To Your Grave
No doubt you have read of the Witches' Sabbath, and have laughed at the tales which terrified our ancestors; the black cats, and the broomsticks, and dooms pronounced against some old woman's cow. Since I have known the truth I have often reflected that it is on the whole a happy thing that such burlesque as this is believed, for it serves to conceal much that it is better should not be known generally.
Arthur Machen, "The Novel of the White Powder" Jim McCall was Jimmy McCall, just a small boy in the dire years of the Depression, when he heard a story from an old, old man named Eph, short for Ephraim Chandler, who had lived in a place called Blowing Rock near to all his life. Ever after, when whenever Eph came up in conversation - little by little less and less each year, as more and more oldtimers passed on and forgot - Jim McCall would tell anyone in earshot that the man was burning in Hell, deserving every touch of the Devil's pitchfork. When he was a boy he had not minded his folks who had told him to stay away from Eph, but Jimmy was of a family that always did things their own way, and at even at seven years old Jimmy was his family's child and acted out his restless, rebellious spirit - his older brother, many years his senior, would do the same, and shoot a man in Boone over money owed him, and breathed his last screaming in hellfire in the electric chair at Central Prison. Eph sold decent shine made from corn and cane, just enough to get by, and had one or two goats on his property that, like him, seemed to be ridiculously ancient. He was probably the oldest man in Watauga County, certainly the oldest person anyone in Boone knew of: he told people stories about how he met Jeff Davis - beg pardon, President Jeff Davis - and offered him a place to stay when he was on the run from the Yankees all those years ago. This was just one of many tall tales the man would spout to anyone he thought was listening - but then again, that story alone would put him at nearly a hundred years old, well far enough advanced in age to be certifiably crazy. He had a wizened face that may have been handsome in the time that he once had claimed to live, and an uncombed scraggly white beard coming down his chin. He walked with a strange gait and wore shoes entirely too large for his feet - a mark of eccentricity and senility, no doubt, like the funny wideawake hat he never took off. But however offputting, however much of a liar everyone else thought he was, Jimmy McCall believed every word. He didn't used to - a jaded skeptic even at so green an age - but one night, the last night he ever dared venture to Eph's place, he believed every word. After the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, Jimmy was by that time Jim, and he did his duty and signed up - he was shipped off to the Mediterranean and defended freedom in Sicily. While he was stationed in Palermo, he got a letter from his Ma telling him, in part, that some folk in Boone had it on good authority Eph finally passed, his cabin up in the woods burnt down one Summer's night. It was right after that, when anyone back home ever mentioned Eph, he would nod, solemnly as though he were taking an oath, and said "That man's a-burnin in Hell, sure as certain - that fire weren't no accident, just his master a-callin em home." And then somebody, inevitably, would scold him for speaking ill of the dead, but Jim would be shake his head slowly and repeat what he said before. A few remembered him in the days of his boyhood hanging round Eph's place, doing chores for him and listening to his crazy stories. What in goodness had happened to make him think such a thing, after all? And as it happened, Jim McCall rarely told a soul - master storyteller though he was, delighting in the perverse and the macabre, he would clam up as soon as anyone mentioned it. He'd change the subject or he'd offer someone a drink or some pie, and that was that. Usually. But if you were lucky enough to hear why Jim McCall knew, sure as certain, that Eph was burning in Hell, well - you'd never have trouble remembering it, because it's the kind of thing one doesn't readily forget. The story went like this: Eph was widely known as a man to avoid - the years had clearly done something to his head that made it sicken and grow strange, until now he just lived up there all alone in the woods, sometimes with his goats. He was a looney, maybe even dangerous - and like every other boy in Watauga County, probably, Jimmy McCall had been expressly warned to stay away from him. But, again, being who he was - the restlessness that ran unaccountably through his veins - he disobeyed, and one Summer during the Depression, when the mountains were vibrantly green and the woods thick with buzzing birds and the cheater-cheater-cheater! call of the Carolina Wren, he went to go pay this mysterious Eph a visit. Jimmy was a strong, handsome boy, with hair the color of chocolate and big brown eyes to match, but always had a serene expression of being calm and contented wherever he went. He acted the part, as well, even as young as he was. So it didn't surprise Jimmy - it very well should have, but Jimmy was a fearless and headstrong child - when, after he knocked on the cabin door, there appeared in the doorway the tall man with the queer white scraggly beard.
