Chapter 4 – Chap 4

Note: This is an account written by Mahalia. At the time this was written, she has learned to write very little English, and while there are English words and a few sentences, she mostly alternates between Cree, Navajo, and even Gaelic. Now according to the stories I’ve heard, she liked to keep secrets and confuse the people of Awesiaki, so perhaps this is why she wrote like this. This took some time and work to translate.

While she hasn’t placed a date on this note, I could pinpoint this at some point in 1631.

The letter by Mahalia (Pinpointed to be 1631)

I have been asked by Benjamin Chase, and his son Greeshaw to write this letter to talk about the Forest People. I do not know why, I talk about them all the time. I tell the stories about what happened on his expedition. I tell stories to the children and people of his village after he tells his stories. I even share stories with the people who may have been in my tribe.

I never have yet found out where I came from. I am familiar with these tribes, but I know not where my blood family came from. As long as I can remember, my family was the Forest People. My father was their elder, who has no human name. Many see them and see a beast, but I see the same wisdom as the humans claim to own. You only have to live among them to see.

I remember my age, I was small, and could walk for two winters. I remember very little of my blood father, mother, and brother. My blood father told us of the people who own the land and we are to respect them and avoid them, for our protection relied on avoiding them. When they threw rocks, or tipped trees, we were to walk away. We were traveling to my blood fathers tribe, I do not remember why, but it was my third winter.

We made a camp to wait out the night, and we could hear them in the trees. We thought if we were quiet we would be left alone and see the rising sun. What we did not know was they where fighting something that shouldn’t be there. It was a Genoswka and it was running toward our camp to escape them. It saw us, and my blood brother threw rocks at it, my blood father shot arrows at it. They did nothing and it took my brother into the forest first, and my father chased it.

Me and my blood mother sat there for some time before it came back, and was carrying something that made my mother scream. She ran with me into the woods, she tripped into the snow and wouldn’t let me go before the Genoswka grabbed her by the legs and dragged her away. I did not know what to do, so I ran, and ran until I saw a small space under a rock, at the edge of a frozen lake. I hid there and the Genoskwa knew I was there and was waiting for me.

It stood there and it was so cold, but I would not move, because the Genoskwa stood there, hungry and was not going to give up. Then I hear the forest people coming. Two of them surrounded the Genoskwa and they fought. The third one came and attacked it from behind. I did not want to look. I did not want to move. I was so scared. One of there arms reached out towards me, and four others did too. As I heard the sound of the Genoskwa scream and ice breaking, I went to sleep. I now know what the Genoskwa wore in its fur made it sink.

I woke up the next night, surrounded by warmth. I was in a cave full of the Forest People, and I was so scared. I thought they wanted to eat me, and saw no difference between them and the Genoskwa. After a few days of them feeding me berries, cooking small animals, and giving me blankets of bear fur, I knew they were trying to protect me.

For as long as I could remember, they taught me everything I know. They taught me how they talk, they shared with me their own stories and legends. Their different tribes, people and even songs. It was from them, I learned to be a strong hunter and smart scavenger. I would not be the human I am today. They shared tales of how the Genoskwa’s came when some their ancestors were exiled from their tribes for breaking sacred laws and taboos, and how in their exile, they formed their own tribes. They told of how the Gugwe came when some of the ancestors made their own tribes based on different laws and customs, brothers mating with sisters, eating all with flesh, including of their own weak.

I share these stories with the people of Awesiaki, from the children, to those who converted from their tribes. I teach them so that they too know that the Forest People are not just some beasts or savages, just as the white man believes them and my people to have been. A lesson forgotten, even by my own people.

Benjamin Chase asked me to write this letter to tell them the truth about these things called demons, evil spirits. I have been told that what happened that expedition had nearly scared the faith of the minister, and he believes I am leading his people away from the truth. But the truth is what I share so that man may understand the Forest People, the very people who truly saved me. He fears only what he doesn’t understand.

He is wrong, for I see the truth and the good in them, even if they have seen the bad. Even the Genoskwa and the Gugwe love their offspring as bears and wolves do. He is right about one thing. There is a great and terrible spirit the Forest People call the Devourer, from which the giants come from, and whose voice is the wind. It is the spirit of lonely places. It has no love for its offspring, land or people. It seeks to spread its hunger, its greed and wrath onto the land. If you let it, it will turn you into something twisted and wicked.

