The Thornwood
A Folk Horror Story
Photographs don't lie, but humans do.
I found them tucked behind Mother's jewelry box. Dozens of Polaroids that spanned decades. Different women, different years, but always the same date scrawled on the back. September 22nd. Always the autumn solstice. Always the same hollow-eyed stare.
Mother is the most recent photo. The date, three months ago.
"You're mistaken, honey," Mrs. Garrett says when I show her Mother's picture at the general store. She doesn't even glance down. "There's no woman by that name in Millbrook. Never has been."
I lived with her for seventeen years. I have her handwriting on birthday cards. Her voice echoes in my memory. I have the scar on my knee from when she taught me to ride a bike, the way she hummed while making pancakes every Sunday morning.
"The Thornwood takes what it needs," Dr. Brennan says when I visit his office. His eyes distant. "Best not to question the old ways."
Thornwood? The name sends ice through my veins. "What's the Thornwood?"
He's already turned away and scribbling something in a file that bears no name.
The Thornwood, the elders tell me, is the ancient forest that rings our valley. It's been here since before the settlers, before the Native tribes, before memory itself. The trees themselves are ordinary oaks and maples. They grow in a perfect spiral around our town. The black stones, each the size of a man, are embedded deep in the earth at the base of every single tree. Those stones pulse with their own dark light. The symbols carved into their surfaces hurt to look at directly.
"Course, most folks know better than to go walking in there," old Mr. Henley says, whittling on his porch. His knife moves in practiced spirals. He carves the same symbol I've seen in the photographs. Almost like a religion. "The Thornwood's got its own rules. Its own hungers."
"What kind of hungers?"
He looks at me with his milky eyes. "The kind that keep the rest of us safe, child. The kind that keep the harvest coming and the winter mild. Small price to pay, if you ask me."
Mrs. Patterson nods along, her knitting needles clicking in rhythm. "Been that way since the founding. Pastor Coleman's great-great-grandfather made the first pact. Wise man, he was. Understood the natural order."
The pact. I've heard whispers of it in church. References to ancient agreements and blessed obligations. Pastor Coleman speaks of it during sermons with reverence. Bordering on ecstasy.
"The stones hold it," Mrs. Patterson whispers. Her eyes wide with terror and reverence all at once. "The ancient ones built the prison long ago. When Thornwood first tried to break through to our world from... elsewhere. Prisons need tenders. Guardians. It offers gifts to those who feed it and care for its bonds. We are the blessed that keep the ritual that maintains its containment."
"What happens if the stones are broken?"
"Then it doesn't just take the chosen ones," Mrs. Garrett says. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "It takes everything. Everyone. The whole world becomes its feeding ground."
Every single person in Millbrook bears the mark. Even me.
That night, I slip into the town archives. The building is older than the others, built from the same black stone as the ‘prison circle’. The records go back further here, past 1995, past the founding of modern Millbrook, into something older and more terrible.
1847: The Thornwood Compact, as recorded by Pastor Ezekiel Coleman
The entity that dwells within the spiral of black stones has spoken. It offers protection for our settlement, abundant harvests, mild winters, and prosperity beyond measure. The stones are its prison, binding it to this realm, but they are also its gateway to power. In exchange for our devotion to the containment ritual, it requires only what it has always required: the willing flesh of those who would defy the natural order.
The marking process has been established. Those chosen will be blessed with the spiral sign, that they might prepare themselves for the honor of feeding the entity that sleeps between the stones. The community will assist in this preparation, ensuring the chosen understand their blessed purpose.
Should any refuse the calling, they will be marked, regardless. The entity's hunger does not discriminate between willing and unwilling flesh. We must maintain the spiral. We must keep the stones in their proper arrangement. Should the containment fail, the entity would devour not just the chosen, but all of creation.
The pages continue, detailing generations of Colemans who served as mediators between the town and whatever lurks in the forest. Each entry describes the same ritual. Women chosen for "marriage" to the pastor. Those who refuse, marked for the Thornwood's harvest.
