A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery

by Robert D. San Souci

  Then he did as the spirit had instructed. Going through the abandoned camp, he collected all the rags he could find. Tying animal bones together, he built a framework with two arms, two legs, and a dog’s skull. The form stood as tall as himself. Over this he packed and sculpted snow into the figure of a man. He then clothed the snowman in the rags and tatters he had gathered. Lastly he decorated it with his own brilliant beads and bright feathers.

  Then, saying the magic words the wolf spirit had taught him, he gave life to the figure, which now seemed the handsomest man the world had seen. “I name you Moowis,” said Elegant. “You are my brother.” Then he placed a bow and some arrows in the figure’s hands.

  Together, the pair set out for the tribe’s winter camp. There the lordly appearance of Moowis made the young men jealous, but the young women felt their hearts go out to him. The chief of the tribe invited Moowis into his lodge and treated him as an honored guest. But Moowis did not approach the fire in the center of the lodge. He let others sit between him and the flames.

  No one in the camp was as charmed by the noble-looking stranger as was Fairest. Her parents often invited Moowis to their lodge. Elegant watched all this with grim satisfaction. Soon news ran through the encampment that Moowis was to wed Fairest. Elegant was the first and loudest to express his wish for the couple’s happiness.

  Shortly after they were wed, Moowis told his wife, “I must go on a long journey.”

  When she asked him the reason, he only sighed.

  “Let me come with you,” she begged.

  “Yes, this is how it must be,” he said sadly.

  Fairest was puzzled by his sadness. But she was so in love with him that she did not ask him any more questions. It was enough that they would be together.

  They set out the next morning. Elegant watched them with joy and sorrow equally mixed in his heart. The road was rough and rugged. Still Moowis refused to say where they were going or why. Soon Fairest, whose feet were cut and bleeding, had a hard time keeping up with her stronger husband.

  At first it had been bitterly cold, but now the warming spring sun was shining in all its strength. For a time, Fairest forgot her troubles and began to sing a happy little song.

  But then she noticed a change in her husband. At first Moowis tried to keep in the shade to avoid the sun’s rays. But the air grew warmer and warmer. Slowly the magical figure of snow dissolved and fell to pieces. His frenzied wife watched him become only rags soaked with snowmelt, the bony frame that had held the figure together, and scattered feathers and beads.

  Fairest screamed his name over and over again. At last, exhausted with grief, she threw herself down beside the damp rags and tatters that had been her beloved. One last time she whispered, “Moowis,” before she breathed her last.

  So was Elegant avenged.

  The Zimwi

  (Africa—from the Swahili)

  Once, some children went out to hunt for sea-shells on the shore. One, a girl named Mbodze, found a beautiful shell. Amid delicate ripples of brown and coral twined the shape of a python so yellow it seemed almost gold. Mbodze realized at once that the figure of the snake would make the shell a good-luck charm. Afraid to lose it, she laid it on a big round rock, to pick up on her way home. But she forgot the pretty shell until she, her sister, Matezi, and her brother, Nyange, started for home that evening. Suddenly remembering it, she asked the others to go back with her.

  “No,” said Matezi, “and you must not go back, either! I have heard that a zimwi—an ogre—comes to the beach at night.”

  “But the shell is so pretty,” said Mbodze. “And it has the image of a golden python. Surely it will bring me good luck!”

  Nyange said, “It will bring you bad luck if you go back for it after dark.”

  “The sun is not fully set,” Mbodze said stubbornly. “I will be on my way home before it is truly night.”

  But for all her brave words, she was uneasy.

  So Mbodze returned alone, singing to keep her courage up. When she reached the big stone, she met a young man with long hair, sitting beside a nqoma, big drum, with her shell in his hand.

  “You sing so beautifully,” said the man. “What do you want?”

  “Please, sir, I want my shell, which you are holding.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But you must sing again.”

  So Mbodze sang her song another time.

  “So sweet,” said the man. “But my hearing is not good. Come closer.”

