From every age emerges a name.

There’s always that house, the one townsfolk point at in hushed, ominous tones.  You know the one: paint peeling, roof tiles missing, somehow always shrouded in shadow in the midst of a midday sun, it’s residents shunned as if quarantined with the black plague, for no doubt cavorting with the devil.  Folk loosely use words like cursed and warlocks.  They whisper in your ear about how many crows are on the lawn or beaded on the fence-line, or complain about how many are perched above the porch.  They swear of strange smells and ghostly moans.  There’s always some mysterious smoke billowing from the chimney.  Nobody’s ever seen and if they are it’s never during the day.  Night is when you see them, in their hooded cloaks, sneaking things in and out.  And what’s the gossip-mill if someone’s not going on about witnessing them transform somebody into something unnatural?

Up until recently I would have counted such things as nonsense, the chatter of fools with too much time on their hands, people who need to put down the smoke pipe before they rot their brains.  Leave it to experience to give you the eye opener your mother always said you needed.

I’ve seen that house.  I came upon it quite by chance.  Or perhaps it was by the will of the wind.  All I know is a storm came out of no where and nearly upended me on my way home through the woods.  I had no choice but to run for cover.  But the road was sloppy, flooding, difficult to keep under feet, and the sky so dark that not one pinprick of light pierced through the clouds – it was like running blindfolded through trees after being spun around three times.  I had no umbrella, I was soaked to the bone, and the next closet point of shelter was at least another half-mile up the road — I had to stop where I was.

The walkway sign up to the porch abusively clanked in the wind.  Strung by one hinge, it made it hard to see that most of its letters had been scratched out by knife point — no doubt vandalized by teens, since they were the only ones you ever heard courageous enough to venture this close.  What remained once spelt a family name.  Instantly, the chills of a hundred scary bonfire stories ran down my spine.  Maysprings…  The Mayspring name was an anathema, its very utterance could bring a stone through your window!  The Maysprings were hated, they were feared.  They were oathbreakers.  Everything they touched died, and not simply because of their treasonous pact to see themselves on the Golden Throne.  They were cursed because they dared defy the Gods of the Mountain!  Most folk had them given over to madness.  Others had them as servants to the Darkening.  Madness, I understood.  But the Darkening??  Honestly, if you’re going to throw around myths like that, you might as well go full boar and mention brownies!  After all, isn’t one fairytale creature just as good as another?

Well, as my wonderful mother would say, be careful of what things you dismiss.  And be extra careful of what knobs you turn and what crooked doors you open.  At least then, if I had listened, I might still be human.  Do you know how hard it is to type as a toad??  Trust me; it ain’t no picnic!

Inkling #17:

What is the Seven Thunders:  It is the curse upon the formers of the Thirteenth Ring.  Four dead, one caged — brothers.  And let us pray like that they stay  For if they rise, they will not do so alone.