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  The three friends just gaped, too frightened to move. In the silence that followed, broken only by the gurgle of the water still seeping out under the door, they heard a ghostly voice from the other side of the door. It sounded like someone calling from underwater.

  “Catherine!” it called. “Annie! Susan! I knew you’d come looking for me. I’ll be with you in just a minute!”

  There was a last boom against the door; then a deep silence fell over the room that smelled offish and salt and seaweed.

  The door began to open. There was silver light all around it. The puddle of water on the floor looked like a tide pool in the moonlight. They saw a little girl’s hand, pale as whitefish, wet, and wrinkled as something that has lain in the water too long.

  Terrified, the three girls ran from the shack as fast as they could, out into the thick, wet fog. They didn’t stop running until they were back in their own neighborhood. There, while they caught their breath, they tried to make some sense of their frightening experience. Had Maria been playing a trick on them? If so, why? But that didn’t explain the strange light and the sound and smell of the ocean inside the house or the crash of waves against the closed door.

  Finally, confused and frightened, the girls decided to tell their parents what they had seen.

  It was Catherine’s father who told them, “Richard Colter’s boat sank three days ago. They found his body washed ashore near Point Lobos. His little girl, Maria, drowned with him, but they haven’t found her body yet.”

  The Midnight Mass of the Dead

  (a Norse folktale)

  There was once a very devout widow who lived in a small village in Norway and went to church every day. For many years Juliana would go with her friend Berta to these services. When Berta died, she went alone.

  One Christmas Eve, she thought she would go to the early service on Christmas morning. Since there were fewer people at this mass, she could sit nearer the altar, feeling close to the Christ child on this holiest of days.

  Before she went to bed Christmas Eve, she put out coffee, so she could have something warm to drink because she did not want to go to church on an empty stomach.

  Juliana’s alarm failed to wake her, but she roused herself out of a deep sleep sometime Christmas morning. Moonlight was streaming through onto the bedroom floor when she got up. She looked at her little alarm clock, but it had stopped with the hands frozen at eleven-thirty. She did not know for sure what time it was, so she went over to the window and looked down the street to the church. Light was shining through all the windows; and, opening her window sash for a moment, she was sure she could hear singing carried to her ears on the chill breeze.

  She hastily set the coffee boiling while she dressed. She downed a cup of the strong, black brew, then got out her long, pink cloth coat, lined and trimmed with rabbit fur, which she only wore on special occasions. Tying a white scarf around her head and gathering up her prayer book, she set out for the church.

  Oddly enough it was very quiet on the street, and she did not see a soul on the way. Usually Christmas morning brought many to even the earliest services—souls who might otherwise never go to worship during the year.

  When she entered the church, she found a pew very near the altar. But when she glanced around, it seemed to her that all the other people looked pale and strange, though she was not rude enough to stare at them. The woman on her right had deep circles around her eyes, as though she had just gotten over some terrible illness; the man on her left clutched the back of the pew in front of him with fingers so long and thin, they hardly seemed to have any flesh on them at all. It seemed to Juliana that there wasn’t anyone kneeling around her that she knew—yet, she had the feeling she had met many of them before, though she could not say where or when.

  She settled back into the hard wooden pew along with the rest of the congregation, when the pastor left the altar and climbed half a dozen short steps up to the pulpit. He was not Pastor Solvold, nor any of the city ministers she was familiar with. The visitor was a tall, pale man who preached quite well. Again she had the nagging feeling that she knew him from sometime long ago, but she could not place him.

  He spoke of death and those who lay waiting the resurrection under the Christmas snows and who grew impatient with eternity. Juliana found his themes morbid and not at all the message of joy and hope she expected. The preacher rambled on, and she became restless, shifting uncomfortably in her pew. As she let her mind wander, she realized there was not the noise and coughing and throat clearing that she was used to hearing at any early mass. The silence was so absolute that when she nervously dropped her prayerbook, the sound seemed to boom out from the altar to the choir loft. The preacher paused and stared at her with red-rimmed eyes that had no trace of kindness in them at all.

  Juliana picked up her prayerbook, but she was feeling so uneasy that her hand was trembling.

  When the preacher had finished his sermon, he led the congregation in a hymn. The music was strange, and the words were unfamiliar to Juliana.

  “Leaves have their time to fall,

  And flowers wither at the northwind’s breath,

  And stars to set—but all,

  Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!”

  She was so uncomfortable that she could not get any words out. She was aware of the woman on her right and the man on her left staring at her with the same intensity as had the strange pastor.

  Suddenly while the singing continued, a woman who was sitting behind Juliana leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Throw your coat over your shoulders and go quickly! If you’re still here when the mass is over, you’re finished! This is a service held by the Dead.”

  Now the widow was so frightened, she wasn’t sure her legs would support her. But she recognized the voice of the woman who had warned her, and turned around.

  It was Berta, her friend, who had died many years ago. In a flash, she realized that the pastor and other members of the congregation that she had recognized were persons who had died in the parish over the years. She shivered from terror; but Berta gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, so she pulled her coat loosely around her and got up to leave.

