Shortly after midnight in late winter, Sir Matthew Fell gazed out his bedroom window, through the ash tree that grew almost close enough to grasp one of its branches.
For the third time—each night on a full moon, as this one was—a woman was climbing his tree, collecting sprigs. She cut each with an oddly curved knife, while mumbling to herself.
Oddest of all, the woman—Mrs. Mothersole, who lived in the nearby village—was dressed only in her night dress, its white fabric glowing under the moon.
As he’d done the other two times she’d availed herself of his tree. Sir Matthew—a deputy sheriff—resolved to catch her. He fled from his room and made his way downstairs.
The setting of this unusual scene was a stately English estate called Castringham Hall, of which Sir Matthew was the master. It was the type of place populated with Sirs and Ladies, a small army of bustling servants, frequent prestigious guests, and looked much the same as any other of its kind, with a pillared portico, a hall, a gallery, and a library, noble woods, grassy grounds and a lovely pond.
What set this house apart was the ash tree. At the time this story begins—around the close of the 17th century—it had reached its greatest height.
The woman somehow heard Sir Matthew’s footsteps, joining her outside, and darted off. He gave chase, but saw only a rabbit—its fur black as Mrs. Mothersole’s hair—racing across the grass under the full moon. He followed the rabbit into the village, losing it along the way, and headed to the woman’s house.
After some time banging on the door, Mrs. Mothersole answered, very sleepily, as if she’d just risen from bed, and could not account for what Sir Matthew had seen.
* * *
Not long after, Mrs. Mothersole was accused of witchcraft, along with several of the village’s other oddballs and outcasts.
During her trial, Sir Matthew was called to give evidence. Not one to believe in witches, or bother himself in the pursuit of them, the deputy sheriff testified hesitantly. He was asked to tell what he’d seen, and only recounted the facts and nothing more.
It was enough to doom the pitiful Mrs. Mothersole, who had no one at all in the world she called friend to advocate for her innocence. And so, on a drizzly, damp March morning, she was hanged before an audience of neighbors—Sir Matthew included—departing this world on a string of violent curses and a cryptic phrase that she repeated under her breath, over and over:
“There will be guests at the Hall.”
Castringham Hall included a little parish church, and on its north side was a plot of unhallowed ground, where forgotten, doomed souls rest in peace.
There, Mrs. Mothersole was buried.
* * *
Sir Matthew was in a somber mood throughout the spring. By the full moon in May, he was visited by a vicar friend, who joined him on a stroll through the grounds and around the house. The walk lasted until dusk fell and the moon rose, at which time the pair drew close to the ash tree.
There, quite suddenly, Sir Matthew pointed at the tree. He quite shaken.
“What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash?” he exclaimed to the vicar.
The creature was indistinct in the moonlight. It could’ve been a squirrel, and he told Sir Matthew so, but to himself, admitted that was unlikely.
The creature had more than four legs—the vicar was certain.
Spring now in full bloom, this night was the warmest Castringham Hall had seen in some time. And so Sir Matthew opened his window before retiring to bed, slumbering with the kiss of warm breezes and silver moonlight.
The household dropped into peaceful quiet.
A precise man, Sir Matthew kept to a daily routine, which began promptly with a 6 a.m. breakfast. By 8 a.m., however, he’d yet to appear. Believing his master sick, Sir Matthew’s manservant went to check on him.
At the door, the servant’s knocks went unanswered.
Calling out Sir Matthew’s name, he crept inside the bedroom, finding the interior unremarkable and his master still abed, utterly still and unstartled by his visitor.
The window was open, he noted. The servant felt a hint of unease. He crept closer to his master’s bed.
What he saw, lying there, did not look like Sir Matthew. The corpse didn’t even look human! His master had suffered an agonizing demise, perhaps by poison. He ran from the room, rattled, sharing the news in trembling whispers, calling the coroner and physician to Sir Matthew’s bedside.
These learned men gleaned little from the scene. No one had entered the room. Sir Matthew hadn’t been assaulted in any obvious way. His skin had been punctured or pricked in a couple spots. Poison was a viable theory, made more plausible after the body was moved, for anyone who touched the corpse suffered terrible pain in their palms, which spread swiftly up their forearms. Ghastly swelling followed.
The physician was emotionally unsettled and professionally vexed. Seeking guidance, he opened a Bible found on Sir Matthew’s bedside table, picking a page at random and blindly pointing at three passages. He recited each aloud to himself.
“Cut it down,” said the first.
“It shall never be inhabited,” was the second.
“Her young ones also suck up blood,” was the third.
* * *
Sir Matthew’s room was shut up and his son inherited all, but he refused to sleep in the room where his father died so strangely.
The second Sir Matthew’s reign at Castringham was mediocre, save one oddity. A sickness frequently overcame his livestock; whatever it was struck by night, for the poor creatures were found come morning sucked dry of blood.
When the survivors were penned in at night, woodland creatures fell victim instead, and with the same curious symptoms.
* * *
Sir Richard inherited Castringham Hall next.
He immediately set to renovating the estate, transforming the old English house into an Italian palace, then turning his eye to the parish church. To renovate there, he had to disturb the unhallowed ground where Mrs. Mothersole was buried.
News spread to the village of the ghastly project, where the long-dead witch was a legend few remembered. He kept quiet the fact that, when the exhumers raised her coffin once again into the light of day, the box was utterly empty.
No body, bones or dust resided in the final resting place of the doomed Mrs. Mothersole.
Sir Richard was shaken enough to order the coffin burned.
* * *
A few months later, a great party was to be held at Castringham Hall, hosted by Sir Richard. The day of the guests’ arrival, however, he was in a sour mood.
