Wendigo

The young lad sighed at the sight of his empty snare wondering how the rabbit had gotten away. He stared down the path for a moment, his wide blue eyes searching the low, snow-covered hemlock boughs for a shiver. As he lifted the rim of his woolen tuque from his ears to hear better, the pom-pom on top bounced over his sheepskin collar. When he looked up, snowflakes fell to his face like bits of lace made of ice; they clung to his eyelashes, melted, and became like tears down his cheeks.

“Hmph,” he muttered under his warm breath, “silly to be looking up in the trees for a rabbit.” Puffs of white snowman breath obscured his vision briefly. ‘I’m just a silly---wait. Over there.’ “Tracks…” puff.

He set out with re-newed enthusiasm, following the fresh little prints in the snow.

The small snowshoe hare spied on the boy. Her white whiskers poufed before her face and quivered anxiously while her body remained frozen. As the boy’s booted feet unstealthily crunched in the snow, the hare watched and waited, ready to flee. Ten heartbeats later a foot stepped just two feet from her. She ducked deeper into the underbrush, turned, and hopped into woods that were growing denser and darker with every turn of play in this game of pursuit.

The boy’s tummy growled uncomfortably. He was thinking of rabbit stew. The chase was easy, the rabbit’s prints were like beacons in the soft white blanketed ground. He began daydreaming of thick rich broth and seasoned carrots and onions…’oh and chanterelles…and a big side of poutine.’

The snow was falling abundantly now. The boy jerked out of his reverie, a little alarmed by the darkness of the forest and the dimness of the fading afternoon sky. ‘Just a little ways more, the tracks are still fresh, it’s just ahead of me a little bit.’ The rabbit prints were getting harder to follow, the snow was swiftly erasing them.

The white hare watched the boy struggle to keep up. She froze and waited beneath a tangle of hibernating wild raspberry bushes. She was patient as he concentrated on diminishing tracks. Worry knotted the boy’s brow. His eyes watered as the wind picked up. He blinked tears away as he searched around the bushes for the rabbit’s tracks. ‘Aha! There!

The rabbit waited as long as she could for the boy to catch up then took off at a fast pace down a deer path so deep into the forest that little snow reached the frozen ground there.

When the boy realized the ground was merely dusted here and there with snow his heart sank. No more tracks. No rabbit stew. It was nearly dark and time to go---‘wait…’ He sniffed the air thinking it must have been his hungry imagination. There it came again…fresh baked gingerbread. And caramel and cinnamon and sugary sweet smells…and the comforting fragrance of pine logs burning in a woodstove.

The boy never went home that day…or ever.

***

Once upon a time…

“There was a being so horrific looking, so scary, so…so…blood-curdling to behold” I laughed a little bit as I did every time I began my story, the giggle was as spine-chilling as my appearance…and that made me laugh more.

I combed the thick black hair on my shoulders and down my chest, sloughing off the frizzy ends and cobwebs until my coat gleamed like black silk in the cheery yellow light my fireplace emitted. I was at my thinnest this time of year, after just awakening from my spring-summer hibernation. Skeletal, like bones with skin.

I was also at my hungriest.

A soft squeak from the logs by my hearth attracted my attention. My freshly awoken back creaked like the attic floor of a haunted house as I bent my nine-foot frame to peer at the mouse sitting there. It stood frozen on its hind legs, tiny pink paws pressed to its chest. I poked it and it tumbled off the log, dead. My cat slunk from the shadows behind me and curled around my goaty legs purring like a sawblade chewing through a knot. The large sunken black pits of my eyes glowed like warm amber embers as I stroked his thick grey fur.

“Ah Maestro. What a pleasing welcome back my friend.” Indeed, he was my only friend. Dogs are said to be the loyalist beings. I wouldn’t know. They don’t like me much. In fact, the smaller breeds tend to drop dead of fright just as poor mousey here. “Speaking of which…here ya go friend, enjoy.” Maestro fell upon the mouse in a most delicate way, as if savoring the sweet guts through its fur before crunching the head off.