  Mbodze did. At that moment, the young man turned into a zimwi, with two heads, two mouthfuls of fangs, and claws. He grabbed her with his long arms, and put Mbodze into the drum.

  “Why have you done this?” the girl cried.

  “Your sweet voice will be the voice of my drum,” he said. “When I play for people, they will reward me with food.”

  So he set off. At each village, the monster turned himself into a young man. Then he went to the meeting place and announced he would play his wondrous drum in return for chickens and yams.

  He beat the drum, and the imprisoned Mbodze sang along. Everyone was delighted. The ogre was paid with a great deal of food, but he gave just enough to the girl to keep her alive. Though she tried and tried, she could not free herself from the drum.

  In time, they came to Mbodze’s home village. Her parents were mourning the loss of their child and did not come to hear the zimwi play his singing drum. But Mbodze’s sister and brother, Matezi and Nyange, did. Right away the children recognized their sister’s voice. They ran and told their parents.

  When the grown-ups heard, they guessed what had happened. But they could not confront the zimwi. In his true shape, the monster was strong, and could easily kill them or run away with the drum.

  So Mbodze’s parents invited the zimwi to their house. There they gave him so much food that the family had to borrow more from their neighbors. Still the hungry creature ate, until his stomach grew almost as big as the drum he leaned against. When he could not eat another bite, he fell asleep.

  Quickly her parents opened the drum and released Mbodze, hugged her quietly, then hid her with her brother and sister in a neighbor’s hut. Next they put a poisonous snake and a swarm of bees and some biting ants inside the drum. Then they closed it up again. Lastly they shook the zimwi awake. “Drummer, wake up!” they said. “Some strangers have come who want to hear your music.”

  The zimwi took his drum to the meeting place and began to beat it. But the voice inside was silent. He went on beating it, but nothing happened. He began to shout and pound more loudly on the drum. The silence made him angrier. At last, careless of the watching villagers, he pulled off the drumskin.

  Instantly the bees and biting ants swarmed over him, stinging him until he stumbled over the drum. Then the deadly snake shot out and bit him, and the monster died. When he was dead, he returned to his true, horrible shape. Then the ground drank him down as though he were made of water.

  On the spot where the zimwi had died, there soon sprang up a pumpkin vine. It bore a single pumpkin of amazing size. Each day it grew bigger and bigger. Soon it was as big as the chief’s hut.

  While the pumpkin grew, a strange thing happened. The people of the village began to disappear. Each night more vanished. The chief posted guards to watch over the village at night, but they were gone the next morning.

  People began to flee the village in fear. Meanwhile the pumpkin had grown as wide as twenty elephants side by side and as tall as a palm tree.

  When all their neighbors had left, Mbodze’s parents made plans to move to another village. But on the last night, Mbodze was awakened by a soft voice that called, “Come out. See how fine the pumpkin looks in the moonlight.”

  Mbodze rose from her bedding. To her surprise, she saw her mother, father, sister, and brother going out into the night.

  Again the voice called, “Come out.” But the girl hesitated. When she could resist no longer, she walked toward the huge pumpkin, glowing in the moonlight.<
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  Because she had waited, she was behind the others. She saw them go up to the pumpkin. On its smooth, round side, a huge mouth appeared. As her family went forward like sleepwalkers, the pumpkin swallowed them one by one.

  Then the mouth said to Mbodze, “Oh-ho! Here is the little voice of my drum. Come closer! You won’t escape me again.”

  The girl realized that the pumpkin was the zimwi, returned in this new shape. Frightened, she ran to her hut even as the zimwi roared, “Come back!”

  She felt her body obeying the ogre’s awful magic. But as she was turning to go, she snatched up her father’s war ax. Holding this behind her back, she walked to the pumpkin and let it swallow her up.

  Inside was a vast, damp, dark space. All around her, the girl could hear the voices of adults and children crying and calling out to one another. She heard the voices of her family.

