Nicole Milton's Shadow

I

A coach rattled into the tiny village of Linden, New Hampshire, stopping to let off Duncan MacArden and his wife, Bettsy.  They had come to town to work for Winton Wright on his farm.  Linden was no more than a cluster of houses around a wide section of the coach road and a few outlying farms like Wright's.  Eleven families lived in Linden, and everyone was familiar with everyone.  As with many small rural communities, mostly cloistered from visitors and newcomers, nearly everyone in the town was somehow, if distantly, related to everyone else.  With a limited number of family lines from which to choose, marriage with fourth or fifth cousins was all but impossible to avoid.

Such was the community of Linden when the MacArdens arrived.  Wright greeted Duncan and Bettsy and gave them a tour of the entire town by turning them from facing one side of the road to face the other.  He brought them in to a two-story stone house that he called the Common House.  The Common House was owned by Eldred and Magda Berwith and they opened up the large central room of their home for their fellow townspeople to come and eat, talk, play games, or otherwise pass time together.  Usually Magda had a stew or soup cooking at the fire and usually Eldred had some bottles of liquor or a small cask of beer on hand.

The MacArdens were introduced to the Burwiths and then were introduced to Mary and Elizabeth Martin, Sally Tyler, and Wright's wife, Mary.  They immediately invited Bettsy MacArden to sit with them at the side of the room to embroider and to talk.  Wright and Duncan joined Eldred in his bottle of gin.

After a few days of being in town, the MacArdens had met every inhabitant except Nicole Milton, who was often kept at home because, according to the talk in town, she exhibited signs of possession by devils.  A small open yard separated the Burwith's Common House from the Milton family's twostory wooden house and Bettsy thought she might have, on a couple occasions, heard a shout or loud laughter.  A few days later, the Miltons, avoided if not outcast by the other townspeople, rather shyly greeted Bettsy and asked if she might like to meet Nicole.  After talking just a few moments with the girl, Bettsy knew the poor child was born dull and sickly and there were no devils in her.  Her parents were close cousins, and she simply suffered from madness.

Over time, the MacArdens felt warmly welcomed into the community.  When it was confirmed that Bettsy was going to have a baby, everyone seemed to rejoice with her and even carried a bit of glowing in their faces for several days after the news was spread.  In time, too, Bettsy had warmed the Miltons, even Nicole, and had managed to bring them back into the fold of their fellow townspeople.

II

Eight of the women in town had gathered around a fire to boil water and do their laundry together.  The sun was already setting; they were working much later than usual because of the terrible time they had getting the fire going.  Now it was blazing, though, and they agreed to stay outside and enjoy the warm autumn evening.  Evelyn Milton stood next to Bettsy and smiled gratefully toward her.  It had been nearly four years since she last felt comfortable enough to join the rest of the women at laundry.

Evelyn was abruptly shocked from her reverie when she felt Nicole clutching at her dress.  The other women now noticed Nicole as well and disapproving faces came to them all, but Bettsy quickly reached down and patted Nicole on the back.

"Hello, Little Darling.  Would you like to join us while we finish laundry and enjoy the fire?" Bettsy asked.

The little girl stared without an expression and slowly nodded.

The sunlight quickly faded as the women talked, and Nicole began waving her arms slowly over her head when she noticed the fire cast her shadow on to her house.  A few of the women laughed politely while she started making a mrawing sound and made her shadow move about.  She stepped back a bit toward the fire and delighted when her shadow grew.

A few of the women's faces grew more concerned as Nicole's sounding grew more ominous.  She roared and held her hands fiercely above her while she swayed side to side.  She moaned and gurgled and stepped back to see her shadow loom larger and larger on her house.  Then she stumbled.

Her footing was lost and she twisted and stomped abruptly into the blazing fire.  She continued to moan and roar and writhe in the flames.  Bettsy jumped forward with a sheet from her laundry to smother out the fire.  She knocked Nicole down and got the sheet over her head but the fire quickly caught on the sheet as well.  Bettsy lay on the ground rolling and crying as she extinguished the flames on her own clothes.  Nicole shrieked and squirmed briefly again, then went lifeless as the flames burned all around her.

"Could none of you do anything?" Bettsy shouted at the other women through her tears.

As she was about to yell at them again, she instead screamed and stared in horror at the Milton home.  Nicole's shadow still crept and lurked on the building.  A low groan, like that of an old wooden ship, creaked out of the timbers of the house.  The shadow moved to the side of the house and slipped of into the woods, bristling the leaves of the trees.

III

Months later, Bettsy's burns had healed, leaving twisted scars on her arms.  She sat in her rocking chair in front of the fireplace, and began to feel the pains of labor.  Her baby was coming.  She called for the midwife, who had already begun preparing for the birth.  Bettsy shrieked and the midwife rushed in to the room.  The fire popped and lept violently, sending ashes and flames well out into the room.  From within the flowing smoke swirled a dark, slithering shadow.  It spread from the hearth, extending outward and reared up like an enormous black snake poised to strike.

The shadow chortled and lashed out, knocking Bettsy backward over her chair and on to the floor.  It wrenched away her unborn baby, turned it to blackness, and absorbed it.  Then it withdrew and escaped through the chimney.

From this stolen life the shadow grew bolder, stronger, and bigger.  The people of Linden disappeared unexpectedly from time to time.  In moments of quiet rest, in the darkness and the dancing shadows of a fire, the creaking groans would come, the leaves of the trees would shudder and bristle, and the shadow would lurk, seeking another life to fuel its growth and travels among the woods of the countryside.