The Cinder Path

I was born in a town that time forgot, a speck on the map called Ashburn, nestled in the heart of Pennsylvania’s coal country. The house my family lived in was the oldest structure in the county, a drafty, three-story Victorian that had once been a stagecoach inn and then a makeshift hospital during the typhoid outbreak of 1898. By the time we moved in, it was a dilapidated wreck, but my father, a man with a passion for restoration and a stubborn streak, saw potential. We called it the Old Stone House, for its foundation was made of thick, moss-covered stones that seemed to sweat cold moisture even in the summer.

My brother, Elias, and I were given rooms on the third floor, which had been the servants’ quarters back in the day. My room was at the back, overlooking a narrow, overgrown path that wound through the woods and down to an abandoned mine entrance. The locals called it the Cinder Path, because the miners used to sprinkle cinders along it to keep the mud down. They said the path was haunted by the ghosts of miners who died in a cave-in in 1911, but I never believed them. Not at first.

Our house was riddled with oddities: a dumbwaiter that led to a sealed brick wall in the basement, a crawlspace under the stairs that seemed to go on forever, and a trapdoor in the floor of my closet that opened into a narrow, stone-lined shaft. My father said it was an old coal chute, but it didn’t slope down; it went straight down, into darkness. The previous owner had boarded it up, but Elias and I, curious and foolish, pried the boards loose one summer afternoon.

The shaft was just wide enough for a person to squeeze through, and the walls were rough, with iron rungs bolted into the stone, leading down. We couldn’t see the bottom, but we could hear a faint, rhythmic sound, like breathing, or the slow drip of water. We decided to explore, but only with a flashlight and a rope tied to the bed frame. I went first, because Elias was older and thought he was braver, so he stayed at the top to lower me down.

I descended maybe twenty feet when the air turned cold and stale, and the smell of damp earth and decay filled my nostrils. The rungs ended, and my feet touched a dirt floor. I shone the light around and saw a small chamber, with a brick wall at one end that had a low, arched opening, just big enough to crawl through. Through the opening, I saw a tunnel curving away, lined with old timber supports. It was an old mine tunnel, not sealed off as the history books claimed.

I called up to Elias, told him I found something, and he climbed down to join me. Together, we crawled through the opening and into the tunnel. The walls were lined with coal dust, and the air was thick with it, making us cough. The tunnel went on for what felt like a long time, with occasional side passages, all blocked by cave-ins or collapsed timbers. We left a trail of chalk marks on the walls to find our way back.

We came to a larger chamber, maybe twenty feet across, with a high ceiling that we couldn’t see in the flashlight beam. In the center was a raised platform, made of stone, and on it lay a rusted iron chest. The chest was locked, but the lock was so old and corroded that a few taps with a rock broke it open. Inside, we found not gold or gems, but a collection of small, cloth-wrapped bundles. When we unwrapped one, we found a child’s doll, made of porcelain, with its head cracked and its eyes missing. There were dozens of them, each wrapped in the same yellowed cloth.

Elias laughed and said it was some old miner’s junk, but I felt a chill. The dolls’ eyeless sockets seemed to follow me, and I swore I heard a faint whisper, like a child’s voice, calling my name. We took one of the dolls, the one with red hair, and decided to leave. But as we turned to go, the flashlight flickered, and we heard a sound from deeper in the tunnel: the slow, dragging shuffle of footsteps, accompanied by a metallic scrape, like a chain being dragged across stone.

We ran, scrambling back through the tunnel, not daring to look behind. When we reached the shaft, we climbed up, and Elias pulled the ladder away and slammed the trapdoor shut, and we piled furniture on it. We never spoke of the tunnel again, but I kept the doll, hidden in my closet, because I felt a strange attachment to it, as if it needed me.

That night, I had a nightmare. I was in the tunnel again, but I was not alone. A figure stood in the darkness, tall and gaunt, with long arms that ended in claws. Its face was a void, but I could feel its eyes on me, and it spoke in a voice that was not a voice, but a vibration in my bones. It said, ‘You have taken what is mine. Return it, or I will take what is yours.’

I woke up screaming, and for a moment, I thought I saw a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed, but it vanished when I turned on the light. The doll was on my dresser, where I had not placed it. I threw it in the trash, but the next morning, it was back on my pillow.

Over the following weeks, strange things happened. I would hear tapping on my window at night, but when I looked out, there was nothing but the dark trees. Objects would move on their own, and I would find my belongings scattered in the morning. Elias started to avoid me, and when I asked him why, he said he saw things in his room: shadows that moved like people, and whispers that told him to leave.

One night, I decided to end it. I took the doll, and I went to the Cinder Path, intending to return it to the tunnel. The moon was full, casting everything in a sickly silver light. As I walked, I felt a presence behind me, and I turned to see a figure emerging from the treeline, dressed in a ragged miner’s coat, with a headlamp that cast a harsh beam. It was the figure from my dream, but it was solid, and it walked with a limp, dragging its right leg.

‘You should not have come,’ it said, its voice like gravel and bone. ‘Your brother is mine now.’

I ran back to the house, my heart pounding, and I burst into Elias’s room. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall, almost comatose, and his skin was cold to the touch. I shook him, but he didn’t respond, except to murmur, ‘The cinders are warm, but the dark is cold.’

The next day, my father called a priest to bless the house, but the priest refused, saying he felt a great evil here, something ancient and hungry. He told us to leave, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. Then, Elias disappeared. He was there one minute, and the next, he was gone. We searched the house, the grounds, the woods, but there was no trace.

I knew where he was. I went to my closet, where the trapdoor was still blocked by furniture. I pulled it all away, and I pried the door open. The smell of rot hit me, and I heard a faint, rhythmic sound from below, like breathing. I grabbed the flashlight, and I climbed down, this time without a rope.

I followed the tunnel, chalk marks still visible, until I reached the chamber with the chest. And there, on the stone platform, lay Elias, but he was not alone. The doll I had taken was beside him, and the eyeless sockets had been replaced with black, glossy stones, and they were looking at me. The figure from the woods stood over him, its headlamp casting a weak glow.

‘You have free will,’ it said. ‘You can leave, and let your brother take your place. Or you can stay, and we will all be free.’

I didn’t understand, but I knew I couldn’t leave Elias. He was my brother, and I loved him. I stepped forward, and the world dissolved into darkness.

I woke up in my bed, but it wasn’t my bed. The room was the same, but the furniture was different, and the bedspread was a faded floral pattern I didn’t recognize. I got up and looked out the window, but the view was wrong: instead of the Cinder Path, there was a street lined with houses, and a sign that said ‘Canal Street.’ I was in a different time, a different place. And in the corner of the room, on a dresser, sat the porcelain doll, with its black stone eyes, waiting.

I heard footsteps in the hallway, and the door creaked open. A woman with a kind face looked in at me. ‘There you are, my dear,’ she said. ‘Did you have a nice nap?’ She had no eyes. Just smooth, blank skin where her eyes should have been. And behind her, in the hallway, stood a tall, gaunt figure, watching me.

I am still in this house, this endless house across time and space. The doll is my only companion, and sometimes, I hear my brother’s voice in the walls, telling me to keep the cinders warm. I have learned the truth: that house was a doorway, and the dolls were the souls of all the children who had been taken before me. One day, someone will find this doll, and they will take it, and I will be free. But until then, I wait, and I watch, and I remember the cinder path that led me here.