  Stretching out her hand, she felt the curved inside of the pumpkin. Without hesitating, Mbodze swung her ax again and again. Soon she had chopped a hole in the side of the pumpkin. As moonlight streamed in through the hole, the zimwi began to shake and roar in pain. But the girl kept chopping. When the hole was big enough, she led all the trapped people out.

  Still she chopped at the pumpkin, which was too weak to make any more magic. Then all the villagers took knives and axes and hacked the pumpkin to bits. Finally they burned the pieces to ashes and scattered them. Then they praised Mbodze for her courage. And the village was never bothered by the zimwi again.

  Witchbirds

  (France)

  Once upon a time, in Provence, in the south of France, there were three witches—daughter, mother, and grandmother—who lived together in a cottage near a small village. They kept to themselves, and the villagers kept away out of fear. From time to time, though, someone would ask the weird women for a healing potion or a love charm in return for a bushel of corn or a basket of eggs.

  But people whispered that the women worked far stronger magic in secret, often under cover of night. Some claimed they could turn themselves into cats or rabbits or even night birds. In this last form, they would fly to distant meetings of their sisters, away in the woods or on mountaintops or across the sea.

  It was these last stories that interested the boy Léonce. But when he asked his mother, “Can such a thing be?” she told him, “True or not, it’s no business of yours.”

  When he asked, “Can witches fly?” his mother scolded him and forbade him to bring up the subject again. When he asked the other people in the village, they warned him, “You’ll bring bad luck on yourself if you even talk of such things.”

  But Léonce could only imagine how wonderful it would be to soar on wings above town and wood, lake and hill. He dreamed of traveling to the ends of the earth on magic wings and seeing all the wonders of the world.

  At last he got up nerve enough to go to the witches’ cottage. The grandmother answered his knock. “Why are you here?” she asked impatiently.

  Léonce explained, “I want to learn the secret of night-flying. In return, I would work for you.”

  The woman’s face grew hard. “Off with you, boy! You’re a fool to even think such a thing.” And she slammed the door.

  Anger made Léonce even more determined to get what he wanted, one way or another. He decided to spy on the women to see if he could learn their secret.

  That very night, shortly before midnight, he crept up to the cottage window. Peeping in, Léonce saw that the main room was dimly lit by the glowing embers in the hearth. The grandmother and the mother stood beside the fireplace, while the daughter took a jar of ointment from a small cabinet. Dipping their fingers in, the women touched their heads and hands and shoes with the ointment. Each time they cried out “Supra fueillo,” which meant “above the foliage” or “over the leaves.”

  As soon as they had finished this business, they suddenly became owls. Hooting loudly, they flew up the chimney. From his hiding place, Léonce saw the three witchbirds fly across the face of the moon. Then they vanished into the night.

  Eagerly the boy pried open the window. Thinking only of how exciting it would be to see the world from above, he grabbed the jar that sat atop the cabinet. His hand shaking with excitement, he dipped his fingers into the ointment and touched himself with it as the women had done. But in his haste, he did not remember the exact words they had used. Instead of crying “Supra fueillo,” he said “Souto fueillo,” which meant “under the foliage” or “beneath the leaves.”

  Scarcely had Léonce shouted “Souto fueillo” for the last time when he was transformed into an owl. Then he flew directly toward the chimney. But instead of soaring up the flue, he knocked against the grate that held smoldering green wood to which a few leaves clung.

  Stunned and burned, he lay in the ashes a moment. Then, deciding the accident had happened because he was not used to the shape and movements of a bird, he tried again. This time, afraid of burning himself again, he flew out the window, which he had left open.

  But when Léonce reached the open country, he began to have more problems. Where the fields were bare, he found he could fly as easily as an ordinary owl. But as soon as he came to a hedge or thicket, he was forced to pass through it instead of flying above it. Every branch, twig, and thorn hit and stung him like a whip.