1852: Sarah Millbrook (refused) - fed to the Thornwood September 22nd
1853: Margaret Henley (refused) - fed to the Thornwood September 22nd
1854: Ruth Patterson (refused) - fed to the Thornwood September 22nd
Page after page of names. Only women. Women who said no. Women who were marked. Women who disappeared on the autumn solstice while their families and neighbors watched, approved and forgot.
The entity's blessing extends to all who participate in the feeding and maintain the containment. Longevity, health, prosperity—but only so long as the stone circle remains unbroken and the ritual schedule is maintained. Should the community fail to provide the required sacrifice, or should the stones be disturbed, the entity will break free of its prison and reclaim not just what it has given, but everything that lives.
All participants must taste the flesh to seal their commitment. All must take part in the marking. All must tend the stones and keep the spiral intact. All must forget the individual to preserve the world from what sleeps between the stones.
I understand now why everyone denies Mother's existence. It's not just complicity. It's survival. The entire town is bound to this thing. Generations of blind loyalty. They mark the chosen, they participate in the ritual, they consume the evidence of their crimes.
In return, they get to live in this perfect little pocket of prosperity, while the world beyond struggles with drought, depression and decay.
The next morning, Mrs. Garrett approaches me outside the post office. Her smile is the same, but beneath it now, is a hunger.
"Your mother, God rest her, was chosen for a blessed purpose," she says. Her fingers tracing absent spirals on my arm. "Such an honor. Such a gift to the community."
"But you said she never existed."
"Did I?" Her eyes bright an excited fever. "I suppose I meant she never existed as herself. Only as what the Thornwood needed her to become."
I jerk away from her touch. She follows. "The marking is already upon you, child. Can't you feel it? The call of the deep wood? The hunger for communion? Your spirals will bloom."
My hand flies to my neck. There's nothing there, but my skin feels wrong. Too tight. Too warm. "I'm not marked. I haven't been chosen." I wipe away her touch on my arm, erase her marks on my skin.
"Oh, sweet girl." Mrs. Garrett's laughs haughtily. "You've been chosen since birth. We all have. Some just ripen sooner."
That night, I examine myself in the mirror by candlelight. At first, there's nothing. Then, as I turn my head, I see it. Faint as a shadow, but unmistakable. The spiral mark, etched so lightly into my skin it might be a trick of the light.
But it's growing darker by the hour. My arms bloom with spirals.
The dreams start that same night. I'm walking through the Thornwood. Following a path that spirals ever inward toward something vast and patient and eternally hungry. The trees whisper in voices I recognize. Mother's voice. Sarah's, and Margaret's, and all the others who came before.
Join us, they say. Feed us. Become us.
I awaken with the taste of copper in my mouth and dirt beneath my fingernails.
The townspeople watch me now. Their smiles are wider. Their eyes brighter. They bring me food, stews and casseroles that taste of iron and earth. They invite me to special gatherings. Private meetings where they speak in low voices about preparation and readiness and the blessed nature of surrender.
"The autumn solstice approaches," Pastor Coleman says during Wednesday service. "Time for the chosen to embrace their destiny."
His congregation nods in unison. Their movements synchronized like a single organism. I notice now how they all bear scars on their palms. They all wear the same thin silver chains around their necks. Their eyes reflect light in ways that human eyes shouldn't.
"Some resist the calling," he continues, his gaze finding mine across the sanctuary. "Some must be... encouraged."
That evening, I find a gift on my doorstep. A dress made from fabric that seems to shift and crawl in the moonlight. The note attached reads:
For the ceremony. With love, your community.
I try to burn it, but flames won't take. I try to throw it away, but it reappears in my closet, freshly pressed and waiting.
The mark on my neck grows darker. Deeper.
When did they do this? When did they mark me?
They've been marking me my whole life. Every Sunday in church. Every meal shared with neighbors. Every breath of air in this cursed valley. The Thornwood's influence seeps into everything. Changes everything. Claims everything.
Why am I not blindly following, like my community? Why am I awake to this ritual?
Three days before the solstice, I try to leave. The road out of town stretches ahead, perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary. But with each mile I drive, pain gnaws at my chest. A pain that grows sharper and more insistent until I'm gasping for breath.