"I'm Jimmy McCall, sir. I come ta see if ya need any work doin." "Why yer Jesse McCall's grandboy! I knew him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper!" From that boisterous bit of introduction, Jimmy and Eph became fast friends. At first, Jimmy found that the way his folks talked about this mountaineering codger was totally unfounded: it was true he had weird white hair on his chin and on his arms, and it was true he never ate meat but always had fresh greens in a kind of salad, and as old as he was he still had all his teeth - but that was no reason not to be nice to the man! He spoke kindly and let Jimmy pet and handfeed his nanny-goats, soften and wheaten and sweet-natured with their strange eyes and lilting bleat - Jimmy may have been mature for his age but he was still a boy, and simple things such as this appealed to him enough to flat-out tell his parents (and get spanked for the trouble, the first time) that they were wrong but Eph and who he was. After several days of this, his parents relented and let Jimmy go down to Eph's to do chores for the man - Jimmy's pa ran a general store that attracted only a few customers a day, it was a dull place for a boy of boundless energy like Jimmy himself. Jimmy soon learned a great deal about his new, elderly friend. It seems Eph had lived the way he had, up that way with the occasional goat, selling shine for a little bit of coin, for as long as anyone could remember, because just as long as anyone could remember, Eph had been up there, in his cabin, crazier than owl shit, as the folk say. But he was always kind to Jimmy, rewarding him for tending to his still way, way up in the woods, and feeding his goats and stacking his firewood with choice herbs and delicious fresh goat's milk that Jimmy's pa sold for a profit down at his store. When it grew dark and it was near time for Jimmy to run on home, Eph would tell stories. "Lemme tell ya a story, child!" Jimmy would sit on the planks of the cabin floor, a fire in the woodstove, herbs and mushrooms hung to dry, the nanny-goats in the lean-to he had built, attached long ago, to the cabin proper, the sounds of crickets and katydids and cicadas accompanying whatever tale Eph would spin, that odd little white beard wagging away with every word. In his baggy clothes and ill-footing shoes and big wideawake hat that Jimmy never saw him without, Eph would sit back in his rocking chair, back and forth, and recount the impossibly far-off days of his half-remembered youth: how he marched with General Lee but turned back after Petersburg, that one story about how he offered President Davis shelter at his cabin, how he shot a turkey with two heads that warbled something that sounded like a person talking. At first, this was an excellent arrangement for all involved, and Jimmy's dad seemed sorry for spanking his boy for disobeying when he had fresh goat's milk to sell and herbs for his cooking. Then, as the weeks went on, Eph's behavior became disquieting, and he seemed to linger in his touches on Jimmy's shoulder, and some of the off-handed things he'd say seemed like they had more than one meaning. Jimmy still being seven - precocious or not - he was never sure, but he was smart enough to trust his instinct. He knew, for one, that Eph's stories were getting progressively stranger and more morbid. There was the time he was hunting west of here and saw a whole tribe of people who weren't quite elk, weren't quite human cavorting around a weird fire. There was the time he swore he saw an elderly woman who looked like an old nanny-goat cooking something horrid-smelling in a big cauldron. And he would - imply things, things not meant to be repeated to children, about these strange things he saw in the mountains, and chuckle to himself the way he always did, leaving Jimmy feeling dirty, for whatever reason, and deeply uncomfortable. But the worst was yet to come. One evening when the Sun was peeling away its golden beams over the crests of the High Country, and Eph had Jimmy start a fire for him in the woodstove, he rested his old bones in the rocking chair, like he always did - but lifted his head, suddenly, as though remembering something important. "Say - say boy--" "Yessir?" "I ever tell you about Mr. Ferro?" "No sir," answered Jimmy, dusting his hands off on his britches. "Who's Mr. Ferr--" Eph cut him off with a sharp, bitter laugh. "I reckon I better tell ya then! Ah, boy - he's the Witchin Man!" "A Witchin Man?" "Not a Witchin Man, child - the Witchin Man." Eph's eyes grew distant, seeing past Jimmy , his cabin door, into the yawning starlit North Carolina darkness. "Yes - oh yes, boy..." Now his eyes flicked back to Jimmy , seeming furtive, excitable. "Y'ain't never heard of em?" "No sir." "Folks never said nuthin?" "No sir," Jimmy repeated. "I heard o'sum witches, but no Witchin Men - err, Man. I heard o'the Devil, too, but he's in the Bible." "Devil jest as real as yew or I, boy - any good preacher'll tell ya that." Back Eph came in his rocking chair again, that surreptitious look curling his mouth with a queer kind of