The Birchwood Visitor

In the depths of the Finnish forest, where the pines grew so thick that sunlight barely touched the mossy ground, lived a 23-year-old named Elias. He was a slight figure, with long blond hair that often tangled in the wind, and a constellation of piercings that glinted like cold stars against his pale skin. His cabin, a weathered structure of logs and silence, stood alone, the nearest neighbor a ghost of a memory miles away.

Elias had grown accustomed to the oddities of his home. Cups of tea, still warm, would appear on windowsills, inside his boots, even on the roof. He never drank tea. He’d shrug it off as the whims of an old house, or perhaps the lingering presence of the previous owner, an old woman who had been found dead in the cellar. But he never felt fear, only a strange, detached curiosity.

Then came the spring of 2017. Elias woke one morning with a lightness in his chest, a rare and fleeting joy that made him want to speak to the birds. It was a feeling so alien that it almost frightened him. His social anxiety, a constant companion since adolescence, had vanished overnight. He even called his mother, a rare occurrence. When she arrived, however, a hot, inexplicable anger boiled up from his gut. Her voice grated on him, her presence was a violation. He couldn’t understand it; he loved his mother. He sent her away, his hands trembling, and the moment she left, he felt it—a pair of hands, gentle but firm, wrapped around his waist, pulling him into a silent hug.

Elias froze. He hated being touched, even more than he hated the tea. But the hands didn’t let go. They stayed, a constant pressure, sometimes trailing up his spine, sometimes resting on his shoulders. In the mirror, he saw nothing. His family, being Wiccan, had taught him about spirits, and he thought it might be Hercules, the ancient hero, angered by some offense. But the touches grew bolder, more insistent. When he came out as gay, the hands seemed to multiply, crawling over his back, his arms, his thighs. And then, the voice began—a low, guttural whisper in Russian, just behind his ear, always just out of sight.

“Ты мой,” it would say. “You are mine.”

Elias tried to reason with it, to plead, to exorcise it, but the voice only laughed. The touches became a constant, suffocating presence. He stopped leaving the cabin, stopped answering the phone. The forest outside seemed to press in closer, the shadows longer, the wind carrying whispers that weren’t his own.

Then, as abruptly as it had started, it stopped. The winter of 2019 brought a deep, silent calm. The hands vanished, the voice fell silent. The tea cups stopped appearing. Elias cautiously re-emerged, began to live again, to breathe. He thought he had outlasted the haunting, that it had grown bored and moved on.

But one night, as he sat by the fire, a sound broke the stillness. It was a crunching on the frozen snow outside, a slow, deliberate approach. Then, a knock on the door. Three heavy thuds. Elias’s heart hammered. No one ever came this far out, especially not at night. He crept to the window, peered out into the darkness. There, illuminated by the pale moon, stood a figure—a tall, gaunt man in a long coat, his face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. And from beneath that hat, a voice, low and guttural, in Russian, said, “I’m back.”

Elias stumbled back, his breath catching. The hands were not gone. They had only been waiting. The voice had been out there, in the forest, biding its time. And now, it wanted in. He glanced at the door, and saw the handle slowly turning, as if an invisible hand was testing it. He backed into the corner, his mind racing. The tea, the touches, the anger—it had all been a prelude. The visitor had been watching, waiting, and now it was ready to claim him.

The door creaked open. The figure stepped inside, and the firelight flickered, casting long shadows. The man’s face was finally visible, and Elias saw with horror that it was his own reflection.