have to pay?” the girl asked.

Something dark settled over the woman. “That will be for the work to decide”

Before the girl could inquire what she meant the woman began her tale. Her fingers once again busy wrapping the stick with twine.

The Perfect Family

There once was a man and a woman. A perfect man and a perfect woman.

They had everything you could ever ask for.

A perfect home.

The perfect dog.

The perfect life.

Although, with their perfect life one thing was missing. A child, but not just any child, the perfect child. The man and woman tried for years but the woman’s womb was weak. Unable to hold the weight of a babe she would lose pieces of herself with each child that was ejected from her womb.

Her imperfect womb.

The man watched his once perfect wife become a shell of her former self. They’d tried everything. Traditional and holistic methods, countless doctor’s visits, all to no avail.

Hopeless The man watched as his perfect wife and perfect life crumbled before his eyes. Spoiling over like the bruised rind of an orange peel.

Just as his wife was on the verge of giving up, the man heard tales of an old woman. A healer who lived out in the forest. A woman who for the right price could fix any and every problem. The man was a skeptic, but he was also desperate, he had nothing to lose. With his wife he went to the woods with a bag of money hanging off his side. There were no roads to the woods, so the man and the woman had to walk. They walked for what seemed like hours, fighting sweat and exhaustion before stumbling up an old grey cabin.

The broken man and the broken woman walked into the cabin, desperation hanging over them like a thick cloud.

The old woman sat in the middle of the room. Surrounded by an assortment of jars. When the old woman looked up, the man rushed over and sat down the bag of money.

“How much?” He asked.

“My wife’s womb can’t hold a babe. We’ve tried for years to bear a child but nothing seems to work.”

The woman smiled at the man. A knowing smile that sent chills up the man’s arms. She picked up the bag of money and tossed it to the side.

“I don’t need your money” scolded the woman. “The price to be paid will be determined by the work.”

With a smile the woman agreed to help the broken man and broken woman become whole again. She picked up the empty jar and gave the man a list of items to bring back in the jar the very next day.

“The items will need to be in the jar for at least 12 hours before you bring them back.”

Listening to the woman’s instructions the man took the jar and with the woman he left. When he got home he collected everything the woman instructed.

A lock of hair from him and his wife, toenail clippings from his wife’s right foot, and a cross made of two twigs. He sat them in the jar sealing it tight for the next day.

When they woke again the man and the woman went back through the woods to the cabin once more. An air of hope led their way. They handed the jar to the woman who inspected the items closely. She instructed the wife to lay down and set the jar on her stomach just below the belly button. She explained to them both:

“The items in this jar bind you eternally to the work. Once the enchantment begins it cannot be stopped, nor can it be undone. Whatever price is asked from the work must be paid without hesitation. If not, consequences will ensue. Do you understand?”

The man and woman assured the woman that they’d do anything to have a child. For the sake of their perfect life they needed this.

The old woman started the enchantment. Chanting words into the jar that neither the man or woman understood. As her words grew louder the jar began to quiver, growing warm where it sat on the woman’s stomach. When the old woman finished, she picked up the jar, holding it to her ear as if it was telling secrets only she could hear. She looked at the man and woman.

“You will have your child” she reassured the woman. “But the work has named its price. You will get a child but only one. If you attempt to have other children all you hold dear will be lost and the enchantment will turn sour.”

The man and woman heeded the old woman’s words with a grain of salt. They had no qualms with the price. They only needed one child. One perfect child.

Eight months later the perfect man and the perfect woman gave birth to a perfect child. Together they became the perfect family. Years passed as they watched their perfect baby grow. The child was kind, smart, obedient. Everything they could have ever asked for, and for a while their perfect family thrived.

The woman however, began to have stirrings. Raising her perfect child increased her longing for raising more. She brought the matter to the Man and they both agreed that they wanted more from their perfect family. The old woman’s warning in the cabin all those years ago were but a distant memory, like a dream they had forgotten with time. It wasn’t long before the woman was pregnant again and eight months later another babe was born. Their perfect family had expanded once more.

Something began to take root in their perfect family. The once perfect child became jealous of her new sibling. A jealousy that clouded her brain with a red fog that was suffocating. Propelled by a force unknown the Jealous child crept into the baby’s crib one night.

The man and woman woke up to the wails of their child. They rushed into the room. The woman screamed first. The man collapsed to his knees in shock. They watched as their once perfect child devoured and tore into the flesh of its sibling, with the crazed madness of an animal.

In that moment the woman’s words came back to the man.

“all you hold dear will be lost.”

And so it was.

Their perfect family was shattered in an instant. They stood frozen as their once perfect child transformed into a nightmare they couldn’t comprehend. They locked the child in the room. Afraid of what shed become. Knowing they couldn’t let her see the light of day. However, they couldn’t bring themselves to put her down.

The broken family lived in seclusion. The man had to keep them away from prying eyes. The woman became a shell of herself once again. She tried to love her once perfect child. But now when she looked at it, all she saw was death behind her eyes. This wasn’t a child anymore; it was a monster.

She visited the old woman once again. The woman begged her to undo the spell, to get rid of the child.

But she refused stating “Once the work was started it couldn’t be undone.”

The broken woman left the cabin defeated.

The broken woman returned home with renewed vigor. She would put an end to all of this. She grabbed the man’s gun and headed upstairs.

The man returned home to the smell of blood. He rushed up the stairs. The door to the girl’s room was ajar. Wet squelching sounds could be heard through the crack. A pit of dread formed in his stomach as he gently pushed open the door…………………

The Woman

“STOPPPP!!” the girl screamed at the woman.