  But just as she reached the aisle, the woman with the sunken eyes and the man with the bony fingers began to screech. These ghastly figures turned in the pew and snatched at her.

  Like a sea that has suddenly been churned by winds, the crowd of horrible, pale churchgoers rose in their pews and began clamoring toward the aisle. They yelled and moaned and scratched at her, their hands like claws, with dirt and mold beneath their cracked, yellow fingernails.

  Sobbing “No, no, no,” Juliana pushed her way down the aisle. Just as she shoved her way through the doors and out onto the church steps, she felt her coat pulled from her shoulders by the creatures chasing her. Without giving it a second thought, she let them have the coat, and ran down the steps into the windy street beyond.

  The moment she reached her own door, she heard a clock somewhere chiming one. She fumbled out her key, unlatched the door, and slammed it behind her. Half dead with terror, she set about lighting every lamp and candle in her room. Then she sat on the couch, determined to keep watch through the small hours of the night. But exhausted as she was, she fell asleep.

  Juliana awoke late in the morning. Most of the candles had burned themselves out; only a single lamp was still burning on the mantle. Through the gray light, she heard the church summoning the faithful to Christmas morning services.

  Had she dreamed it all? she wondered.

  But when she went to put on her favorite coat, she could not find it in the closet. Putting on an old black coat, she went out into the street and was greeted by her neighbors, who were hurrying to mass. Yes, she told herself, it had all been a nightmare, and she had simply misplaced her coat. She would find it soon enough.

  She had to force herself to mount the steps and enter the back of the church, for all that it was crowded with friends and neighbors.
But she turned and fled when the sexton came up to her, saying, “I think this is yours, isn’t it? I’ve seen you wearing it at church before.”

  He held out to Juliana her pink cloth coat, with the rabbit lining and trim, that had been torn into a thousand strips.

  Tailypo

  (United States—West Virginia)

  Not so very long ago, an old man lived by himself in the backwoods of West Virginia. He had a log cabin with a single room that held a stove, a bed, a table, a chair, and a big open fireplace built of fieldstone.

  One night the man sat eating a plateful of beans and bread and regretting that he hadn’t been able to catch a single fish in the lake behind his cabin or bag a single possum or deer for his supper. He was startled to look across the table and see the strangest creature he had ever seen, sitting on its haunches in the far corner of the room, staring at him.

  It had jaws like a weasel, ears like a fox, piercing yellow eyes like an owl, a monkey’s body, and was covered in bright red fur. But mainly it had a huge, long tail that coiled around and around it, the way a rattler coils on itself before it strikes.

  “What th—!” cried the man. “How’d you get in here?” He grabbed his carving knife from beside the loaf of bread and went after the animal. The thing gave a screech like nothing the man had heard before; then it scrambled out through a chink between two of the cabin’s logs.

  But it wasn’t quick enough. With a single slice, the man cut the creature’s tail off, while the rest of the animal scampered away to the woods. The man walked back to the table and stretched out the tail, marveling at its length. After a few minutes he decided that meat was meat, and that was what he was hungry for right now.

  So he cooked up that tail, found it tasted a little like rabbit, and ate it all at one sitting. After that, he plugged up the hole between the logs, went to bed, and soon was fast asleep.

  He hadn’t been asleep very long when he heard something scratching at the door, just like a cat. Pretty soon, he heard it call, “Tailypo, tailypo; just give me my tailypo.”

  Now he had three dogs that slept under the house. He whistled for them, and they came charging out and chased the creature far into the woods. But only two of his dogs came back. When the man saw this, he cursed a blue streak. Then he sent the dogs to sleep under the floorboards and went back to bed himself.

  A short time later, he heard the same clawing at the front door, as the creature tried to get in. Then he heard it call through a crack in the door, “Tailypo, tailypo; just give me my tailypo.”

  Once again the man whistled up his dogs from underneath the cabin, and they chased the creature all the way down the road, snapping so close behind that if it had still had a tail, it would have lost it to the hounds.

  The man heard the dogs giving chase until the woods swallowed up the sound. But a little later only one dog returned.

  Again the man cursed loudly. This time he had his remaining dog sleep at the foot of his bed.

  In the smallest hours of the morning, he heard something scrabbling at the window, like a night bird trying to get in. Through the cracked glass he heard, “Tailypo, tailypo; I’ve got to have my tailypo.”

  Quick as he could, he flung the cabin door open and sent his last dog out into the night. He heard the dog charging around the corner of the cabin and heard the creature screeching and scrambling away.

  After that, things were pretty quiet. But the last hound never did return.

  The man stayed awake a long time, listening, but he heard nothing more. Finally, just before dawn, he fell asleep. But he woke up a few minutes later. He was sure he’d heard something in his room. He looked into the far corner and saw the patch he’d put over the hole was gone. Then he heard something scrabbling up the foot of his bed. A minute later he saw a fox’s ears, a weasel’s jaws, and two huge yellow eyes—just like an owl’s—looking at him.

  He tried calling for his dogs, but they were gone. He was too frightened to climb out of bed. He just kept staring while the red, monkeylike creature crept closer, and closer—

  “Tailypo, tailypo,” it growled, “just give me my tailypo.”

