“The Feast Of The Charred Stag”

— Archived, Plymouth Historical Society, 1628

from the account of Kehteau, the one who walked ahead

Child, if you wish to know how the Pilgrims thanked their god, I will tell you. But I warn you: once you hear this story, you will never look at a feast without tasting blood in the broth.

The Night before the “Thanksgiving”

The sickness came first.

Not the fever that kills the lungs — the other sickness.

The one that kills sound.

The woods went quiet.

The soil grew cold underfoot.

Even the crows avoided the Pilgrims’ roofs.

I warned them.

I told their governor:

“What came with your people across the water… it remembers the bones you carried and the blood you left behind.”

He pretended not to hear me.But the Reverend—the one with the burning eyes — He heard, and I followed.

Footprints pressed into the frozen mud, dragging unevenly. Some were human—or nearly human—but twisted in ways no foot should bend. Toes splayed like roots, arches collapsed into claws. Others looked like animal tracks, yet the stride was too long, too careful, as if something was mimicking our steps.

The wind whispered through the trees, carrying the faintest whine or chant, though no one was speaking. Every footprint I followed seemed to tremble with anticipation, as if the earth itself knew I was coming.

Snow shifted in odd, angular lines, forming shapes that looked like faces, staring, waiting, though my mind told me it was just frost and shadow. Yet the tracks persisted, leading me through the uncanny rhythm of the forest toward the pyre, toward the Mouth beneath the ground, toward the energy the Pilgrims were feeding…

The closer I got to the clearing, the more the smell of earth and rot engulfed.

Every crook, and hollow was occupied. The branches bent under the weight, groaning softly as if protesting the offerings.

Small bundles hung from them, tied with sinew and scraps of cloth, swinging gently despite the still air. Animals—squirrels, birds, small deer fawns—had been stripped of life and left frozen mid-expression, claws curled, teeth bared in grimaces that seemed to scream at nothing.

Some had eyes gouged out and crudely painted over with charcoal or ochre, creating the illusion that they were watching, judging, and warning.

Their fur was matted, stiffened by time and smoke, as though the ritual itself had hardened them into permanent, lifeless shapes. They dangled like grotesque pendants, caught between the earth and the sky, as if the Pilgrims had decided the forest itself should witness their devotion.

Other bundles were smaller and more horrifying. Twisted, misshapen forms wrapped in rags too small for human life. Stillborns, the Pilgrims whispered, though the words barely passed lips—they feared even naming them.

Their tiny limbs were bent at unnatural angles; some faces were pressed into the cloth, expressions frozen in the moment of first breath never taken. The wind caught a scrap of fabric, lifting it just enough for it to flutter like a small, desperate wing. The sound tore through the quiet, slicing the stillness. My chest tightened, a knot of rage and fear forming deep in my gut. My arms prickled with gooseflesh.

The ground thrummed beneath my boots, heat rolling up in waves. Smoke spiraled into the night, and the stag skulls’ hollow eyes flared like molten coals: a pulse, not from the earth itself, but from the way fear and malice had been concentrated here for weeks. Every bundle tied to the trees added to it, feeding the Mouth beneath the pit.

This wasn’t like the Hobomock. The Hobomock brought death and destruction in a visible, brutal form—fires, disease, bodies torn apart—but this… this was magic that consumed death itself. It did not leave bodies. It left hunger. A ravenous, patient hunger that thrummed through the soil, the trees, the air, and the pyre at the center of it all.

The poppets swayed between the branches, their shadows stretching across the trunks. Some were positioned as if in mid-fall, some with their heads bent unnaturally, as if the forest itself had twisted them into these shapes.

The Pilgrims weren’t just feeding fear; they were turning death into a weapon.

I swallowed hard, knowing that the Mouth beneath the ground was hungry, and every one of these bundles had been a bite.

The wind had gone into hiding, and the animals followed.