I could relate. Thinking of such delicacies as brains, liver, kidneys…my mouth salivated.

I turned back to my mirror and grinned. Though my face was that of an elongated skull, my teeth were most definitely carnivorous. They were long and pointed like a wolf’s. Atop my deer-like head my antlers had grown another two points during my sleep. I polished them with a bit of buttery soft tanned human skin until they gleamed. My hooves were next, polished to an onyx-like luster.

I wrapped a cloak of grizzly fur around my shoulders with a flourish, careful not to tear the hide, for though the cloak was thick and heavy, the claws at the ends of my gangly arms were long and curved like razor-sharp eagles’ beaks. My arms were so long I could drag my knuckles on the ground…which I did sometimes to further terrorize my prey with the terrible shrieking noise it made and if I was lucky---sparks. ‘Heh heh heh.’

I left Maestro to guard the cabin and headed towards the town ten miles to the east. I would stay to the shadows and veil of night, on the outskirts of course, my kind hadn’t been around for centuries by being sociable. ‘Perhaps the cabins surrounding the ski lodge would be a good place to start. Perhaps the frozen lake where fishermen poked holes in the ice and sat in little shacks. It was fun to lift the shacks and grin at the grubby stinky men goggling at you, trying to figure if you were a brandy induced vision or not.’ Every once in awhile recognition bloomed in a bristly bearded face and images of their lives flicked through their eyes like pages turning in a book. Sins they’d committed were outlined on these pages in red, ink or blood made no difference. They had all sinned by that age.

I walked all that morning, enjoying winter though the exertion increased my appetite. By the mill at the stream near the outskirts I heard laughter. Children’s laughter. That was no good. It was sinners I ate. Not worth the risk. I veered away from their high-pitched voices, silently wishing them long lives. The longer the lives, the greater the sin count.

By late afternoon I was dismayed not to find ice fishers and headed towards the ski lodge cabins. I kept a wider berth than usual around the main lodge as the groundskeeper there had hounds. The hackles down my back were standing at attention; dogs barked. I changed course and eventually found myself in a wonderfully dark and dense forest.

Just after dark, I was about to turn back and perhaps visit one of the farmsteads two or three miles from the town, when…the scent of gingerbread clung to my nostril hairs and gave them a tug. ‘Hmm.’ Though I did eat human flesh, I also had a sweet tooth. I followed the faint aroma floating in the wintry air. It was far off, besides rending meat from bone as a wolf does, I could also smell as well as one.

Along the seven or eight miles, the enticing aroma intensified. I could detect nutmeg, cinnamon, sugary treats…and of course the pungent scent of gingerbread. I was intrigued. I started running, I couldn’t stop my goaty legs. My Hooves pounded on frozen earth, puffs of dirt and snowy clumps were flung in my wake. After ten miles, I came upon a tangle of brush and raspberry stickers so thick it was like a dam holding me, the water, back.

I burst through the thick tangles leaving tufts of fur behind and came upon a clearing.

In the clearing stood a house, a cabin like I’d never seen before. The flat brown walls were decorated with puffs of white that turned out to be icing. Embedded in this white confection were sugary gumdrops the size of my hand…and red licorice whips framing the doorway and windows. Adorning the eaves were lemon drops and cinnamon hearts. Along the walkway to the stoop were two-foot gummy bears. I reached out to an eave and broke off a small crumble of gingerbread. “Mmmm. Delicious.”

“Who is that that dares to eat my house?!” The voice was raspy and somewhat soft, that of an old woman.

I turned, licking sweet icing from my fingers. “I apologize. I could not resist this…this treat.”