For many nights, he hadn’t slept well, hounded by a relentless wind that made his bedroom too cold for comfort. He nagged his housekeeper to find him a better room, with very specific requirements.
“You know that there is but one room like that in the house,” she told him. “And that is Sir Matthew’s.”
Sir Richard was unfazed.
He opened said room for the first time in decades. The air was much the same as it had been that ghastly day, and smelled close and earthy. To cleanse the stench of mildew and dust, Sir Richard flung open the window, obscured by the branches of the great old ash tree.
“It ought to be cut down,” the housekeeper whispered behind him. “It’s bad luck, my mother always said, to sleep near an ash tree.”
He peered out; it did indeed look rather old. A great hollow had been chewed from its middle.
“Yes, the tree, perhaps, does make the place a little dampish…. Such a nest of sickness was never seen. In a couple days, perhaps, we shall cut it down.” Then Sir Richard ordered his housekeeper to air the room all day, and move in his belongings swiftly. She left to make arrangements.
Now alone in his grandfather’s room, Sir Richard took a turn around it, and found himself satisfied; he stopped at the bedside table, where lay an old family Bible. His housekeeper’s superstitious comment had inspired him. Indeed, it was old folk magic…
He blindly flung the Bible to an open page and traced his finger down it until he was compelled to stop.
Gazing down at where his finger had fallen, Sir Richard read the passage aloud:
“Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be.”
He snapped the Bible shut.
* * *
Even in his new room, sleep evaded Sir Richard.
The next morning, he walked with one of his guests, a bishop, around the house, their aimless route taking them within view of Sir Richard’s bedroom window.
“You look unwell, old boy,” the bishop said. “What ails you?”
“Something cost me my sleep from twelve to four,” Sir Richard admitted. “It was rather the noise that went on—no doubt from the twigs sweeping the glass—that kept me open-eyed.”
The bishop looked up at the offending ash tree, a scowl upon his face. “That can hardly be, Sir Richard. Look,” and he pointed. “The nearest branches miss your window pane by a foot.”
What then, he thought to himself, scratched and rustled so, and covered the dust on the sill with lines and marks?
“Rats,” Sir Richard said then, to explain it. “Rats must have come up the ivy.”
This seemed to explain it to both men’s satisfaction. The rest of the day passed quietly.
* * *
That night, the air was warm and still. Before retiring to bed, Sir Richard opened his window and in no time at all was sleeping peacefully.
Night deepened. His sleep grew restless, tossing his head about, as if in the throes of nightmare, but he didn’t cry out or groan.
In the half-darkness, Sir Richard’s figure, lying upon the bed, was barely discernible. Perhaps it was a trick of light and shadow that made it seem as though he had more than one head. Several, perhaps, and each round and brownish. These heads moved continuously, inexplicably—one seemed to journey as low as his chest. It was a horrible illusion.
Then one of these heads dropped off the side of the bed with a soft plump. It was the size of a kitten. In a flash, it was out the window.
Another head followed.
Then another.
And another.
Four of them altogether!
After they all had left, quiet and stillness returned to the room.
Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be.
* * *
The next morning, time may have turned back fifty years, for the scene upon the bed—viewed by servants and guests alike, as audible shock reverberated through the corridors and called them there—was so familiar to that which befell Sir Matthew.
His grandson looked much the same. Twisted in agony. Evidently poisoned. The body was unrecognizable—as that of Sir Richard, or a human being.
A few moments later, the crowd was led outside and below the bedroom by the bishop, who remembered his conversation with Sir Richard the day before; he believed that the ash tree, and the man’s testimony of a scratching at his window, caused his death.
The bishop explained this to his fellow guests and servants, all of them staring up at the tree, where a cat crouched on the fork of branches, higher up, gazing down into the hollow below.
The cat leaned forward to get a closer look and the branch below it gave way, and the cat fell in. A moment of silence passed. Then the cat yowled terribly, there was a muffled commotion, and then silence.
The bishop was now convinced. “There is something more than we know of in that tree!” he declared, and ordered the gardener to fetch a ladder and lantern and peer in after the doomed cat.
Moments later, the gardener stood at the top of the ladder, cautiously lowering the lantern into the hollow by a rope. Its yellow glow illuminated his face as it was suddenly struck with terror; he clasped hands over mouth, loosing the rope and sending the lantern plunging into the tree as he, the gardener, lurched backward and off the ladder. Thankfully, he was caught by two men watching below.
Inside the tree, the lantern had shattered, unleashing flames that ignited dry leaves and wood. Within moments, the ash tree was engulfed in fire. The crowd retreated a few steps to safety; all attempts to interview the gardener were fruitless. He gazed upon their faces vacant-eyed and mute.
Suddenly, one of their number gasped, pointing at some movement stumbling out of the tree.
A round creature, about the size of a man’s head, afire, had crawled up and out and they watched as it collapsed, twitching, onto the grass.
Then another.
And another
And another.
Six such creatures emerged, to gasps of horror. Only the bishop dared step close to the strange corpses, smoldering and smoking in the early morning light.
They were all enormous spiders, veinous and seared!
As the fire dwindled down through the day, more of these creatures appeared, large gray lumbering ones and some brown and smaller and scurrying quickly. The men killed these until, finally, their emergence stopped. Eventually, the fire extinguished.
Some time later, the bishop dared peer inside what remained of the charred tree, down into its sprawling roots.
One look and he covered his mouth, aghast and confused. He stumbled backward, aware of what his eyes had seen but unwilling to voice it, for the sight seemed impossible.
A skeleton lay among the ash tree’s great blackened roots, beside smoking, sizzling spiders, with black hair and shreds of a night dress still clinging to her bones.
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