smile. "Ain't surprised - long time gone, Mr. Ferro ain't come round here no more." "Well why ain't he come round, then?" Eph stopped the comfortable rhythm of his rocking chair to tilt his head, as though thinking, the firelight casting distorted shadows that, as Jimmy watched, he thought he could see move on their own... "S'pose eh got what he wanted," he said, a little too cryptically for Jimmy's comfort. "Ya see, child, long, long time gone, when Boone, up yonder, weren't nuthin t'all, Ferro come up here lookin fer sumthin - least that's what he said...wantin ta give somebody sumthin, a li'l bizness no barter, ya see." He paused, his face still pensive with the memories of countless decades gone by. "Folk know - folk knew not ta do no barter with Farro, though, child - he'd cheat ya, no matter what it was for he'd cheat ya outta anythin." "Why'd he cheat?" asked Jimmy, sitting up suddenly, feeling a chill, eerie feeling come upon him. "That's jest what Ferro like ta do, child..." Eph flashed a smile at Jimmy like it was meant to be a joke. "Why - the greatest thing he ever done was cheat a young fella, promised him a whole mess of stuff, but only gave em a lifetime of bein ugly." "Oh my goodness..." Jimmy whispered, eyes wide, withdrawing into a quivering pile. "He made em ugly?" Eph nodded, a brief twinkle coming to his eyes. "Yes indeed. Ugly - as sin." "H-how--?" Jimmy found his throat had gone dry in fear. "Well, now, this boy - he was a curious one, but also didn't care none for no Scripture, he blasphemed and cursed and spat and all this, he wudn't raised no good." Eph leaned back in his rocking chair and Jimmy fidgeted where he was, wondering if this boy was actually him, and this would turn into some sort of advice. "So he wudn't scared none when Mr. Ferro come up here." Jimmy could only nod, waiting for Eph to finish. "Mr. Ferro was old, older than Methuselah, but he look so young and spry so ye'd cudn't believe how many years he really had on em. Long, dark hair, came past his shoulders - big dark eyes - stovepipe hat, cape." Eph chuckled. "Quite a sight for that boy, that little town that weren't nuthin yet." He raised an eyebrow. "That ought've been enough for that boy, there, ta mind his folks and not have nuthin to do with the man..." The eyebrow came down. "But he went up and talked t'em anyhow." As Eph went on, he described the scenes sparsely enough, but it filled Jimmy's little head with the awfulest visions. Eph was masterful at the raconteur's art - pausing for effect, rise and fall, boom and whisper, to capture his audience, his very voice the greatest actor of the drama. It seems the boy - who was never given a name - was enthralled by how charming and how rich Ferro seemed to be. Ferro said he was a chemist, of sorts, offering all kinds of remedies for all manner of maladies...including, he said, old age. At this, the boy perked up. What did Ferro mean by this? Why - said Ferro with a clever smile, showing off his teeth, white like snow, straight as ice - a way to live with years uncounted, in a form you will no doubt enjoy. Now, any fella with any sense could have seen that this was a bad idea and a worse offer - but the boy, nearly a teen, was deeply thrilled with the prospect, naïve, maybe a little stupid, like he was. What would he have to do? Two things, Ferro explained - the first is to drink an elixir, which he procured, Johnny-on-the-spot, from the cloak he wore. The second was to go up on a bald, where Ferro liked to conduct business - his phrase - to complete the process. The boy didn't think this was too outrageous, but when he asked how much this would cost him, Ferro just laughed, and changed the subject. In order for the elixir to work, Ferro explained, he had to drink in four parts, and offer himself to the Devil in Hell, just like the witches would. At this, for the first time, the boy hesitated. He was no firm believer but he thought that doing anything devilish was right unwise. But Ferro waved his hand - why think of the fires of Hell when one could live so long? Poor reasoning - but the boy was too curious, too prideful of his own looks to wonder what would happen should they ever fade away, to refuse. He handed the elixir to the boy, popped off the top, and made him say this chant, one for every time he drank the strange liquid - greenish-white, it tasted like grass, but more bitter. Devil take me - Devil take the ring - Devil take me - And everything. The boy took deep breaths, now, feeling a little woozy after drinking the strange concoction from the strange alchemist he had been warned not to mess with. He saw Ferro smile, again seeing those enormous teeth, oddly, brilliantly white as they were. Excellent, was how Ferro praised the boy. Now, they had to finish the rest. Up they want to the bald at the top of that mountain - Ferro sprinkled an amount of ground-up mushroom that glowed in the dark, foxfire he called it, to make a ring. Step into this ring, he instructed the boy, and then it would be it for him to say the words, just as he did when drink the elixir earlier. The