<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
\u201cMabel Elliot took her own life a week after she provided the location of Walter Rupert III\u2019s grave.\u00a0 Rupert had gone missing nearly 50 years before Elliot was born, and forensics indicated that the grave had not been disturbed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nurse found her in her cell at the Red Creek Run Asylum around 3am.\u00a0 She\u2019d chewed out her own wrists, but was still alive when they found her.\u00a0 DOA by the time she got to the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer connection with the Romney Wood Witch is now the domain of legend. The latest victim, some would say.\u00a0 Others would say that she must have found the grave and, in her madness, buried the discovery in the tale of the Witch.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s boil the Witch\u2019s tale down. In 1976, an old house is discovered with evidence of decades of murders.\u00a0 That\u2019s the only factual point in the timeline.\u00a0 We don\u2019t even know her name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmanda Atherton?\u201d Lon said, looking up from the viewscreen of his camera.\u00a0 \u201cRight?\u2019<\/p>\n
Laurie shrugged, \u201cNow, Amanda also has a story. Something a bit more tangible. Amanda Atherton vanished into these woods in 1933.\u00a0 We last see Amanda in New York, the sole heir of the Atherton fortune. But then comes the stock market crash, and Atherton is destitute overnight.\u00a0 She loses her mind and, for a time, lives on the streets.\u00a0 Then she returns to her roots \u2013 the ghost town of Black Hill, about a mile from here \u2013 and she lives out her days in these woods as a crazed hermit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs she the Witch?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 The bodies found in the house go back to well before Amanda was born. Though she was here for several murders. How could she live in the ruins of Black Hill and not see anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lon grinned, and fed the next question, \u201cThe old woman was Atherton, though, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie looked seriously into the camera.\u00a0 \u201cAmanda would have been in her late 50\u2019s when Shelby Marks first saw her in 1963. The question is: Did Amanda Atherton simply become the Witch? Did she take over the role from someone \u2013 or something \u2013 else?\u201d<\/p>\n
Walt smiled, shaking his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, if so, where was she when the authorities searched this area in 1976?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, we\u2019re good.\u201d Walt said.\u00a0 Laurie exhaled and scratched her nose gratefully, Lon flipped shut the camera and looked up through the trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the first stop?\u201d Lon asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrain tracks.\u201d\u00a0 Walt hefted his bag onto his back and started marching through the underbrush, \u201cWhere she waited for her train snacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrain snacks!\u201d Laurie sang, mugging for Lon who blew her a kiss.<\/p>\n
The tracks cut through the forest, clinging to the mountain, and now seemed like an old, slow-healing scar.\u00a0 A few brave trees had taken root in the gravel and shoved their way through the ties, and a small mudslide had obscured the tracks just beyond what remained of the old Black Hill station.\u00a0 The station was a roofless, crumbling hut, the interior half-filled with decades of dirt and leaves.\u00a0 There was nothing modern about it\u2026 It felt more like a Roman ruin.\u00a0 Odd remains with no hint of life, no relics left inside. Beside the station stood what was once a signal mast.\u00a0 It was now just a metal post with several dead vines crawling up the sides.\u00a0 Beside that post stood the old woman Shelby Marks saw.<\/p>\n
Walt told Laurie to stand in the same spot, and Lon got in position.\u00a0 Then Walt stepped out of shot and leaned against a tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cShelby Marks.\u201d Laurie breathed, \u201cThe only man to see the Romney Wood Witch.\u201d\u00a0 She looked at Walt, \u201cGod, can I just say Romney Witch?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
