Ethereal Chronicles

Agnethe had borne the curse of age for many long winters, her weathered skin and aching bones warped beneath the weight of time. When she reached her eightieth winter, she ventured to the ancient tree at the forest’s edge, desperate to stir the mercy of the spirit that was said to dwell within its roots.

But what the Agnethe did not know was that the spirit of the tree was long gone, driven out by something far older, and far darker, with a perverted taste for suffering. So that night, as she knelt beneath its gnarled branches, the dark spirit called to her with honeyed words, murmuring of promised eternal life, and the alleviation of her terrible pain.

Compelled by the tease of youth, Agnethe spoke back in a trembling voice, lowering herself with difficulty to the moss-choked earth.

“Whatever you ask of me, I will give.” She whispered, her words frail with fear. “I feel my time slipping from me, and I know that any day now I will lose this life of mine.”

“Fear not, dear one.” The spirit spoke sweetly, caressing the weakness in her and wrapping it in a cool breeze. “I will give you what you crave. But you must promise to nourish the earth beneath your feet. If you do not, you will suffer a fate far worse than age.”

Agnethe hesitated, perhaps a little more quickly than she should have. “Yes,” She breathed, “You have my word.”

“Then it is done.”

The wind rose to sweep over her skin, stripping it of age, blemish and imperfection. The hunch of her back straightened with a sickening crack, and Agnethe fell to the ground, convulsing, screaming in agony. Her throat shattered and realigned, reshaping her voice into something youthful and strange. Gray strands stretched into silken locks of colour. And when at last the pain faded, silence swallowed the air. 

Agnethe rose to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes fell to the pale, slender hands before her. A laugh broke from her lips, and the breeze laughed with her, picking its pace up once more.

“Do not forget your promise.” The spirit warned. “Gather your things. Head north. A manor awaits there, yours to claim in a town for a new beginning.”

“As you wish.” Agnethe giggled, a girl reborn, dancing her way back home.

She spent much time gazing at her reflection that night, tracing every perfect curve, every shimmer of youth now restored. Her beauty was unearthly, intoxicating, blessed with the magic of the spirit. She found herself desirable again, and it thrilled her.

Agnethe arrived in town the evening of the following day. The place the spirit spoke of lay just beyond the town’s edge, towering by the hills and overlooking the greenery beyond it. More a castle than a manor, it possessed a beautiful walled garden, enclosing dry, barren soil.

As Agnethe moved through the house, reaching the inside of the garden, the spirit spoke again, curling like mist through her thoughts.

“Now for your word. This garden will bloom with life, the soil swelling with perfection reminiscent of your promise to me. And you will feed it with the blood of those you sacrifice here. Do this in my name. Use the beauty I have restored to you to your advantage.”

Agnethe obeyed, though fear was the only thing blocking her objection. Refusal would mean death, or worse.

Years passed. The town changed, grew older and then changed some more, but Agnethe remained ageless, a vision of strange beauty that was both admired and feared. Her garden bloomed as the spirit said it would, but not with roses. It grew twisted trees from buried bones, fruit that bled when bitten. The earth pulsed with warmth, thick and spongy with the blood of the dead beneath it.

The spirit relished the bloodlust, just as it relished the knowledge that Agnethe was slowly coming undone. For she had long grown accustomed to the lingering gaze of passers by, indulged, for a time, in the lovers that came and went, drawn to her beauty. But each embrace ended in death, every pleasure leaving her emptier than before. The cost of her beautiful life had worn her.

One night, trembling with guilt and afraid that another kill might destroy what little was left of her morality, Agnethe crept from her bed to the soft whisper of the strange garden.

“Spirit,” She wept, “I beg you to take back the gift you have given me, for I am not worthy of it. You must give it to someone who can wield it well, with no guilt, no burden upon their mind. Because I see now the price that my age has cost me, and I know that I cannot kill another man.”

The wind died, and the night held its breath.

Then the spirit whispered, voice distorted with rage, “You knew the cost. Now you break your vow.”

Agnethe shook her beautiful head fervently, tears staining her cheeks. “If I had known the price, I would have let myself die as I was. I beg you, spirit. If you have any mercy, take your gift back. Please.”

But the spirit, vengeful in its rage, knew no mercy. With a shriek, it raged through the heavens. The earth quaked, the ground growing hot and wet beneath Agnethe’s feet as her legs began to melt into the soil. She screamed as the grass and dirt fused with her skin, and the flesh on her bones tore and stretched.

The beauty she once loved contorted to become horror incarnate, her form split and warped into a tree of human skin, with limbs gnarled like branches, hair like weeping moss. The dead she had buried clawed at her roots. Their cries echoed in her ears, eternal and unrelenting.

And still the garden bloomed, watered by her suffering.