  Léonce wished he could stop flying: Every moment brought fresh pain. But it was impossible to stop; some power kept his wings beating and forced him straight ahead. However much he tried, he could not avoid the bushes and trees that lay in his path. The words “souto fueillo”—“under the leaves”—were making him fly, crawl, bite, and claw his way beneath the leaves of every growing plant.

  He was bruised and wounded all over. He felt near death. Ahead he saw a bramble thicket bristling with long, cruel thorns. The magic forced him to half fly, half hobble, toward the fatal hedge. He knew he would be torn to pieces before he was compelled halfway through. In his heart, he prayed for a quick end.

  But inches short of the nearest thorns, Léonce heard a cock crow. The first hint of dawn tinted the sky. The night had ended, and the night’s magic ended, too. Léonce fell heavily to the ground. He found himself a boy again. His clothes were in tatters; he was bruised and bleeding and smarting from a hundred deep scratches; but he was alive! And for this he said a prayer of thanksgiving.

  Limping and dizzy, he made his painful way home. There his mother put him to bed and nursed him. But when she asked what had happened, he only said that he had gotten lost in the woods. And when his wounds had healed, Léonce found he was also cured of any wish to learn the secret of the witchbirds.

  Dangerous Hill

  (British Isles—England)

  An easy drive south from London, along the coast, will bring a traveler to a secluded spot where nature’s beauty is unspoiled. Here the summer air is rich with the scent of pine trees, and the hills are alive with wildflowers.

  In this lovely setting, a lonely, silent house of white stone, its windows shuttered, sits atop a hill. Above the bright swirls of flowers and fragrant woods, it squats and broods over the landscape. House and slope together are called Dangerous Hill. There are many stories to explain the name; here is one.

  In the 1930s, a young woman named Tanith Moore married William Braden. They decided to honeymoon for a month in a house on the south coast. Tanith had heard of an attractive, fully furnished house just fifty miles from London.

  “It will be perfect,” she told William. “It has a tennis court and a swimming pool—plus masses of flowers. I so love flowers!”

  William, eager to please, said, “And we’ll be close enough to drive up to London for plays and visiting friends.”

  Tanith turned serious for a moment. “The place has a funny name, though: Dangerous Hill. At least, that’s what it’s called on the rental agreement. The real estate agent didn’t want to talk about it. She said it was because the road to the top of the hill has dangerous curves.” Now she sounded quite worried. “You have
got that new sports car, darling. And you do drive fast.”

  “Don’t be silly!” her husband said. “The car handles beautifully. Dangerous Hill has more than met its match.”

  Indeed, William’s car took the steep, tree-lined hill road as gracefully and easily as a bird in flight.

  The place was a dream—gleaming white in the sunlight, flowers everywhere. The caretaker, who lived in the nearby town, met them and gave them the keys. Tanith and William explored the house and gardens with delight. At last they sat down to rest on a bench by a pool dotted with water lilies.

  Suddenly they saw a tall woman, dressed in an old-fashioned black gown, approaching. They were both startled because the garden and the hillside below had seemed empty a moment before. The woman was handsome, but sad-faced. And there was something odd about her that William could not quite put his finger on.

  “What brings you here?” she asked. Her voice was faint, as though it came from far away.

  “We’re on our honeymoon,” said Tanith. “This house is the perfect place. We’re going to be very happy here.”

  “Others thought so, too,” the woman said. “The hill did not allow them to be happy.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked William. He was annoyed that the woman’s gloomy appearance and words were spoiling their first day at the house.

  “I bought the house years ago,” she said, “although I was told that the hill belongs to powers as old as time. These forces don’t like being disturbed. But the place was so beautiful, I would not listen.”

  The strange woman turned to the young couple. “You must listen: Don’t stay here. Go home. Forget this place. Remember the other two.”

  “Who were the other two?” asked Tanith.

  All at once they heard a church bell toll in the distance.

  “That is the passing bell!” said the woman. “Be warned! The hill must have its sacrifice!”