There was a time when man, beast and even the Forest People lived together in harmony, and all the Devourer had to do was whisper and the Gugwe and Genoswka were born. What it did with the humans, I did not know, but I did know the offspring is where the giants came from. This was the last time man and beast were in harmony, but they banded together to fight the giants, and other twisted creations in a great war. The Devourer could not be defeated because it has no body and has always haunted this land, and perhaps always will. They only way to fight it is to ignore it’s voice when it’s called. The church people tell me that it sounded it another evil spirit they fear, so perhaps they too see the truth that I speak, and yet Greeshawn would silence me.

They do ask me where the dog people came from, I did not know. I do not think even the Forest People do. Jaralath thinks he knows. He tells me stories too, but only tells them to me. He tells me that these people never believed what he had to say, and generally don’t like looking at him due to the scars the Gugwe gave him. They didn’t damage him too bad, it’s just a few scratches and a white eye. I think he’s being hard on himself.

The stories he tells say the dogmen may have come from an evil king in a land called “Greece”, who made a god angry. I ask him how he knows so many stories, and he tells me how his own family told tales from lands far beyond this one. I ask him to tell me one.

This is what he told me. I tell it here because he deserves to be heard by the village. Before the Forest People revealed themselves, he was the only one who didn’t try to change me, ignore me or look down on me. He was the first to try to truly understand me. I want this village to give his stories a chance like they did mine. Perhaps they will see truth in his words, and secrets of his own.

A story told by Jaralath Caulfield (placed as a separate letter; partially re-translated from Gaelic)

“In in my families home in Ireland, there was a woman. It was said woman was not human, for how could she be of this world ? She was known for her beauty, kindness, and loving heart. Her hair, bright and yellow as the sun, and eyes green as the most lively forest. She must have been an angel, for nothing so pure deserves to live on this sinful world, other than to live among the downtrodden.

She was a light in so many peoples lives. With her mere presence, she’d make sad children happy, she would approach the dying, the old and the sick, and lift their spirit so as they may meet their creator happy. The only excuse one could not love her was if they had no heart.

Many had wanted her hand and heart, but she gave her heart to only one. He was said such a lucky bastard he must have built his house on clovers. My mother said he wasn’t strong, in fact he was considered weak and unsavory among the men of his clan, and many thought he would die as a child due to being sickly, but it was his strong heart that kept him alive. He was the woman’s prince, despite him having no wealth or power. He loved writing stories and poems, inspired by his life experiences and view of the world around him, and quite a few of them were about her.

It was a world that favored the strong to the weak, wealth to purity, and how those who are truly good were rare, and that innocence was a treasure. This was the exact thought process of the woman’s father, who cared not that she gave her heart to this young man. He cared not that the man was kind, only that he was poor, weak and had nothing to offer his family in exchange for his daughter. So instead the woman’s father gave her over to a man who was just the opposite. A cruel but rich chieftain who walked on everyone beneath him.

The chieftain had all of the clan attend the farce they called a wedding, and he would entertain himself as the woman’s lover cursed and damned them futilely, and how the woman who beg her father not to make her do this. There was nothing the lovers could do. The chieftain treated his new wife as a trophy he won, and a treasure in the tower to keep hidden from the world. He would only enter her chamber to feed her, or bleed her. It was a favorite pass time of his.

As days turn to weeks, and weeks turn to months, the woman prayed for her lover to some way, some how, her true love would save her, but her prince never came. Her beauty soon became but a ghost of its former self, and her purity and innocence slowly faded away. All the while, her father was happy to live off the money and land her husband gave her, his daughters life be damned.

And as she gave up hope, she gave up her life. She would throw he meals out her towers window. But after days of starvation, it only served to drive the poor woman mad, and she wanted to give it a quick end, and threw herself from the tower.

I’d imagine you’d be feeling sorry for her by now, you’d probably have a heart of stone if you didn’t. All who knew her grieved, save for her blasted husband and blasted father. Her husband remarried a new prize before her funeral, and her father asked if their deal to keep his land and wealth was still up. The villagers felt sorry for sitting down and doing nothing to help the woman. So much for a land that values the strong over the weak. So when they buried her, they didn’t put stones on her resting spot, according to tradition or superstition would give her a second chance in life.

And by the stars did they get more than they bargained for. A year after her burial she awoke and was far from the innocent beacon of purity they put in the ground. She was the walking dead with a thirst for blood and revenge. My mother always told me that when Hells fury is nothing to a woman’s wrath, you best believe it. Her name was known throughout the land but lost in time.