Only the Pilgrims moved—lanterns bobbing like yellow eyes through the dark.

I watched them from the tree line, bow in hand, knife at my hip.

A feast for gods I did not know, a thanksgiving for forces that fed not on life, but on the deaths already given.

The pyre rose at the center, massive, logs stacked high, blackened stag skulls impaled on top, antlers twisting like skeletal fingers reaching for the sky. Smoke coiled in thick columns, carrying the smell of burnt hair, charred flesh, and something else… something sour, old, and metallic.

Around it, a dozen Pilgrims knelt, some naked, some in rough ceremonial robes, faces painted in streaks of red and black. They moved slowly, deliberately, passing vessels from hand to hand, pouring thick, dark liquids into bowls, drinking, murmuring, their chant low and insistent.

The forest seemed to breathe around the clearing, each exhale pushing the stench of smoke and death into my lungs.

I counted them carefully. Fewer than there should have been—disease had thinned their numbers—but the malice in those remaining was palpable. Each one feeding the Mouth beneath the pyre, each movement adding to the pulse of energy that seemed to rise out of the ground itself. Not magic, not spirit. Pure human obsession made physical, amplified through ritual and fire.

The feast itself was a study in contradiction—opulent and horrifying at once. Long wooden tables, crudely hewn but sturdy, were stacked with bowls, platters, and vessels of all shapes. Meat glistened under the firelight, roasted to dark perfection: small game, poultry, and cuts that suggested larger animals, stripped from the frozen forest with precision.

The smell of roasting fur and fat mingled with smoke, acrid and metallic, making my stomach churn. Some of it was seasoned with herbs I recognized—the common wild herbs of the region—but interlaced with charred roots and bitter spices that seemed meant to confuse the senses, to sharpen hunger into something sharper, almost painful.

Among the food were piles of furs and feathers, neatly stacked as though they were offerings rather than materials, their sheen catching the firelight. Small coins, trinkets, carved beads, and bits of bone littered the table, glinting like scattered stars against the dark wood. They were not meant to be eaten, yet they contributed to the energy, feeding the Mouth indirectly, a silent accounting of wealth, greed, and devotion.

The Pilgrims themselves moved among it like priests in a temple, ceremonial robes hanging in uneven folds, faces streaked with red and black. They carried bowls carefully, passed platters from hand to hand, murmuring under their breath. Occasionally, one would tilt a vessel toward the pyre, spilling part of its contents into the fire, letting it hiss and flare.

The smoke caught in spirals, carrying the sharp, metallic tang of blood, hair, and roasted meat. It made me taste iron, made my lungs ache, but it also marked the ritual as alive, a pulse of human obsession made manifest.

I noticed small details as I moved closer. Some of the food had been arranged to mirror bodies, limbs of small animals twisted into unnatural poses, head turned toward the pyre, fur singed just enough to blacken the edges.

Bones were stripped clean and then realigned in patterns across platters, forming geometries that felt familiar and wrong, like some ritual language written in flesh. Even the coins and trinkets were arranged in careful lines, spirals, concentric circles, as if counting and ordering wealth were part of the spell, feeding the Mouth beneath the pyre.

I saw her first, crouched behind a log, pale, trembling. Eyes wide. Bound, but alive. She looked at me, recognition flickering through terror. My chest tightened. Every step toward her had to be precise. One snap of a twig, one misplaced foot, and the Mouth, the ritual, the pyre, the watchers could all turn on us.

I moved like shadow through the twisted forest. Roots curled across my path, poppets swaying just enough to make me flinch, statues looming at impossible angles. The air thrummed with the energy of the ritual, each heartbeat and whisper feeding the Mouth’s hunger. The ground itself seemed aware of our passage, frost cracking beneath my feet like cautious warning.

The woman flinched as I cut the bindings. a pilgrim spun at the sound, dagger raised, eyes wide with fanatic certainty. My tomahawk swung; the arm crumpled. The others remained lost in the ritual, chanting, feeding the Mouth with each breath.

