My wanderings after I left Deckerwood shaped the direction my new life eventually took—they’re difficult to relate because—even after all the time that’s passed—many are still incomprehensible to me.

But maybe that’s why I’m here.

This happened when my travels slowed, reached a large city where an overwhelmed girl could—did—easily get lost.

Three relatively unbroken years in the wilderness can leave a girl starved—in more ways than one. And I was starved for God—religion, meaning in my wracked life.

The church I chose was one of many, at the edge of a city so large for a moment I almost turned around and walked right back into the wilderness—despite the dangers that had chased me to that point. I marshaled my courage, thinned my lips, entered the large, stately edifice.

Into a sweltered heat of shadows, emptiness—it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. A voice—melancholy personified—spoke from a conical shape up front—the priest. A dull, orange glow molded shapes out of the darkness. Pews trailed to the back, mostly empty.

Intrigued, I slowly sat in the back corner, listened to his sad, nocturnal homily—one of David’s Psalms. Sweat—garnered from an earlier chase—hugged the heat close to my body. There were seven heads, which included the priest—two left in the middle of his sermon.

He was young, preached of Christ—didn’t rejoice in Christ.

The strange melancholy warred inside me, separate than the despair earned from the Gingerbread House. The peace I felt at church as a girl was not there—at first, I attributed it to the difference in religion, the difference in priests.

I went every week, couldn’t find my own church denomination—felt I needed God in my life.

In four weeks, the melancholy grew, the parish drained to three—including me, though I never paid the desolate minister—I didn’t have the money, didn’t feel clergy should be paid in any event. I stayed in the back, out of sight—with any luck.

There was one older woman who came every week, paid large sums of money, sometimes brought her husband—as white-haired as she.

Melancholy grew unnaturally, as aged mold does. Two more weeks passed—most of the heads noticed me, disregarded me. She didn’t, approached me—asked what I thought of the minister’s sermons. I told her: he spoke what needed to be said, not what wanted to be heard.

However, when she asked me to speak with the minister, a strange dread engulfed me.

Ron Caliburn—if it’s found again, you’ll be contacted.

Hannah—don’t worry about it. It’s very common. And I want to finish this, too. For good, if you know what I mean.


As I approached his office, my stance was rigid—the stories about the minister were plentiful—he was possessed of the devil, he was the devil, he was married to a witch, he was a convicted felon—the list went on.

There were too many rumors to believe any one. I stayed because the spirits that helped me escape would have wanted me to stay—to discover the melancholy’s source.

One hand was to my back as I set the knuckles of my other hand against the paneled door, knocked.

“Enter,” avoice wheezed in reply.

I did so cautiously—left the door wide open. The hall light behind me was cut off at the office door’s threshold, neatly as shears taken to a sheet of yellow cardstock.

The room was small, dim—not lightless black. A tiny desk was pushed to the far wall five feet away, wedged between two bookcases with no room to breathe.

The preacher’s bell-shaped robes were wrinkled—a faint bulb of dusky yellow—held atop the desk by a thin, frail lamp—illuminated the slivery contours in return for a near omnipresence of shadow.

“Sir,” I murmured, put my back to the wall—open doorway on my right, minister to my left. “A member of your flock sent me.” I gave him her name, but names won’t be repeated here—not without their permission.

“Please, call me ‘Father Reverend,’” he swiveled around. The chair shrieked in protest under his light weight, must have been decades old. He should have been young—but shadows typecast him with 30 years’ wrinkles more. “You’ve come several times before. How may I help you?”

“I feel drawn to your church,” I admitted. “But . . . not for the reason you might hope. Depression grows—your members slowly leave. Why?”

He answered my question with one of his own, gestured about the room. “Can you see why?”

His invitation to study his tiny office brought a myriad of results—incongruous objects stuffed within. At first, they appeared as nothing more than gimcrackery—some wooden playing dice, maracas, a woman’s hand mirror—the family of gold rings borne by a velvet cushion indicated otherwise.

It was the old, worn black box on a shelf that hooked my gaze. As everything in his room seemed, it was small—I could have grasped it between my hands, woven my fingers to meet each edge—but it was so ornate it surely must have been worth plenty.

When my curious gaze met his tired one, I knew I had chosen aright. “What is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he wiped his forehead, “if in it was the devil’s personal engagement ring.”

Father Reverend began a discourse full of betrayal, layered with concupiscence, steeped in madness.

The Father had just finished his degree in theology, was eager to spread the word of God. The diocese sent him overseas to Africa—on a Christian mercy mission to heal the sick, feed the hungry. For months things went well. He imparted the word of God—lifted the burdens of the weary

He also met a desperate man, who wore ruin like a garb. At first, the desperate man—who was never in want for sadness—only desired food, shelter. Then, he wanted to learn. With each generous gift offered by the mission, unfortunately, the desperate man only seemed to get sadder.

Finally, he wanted to bestow a gift—a gift, he admitted, was evil. The gift was a box with a terrible curse branded upon it.

People had languished from the curse of the box, taken their own lives because of it. To open it—for it had a seam down the middle—brought the specter of death’s assault on the senses. The curse slowly eroded owners’ wills toward negativity—hope to despair, kindness to apathy, love to jealousy.

He had carried the cursed object for six months. He claimed the curse could be broken when the box transferred owners.

When Father Reverend agreed to take the box, a change instantly occurred in the desperate man—he thanked the father, sneered openly at the exchanged burden. He laughed insanely—fled.

