Lessa combed her hair and stared at the letter from her Grandmother's lawyer. The note was three weeks old and was informing her of her inheritance of her Grandmother's house. Nova Scotia was hours from Lessa's busy life, but the lawyer was insisting she had to come and sign the papers for the old A frame house in Asheland. Growing up Lessa remembered the lemonade and cookies with Grandmother and stories of the times from long ago. The old porch swing and the winding drive through the still densely wooded canyons down to the valley where Asheland was nestled a little beyond the canyons. Well so she would take a week off work and go to sign the papers.
Driving up to Novia Scotia Lessa was thankful it was summer and not the least bit close to winter. The drive itself took hours and Lessa decided not to stop until she needed gas just outside of town. The gas station was lively as it had an ice cream parlor attached to it and a small store. Stopping for a few minutes Lessa caught sight of a tall man with quicksilver green eyes and thick brown hair. His flannel shirt and old stained pants didn't take away from his striking looks. Davis had been two grades ahead of Lessa in school and he and his friends were perpetually running all over town on their bikes when they had been in school all those years ago.
The town was beautiful in that old town feel and classic architecture. Some of the architecture was so unique to the town that people would photograph it and some of the buildings were featured in magazines. Yet nobody from town built anywhere near the canyons or the stone structures in the middle of the woods. Gram's house was the farthest out and closest to the stone structures if you took the trail through the woods. At night you could always hear the wind blowing down through the canyons.
"what are you doing back?" Davis asked his eyes landing first on Lessa's breasts and then moving up to her brown eyes.
Frowning Lessa looked at some bottles of Gatorade and then said, "Come to settle Gram's house and stay a bit."
"You are planning on staying long?" Davis asked casually as he slurped on his soda and blocked the aisle to the cashier.
Annoyed Lessa looked at him and said, "as long as I need to stay."
Brushing past Davis Lessa paid the bored looking cashier who was staring at her phone and went out to her old car. The drive to Gram's house was five minutes. Gram had died of a heart attack in bed and been found when she missed church two days later. The house was out a bit in the woods with no other houses anywhere nearby.
Driving out to the house the sky appeared to darken as clouds moved in and then the rain began to fall. Gently at first and then torrents of rain plastered the windshield.
Stopping the car Lessa sat in the driveway waiting for the rain to let up but the winds picked up and the rain began to fall sideways. Grabbing her purse Lessa ran for the porch and the shelter of the house. When she got to the door, she struggled with finding the key in her purse, but the door wasn't locked and opening the door left her with an odd feeling of being watched from the shadows. Lessa didn't remember ever feeling scared or creepy at Gram's house as a child or when visiting.
In the hallway a thin layer of dust was on the knickknack's gram loved and a musty smell lingered. Walking to the kitchen after shutting the door Lessa felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. The kitchen looked like it always did with windchimes and stained-glass windows that gram collected. The oak table near the windows had a thin layer of dust. Looking closer though was a word written in the dust "Wendigo" and an arrow out to the woods.
Lessa remembered some of the old stories Gram used to tell about the Wendigo's and the towns use of a sacrifice to keep the Wendigo at bay. Two hundred years ago the town had gathered all the single women at the church and then taken them out to the stone circle to choose a sacrifice to the Wendigo so that the spirits of the Wendigo would not come on the wind to hunt, kill and eat everyone in the village of Ashland. The girl was tied to a stone and left and when the villagers returned in the morning she was gone.
Lessa shivered and made herself some hot chocolate and went to bed. That night the ground shook and out the window green, blue and silver lights lit up the sky from the middle of the forest. A thick red fog seemed to slither across the land sending out tendrils from the woods and the winds howled down from the canyons. The thick red fog came up to the fence around Lessa's house slowly creeping out of the woods. It was impossible to sleep and Lessa had a sick feeling about the fog not wanting it to come near the house.
In the morning Lessa got dressed and went to the library and talked to Mrs. Lee the librarian.
"Mrs. Lee, I slept badly my first night here..."
Mrs. Lee didn't look surprised and just nodded and finally said. "Aye Lessa was your Gram's job to check the stone circle and none have been out there since she died. You are three weeks late and none will get a wink of sleep until you do."
Gram's hikes to the stone circle had been a fond memory for Lessa as every two weeks they would picnic at the great stones in the middle of the woods. Picking up some KFC Lessa decided to walk to the middle of the woods.
It was a sunny afternoon and the trail was quiet. No bugs, no birds, and not even a wind in the trees. Like the earth had taken a vow of silence. Lessa walked until she reached the standing stones and in the middle of the circle was the altar with a stepping stone with the word Wendigo on it. The sacrifice girls had had to stand in front of the altar and if the word Wendigo disappeared, they were chosen. If the word stayed carved into the stone, they were free to go.