She took her revenge on her husband, draining his lifeblood as he did with her and razed his home to smolders. She went to her father, razing his land, burning his wealth in front of him and drained him as well. The woman wanted them to die slowly, but the bodies had to be destroyed least more bloodthirsty corpses would awake. They were called the Draugr. I never knew how she knows that. It was said nothing in else in life mattered to her but inflicting her wrath and satisfying her bloodlust, she became the scourge of Ireland, for she thought nothing could avenge a broken heart and lost innocence, and she was alone.

Or at least she thought she was alone. It took years before she realized her lover did try to save her. The night of her wedding, in a suicidal and audacious move, her lover attempted to stab the chieftain to avenge her. For all his trouble, he was beaten, tied to a tree, while the chieftain took his blade, and cut into the peasants heart, and had him thrown into a river. And as he was taking to new lands, he too awoke with the thirst for lifeblood and a senseless wrath. His love was torn from him by the greedy and heartless, and replaced with hatred for those he saw as such. Regardless of guilt or innocence, he became a scourge himself.

Together or apart, they were the reason the Draugr were feared, for they plagued the Celtic Lands far before the church took over. And so, chieftains and peasants alike gather to face the scourge. An army was built and prepared a grand hunt, and the loss of life was unaccounted for both human and draugr. The details were murky, but the two lovers were reunited and captured together. When they reunited, they remembered what it like to be human, and everything that came with it. Love, memory, and regret.

They survived and escaped attempts to execute them, but could not escape what they have done for centuries. Anyone that could have loved them were gone for, and would only hate the monsters they’ve become. And try as they might, there was no atoning for their crimes they committed as the draugr. So they left their motherland for good, traveled together to lands far and wide. The lovers lived for some time, learning from other cultures and tales of those lands.

They walked in Europe, they walked in Asia, and walked in Africa, and when they time came, they traveled to a new land, in hopes that they scourge they once were, would never find them.

This tale my parents told me twice, but I remember this in particular mostly because it was a favorite of theirs.”

The Testimony of Erik Müller, May 28th, 1631

I testify today, after the expedition and the birth of my child, and my faith in Greeshawn Chase must hold true and he must be the one to save us, and lead us into a new age in God’s country.

I was the first he shown the truth too, that the creatures that walk among us are examples of God’s wrath and judgement. He preaches so to his father’s congregation. Minister Chase has witnessed these beasts as I have on the expedition, and since then I believe his faith to be shaken. Greeshawn tells us we are not to fear them, only the god who created them.

I think back to that expedition every night. How these creatures, these forest people, are the work of our creator is beyond me, but perhaps I am not to question the judgement of the almighty. I think back to how my father was among those “judged” as Greeshawn put it. The great beast, the giant left my father to bury. Perhaps this is an example of the lords mercy and I am not to question it. Or else, what can I put my faith in ?

When we buried my father, the ministers wife told Anya and I the story of how my father rescued her from death, but failed her sister Edith, and lived with the guilt for years. Greeshawn was born to be Edith’s legacy. And so when the time comes, we decided our child shall be named Edith, should it be a girl.

For months now, Greeshawn continues to journey from the colony alone, and has returned with a following of two hundred sinners, whom he took to work in our gold mines. He tells us the time will come to spread the will of God across this new world, but patience is a virtue. It was Greeshawn who shown us the truth, and the truth puts fear in our minister. Greeshawn preaches to us in his stead, and tells us to rejoice. It is Greeshawn who has taken the responsibility of baptizing the children of Awesiaki, and giving the communion.

He does so not with water, but by feeding them pieces of raw meat, and a small cup of blood. He preaches “It is said the bread is the flesh of our lord, and that the wine is his blood, and so we are to grow closer to the spirit with the real thing.”

Ever since the expedition, Greeshawn would have the colonists visit Mahalia and gain knowledge of these beasts. He encourages the same of Anya, and has been living with Anya and I for the duration of her pregnancy. He watches over her, feeds her in the same manner as he gives communion, and was adamant that his mother is not to interfere as a midwife.

Greeshawn tells us this will make our child strong, and ensure that Anya survives the birth. I tell Anya we are not to question Greeshawn, for I am a witness to the truth he preaches. And so today, Greeshawn was proven correct; our child was healthy, and Anya proven herself strong while in labor.

Today I write for Anya has given birth to a girl, and so with my faith that Greeshawn will help guide her in the truth, we name her Edith Müller. And should she read my testimony today, I hope I do no fail her as my father failed her namesake.