The woman looked up to see the girl leaned forward teeth bared.

There it was.

The sweet innocent girl was no more and before her was the monster transformed. The broken child had finally shown herself.

“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story” the woman teased with a smile.

Quickly the girl lunged but it was too late. The talisman in her hand wrapped with the mother and father’s hair was already finished. With a squeeze of the doll, the broken child fell to the floor in pain.

“You know what must be done girl!”

The broken child looked up at her with a hate bright and red fuming in her eyes. “the …... work is never to be broken…..” the girl strained.

The woman chuckled. “I told you child, this will be my one and only exception.” She raised the doll to her lips to begin her chant but before she could, the cabin door burst open, flinging against the wall with a bang.

The Man

That sick feeling in his stomach told the man that he would find her here. It had been years since he’d seen this cabin, but he knew the path there all too well. It was engrained forever in his memory.

He burst through the doors. The old woman stood in the middle of the floor, looking just as she did that fateful day he’d rushed in willing to sell his soul away.

A tinge of hate crept up his spine. If it weren’t for her he would still have his wife. His perfect wife.

The strained scream of a child drew his attention to the figure that was kneeled over in front of the woman writhing in pain. His stomach tore in two. His child. His broken child. His monster.

He raised his gun at the woman.

“What are you doing to her!”

Her eyes turned to steel

“What I should have done years ago”

The child cried out again. It was then that he noticed the tiny black doll clutched in the old woman’s hand. Every time she squeezed it the monster child would cry out in pain.

“help….. me, daddy….please”

The sound of her pleas tugged on something in the man’s heart. For a quick second he could almost believe that his once perfect child had returned, but before the notion could take hold he remembered that night. The night he walked in and found her feasting on the remains of her mother. His insides turned cold. Yes, she was a monster, but she was his monster. Even that night he couldn’t bring himself to do what needed to be done. The child was all he had left, all that was left of his once perfect family. He couldn’t lose her too.

The old woman’s thick leathery voice brought him back to the moment.

“You know I must do this. This child has grown beyond all of our control. Surely you must feel the weight of the deaths that she has inflicted upon the children of this town. Even you cannot deny that?”

Her words pulled at his conscience, causing all that guilt he was compressing to rise to the surface. Yes of course he felt the weight of it all, as much as he tried to deny it.

“No, no,no I can fix all of that. I can take her away from here. Away from people to a place where she can’t harm anyone.”

The old woman shook her head.

“That’s only delaying the inevitable. She will eventually find a way out and she will kill again. Without conscience, and without mercy. Just as she killed her own mother”

At the mention of his wife his hand quivered on the gun.

“That’s not true!” screamed the broken child.

Her eyes, welled with tears, stared longingly at her father. “I ….just wanted to play with them…..thats all. But they were all… so mean to me…daddy. And I was hungry…..soooo hungry” she croaked out between spasms of pain.

He couldn’t help the disgust her words made him feel.

The old woman raised the doll to her lips. “I’m ending this now. Whatever the price I will pay it”

She began to chant into the doll. He watched as the broken child screamed in pain. Her cries scaling over his ears like shards of glass. The louder the old woman chanted the louder the girl screamed. Her skin began to turn ashen, her body curling in on itself, pruning like a raisin left to rest in the sun.

He was frozen.

The woman was right. This must happen. He was only delaying the inevitable. Still, he couldn’t help the way his heart jerked at the sight of her. His child, his perfect, broken child, was going to be lost to him.

He lowered the gun.

“STEP AWAY FROM THE GIRL NOW!” a voice bellowed behind him.

He turned in time to catch sight of the police uniforms rushing into the cabin. This had to be the search party he’d heard about on the radio. The one he was trying to protect his child from. In his surprise he’d forgotten the gun that was still clutched in his hands. Before he could register it the man felt a hard pain as a bullet fired off embedding itself into his skull.

The Woman

The woman couldn’t stop her work. Once it was started it had to be finished. The yells from the officers around her telling her to get down began to fade into the background. All that was left was her and the broken child.

The smooth skin of the child was now a cracked wrinkling mess as the work that once held her together was now becoming undone. In the distance she heard a gun go off and the sound of a body collapsing to the ground.

She couldn’t stop her work, she had to keep going.

Just before the last words of the chant fell from her lips she felt the pulsing sensation of something hot and searing burrowing its way through her body. Warmth began to coat her midsection. The black doll fell from her hands, mimicking her own body as she began to collapse.

Everything in the room came rushing back in. The cops swarmed the dying woman. In front of her the broken child lay frozen and lifeless, signaling that she’d finished her chant in time. The woman was dying, and she was okay with that, the price of the work was one she was willing to pay in order to rid this world of an evil of her own creation.

“The girl she’s breathing, someone get a medic asap!”

Those words made the woman’s stomach drop in horror. She tried to form words but only blood came out. She tried to move but her muscles were too weak to weigh up her dying flesh. She needed to warn them but any sound she managed to speak gurgled out from her throat. All she could do was sit back and watch as the men surrounded the girl. They picked her up from the floor and placed her frail body on a gurney.

“Hey sweetie can you speak for me are you okay?” one man probed, leaning over her as he checked her vitals. The broken child moved her lips, but her words came out in whispers.

The man leaned closer “Wait she’s trying to say something” he shushed those around him.

She opened her mouth again. This time the words came out stronger. Like a balloon being filled with air her body slowly came back to life as the work rewound itself back around her.

She made eye contact with the dying woman as she spoke, something dark shining in her eyes.

“I’m just really, really hungry”