I pressed her low, hand over mouth, dragging her behind a fallen log. Smoke stung our lungs, shadows twisted, poppets tilted and leaned, rock statues seemed to reach—but it was human obsession made manifest, not some ghost or demon.

And yet… the feeling persisted. Watching, waiting, hungry. The Mouth throbbed beneath the pyre. The forest seemed to sigh as we slipped past, smoke curling into the night, stag skulls glowing, ritual energy pulsing, the hunger consuming everything left in its path.

Her eyes—the bluest I had ever seen—caught the reflection of the moon on the frozen lake from the summer I remembered, sharp and clear, like it had always been waiting for me. Her skin, pale as frost, seemed to drink in the firelight, a fragile warmth in the midst of all this cold, this death.

I was an outsider to her life. Someone her father must have traded with in passing, someone she might have glimpsed once or twice and then forgotten. And yet, here, at the edge of crooked trees, twisted roots, and shadows that bent unnaturally, we were all we had.

I reached for her, felt the weight of her trembling in my hands. I promised myself: unless it was by her own doing, I would never release her. Not into the fire, not into the ritual, not back into the hands of those who would feed her to the Mouth. Here, in this frozen, pulsing clearing, we belonged only to each other.

Even as the pyre roared behind us, even as the Hunger beneath it throbbed like a heartbeat, the moment was still ours—brief, fragile, human. I held her tight. Her scent, her warmth, anchored me in the world outside the ritual, a tether to life in a place designed to consume it.

A massive man, shoulders broad beneath the black paint streaked across his skin, stag pelts draped like a mockery of sacred antlers, emerged from the lodge. A war hammer gripped in one hand, an axe in the other. His movements were deliberate, slow, the way a predator might toy with prey before the kill.

The slots in the lodge opened suddenly, and arrows screamed through the air. They cut the sky like sharp black needles tipped with dark feathers, a rain of death that made the forest around us pulse with panic. I grabbed her, pressing her low. The snow exploded in tiny shards where arrows struck, the base of the crooked trees shuddering from the impact.

Branches snapped, bark shredded. The air smelled of burnt wood, iron, and fear. I could hear the low pulse beneath the pyre even from here, as if the Mouth itself was feeding the hunter’s fury.

We ran, ducking between twisted trunks, every root and knotted branch a potential snag. Black-feathered arrows clattered into the snow or buried themselves in tree trunks, the sound ringing through the inner woods like drums of warning.

Behind us, the Heavy bellowed, the war hammer swinging in time with his heavy footsteps. Smoke from the lodge fire clawed at the night, mingling with the acrid tang of charred fur, making every breath a blade in the lungs. But we pressed on, every sense alert, every nerve taut, moving deeper into the inner woods where the trees formed a more jagged, protective barrier.

I handed her my long cannon. The cold steel was heavy in her hands, but it calmed her nerves, grounded her. She gripped it tight, knuckles white, and I could feel the tremor of her fear through her body. I wanted to tell her everything would be fine, but the forest itself had other plans.

We moved into the inner woods, each step sinking into frost-crusted underbrush. The crooked trees leaned inward, branches twisting overhead like skeletal fingers, forming shapes that should not exist. Shadows flickered where there were none, and every snap of a twig sounded like a footstep behind us.

The trail back was unfamiliar. Every ridge, every hollow seemed wrong, twisted. Roots that should have lain flat reached like hands. Moss-covered trunks appeared in the corner of my eye, only to vanish when I looked directly. A breeze whispered through the trees, carrying the faint tang of iron, of blood, and of fire still burning in the clearing behind us.

I handed her my long cannon. The cold steel was heavy in her hands, but it calmed her nerves, grounded her. She gripped it tight, knuckles white, and I could feel the tremor of her fear through her body. I wanted to tell her everything would be fine, but the forest itself had other plans.

