ㅤㅤㅤㅤ They never left Toronto.
ㅤㅤThose words, my father’s fearful tone. How could that be? Every evening after work, after taking Splash home from his walks, I set about researching. I called my brother, my sister. Neither knew and neither seemed really to care. I contacted other relatives in Canada through Facebook and all were convinced that Belle had never left Canada. I became obsessed with the mystery and yet ran into dead ends until I received a message from someone I did not know.
ㅤㅤHave you found the wych elm?
ㅤㅤI was taken aback, my heart racing. I immediately accepted the message request and looked through the profile. It was an older woman, Joy Martin, who looked to be in her 50’s and who was a mutual friend of a cousin who I had contacted earlier.
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Yes. I found a tree with my aunt’s name carved into it in the woods near where I live.
ㅤㅤI waited.
ㅤㅤCut it down.
ㅤㅤI stared at my screen, tired and lost down a rabbit hole of my own making.
ㅤㅤWhat do you mean? My dad told me to do the same thing but I can’t just go cutting down trees. Did you know Belle?
ㅤㅤI waited. No response. After thirty minutes of refreshing Messenger I was interrupted by Splash, who stood by my office door with his lead dangling from his mouth. I was somewhat glad to get out of the house, and together we walked around the village. I did not go to the woods. Thinking of walking that way made me feel uneasy. When I returned home I saw that I had a new message from Joy.
ㅤㅤAdvertisements, I knew Belle, yes. We went to high school together. John was a bit older. We never liked him much. There was a rumor, one of those urban legend things, about a tree that just appears sometimes. The legend says that if you’re going around with a boy or a girl and carve your name into the tree that it will test your love. If you both love the other then nothing will happen. But if your love is not true you will die a horrible death. We thought it was a bunch of baloney of course but then Belle goes on and says they found the thing. Well, being a curious bunch we went on with them and there it was, right out in a farmer’s field. They go on and cut their names into the damned thing and sure enough a week later they were dead. A drunk driver going the wrong way on the highway if I remember right. A bunch of us decided to go back to the tree, to make a mural out of it to them both, but when we got there it was gone. Just vanished. I know it sounds silly but it’s troubled me ever since. Please cut it down.
ㅤㅤI was stunned. Trees simply don’t appear and disappear and more than anything they certainly don’t claim the lives of young couples. It was absurd. I replied with thanks, and promised that yes, I would cut down the tree. And yet the image of the wych elm haunted me, bored into my mind and left me feeling cold. I Googled the names from the photos, each time coming up short until I searched for “Mary K” and “Roy L”. A search result appeared from one of those ancestry sites, with an archived news story of one Mary Kilkenny and Roy Lanchbury, of Cork, Ireland, who had died in a house fire in 1954. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true. I ploughed on, searching name after name and then more stories appeared of young couples dying by way of drowning, of suicide, of murder. I started searching for “wych elm urban legends”, “tree urban legends”, anything I could. At last I found a link to an old Angelfire site, now defunct. I pasted the link into the Wayback Machine and found an archived page from the late 90’s.
ㅤㅤThe page was crudely put together, one of those old counters at the bottom showing “000127” visitors. The header, in garish green font on black starry background read “The Lover’s Tree”. It told of a tree in New England on which young couples carve their names to test the strength of their love. So said the anonymous writer, the tree was supposedly haunted by Hattie James, a young woman who had fallen in love with a local boy by the name of Ira Newton.
ㅤㅤThose words, my father’s fearful tone. How could that be? Every evening after work, after taking Splash home from his walks, I set about researching. I called my brother, my sister. Neither knew and neither seemed really to care. I contacted other relatives in Canada through Facebook and all were convinced that Belle had never left Canada. I became obsessed with the mystery and yet ran into dead ends until I received a message from someone I did not know.
ㅤㅤHave you found the wych elm?
ㅤㅤI was taken aback, my heart racing. I immediately accepted the message request and looked through the profile. It was an older woman, Joy Martin, who looked to be in her 50’s and who was a mutual friend of a cousin who I had contacted earlier.
ㅤㅤAdvertisements
Yes. I found a tree with my aunt’s name carved into it in the woods near where I live.
ㅤㅤI waited.
ㅤㅤCut it down.
ㅤㅤI stared at my screen, tired and lost down a rabbit hole of my own making.
ㅤㅤWhat do you mean? My dad told me to do the same thing but I can’t just go cutting down trees. Did you know Belle?
ㅤㅤI waited. No response. After thirty minutes of refreshing Messenger I was interrupted by Splash, who stood by my office door with his lead dangling from his mouth. I was somewhat glad to get out of the house, and together we walked around the village. I did not go to the woods. Thinking of walking that way made me feel uneasy. When I returned home I saw that I had a new message from Joy.
ㅤㅤAdvertisements, I knew Belle, yes. We went to high school together. John was a bit older. We never liked him much. There was a rumor, one of those urban legend things, about a tree that just appears sometimes. The legend says that if you’re going around with a boy or a girl and carve your name into the tree that it will test your love. If you both love the other then nothing will happen. But if your love is not true you will die a horrible death. We thought it was a bunch of baloney of course but then Belle goes on and says they found the thing. Well, being a curious bunch we went on with them and there it was, right out in a farmer’s field. They go on and cut their names into the damned thing and sure enough a week later they were dead. A drunk driver going the wrong way on the highway if I remember right. A bunch of us decided to go back to the tree, to make a mural out of it to them both, but when we got there it was gone. Just vanished. I know it sounds silly but it’s troubled me ever since. Please cut it down.
ㅤㅤI was stunned. Trees simply don’t appear and disappear and more than anything they certainly don’t claim the lives of young couples. It was absurd. I replied with thanks, and promised that yes, I would cut down the tree. And yet the image of the wych elm haunted me, bored into my mind and left me feeling cold. I Googled the names from the photos, each time coming up short until I searched for “Mary K” and “Roy L”. A search result appeared from one of those ancestry sites, with an archived news story of one Mary Kilkenny and Roy Lanchbury, of Cork, Ireland, who had died in a house fire in 1954. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true. I ploughed on, searching name after name and then more stories appeared of young couples dying by way of drowning, of suicide, of murder. I started searching for “wych elm urban legends”, “tree urban legends”, anything I could. At last I found a link to an old Angelfire site, now defunct. I pasted the link into the Wayback Machine and found an archived page from the late 90’s.
ㅤㅤThe page was crudely put together, one of those old counters at the bottom showing “000127” visitors. The header, in garish green font on black starry background read “The Lover’s Tree”. It told of a tree in New England on which young couples carve their names to test the strength of their love. So said the anonymous writer, the tree was supposedly haunted by Hattie James, a young woman who had fallen in love with a local boy by the name of Ira Newton.