The Gallows-Wood

Yesterday, I resolved to finally contact the police about what's been happening to me. Even if I didn't tell them about the cults or the leaves turning black or whatever else, I could at least tell them about the stalkers.

I don't know how much later it was after I went to the local police department that I woke up.

I was groggy at first, and I had no idea where I was, until I realized I was in the middle of the woods. Then I noticed my wrists and ankles felt tight, and I realized that I had been tied to something that felt like wood and was being carried like I was on a stretcher.

I glanced around, and sure enough, I recognized Morgenstern's face.

"The one who intrudes upon our rituals shall be offered up to our Father," Morgenstern said.
"Burn her!" the others shouted.
"Shall we make an offering of her here in the Gallows-Wood?" he asked.
"Kill her!"

And so the strip of log I was being carried on went upright, and I was lifted onto a circle of rocks. Morgenstern stood beside me with a rock in one hand and a small metal bar in the other. He knelt down beside me and prepared to strike the metal against the rock.

Then a sound came from the distance, angry shouts and footsteps, and I saw the faces of the Yggdrist ex-convicts I'd recently seen in old newspapers. They were old, just like Morgenstern himself, but they were pure muscle.

As cultists of the Church of St. Gualbert and Yggdrism fought and killed one another, ripping each other to pieces with knives and hands and teeth, shouting accusations of heresy and unbelief, I managed to grab a knife that had dropped to the ground, cut my bonds, and flee through a forest of black leaves and thick fog.

As I write, my hands are shaking. I don't know what to do now, and I know they'll probably come back- the Church of St. Gualbert or the Yggdrists, it doesn't matter which.

This will be my last update. I don't know what's going to happen to me anymore.

Watching me

They're following me again. The people in jackets. I don't go outside anymore, though, so they just stand outside my window and stare at me. As I type they are looking directly at me.

Nobody else has noticed them.

 

I miss my old life. I wish when my anxieties were these vast, formless things, not concrete and very much real. I miss when I could go outside. I miss when I could look at a fucking tree without thinking about Yggdrism or the Church of St. Gualbert or whatever other cult I'm researching this time. I miss when I could tell my family about my life, when I was open with them, when they didn't think I was hiding something from them. I miss playing video games and drawing and learning German and hanging out with my friends and listening to Tally Hall and everything else I did back when I was a fucking person and not an object of some bizarre conspiracy that I might've just made up in my head.

 

I miss being me.

Connected

So, I've been thinking. It's deeply strange to me how similar these cults all are, often implementing tree symbolism and references to some sort of unexplained "Father," in spite of their distinct histories. I think there's something deeper going on, something deeper than any one cult, something linking the black leaves and the missing people and the fires and all of it.

It has something to do with the Father, I'm sure. I thought it was one of the cults themselves, but I'm certain now that it goes further than that. Otherwise, why would they all be so similar? It just doesn't make sense.

So... who or what is this Father, then? If he's real, did he do all the horrible things that have been happening since this town was founded in the 19th century, or was it just cults acting in his name?

The two most common threads I've found thus far are trees and missing people and pets, but there are plenty of other things too, fires and fog and black leaves.

I don't know what to do with all of this.

I haven't told my parents or my brother about it. They don't understand why I'm so reclusive now, why I keep going out to do research on the town's history. They don't know why I keep looking over my shoulder or why I no longer go out on walks.

It's better this way. If I told them, they'd just get dragged into it all.

Yggdrism

So, I've mentioned before that there's a longstanding history of weird little cults springing up in this town. Thing is, not all of them are Christian in nature. One of them is neopagan, Norse to be specifically. It's called Yggdrism, because its followers believe Yggdrasil is more than just a giant tree, but the incarnation of the cosmos itself- after all, it's on Yggdrasil that the worlds hang.

If you're noticing a weird theme of trees, especially world trees, that's because they keep fucking showing up in these things and I don't know why.