boy did as he was told - but almost immediately, he felt unwell, like something wasn't quite right. But at the same time did his heart race with that lethal swirl of excitement, and fear - was it really possible that he, humble he, could live in years uncounted, longer than anyone he knew? Ferro's voice seemed to take an - otherworldly tone. Heat lightning appeared, distant, dancing on the mountains. A cold wind picked up from nowhere. But what had Ferro said about - in a form you will no doubt enjoy - that was being forever youthful, was it not? Yet he had very little time to think - for now the the boy heard Ferro recite his blasphemous prayer: Devil take me-- The boy sputtered in shock - he felt the wooly fur sprouting on his legs, his arms, he felt the itch on his chin where a caprine growth of beard was starting, his whole body exploding in a sickened, cold sweat. Devil take the ring-- Now his feet burned hot with sudden agony, swelling and moving about in his boots, so that he was thrown to the ground in utter excruciation - the very bones of his toes seemed to bloat, at first, and grow bigger, breaking the skin, but then worst of all they started to fuse together, and get larger still, so that he felt the leather of his boots heave and then tear, bursting through the fabric...his new hooves, gnarled and goatish. Devil take me-- The boy realized in the moment that, were he to stay in the magic circle, he would continue to change in these eldritch ways. He tried to run, but he stumbled, and stumbled hard, his new hooves too unsteady to maneuver - he went down headfirst, only for a pain to grip his entire skull, a migraine that caused the blackness behind his tightly shut eyes to flash with starbursts of fresh pain...mere seconds passed before he reached up to his head to feel something growing on it, out of it, ripping open places through his flesh to emerge, hard and yellowing like aged ivory, goaty horns, oh how he screamed, alone, aloud, in dire panic, clawing his way blindly through the grass, barely making it out of that accursed glowing circle. And - everything... The ritual was done - and the boy had only just managed to save himself. He looked back at Farro, those dark eyes lit up by the moonlight, laughing at him, that echoing, mocking, jeering laugh of knowing he had fooled that boy into doing something so utterly foolish that could never, ever be reversed. He let the boy go - telling him never to come up on the bald he'd taken to, and never tell a soul what had happened - but not before laughing, one more time, to enjoy all the long life he had earned. Eph stopped - his tale ended. His toothy smile was from ear to ear, seemingly pleased that he held his young audience so tautly spellbound. Now Jimmy was just about as horrified as he had ever been in his own short life - he was shaking something fierce, the flames in the fireplace providing him neither warmth nor comfort, but seemed to reflect, burning themselves, in Eph's eyes. "What...what happened ta the boy?" Jimmy asked. "In - in the story--" "Ferro had his bargain and let him go," Eph said with another one of his strange, discomforting smiles. "But he left em all messed up like he done. Teach em a lesson." "Jest left em like that?!" "Oh yes, boy. All horned and goaty and ugly." "That's awful." "Aye, boy. And he was so ugly that way - jest so damned ugly - only a goat would wanna lay with em." A twinkle appeared in his eye that, even though Jimmy couldn't rightly understand it, made his bowels turn to ice. "And so he did!" "He - he did what now...?" Eph chuckled. "Never ya mind, boy. Trust me, ain't nuthin Ferro wudn't do, ta make somebody hurt." Jimmy found he couldn't stop trembling, but he gathered up some hidden reserve of courage to ask his last question - what had been bothering him all this time Eph had been speaking: "H-how - how come yew know all this?" He wished he hadn't asked it - he'd wished he'd just been ignorant the rest of his life, and never realize just what kind of awful world he and everybody else was living in, that such things could exist, that something so damnably horrible could ever be true. But he got his answer. And when he got it, he tore off a-hollerin from that accursed cabin, running so hard his legs felt like they would fall off and his lungs would swell up and burst in his chest. Years and years went by and he never told a single person what he seen that night. Sometimes when he was too drunk or too tired as he grew older the truth would come out, but never before. He had seen nightmarish things in Sicily, he would see still more as his battalion moved up into Italy, but only one thing Jim McCall ever saw made him scream awake in the middle of the night then what he saw that night as a seven-year old boy. "How do I know?" Eph had repeated back to him with a cold laugh. The firelight had took to that hideous twinkle in his eyes, and Eph smiled a terrible smile - he took off his big hat. There, underneath the fabric, hidden in a tussle of white, woolen hair, was a pair of enormous, curved goat horns. "Cuz that boy - was me!"