I make it five miles before I collapse over the steering wheel. My heart hammers. I’m a caged bird. The mark on my neck throbs in rhythm with my pulse. I cannot leave. Not now. Not ever.
The Thornwood has claimed me.
I drive back toward town. Tears stream down my face. The townspeople watch from their windows. They've seen this before.
That night, Mayor Hutchins visits with a bottle of red wine. "Thought you might be feeling poorly," he says, settling into Mother's old chair like he belongs there. "The marking can be difficult at first."
"How long have you known?" I ask.
"About you? Since birth. We all have our roles to play, child. Yours was always going to be this." He gestures to my neck, where the spiral mark has grown so dark it looks like a tattoo. "Your mother tried to fight it too, in the end. But the Thornwood always gets what it needs."
"And you just... watched? Helped?"
His smile is genuinely warm. "Of course. It's what we do. What we've always done. The Thornwood provides for us. We provide for it. Simple as that."
He pours two glasses of wine. The liquid is thick and dark, with an aroma that makes my mouth water despite my revulsion.
"Drink," he says. "It'll help with the hunger."
"What hunger?"
"The one you've been feeling. The emptiness where your old self used to be. The wine helps fill it, temporarily. Communion helps more."
He's right. There's a gnawing void inside me and it grows larger by the hour. I've been trying to ignore it, but it's impossible. I'm starving for something I can't fathom.
"What's in the wine?"
"What do you think?" His eyes gleam. "A little of everyone who came before. Your mother. Your grandmother. All the chosen ones who fed the Thornwood and became part of its blessing."
I should be horrified. I should run, fight, refuse.
Instead, I drink.
The wine tastes like copper and loam and indefinably sacred. It fills the emptiness. Soothes the ache. The mark on my neck sings with pleasure. For the first time in days, I feel complete.
"Good girl," Mayor Hutchins says. "Now you're beginning to understand."
The remaining days blur in a haze of preparation. The townspeople come and go. More food, more wine, more gifts. They help me practice the rituals. Teach me the old songs and show me how to trace the proper symbols with my scarred fingers.
My palms are scarred now. Just like theirs. I don't remember when it happened, but the cuts are there. Perfect spirals carved deep into my flesh. Nothing hurts anymore.
"The Thornwood is ancient," Mrs. Patterson explains as she braids my hair with dried flowers and small bones. "Older than this continent, older than humanity itself. It came from somewhere else. Somewhere between the spaces we know."
"What does it want?"
"Life. Consciousness. The spark that makes us human." Her fingers are gentle. Practiced. "It feeds on that spark. Transforms it. Makes it part of itself. And in return, it shares its power with those who serve it faithfully."
Dr. Brennan arrives with his medical bag. "Time for the final preparation," he says, his eyes kind but distant. "This might feel strange." He injects my arm—a thick, dark liquid that burns like fire and honey. Immediately, my vision shifts. I can see the threads connecting everyone in the room. Silver strands of shared purpose and mutual hunger. I can see the roots of the Thornwood spread beneath the town.
And I can see what I'm becoming.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Dr. Brennan says, as he follows my gaze. "The interconnectedness of it all. No individual suffering, no personal loss. Just the eternal cycle of feeding and being fed."
Pastor Coleman enters. No longer disguised as a simple country preacher. His true face shows through now. Ageless. Inhuman. Carved from the same living ebony stone as the Thornwood itself. His eyes, deep spirals that pull at something essential inside me.
"My dear child," he says, his voice harmonizing with frequencies I can feel in my bones. "Are you ready to accept your blessed purpose?"
I nod. Though I'm sure I have no choice. The mark has spread. Beyond my neck, spiraling down my arms, across my chest, as it claims every inch of skin. I'm transformed from the inside out.
"The com-pact requires willing participation," he continues. "Not just from the chosen, but from the community. Each person must play their part in the feeding. Each must taste the communion. Each must seal their commitment with flesh and blood."
"And if one refuses?"
His smile is terrible and beautiful. "Then they become the next feeding. The Thornwood is patient, but it will never be denied."
