The Grain of the Oak

My father was a man of peculiar entertainments. While other families in our small town played checkers or whist, he would orchestrate what he called ‘table concerts.’ The centerpiece of our home was a colossal oak table, a family heirloom carved from a single tree that had stood in our valley for centuries. It was so vast it could seat a dozen, and its surface bore the grain like frozen rivers, dark and swirling.

Most evenings, he’d invite the neighbors—the Hendersons, the Millers, the new doctor and his wife—and we’d all gather in the dining hall. The room itself was cavernous, with high ceilings and tapestries depicting hunts and harvests. After a few hours of polite chatter and cards, my father would stand, his eyes gleaming, and announce, ‘Time to wake the wood.’

The ritual was simple. We would clear the chairs against the walls, pushing them aside as if preparing for a séance. Then we’d take our places around the table, palms flat on the cool, polished surface. The goal was to raise the table—not by force, but by a sort of collective will. My father called it ‘rocking the grain,’ claiming the table held memories that could be stirred.

That particular night, when I was seven, I was allowed to participate for the first time. The house was filled with the usual guests: Mrs. Abernathy, with her pearl necklace, old Mr. Thistle, who always smelled of pipe tobacco, and the recently widowed Mrs. Vance, who wore black and seldom spoke. The air was thick with the scent of wood smoke and candle wax.

I stood at the head of the table, my small palms pressed flat against the oak, my arms extended. My father stood opposite, his large hands spread wide. The others took their places along the sides. ‘Close your eyes,’ he instructed. ‘Feel the life beneath your hands. Imagine the tree that bore this wood, the storms it weathered.’

I closed my eyes. The wood was smooth, cool, but after a moment, I felt a faint warmth, as if the table were breathing. A low hum began, not from our throats but from the floor, rising through our feet. Then, the table shuddered. Not a violent shake, but a slow, rocking motion, like a boat on gentle swells. I heard gasps from the adults, but my father’s voice was calm. ‘Good. Now, let it guide us.’

Suddenly, the rocking intensified. My hands began to tingle, then grow numb. The air grew cold, and the candle flames beside us bent sideways as if a wind were passing through. I opened my eyes and saw that the others were still, their faces slack, as if in a trance. But my father’s eyes were wide, fixed on me with an intensity that frightened me.

‘Do you feel it, Elsie?’ he asked, his voice strained. ‘The pull?’

I nodded, not trusting my voice. There was a pulling sensation, like the table was trying to lean toward me, to draw me into its grain. The edges of the room seemed to blur, the tapestries rippling like water. I wanted to pull my hands away, but they were stuck fast, as if glued.

The rocking grew stronger, and the table began to tilt, lifting one side off the floor. Papers and a vase slid off, shattering. Mrs. Vance cried out, but no one moved to stop it. The table rose until it stood on two legs, then balanced for a heart-stopping moment before crashing back down with a thunderous boom.

Silence. The candles steadied. The warmth returned to my hands. I looked around; everyone was gasping, pale, except my father, who was laughing softly. ‘Well done, Elsie! You’ve got the touch.’ The guests forced smiles, but they left early, glancing back at the table as if it might follow them.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the grain of the wood, swirling like a whirlpool, and feeling that pull. So I crept downstairs to the dining hall. The moonlight streamed through the tall windows, casting long shadows. The table stood there, seemingly innocent. I placed my hands on it again, gently. Nothing happened. But as I turned to leave, I heard a faint whispering, like leaves rustling, and the floor beneath me seemed to shift.

From that night on, the table was different. Sometimes, when I touched it, I’d catch glimpses of other rooms, other families—my ancestors, perhaps, sitting around the same oak, their faces hollow and gray. I began to hear the whispers at night, always from the dining hall, calling my name. My father dismissed it as imagination, but I saw the fear flicker in his eyes when he looked at the table.

Years passed, and the table’s influence grew. It seemed to feed on our gatherings, demanding more. The rocking sessions became longer, more violent, until one evening, the table lifted entirely off the floor and spun, sending everyone scattering. My father tried to stop it, but his hands were as glued as mine had been. He was thrown across the room, his back striking the wall.

He never walked again after that. The doctors said it was a fall, but I knew the table had done it. And in the weeks that followed, I discovered its true hunger. It wanted a permanent resident. It wanted to claim one of us, to keep our spirit trapped in its grain, adding to the memories it could stir.

The night I turned eighteen, I dreamed of a girl my age, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, her face pale as birch. ‘You’re like me,’ she said. ‘He chose you too.’ I woke with my hands pressed to the table, my palms raw.

I knew what I had to do. The table was too large to burn, but I could bury it. So one night, I dug a deep pit beneath the old oak that had supposedly been the table’s origin. With the help of a few friends I trusted to keep quiet, we dragged the table out, its legs scraping the floor like nails on a coffin. We tipped it into the grave and covered it with soil. I planted wild roses on top.

But as the months passed, I realized my mistake. The table wasn’t just wood; it was a gateway. By burying it, I hadn’t sealed it—I’d planted it. The rose bushes grew unnaturally fast, their thorns sharp and black. And whenever I walked past them, I’d hear a faint murmur from the earth, the sound of many voices intertwined, and among them, my father’s, calling for me to join them.

Now, I am the keeper of the burial mound. I tend the roses, though they sometimes bloom with a red so dark it’s almost black. And every night, I must press my hands to the ground, feeling the wood beneath, and say, ‘I am still here.’ But I know the pull is growing. The wood remembers me. And one day, it will rise again, ready to take me into its eternal, whispering grain.