She rolled her eyes, did the take again, and continued, \u201cFor 13 years, Shelby Marks dropped a gift bag on this spot for what he believed to be just an old woman, squatting in the ruins of Black Hill. In all those years, no one else would lay eyes on her.\u00a0 The conductor and brakemen claim that they never saw an old woman, and joked that Shelby was losing his mind.\u00a0 But, when the sheriff came to investigate the house, they found evidence of life.\u00a0 The bottles of Coke that Shelby included in his gift bags decorated trees around the property.\u00a0 Someone had stood here and received those gifts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie clasped her hands in font of her, then stared grimly down the tracks for a long, silent moment. \u201cDid the Romney Wood Witch stand in this spot, watching each day for Shelby Marks? And her Coke fix?\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie and Lon burst out laughing and Walt covered his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cShit,\u201d Laurie said, \u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t buy the Marks story,\u201d Lon said, \u201cA brakeman just jumps off the caboose of a moving train, runs up into the woods, has an adventure, and then makes it back to the train just in the nick of time, bad adventure movie style?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the story,\u201d Walt replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormal people would just go, hmmm, and then tell the cops when they got off work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walt shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re in the woods looking for a magical killer witch, Lon.\u00a0 What do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should keep all the Coke jokes.\u201d Laurie said.<\/p>\n
Walt pointed at her and mouthed the word, \u2018No,\u2019 then he walked over and stood next to her.\u00a0 \u201cRight here.\u201d He said, \u201cLike this.\u201d\u00a0 He picked up a stick from beside the tracks and leaned on it, turning to watch an imaginary train trundle slowly up the hill towards the tunnel. \u201cLike clockwork.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could have heard the train coming, of course, and come out just so Marks saw her.\u201d Laurie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy just Shelby Marks, then?\u201d Walt asked, \u201cAnd not everyone on the train?\u00a0 What\u2019s she care?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lon shrugged, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we done?\u201d<\/p>\n
Walt nodded. \u201cWe\u2019ll cut the Coke joke. I\u2019d like to do a different take, but I think that can wait.\u201d\u00a0 He looked up at the sky, \u201cWe have about three hours till dark.\u00a0 Let\u2019s find Black Hill and camp there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCamp in the ghost town?\u201d Laurie asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cScared?\u201d Lon teased, slapping her bottom.<\/p>\n
Walt hiked up the hill into the trees and Laurie reluctantly set after him, Lon sliding up to her ear and whispering, \u201cI also think we should split up as soon as the opportunity presents itself and each individually investigate a mysterious sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd read from the weird flesh-bound book that we find in the old church?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, definitely.\u201d\u00a0 Lon spread his arms out and shouted, \u201cKlaatu barada nikto!\u201d<\/p>\n
Black Hill was a tiny grid.\u00a0 Two north-south avenues and two east-west.\u00a0 The roads had been dirt or gravel, and were now just overgrown flats surrounded by foundations and piles of rubble. A handful of buildings still stood \u2013 the church, now without spire and roof, and the town hall, though subsidence had turned the west half to rubble.\u00a0 On the hill, just visible, was the Atherton house, overlooking the entire town.\u00a0 It still stood, with ominously staring windows, the forest moving in around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that the Witch house?\u201d Lon asked, pointing up towards the Atherton house with his chin.<\/p>\n
\u201cNope,\u201d Walt said.\u00a0 \u201cHer place is a little further up.\u201d He pointed off to the east. \u201cThat\u2019s the Atherton place.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be checking it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, good.\u201d Laurie mumbled.<\/p>\n
Just outside of the grid stood the oilworks, long ago capped and now marked by a jumble of timbers, each well looking more like a stack of rotting wood at a sawmill.\u00a0 A narrower gauge train had once made the run up the hill to the derricks, the tracks still visible and, at the end just beyond the derricks, twisted upward as if in a parody of a Sherman necktie.<\/p>\n
The first thing that all three took in was the lack of vandalism.\u00a0 There was no graffiti, no trash.\u00a0 No signs of campers..<\/p>\n