This isn't just about me. It's about the entire community, bound together in an ancient pact that demands participation from everyone. They mark the chosen, they prepare the ritual, they consume the evidence.
The Thornwood has claimed us all.
The night of the solstice is unseasonable warm. The entire town gathers in the church. The walls have fallen away, revealing the Thornwood itself. Ordinary trees that spiral around the true horror. Thirteen ebony stones arranged in a perfect circle. Each humming with contained malevolence. The altar sits at the center of the stone circle. Carved from the same impossible ebony material that drinks in all light, hope and sanity itself.
Between these ‘stones’, I see glimpses of an entity vast and writhing. Not the entity itself, but shadows cast across dimensions. The stones pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat.
I wear the dress they gave me. It fits perfectly. It molds to my transformed body like a second skin. The townspeople watch with their hungry eyes as Pastor Coleman leads me to the altar.
"Behold," he says as his voice carries to each corner of the stone circle. "The chosen one comes willingly to feed the entity that sleeps between worlds."
The congregation responds in unison. Their voices create harmonies that make the trees themselves sway in rhythm. I see them clearly now. Not the kindly neighbors I grew up with, but something else. Their humanity is a mask. Worn thin by decades of participation in this ancient horror.
"Do you accept your blessed purpose?" Pastor Coleman asks.
"I do." The words come from my mouth, but they're not mine. I’m not in control any longer.
"Do you offer yourself willingly to the Thornwood's embrace?"
"I do."
"Do you release your individual self to become part of the eternal communion?"
"I do."
He raises a blade carved from the same black wood as the altar. The edge gleams the reflected glow of hungry eyes.
But as he brings it down, something flickers in my transformed mind. A memory that doesn't belong to the thing I'm becoming. A voice that sounds like my Mother's, like Sarah's, like all the women who came before.
Fight.
The blade hesitates an inch from my throat.
"What is it, child?" Pastor Coleman's voice carries a moment of concern.
"I... I remember something." The words feel strange in my mouth, like speaking in a foreign language. "Before the marking. Before the preparation."
The congregation shifts. Their synchronized breathing falters.
"Memories of the old self," Pastor Coleman says dismissively. "Mere echoes. They'll fade once the transformation is complete."
The memory grows stronger. Not just of Mother, but of research. Of discoveries made in secret, in defiance of the Thornwood's influence. Of truth hidden where even ancient powers couldn't reach it.
"The pastor isn't what he claims to be," I say, my voice growing stronger. "Neither is the Thornwood. Neither is any of this."
The blade wavers in his hand. For just a moment, his ageless mask slips, revealing something hungry and desperate and entirely human.
"You're making a mistake, child. The transformation is nearly complete. Don't fight what you're becoming."
"I know what I'm becoming." I stand. The dress falls away like shed skin. "I know what you've made me become. But I also know what you really are."
The congregation surges forward, but I'm faster now. I’m changed in ways that serve me. I reach into the cavity behind the altar and pull out what I hid there days ago. Days when the marking was still new and my mind partially my own.
A bottle of gasoline. A book of matches. And a single photograph.
"This is James Coleman," I say, holding up the photo for all to see. "Convicted serial killer. Escaped from a psychiatric facility in 1995. He's been using your mythology, your need to believe in something greater than yourselves, to commit murder for thirty years."
The blade falls from his hand. His face cycles through a dozen expressions before settling on rage.
"The Thornwood is real," he snarls. "The com-pact is real. The power is real."
"The stones are real," I agree, soaking the altar in gasoline. "The prison is real. The way you've turned neighbors against neighbors is real. We’re your feeding ground and clean up crew. Your sandbox."
I strike a match. The flame dances in my transformed vision, beautiful and cleansing.
"You've made them complicit in dozens of murders. Made them taste human flesh and call it communion. Made them forget their victims and call it blessing. But it's not magic. It's just collective madness orchestrated by you. A psychotic predator."
"No!" His scream echoes through the grove. "The marking is real! You can feel it! You've been changed!"