  “But-but-but,” the man stuttered, “I haven’t got your tailypo.”

  Then the horrible creature which was by then sitting on the man’s knees, snarled and said, “Oh, yes, you have!”

  And it jumped on the man’s chest and scratched him all to pieces.

  There are those who say that the creature got its tailypo back, and some who say it didn’t. But the fact is, that old man and his dogs were never seen again in West Virginia or anywhere else.

  Lady Eleanore’s Mantle

  (from a tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne)

  When America was still a British colony, a young woman, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, traveled from England to become the ward of Governor Shute of Massachusetts Bay. The gentleman and his wife were Eleanore’s only surviving relatives, and very happy to have her stay in Province House, the governor’s home in Boston.

  Lady Eleanore was beautiful, witty, well-educated, and extremely proud of her place in the world. She wanted nothing to do with anyone who was not as highborn and rich as herself. She was not at all sure that the colonies had much to offer her, after life in London at the royal court.

  But she was quite impressed when the governor sent an elegant coach, drawn by four sleek black horses, to meet her ship and carry her to Province House. He also arranged for a gallant escort of gentlemen on horseback to ride before and behind her coach.

  People in the street glimpsed Lady Eleanore through the large glass windows of the coach and thought she looked very much like a queen—though she was still in her teens. But what caused the most comment was her embroidered mantle, which had been woven by the most skillful seamstress in London. Its gold, silver, and red threads seemed to catch fire from the late-afternoon sun so that the young woman appeared wrapped in a cloak of flames.

  When the coachman reined in his four black steeds in front of Province House, a nearby church bell tolled for a funeral. Everyone was upset that its mournful clang accompanied Lady Eleanore’s arrival.

  Just then, as Governor Shute and his wife approached the carriage to assist their ward in climbing down, a pale young man with tangled hair rushed from the crowd and fell in the dust at Eleanore’s feet, offering his back as her footstool.

  “Get up, sir!” roared the governor, threatening to beat the young man with his cane.

  “Don’t strike him,” said Eleanore scornfully. “When men want to be trampled on, I am happy to give them the favor they deserve.”

  Light as a sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her foot upon the waiting back, extended her hand to meet that of the governor, and stepped down.

  “Who is this insolent fellow?” the governor’s wife demanded.

  “Gervase Helwyse,” replied the governor’s doctor, “a youth without position or fortune, but of good mind—until he met Lady Eleanore in London. He fell in love with her, but she would have nothing to do with anyone in such humble circumstances. Her scorn drove him mad.”

  “He was mad even to dream of approaching so noble a lady as my ward,” said the governor, signaling the discussion was at an end.

  A few days after this incident, a ball was given in honor of Lady Eleanore’s arrival. Province House was filled with the richest and most noteworthy gentry in Boston. The ladies shone in rich silks and satins, spread out over wide hoops; the gentlemen glittered with gold embroidery laid unsparingly on the purple, or scarlet, or sky-blue velvet of their coats and waistcoats. The place was alive with voices, laughter, and music.

  But no person drew the eye and admiration of the crowd like Lady Eleanore. And her mantle gave an added majesty and mystery to her. The story went around that it had been made by a dying girl and had the magic power of giving new grace and beauty to the wearer every time it was put on. It was said that the fanciful birds and animals and flowers that adorned it were the product of a mind grown delirious with approac
hing death.

  To some of those looking at the young woman, it seemed that the strange magic of the mantle gave her an almost feverish flush, while others thought it made her skin look as pale as the most delicate bone china. Eleanore herself seemed as changeable: sometimes she chattered and laughed excitedly with certain select guests; just as often she seemed moody and withdrawn and tired to the point of fainting.

  While the guests were taking refreshment, Lady Eleanore settled into a large damask chair with a sigh, chatting with the governor’s doctor, who noted her sudden weariness with a professional eye.

  Suddenly Gervase Helwyse appeared, kneeling at her feet, having slipped unnoticed through a side door. “I beg you, dear lady, throw off that mantle,” he cried. “It may not be too late! Throw the accursed thing in the fire!”

  But Lady Eleanore, with a scornful laugh, drew the rich folds of the embroidered mantle around her head, so that it threw her features half into shadow and gave her a mysterious look. “Leave me,” she mocked. “But always remember me as you see me now!”

  At this, he was dragged from the room by the doctor and several other gentlemen and servants, who shoved him roughly out the iron gate of Province House and slammed it shut with a loud clang.

  As the night wore on, the weariness in Eleanore’s manner increased; her face grew flushed; she smiled because it seemed too much effort to speak. The doctor whispered something in the governor’s ear that changed the man’s cheerful expression to one of fear and worry. A few moments later it was announced that unforeseen circumstances made it necessary to end the party immediately. Puzzled, the guests went home.

  The curious events at the ball were quickly forgotten, when, a few days later, the city was thrown into a panic by an outbreak of smallpox, which in those days could not be prevented or cured. At first the disease struck only the proud, the well-born, and the wealthy, though it soon spread throughout the whole city and countryside.