“Why are they gonna come back, Daddy?”
Muriel’s mouth was pinched, and she looked up at Arthur from the rug with that unsettling, wide-eyed stare — like she’d seen something beyond her four years. He shuddered and picked up his snifter. Something to warm him. Especially on a night like tonight.
“Well, a long time ago…” he began, turning to a page in the book from which he’d been reading, when a gust of wind slammed the window to his left, bringing with it a buckshot of leaden raindrops.
Muriel jumped and began to wail.
“Now sweetheart, don’t cry,” said a melodious voice. Arthur glanced up to see his wife, Ida, moving from her mending on the sofa to comfort their youngest. Muriel’s cheeks were soaked. “It’s just a silly old story.” She pulled Muriel onto her lap while shooting her husband a look.
Arthur closed the book and set it on the small wooden table beside his armchair. Pieces of the cracked leather binding peppered his pant legs. He brushed them away and harrumphed.
“It is not a story. It is a prophecy.”
“It’s a curse.” Ida stroked the little girl’s dark hair. “Why must you read it every time there’s a little drizzle?”
Arthur glanced out the window. This could hardly be described as a drizzle. “You know I only read it when it storms at night, and the moon is waning, and there is…”
“A terrible gale from the north. Yes, we all know how the story goes, dear.”
“For the thousandth time, Ida, this,” he tapped the ancient book’s cover for emphasis. “It’s a prophecy. Prophecies foretell the future. Curses only come true for people who believe in that sort of thing. And stories are for children at bedtime.”
Ida rolled her eyes. “It’s nightmares for the kids and another sleepless night for me.”
Arthur perked his ears to listen for the older four. A shriek of laughter pealed from a back bedroom. “The older ones are fine.”
“They’re desensitized,” Ida said, kissing Muriel on the head.
“My father read it to me, and his to him, and so on since Hiram Feldwater penned it 417 years ago.”
She stared at him. It occurred to Arthur that this was where their daughter had gotten that look from.
“And for 417 years, nothing’s happened.”
Arthur took a deep draught from his glass, and grinned, smacking his lips.“Well, he got the first part right didn’t he?”
“I’d wager you married me just to ensure it came true.”
“Hogwash. I’ve always been attracted to swarthy Catholics.”
Ida’s nostrils flared. Never a good sign. “Catholic. Infidel. Potato — potahto.”
“To Hiram there was no difference. And these kids,” he leaned forward for emphasis. “They need to be prepared.” He reached for the loaded pipe on the small table.
“Meanwhile, you’re the worst of the Feldwaters. Drinking brandy. Consorting with the enemy. Smoking tobacco.”
Arthur pulled the pipe he’d been about to light from his mouth and set it back into the ashtray, chastened.
Ida pried Muriel off her knee and pushed up off the rug. “Well, you prepare the children for your ancestors’ ghosts to punish them for their ‘errant ways.’ I’ll get them ready for bed.” She took Muriel’s hand and started toward the bedrooms.
“You know I don’t like it when you have that tone,” Arthur said to her back.
He sighed, picked the old book back up, and flipped to the end. Most of the pages were scratched with Hiram’s grievances — his layabout children, his disobedient wife, unscrupulous business dealings, the corpulent governor, the usurious mercantile, and once, even the poor judgment of the king. He’d read it all of course, and while he’d never say it aloud, even he thought old Hiram was a bit of a cantankerous whiner.
But that last page – if there was Feldwater blood in your veins, you knew there was something to it. It coursed through you, singing, howling, and the closer you went to the tree, the higher its pitch became.
The prophecy took up twelve long pages, covered front and back with narrow cursive, the letters as tightly bound as the man who wrote them. They were mostly warnings of the dangers of drink, the foul nature of heathen religion, untrustworthy trade partners, and immodesty in women, all written in rhyming tetrameter. But the last stanza was what had fascinated each generation of Feldwaters. When they spoke of the prophecy, it was these lines they meant.
“It groweth straight unto the sun, ‘til crook’d the wicked branches run
Foul breeding, faith, and errant ways, enacted doth my wroth araise
Festering evil, foul misdeed, doers of which my warning heed
In the dying of the moon, a portent it approaches soon
Howling gale out of the North, shall summon retribution forth
Now depart what dwell within, to taketh vengeance for their sin
Shall come to fruit the prophecy, with the felling of the tree”
Arthur whispered the oft-repeated refrain and shivered, a tingle running up his spine and down his limbs.
An explosion of lightning flashed through the windows, illuminating the room in white fire, erasing the shadowy corners left by the table lamp and hearth fire. Immediately, a terrible crack and crash followed.
The house shook. The lights went out. The fire snuffed, filling the living room with smoke.
A scream came from the bedrooms, followed by Muriel’s wailing. Footsteps clomped down the hall toward the living room.
IFFY FICTION 
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