I touch the spiral on my neck. It's still there, still dark, still pulsing with alien life.
"The marking is drugs," I say. "Hallucinogens. Delivered through the wine, the food, the injection. You've been poisoning this entire community for decades, making them see what you need them to see."
The match drops. The altar catches fire, and the flames spread to the ancient trees, consuming the forest that has grown around this prison for centuries.
But as the fire rages, something terrible happens.
The stones begin to crack.
Not from the heat. Fire cannot touch them. They crack because the ritual has been broken, the feeding interrupted, the containment protocol violated. Through the spreading fractures, I can see something that shouldn't exist pressing against the barriers between worlds.
"No!" Pastor Coleman screams. Not in anger. In terror. "You don't understand! The feeding wasn't murder. It was maintenance! The stones require blood to maintain the prison!"
The townspeople don't run from the flames. They rush toward the cracking stones. Their scarred hands press against the fractures, trying desperately to hold the prison together with their own bodies.
"We're not the evil ones," Mrs. Garrett cries as black light pours from between her fingers. "We're the last line of defense! We've been keeping it contained for two hundred years!"
And in their screams, I hear something that makes my blood freeze. Not madness. Not the sound of drugged minds failing to process reality.
The sound of something vast and hungry pressing against weakening barriers, testing the cracks in its ancient prison.
The stones are real. The entity is real.
And I've just broken the containment.
As the prison crumbles around me, I see the truth. The trees. The ritual. The community. I see the roots of the containment network spreading beneath the town, connecting to other stone circles, other communities, other groups of unwilling guardians scattered across the continent. A vast infrastructure of sacrifice and secrecy. All designed to keep something unthinkable from breaking through into our reality.
And now it's too late.
The flames don't hurt as they consume my transformed flesh. The marking on my neck sings with purpose as I throw myself against the largest crack in the center stone, adding my blood to the failing seal.
I understand now why Mother stopped fighting. Why they all stopped fighting, in the end. Not because they were defeated.
Because they realized they were the heroes.
The entity doesn't just feed on human flesh. It feeds on the barriers between worlds. We are the only thing standing between it and universal consumption. Every sacrifice, every marking, every ritual—all of it has been an act of cosmic responsibility.
The prison holds. Barely. My blood mingles with that of generations of guardians, and the stones pulse with renewed strength. The cracks seal themselves, the black light fades, and the entity retreats back into whatever dimension spawned it.
But the cost is everything. The town. The forest. The people who gave their lives to maintain a secret that couldn't be shared because no one would believe it.
As I fade into the stone, becoming part of the containment itself, I understand the final truth. There is no escape from this responsibility. No end to the vigilance required.
Someone else will have to take our place. Another town. Another community of unwilling guardians.
The entity is patient.
And it will try again.
—Final entry found in the journal of [REDACTED], discovered in the ruins of Millbrook, Vermont, October 2024. Investigation revealed no survivors and no evidence of the town's legal establishment. Geological survey found thirteen large obsidian formations arranged in a perfect circle, composition unknown to current science. Neighboring communities report no memory of Millbrook's existence. The case remains open.
Note: Seventeen similar sites have been discovered across New England since 2020, all featuring identical stone circles. The FBI task force investigating these locations has classified all findings under the Thornwood Protocol. This document has been sealed pending further investigation.
Further note: Task Force Leader Agent Sarah Martinez reported missing on September 22nd, 2024, while investigating the Millbrook site. Subsequent search revealed no trace of Agent Martinez or her investigative team. However, geological analysis shows the stone formations at the site have been recently reinforced with an unknown organic compound. The stones now show no signs of structural damage despite evidence of recent fire.
Investigation suspended indefinitely. New task force assignments to begin in Nevada, Colorado, and Maine. Recruitment priority: personnel with no known family connections.
Personal note from Director [REDACTED]: We understand now. The stones must be maintained. The circles must be watched. Someone has to stand guard.
The entity is patient.
This story was written for a prompt…
Love this!
This is a very "don't drink the kool-aid" community lol
I really like this one! I especially liked how she exposed the secret instead of just giving into it as the others had done!