So, for background, Yggdrism started in the 1950s with Robert Stern, who had previously been a professor of comparative mythology with a specialty in that's right goddamn world trees. He apparently published a number of influential papers, and even a book compiling a number of his lectures on the matter titled The Branches of the Cosmic Tree.

 

Apparently, either Stern was so entranced by the Old Norse belief system that he became convinced it was correct, or he thought it would be a good way to make money, because in 1952, he officially founded the Forest Temple as a tax-exempt religious organization, and he got a lot of funding from his members, allegedly guilt-tripping and even threatening them into donating. His criminal activities grew harder and harder to ignore throughout the 50s, including drug running and violent attacks on other religious groups, culminating in a shootout with the police in 1960 that led to the death of Stern and several other members, with the rest being arrested.

 

They were released from prison yesterday.

Investigation

Found a lead.

While the Church of the Father was the latest of the small religious groups that keep popping up around here, they were, as I noted earlier, preceded by the Church of St. Gualbert, who are still active.

In the 60s, the Church of St. Gualbert was investigated for possible criminal activity due to its founder, Ray Leitzke, being suspected of involvement with the disappearance of several college students. However, investigators found nothing of note in the church- save for a few odd symbols of crossed-out circles, newspaper photos of which are not unlike what I found on my recent walk.

At this point, I decided I needed a way to get information on the church without making it obvious I was involved, though, if I was right, they were already aware of me.

So I figured I'd pay their store a visit. See, Leitzke opened a bookstore called Enchanted Forest in 1971; upon his death in 1999, it went to Noah Morgenstern, who also happens to be a member of the Church of St. Gualbert.

Morgenstern seemed like an ordinary old man as I walked around the bookstore pretending to look for something, though I couldn't help feeling like I knew him from somewhere. He was very cordial to the other customers, as well as to me when he asked if I needed anything.

I told him I was looking for a book on religious studies, and he suggested The Sacred and the Profane. He said he had particularly enjoyed its discussion of world tree myths.

I noticed he was wearing a necklace with a black-and-white tree design, with several circles at the edges of the branches.

I nodded. "Is that a world tree necklace you're wearing?"

He laughed. "Keen eyes." He glanced around; there was nobody else in the shop. "Keep them out of our business next time."

"What do you know about the Church of the Father?" I blurted out. I wished I hadn't as soon as the words left my mouth.

His eyes narrowed. "Get out of my store."

 

I haven't been back since. I don't know what to try and look into next, now that I've blown my chance of being subtle with them.

Though, judging by Morgenstern's words, they were already keeping tabs on me.

Just like I thought.

The Church of the Father

So, some more on the Church of the Father.

 

They were founded in 1998 as a splinter group of the Church of St. Gualbert, which is still around. Unlike their predecessors, they were less clearly Catholic and took elements of both Catholic and Protestant tradition; combined with their small size, this uncommon mix of beliefs quickly had them labeled as a cult, albeit without evidence of any specific wrongdoings or manipulation of members. However, up to 2000, they became more and more isolated and secretive, seemingly no longer allowing members to speak to outsiders.

 

After December 31, 1999, all members of the Church of the Father vanished without a trace. Upon investigation, a number of strange things were found within the church itself:

1. Absence of any signs of entrance or exit prior to investigation.

2. A total absence of any crosses, Bibles, paintings, or other items or symbols of a religious nature.

3. An inscription above the inner doorway reading "salūs in silva tenebrarum est," which, according to the article where I read all of this, is Latin for "salvation is in the forest of darkness."

Local history

Lately, I've been looking into my town's history. There are a lot of strange things in the newspaper archives at the library. Missing people, fires that seem to come from nowhere, secretive religious groups criticized as cults.

I think it's all connected. I don't know how, but I think one of these cults might be behind it all.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just turning into a conspiracy theorist, seeing connections where there are none. 

 

Maybe there's just something wrong with this town.