I drew an arrow, feeling the weight of it in my hands. Mawagon moved like a shadow given shape, deliberate, controlled, trapped between worlds. Not monstrous, exactly—just wrong. The way the crooked trees leaned toward him, the way the shadows pooled and shifted, the faint hum beneath the snow—it all told me he did not belong here in the way I belonged.

She pressed close, eyes wide, breathing shallow. I didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. The arrow rested against the string, taut, ready—but the forest itself seemed to hesitate with us, holding its breath.

A blade flashed from the shadows. Quick, precise, cutting the line of the arrow mid-flight. Mawagon’s mask of antlers tilted slightly as if amused. The forest seemed to hum around him, twisting subtly, roots and branches shifting, shadows bending toward him. It wasn’t brute strength. It was control, cunning, an uncanny distortion of reality itself.

The arrow hit a tree trunk sideways, embedding itself with a hollow thud. I could feel the pull in my gut: the forest bending, the ritual energy lingering, Mawagon feeding off the chaos he conjured. My hands shook, not from fear but from the effort to understand what had just happened.

She raised the long cannon, trembling only slightly now, and fired. The report cracked through the trees like ice breaking underfoot. I ducked instinctively, blade at the ready.

The shot struck him in the chest. The sound wasn’t just impact—it sang through the air, a metallic rasp that lingered unnaturally, as though the bullet itself had found a note only Mawagon could carry.

His stagger wasn’t human; his body convulsed, twisted in ways the weight of a man shouldn’t allow.

Blood blossomed across the black paint on his skin, but it wasn’t just red. It gleamed faintly, almost silver in the firelight, and coiled upward like smoke, following the line of the wound as though it were alive. The air around it shivered. Roots beneath the snow trembled. Even the crooked trees leaned closer, shadows stretching toward the stain, hungry, curious, almost sentient.

He let out a low, guttural sound, half roar, half hiss, that vibrated through the clearing. The bullet had pierced flesh, but the ritual energy—the Mouth, the pyre—made the wound something else, not entirely mortal, not entirely alive.

I stepped forward, blade ready, feeling the pulse of his fury through the snow and the faint, lingering heat of the pyre’s energy. The forest whispered, bending shadows and branches toward him, yet the wound in his chest glimmered like a signal, an uncanny invitation to finish what had begun.

She kept the cannon raised, hands steady, eyes wide but determined. I felt the weight of our moment, human against this twisted, perverse force, and for the first time I saw that the uncanny energy that surrounded him could be confronted, if only we acted together.

She dropped the cannon and grabbed my blade, swapping it for a crude club from the snow. Mawagon lunged, staggering but relentless, antlers catching firelight. She swung with everything, striking the side of his skull. The blow echoed like a drum through the crooked trees.

Blood—dark, iridescent, almost liquid shadow—spattered across snow and bark. It hissed where it touched the roots, curling upward like smoke, bending the shadows around us. He stumbled, thrashing, but did not fall. She swung again, harder, striking the war hammer from his grasp. Mawagon froze for a heartbeat—human hesitation. That was all it took.

I stepped forward, blade in hand, and drove it home. He shuddered, a final convulsion twisting through the silvered blood and shadowed air, and then lay still. The forest exhaled. The crooked trees leaned away, and the pulse beneath the pyre faded to a murmur.

She fell to her knees, trembling, breathing hard, hands clutching the club. I lowered my blade, feeling the warmth of her life against the cold, the firelight reflecting in her blue eyes.

We chained the corpse to a cedar and waited for him to return, but the forest only leaned closer. We never found the lodge—only the feeling that an old presence was circling back for us, yet the whispers followed us through crooked trees, drifting across the frost and the frozen meadows. The shadows shifted, the wind carried voices that were not voices, and the forest seemed alive with hunger we could not name.If you see the sticks and the stillness, run, for the forest remembers steps and hungers for those who linger.