The Hummingbird Locks

I have an old email account that I use only for distant relatives, mostly to share photos and holiday greetings. One sweltering evening in August of 2017, I logged on to find a message from my second cousin, Elara, who still lived in the small town in Vermont where I grew up. She told me my great-aunt Beatrice had passed away. She was the last of the sisters on my grandmother’s side. I was stunned, and a deep sadness settled over me. I started thinking about the things she had taught me: her recipe for cinnamon sugar cookies, how to press wildflowers, and the precise way she mixed sugar water for the hummingbirds that hovered outside her kitchen window. I loved her, and I always would.

As the memories washed over me, I was playing a few melancholy tunes on my old guitar when I noticed the heat in the house was becoming unbearable. I got up to open the windows, letting the evening air drift in. When I reached the spare bedroom to open that window (which I rarely used, but kept ajar in the summer), I glanced down at the worn oak floorboards. To my utter shock, there lay two perfect locks of auburn hair, coiled as if placed intentionally. My heart lurched. Aunt Beatrice had hair that exact shade.

I flicked on every light in the house and carefully picked up the hair. It was silky, almost alive. A faint scent of lavender and cinnamon clung to it. I remembered that she always smelled of those things. I tried to rationalize: maybe a friend with similar hair had visited, but I had no visitors. The more I thought, the more I felt a presence, as if she were standing just behind me.

I called my cousin Elara to ask about the funeral arrangements. She told me the funeral was the next day, and that they’d already held the burial, but I could come for the memorial. I said I would drive up. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept the hair in a small wooden box on my nightstand, and I swear I heard the faint hum of a hummingbird, though it was dark outside.

The next morning, I drove north. The house where Aunt Beatrice had lived was a charming white cottage with blue shutters, now quiet. Inside, the air was stale. I wandered into the kitchen, where I saw the hummingbird feeder still hung, half-full. A single red feather floated in the syrup. I felt a chill.

That evening, as I sat alone in the living room, I heard a soft tapping at the window. I looked up, expecting a bird, but saw nothing. Then I noticed a small, folded piece of paper on the windowsill. It was a recipe, but not one I recognized. It called for ‘two locks of hair’ and ‘a pinch of hummingbird dust.’ My blood ran cold.

I decided to stay at a nearby bed-and-breakfast, hoping to distance myself. But as I lay in bed, I saw the same two locks of hair on the pillow beside me, as if they had followed me. I screamed and swept them onto the floor. When I bent to pick them up, they vanished, but I heard a soft laugh, not my own.

The next morning, I returned to the cottage to gather my things. I opened the spare bedroom door to find the room covered in auburn hair, lying in circular patterns on the floor. In the center, a fresh hummingbird feather. I backed away, but my foot brushed against something cold: a pair of scissors. I had never owned scissors like that.

I called Elara in a panic. She admitted that Aunt Beatrice had been obsessed with preserving her legacy, often talking about how she would ‘live on through the ones she loved.’ She had left me a special gift, but Elara had forgotten to give it to me. She handed me a small leather journal. Inside, written in Beatrice’s elegant script, were instructions for a ritual to ‘transfer a soul’ using the hair of a loved one. The final step: the loved one must voluntarily read the incantation aloud.

I closed the journal, horrified. But that night, back at my own house, I found the journal open on my bedside table, and the hair from the spare room had woven itself into a small nest on my pillow. I tried to burn it, but the fire spat and died, and the hair seemed to grow, multiplying.

Now, I rarely sleep. I hear hummingbirds at all hours, and I see a shadowy figure with auburn hair in the corner of my vision. I know that Beatrice wanted to live on, and I fear that if I don’t complete the ritual, she will find another way to take my place. But the thought of reading those words terrifies me more than death itself. Each night, the nest grows larger, and I feel her breath on my neck, whispering, ‘Soon, my dear, we will be together forever.’