A FLASH IN THE DARK
The Family Tree
“For surely that tree is infested with demons, and that blood, supernatural. Take the coat and burn it, as far from your house as you can. For if the evil were to be unleashed there, the demon might take possession of your house.”
German folk tale
(12th C.)
“Nor did she doubt that the demon in the tree was a daughter of Lilith.”
German folk tale
(16th C.)
German folk tale
(12th C.)
“Nor did she doubt that the demon in the tree was a daughter of Lilith.”
German folk tale
(16th C.)
The Baumhauer family’s insidious roots grew deep and its grasping branches spread far. The family were from an ancient and landed, but eccentric and corrupt lineage, where, so it was rumoured, father knew daughter, brother knew sister, and misbegotten offspring sprouted innumerable, not like stars in the sky, but more like worms within wood. So much so, that their poisoned blood like sap ran bitter. Yet their wealth was limited and their natures competitive; and so, mothers slew daughters, sons their fathers, and siblings each other. Until, eventually, the family tree became pruned, the family fortune consumed, and the family estates withered away to but one Derbyshire manor house and some acreage thereabout. For a while the house was without a master, the land without a lord, and then, one day, a new tenant arrived.
“Ah, my ancestor, Sir Arthur Baumhauer,” he announced, inspecting the last name engraved on the yew wood plaque bearing the family tree, “from him I gladly inherit this house and all within its grounds.” Sir James strode about the rooms of his newly inherited house, admiring them all with great glee, but merely pausing in the hall to smirk at the gradually fading paintings of his brooding ancestors, “Upon the dust of your soon-to-be-forgotten bones I now triumphantly stand,” declared he. Turning to admire the vista from the window he deemed the view to be a fine one with just one small blight; a lone and twisted yew tree on the hill, silhouetted against the cloudy sky. To it he took an instant dislike although he knew not why.
The next day, Sir James strode out to the tree and took with him an axe from the woodsman’s shed. The huge and ancient tree stretched forth its grasping lignified limbs like some eldritch tentacled thing. Gazing on it he shuddered with a revulsion that resolved his will and galvanised his mind. Hefting the sharp axe, he swung at the thick, gnarled, bark but as the blade bit deep into the ancient wood a scream rent the Autumn air and crimson blood flowed out. Pale and shaken, and dropping the axe, he hurried for refuge within his house.
He slept poorly that night and arose late the next morning. Looking out of his bedroom window it seemed to him that the twisted tree grew nearer his walls. Braving another trip out to the yew he paced it about and gazing into its branches gave a fearful start. What was that he could hear and see; but voices in its branches and familiar faces in its bark? He retreated once more from that bleeding, whispering thing that had rolling eyes where knotholes should be.
That night the servants swore that they heard the rattling of twigs against window panes, and the creaking of boughs in the wind, although not a tree grew close to the walls of that accursed house. The next morning, they were puzzled to find their master mysteriously missing and his bedroom window inexplicably broken. His sheets in disarray and nothing in his bed save a few twigs of yew, as if from the lone and twisted tree on the hill, silhouetted against the cloudy sky. To it, they felt an uneasy dislike but, they knew not why.
A few weeks later a new tenant arrived.
“Ah, my ancestor, Sir James Baumhauer,” he announced, inspecting the last name engraved on the yew wood plaque bearing the family tree, “from him I gladly inherit this house and all within its grounds.”
“Ah, my ancestor, Sir Arthur Baumhauer,” he announced, inspecting the last name engraved on the yew wood plaque bearing the family tree, “from him I gladly inherit this house and all within its grounds.” Sir James strode about the rooms of his newly inherited house, admiring them all with great glee, but merely pausing in the hall to smirk at the gradually fading paintings of his brooding ancestors, “Upon the dust of your soon-to-be-forgotten bones I now triumphantly stand,” declared he. Turning to admire the vista from the window he deemed the view to be a fine one with just one small blight; a lone and twisted yew tree on the hill, silhouetted against the cloudy sky. To it he took an instant dislike although he knew not why.
The next day, Sir James strode out to the tree and took with him an axe from the woodsman’s shed. The huge and ancient tree stretched forth its grasping lignified limbs like some eldritch tentacled thing. Gazing on it he shuddered with a revulsion that resolved his will and galvanised his mind. Hefting the sharp axe, he swung at the thick, gnarled, bark but as the blade bit deep into the ancient wood a scream rent the Autumn air and crimson blood flowed out. Pale and shaken, and dropping the axe, he hurried for refuge within his house.
He slept poorly that night and arose late the next morning. Looking out of his bedroom window it seemed to him that the twisted tree grew nearer his walls. Braving another trip out to the yew he paced it about and gazing into its branches gave a fearful start. What was that he could hear and see; but voices in its branches and familiar faces in its bark? He retreated once more from that bleeding, whispering thing that had rolling eyes where knotholes should be.
That night the servants swore that they heard the rattling of twigs against window panes, and the creaking of boughs in the wind, although not a tree grew close to the walls of that accursed house. The next morning, they were puzzled to find their master mysteriously missing and his bedroom window inexplicably broken. His sheets in disarray and nothing in his bed save a few twigs of yew, as if from the lone and twisted tree on the hill, silhouetted against the cloudy sky. To it, they felt an uneasy dislike but, they knew not why.
A few weeks later a new tenant arrived.
“Ah, my ancestor, Sir James Baumhauer,” he announced, inspecting the last name engraved on the yew wood plaque bearing the family tree, “from him I gladly inherit this house and all within its grounds.”
A version of this tale made it onto the The Cranked Anvil Press short story competition longlist in April 2021.
First Created: April 2021
Last Mutated: April 2021
586 Words
First Created: April 2021
Last Mutated: April 2021
586 Words