The Keeper of the Pines

My family has always been tight-lipped about the old farmhouse, the one that sat at the edge of the county, surrounded by pines that whispered secrets to the wind. My cousins and I grew up hearing fragments—an aunt who woke with bruises shaped like fingers, an uncle who refused to sleep without a light, a grandmother who warned never to stay past midnight. I chalked it up to overactive imaginations and rural ghost stories. But then I inherited the place, and I had to see for myself.

The house was a sagging Victorian relic, its paint peeling like sunburned skin. Inside, the smell of dust and decay clung to every surface. I spent my first night in the master bedroom, a room my great-uncle had claimed was the epicenter of the disturbances. The bed was a iron frame, the mattress lumpy, and the window overlooked a field that had gone fallow. Around 2 AM, I woke to a scratching sound, like nails on the floorboards. I turned on the lamp. A draft swept through, even though the window was shut. The door, which I had locked, stood ajar.

In the doorway stood a woman—not tall, but with hair so black it absorbed the light, and eyes that seemed to remember pain. She wore a homespun dress, the kind you see in daguerreotypes. She did not speak, but I heard her voice in my head, cracking like old wood. ‘They buried me where the roots drink,’ she said. ‘My mother and my husband. They fed me to the ground.’ Then she pointed to a corner of the room, where the floorboards seemed darker, stained. I felt an icy grip on my ankle, and when I looked down, the skin was turning a sickly gray.

I screamed, but she vanished. The next morning, I called my uncle, the one who still lived nearby. He sighed and said, ‘You’ve met the Keeper of the Pines. She only appears to those who doubt. But she’s not the worst. The other one—he comes when you’re alone.’ He wouldn’t elaborate, just warned me to leave before nightfall. I didn’t listen.

The second night, I set up a tape recorder and a camera in the hallway. The house creaked and groaned, but that felt natural. Then I heard laughter—low, guttural, like a rockslide. I crept to the hallway, and there, at the end, stood a figure. He was not tall, but he was wide, and his face was a shifting mask of other features. He wore different clothes each time I blinked: a top hat, a trench coat, a farmer’s overalls. He raised a hand, and the air thickened. I couldn’t move. He walked toward me, each step making the floorboards splinter, and I felt his icy fingers wrap around my throat. ‘She’s mine,’ he rasped. ‘And so are you.’

I woke on the floor, gasping. The tape recorder was dead, the camera shattered. I saw my reflection in a broken mirror: there were red marks on my neck, shaped like fingers. I was about to pack when I noticed the floor where the woman had pointed. The stain had spread, and it was moving. I knelt, and the boards gave way, revealing a hollow space. Inside was a tin box, rusted and crusted with dirt. I pried it open. Inside was a faded photograph of a couple—the woman and her husband—and a letter. The letter, written in 1887, confessed to the murder of a mother, and to the burial of the wife, the writer’s own spouse. The signature was that of a man named Cyrus.

I held the letter, and the house began to shake. The laughter echoed from every wall. I realized I had not been the first to find this. There were other boxes, other letters, all from different families who had lived here. The demon was not a demon—it was the husband, Cyrus, who refused to leave, and the woman was his first victim, but not his last. The pines outside seemed to lean in, whispering, ‘You’re part of it now.’ I fled the house, abandoning my inheritance. But as I drove away, I saw in my rearview mirror a figure standing at the porch—the woman in the homespun dress. She raised her hand, and on her palm was the same stain. She was not a victim. She was the keeper, and she had chosen me to carry the truth, to keep it buried, to feed the roots of the pines with the sorrow of those who knew.

I live in a city now, far from that house. But sometimes, late at night, I hear the scratching, and the laughter, and I see the woman in the corner, pointing at me. I know I can’t escape. I’ve written it all down, and when I die, they will find me with a smile, because I will have finally understood. The house is not haunted. It is a maw, and it is always hungry.