The curse had not been lifted—it had been redirected. Father Reverend had been tricked—back then, he lived his beliefs far better—blessed those that despitefully used him.

Father Reverend tried for twelve years to break the curse, wouldn’t give it to another. He blessed it—might as well sneeze in the wind. He took hammers to it—a new box would mysteriously arrive in the wake of the old one’s ruin, a little more battered.

Years ago—Father Reverend suspected the first crack of time—the box must have looked very fine indeed. But—despite a plethora of attempts to destroy it by countless owners stained with blood, lust, the unhurried accumulation of scars—the box still looked quite fine.

Father Reverend must have been a superior man indeed, before the box—full of energy, kindness—longsuffering. His energy was gone, replaced with lethargy. His longsuffering had lost the long—he still had kindness to spare.

Our attempts to destroy it likewise failed. It would be the hindquarters of time before the box’s continuous destruction turned it to dust—if that would make a difference for the curse.

He did not say it, did not imply it, but there was only one recourse that we could see.

I sighed, swallowed, met with Father Reverend again in his office—pondered the inevitability of destiny. But, steeled myself—accepted what I thought was the end of my life.

“All right,” nervousness pinched my lips. “You’ve held it for—twelve years? You have served your sentence—I’ll take it from you.”

Father Reverend looked astounded. “What? No. No. I cannot damn another soul for my own foolishness. No. I thank you for your offer, but that is out of the question. There is still one thing left to try.”

He didn’t say it, but I could see it in his eyes. He did, after all, preach the gospel.

“I’ll steal it,” I warned. “The curse will transfer to me.”

“Try,” he shook his head bitterly, sarcastic—not at me. “Stealing doesn’t work that way. It will still belong to me. And so shall it return.”

He spoke with the convicted belief of naïveté—tales told by the desperate man how previous owners unsuccessfully tried to secretly fob the box onto others. Yet he had been full of lies to get Father Reverend to take the box.

I resolved to try.

Gotham Witch—it is. It is also more, as shown in the next lines below.

Hannah—your guess is as good as mine. Father Reverend never told me if he had found runes—Greek, Atlantean, or Ooompa Loompian. The scrollwork that decorated it—even in its battered state—was so fine any number of written verses could have been hidden within.


Soul’s midnight was under full sway when I again approached the office. I crept to the door, halted, listened.

Only the darkness waited, breathed—whispered. I inched open the door, had taped the door strike to ensure it remained unlocked. Without the weak lamplight, the orange, slivered contours were gone. The hall light was still of no aid—but I had marked the box’s position carefully.

It was in a deep recess of shelves—felt uncomfortably like a maw as I reached in, slid the box out. Even with my right hand planted under to catch it, I had miscalculated—perhaps the box, the curse, was sentient?—the bottom slit open as the edge met empty air between my hands.

The infinitesimal lips parted, breathed polar hellfire against my palm.

Nitric acid chewed into soul as much as flesh. I didn’t scream—the agony wouldn’t allow such release. Instead, I dropped to my knees, clutched my useless limb. The box cackled to the floor, breathed out more pain, shuttered blackness. Wintry, guilty despair clutched my heart.

Suicide, if a catalyst could be found—became an option.

An eye of white light—a star centered in the maw of the black box—flickered, enlarged. Skirts of holy vestments swished, drew near.

Father Reverend stepped around me, reached down—closed the box, snapped away the eye. Set the box back in its place. Turned the lamp on, he smiled sardonically.

“Hell hurts, doesn’t it, Rowan?”

Hannah—thanks. At the time, I didn’t think of it as kindness—just mercy for a man who had had enough for a lifetime. I had once thought I’d seen hell—now, only a portion of it. Probably not even the worst. Even now, I don’t think of it as a kindness—you’ll probably see why.

Sparks—me too.


I crawled miserably away—the paralytic shock of the crucial anguish had dulled to a fiery torture that merely throbbed. Father Reverend didn’t help me. All my holistic medicinal knowledge accomplished nothing—regular first-aid didn’t do much, either.

For a week, I feared my right hand was useless, nerveless—numb, paralyzed. After eight days, my fingers twisted in remembered pain—they ached abominably.

I didn’t go to Father Reverend’s office, his church—his sermons. Watched him from afar, instead, was the better course.

So did someone else—a man that seemed to sense when eyes were upon him. For that reason, I could never get a good look at him—he always fled whenever I tried for a better study.

Father Reverend’s condition declined—mine stabilized. Five weeks after the incident, he visited me—the old woman who suggested I first see him had given me a place to stay. He looked awful—100 years old, emaciated as boned fish. He never apologized, gave me a concoction to dull the pain, hasten recovery, instead.

He avoided me ever after.

I went to his church the next Sunday to hear his sermon, as did the two loyal members of his parish—we waited an hour. My landlady mentioned he had called her and said he would be a little late. I had a bad feeling.

His office was locked. The bad feeling increased—my landlady called the police. They arrived, broke the door down. Father Reverend was face down on the floor, dead.

The coroner could find no cause of death—it was labeled as natural.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believed Father Reverend’s death was murder—the box was never found, the other man vanished, too. The identity of the culprit, however—box or man—was another matter.

After that, I didn’t visit church—the Father Reverend’s, another’s—unless invited.

God has never revealed a presence to me. That is not to say such a being doesn’t exist.

It was about six years back. What’s the tale with the box you heard about?