The old woman came out into the porchlight. She was of an indeterminable age, could be sixty, could be 200. Her nose was hooked with a roach-sized mole near the end. A two-inch black hair sprouted from it. Her grey frizzling brows furrowed, she was clearly not expecting one such as I. She was adorned in a red satin dress that sagged and drooped off her gaunt frame. She said, “Oh my,” as she looked up into my skeletal deer’s face. “I know you,” she said. “You’re the Wendingo.”

I bowed my head, as ever happy to be recognized My legend proceeded me.

“Come in, come in, my friend,” she said, batting her eyelashes as if inviting her prom date inside.

The inside of the cabin was warm and smelled of freshly roasted meat. My mouth watered. The meat was child.

I do not reap children. I reap sinners. Therefore, my stews are filled with stringy old people meat. Children were innocent and forbidden. But oh my…how those spirits consumed would elevate my senses…my powers. This old woman before me, this witch, had consumed dozens of little ones…she was full of their life force. And she was a sinner of the highest degree. I planted myself at her table.

“I have worshipped you, Wendigo. Cannibal like I. We are the same.”

We so were not. But I said nothing, only nodded cryptically. I ate the boy child stew she placed before me. It was so delicious, the meat so tender. But we were not alike. She was a murderer of innocents; I was a reaper of sinners.

I told the witch, “Children come this way this night. A boy and girl. Hansel and Gretel…young and sweet and innocent.”

The witch perked up and said, “Oh my. Heh heh heh.” She bustled about the place, banging pots and clanging pans and smacking her old liver-colored lips. At last, she lit the woodstove. Then she sat and waited by it until the flames flickered like dragon’s breath from the mouth of it. She cackled the entire time and even hummed under her old lady breath. “Hmm hmm hmm. Crackle go the bones…hmm hmm hm.”

She peered out her window, searching the yard for the new arrivals. She turned back to me. “Heh heh…”

I said, “Get that fire nice and hot now…”

“Oh yes. My big ole oven roasts two children at a time. You needn’t worry about my culinary skills. My big ole hot oven gets hotter than Hell. Aaaah ha ha haha!”

She winked at me as if I were familiar with Hell. Then she said, “ I strip em bare then toss em in. They broil fast. Their skin crisps as they scream and scream. From this little vent on the top---“ She indicated with a long gnarled white finger with a pointed brown nail at an opening on the top of the stove, like a place where a small burner would sit. “---yes…with the screams comes their souls. Right there. Aaah ha haha!”

She was repulsive to me. But I admit I felt a pang of jealousy. This witch feasts upon tender delectable babes and inhales their sweet souls while I am damned to harvest only the sinners. I found myself laughing along with the witch, “Har har harvelly-har!”

Instead of being aghast by my Hadean laugh, she clapped her bony hands and again went to the window, seeking the brother and sister destined to be drawn to her door.

I stood and watched behind her through the window. The little blond haired-blue eyed siblings came down the narrow dark path. Their eyes alit with wonder at the house, just as mine had only a short while before. The witch turned back to her stove and carefully placed three more fags under it. The room was very warm, and the scent of pine burning was very comforting. The witch went back to the kitchen and finished chopping the herbs and garlic, she again hummed to herself happily. “Hey Wendigo, mind finishing up the salad while I let the kiddies in?”

“No problem,” I said and went to the kitchen. I waited in the doorway while she let the lost little children inside. When she went to the oven to make sure it was hot enough, I pushed her into it and slammed the door shut.

I looked up and saw the poor little ones were staring with wide eyes and mouths agape as if catching flies. I said, “Do not fear. The witch is dead---”

A blood-curdling scream came through the vent in the oven.

“Um…well nearly so. You two are safe. I do not eat children.”

The boy and girl, both too perfect in description, like as in old timey fairy tale, came and hugged my goaty legs.

“Okay, okay,” I said. I don’t think I’d ever been hugged before. Was this a tear in my eye? ‘Pah!’

On our way back to the children’s home in the village, I said, “So…you live in a farm outside the town?”