Seek and Woe Ye Shall Find

The Sylvan sisters, clothed in their time worn finery, waited amongst the brambles. Their cutting-crested plague masks, pure folkloric nightmare fuel, hid their faces which were rumored worse.

The reason behind their hidden visages lived in mystery and their doom-laden costumes had become the focal image of local legend and mythology: one that told of impending tragedy should you come across the unsettling siblings—reputed harbingers of horrible, unimaginable ends.

The townspeople rarely recited the wretched rhyme, the origin of which remained unknown. Though children would whisper it, late at night, around a candle’s light:

The locals whisper
About the stench that lingers
Like an ancient plague.

And if you smell it
In the woods’ brambled clearing,
The cause is not vague:

‘Tis the evil twins
Letting you know you are doomed
For they have the sight.

And there’s no escape:
Your fated, horrible end
Comes that very night!

Theda Bodwin thought it all balderdash. She taught her pupils facts, not fabrications. And that’s how she lived her life: ever based on evidence, never on blind faith. She held her tongue on religious matters, knowing heresy to be a crime. But she subscribed to nothing that would not stand up to empirical scrutiny.

So, for herself alone, she ventured to the woods to seek out the bramble clearing on the first Monday eve past midsummer when the Sylvan sisters were rumored to appear to anyone doomed to find their life cut short.

She made herself comfortable in the clearing as the sky burned a mix of ochre and mauve. She nibbled on some berries she brought and thought it a perfectly lovely outing as the shadows of the neighboring trees stretched longer around her as the horizon darkened in crimson and purple. She popped the last her berries into her mouth and wiped her fingers on the small napkin she’d wrapped them in.

Just then she stopped, wrinkling her nose at a sudden unpleasant smell.

She turned and—stunned—saw them standing there, side by side.

The Sylvan sisters!

Theda rose in an instant, facing them in the darkening dusk.

But she felt no fear. She squinted, skeptical and suspicious.

“Who are you?! How dare you dress in such a fashion as to try to terrorize gullible people!”

The twin interlopers said nothing. Just stood there.

“You are obviously not the Sylvan sisters. They would be long dead by now. You are simply taking advantage of credulous simple folk by masquerading as the characters from a story created to scare children away from the woods!”

Still the two figures before her remained silent and still.

“Have you nothing to say? Have you no shame? And what is that wretched smell?!”

Theda stood, breathing hard.

Waiting.

Defiant.

Then, slowly, the two robed women each lifted their arms as one, their hands coming to clasp their masks in their fingers.

Theda watched, unsure, but steadfast.

The four hands lifted and then lowered, taking the masks away from their faces.

Theda gasped, losing all color.

The Sylvan sisters stood before her, masks in hand, their burned faces forever oozing with odiferous pustules and sores.

Theda screamed and ran from the clearing, her eyes burning with sudden tears of fear and mortification. She ran madly, stumbling, scrambling, blinded by her tears. She had seen the truth. The impossible truth!

But she did not see the ravine before her.

As she fell, she saw the first stars appearing in the night sky. And she heard that old, warning rhyme…

‘Tis the evil twins
Letting you know you are doomed
For they have the sight.

And there’s no escape:
Your fated, horrible end
Comes that very night!

A moment later, Theda Bodwin was gone.

And the clearing stood empty again.