\u201cA bit weird,\u201d Lon said, not needing to explain himself.\u00a0 \u201cHunters and kids must come through here all the time, yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie waggled her eyebrows, \u201cNone who survived\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, Laurie. It\u2019s all a story.\u00a0 Nobody has come through here in 30 years? I don\u2019t think so. With a ghost story, especially, this place should be overrun with local kids fucking around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walt shrugged and threw down his pack in a bare patch of grass, ringed by the natural-stone foundation of a building.\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s camp here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank god,\u201d Lon threw down his pack, and Laurie slid her smaller pack off her shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got another couple hours.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get some shots of Black Hill, and the Atherton house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lon was already filming and moving, weaving through the ruins of the tiny town.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t much more than just a wide space, but the church and town hall provided a great urban decay feel.\u00a0 Lon framed a few shots of the Atherton house between those two buildings, then followed Walt and Laurie up to the old manor.<\/p>\n
At the house, Laurie stepped onto the creaking porch and peered through the doorway.\u00a0 The front door was missing, and the inside looked like it had been stripped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she said, \u201csigns of life at last. Looks like someone took everything of value.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCopper!\u201d Lon barked from the front of the house, where he was setting up the camera on a portable tripod, \u201cAnd the woodwork, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie turned and moved down onto the steps.\u00a0 She brushed her hair back and watched for Lon\u2019s silent count.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge Cecil Atherton.\u00a0 Overseer of Black Hill. A man driven by greed and lust\u2026\u201d Laurie stopped, cocked her head, and then said, \u201cYou hear that?\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
The Witch started.\u00a0 She gasped and threw the forest-words away from her.\u00a0 She screamed through the rooms of her tiny house, her howl echoing against the mildewed walls.<\/p>\n
A name she hadn\u2019t heard in over 130 years tore through her mind.\u00a0 The name of the man who killed her.\u00a0 The first to rape her, throw her down on the ground and invite the menfolk of the town to continue his punishment, and then he knelt beside her, smiled at the blood pouring from between her thighs, gently wove her hair around his fingers and, slowly, began to pull her head up and then down again on a stone.\u00a0 He picked up speed, grinning, drooling, and finally she blacked out.\u00a0 He slapped her awake and, anger boiling behind his pale grey eyes, he leaned in and whispered, \u201cNow you die whore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her curse.\u00a0 She whispered back her curse.\u00a0 Just so he could hear.\u00a0 And he did, twisting his ear to her lips, then he grinned and caved in the back of her skull.<\/p>\n
How dare they.<\/p>\n
She moved through the trees, a wind rustling along the edges of the town, up to that vile house.\u00a0 She had begged Amanda to burn it.\u00a0 Destroy the Atherton house.\u00a0 But the poor, troubled woman couldn\u2019t bring herself to do it.\u00a0 The Witch had come to believe that the house was a spirit, just like her.\u00a0 It was Atherton.\u00a0 It would live on in decaying pain until she was set free.<\/p>\n
She rushed down towards the three strangers, and they turned and stared.\u00a0 She hesitated, but no eyes fixed on her.\u00a0 They were staring at the wind.\u00a0 The girl, a soft brunette, edged closer to the tall one with the camera.\u00a0 The third one, short and dark and severe, was different.\u00a0 He stood apart.\u00a0 He looked angrily around the forest, snarled at the house as a plank fell\u00a0 from the roof and his two companions screamed, then turned and looked down the road towards town, at the Witch.\u00a0 His eyes narrowed, and the Witch blinked.\u00a0 She cocked her head, she tried to make words come.\u00a0 He just shook his head, slowly, from side to side.\u00a0 Then he barked an order, and the man with the camera turned it towards her.<\/p>\n
She screamed\u2026and, then, she was back in her house.\u00a0 Sitting as if she had never moved.\u00a0 And she realized why the sheriff had failed so many years ago to free her.\u00a0 The cameras had chased her away.\u00a0 The radios and all those things they carried with them had made her invisible.<\/p>\n
And the man out there knew it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[252,405],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serials","tag-romney-wood","tag-serials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}