The Man of the Dry Tree

In the dark forest near the Dry Tree lived a small man whom no one dared look directly in the eye. His beard was black as raven’s wings, and his eyes glowed with a darkness that froze the blood of any who gazed into them. In the village of Vichte, the farmers and their wives whispered about Jaques Demoor—for that was his name—though some preferred to call him "the Black One," or worse still, "the Accursed."

The priest would have surely retrieved his spell book from the chapel, for everyone knew that Jaques Demoor had made a pact with the devil. How else could anyone possess such powers? How else could a man make the lamest horses gallop full speed with merely a touch? How else could he cure warts by simply rubbing a man’s hands? No, this could only be the work of the supernatural.

One evening in late autumn, when the moon was not yet full, a woodsman named Jan Vandevelde witnessed something strange. He was working late in the forest, inspecting his timber operations, when he saw a dark figure hastening through the shadows. Under the creature’s arm was something dark that croaked and cawed: a black rooster, large and ungodly, with red eyes that gleamed like embers in the moonlight.

Jan froze and hid behind a thick oak. His heart pounded louder than a blacksmith’s hammer on Thursday morning. He followed the man, carefully and quietly, through the increasingly dense forest, branches scratching his face and fear making his eyes water.

The man walked straight to the infamous crossroads where five roads converged—a place where no farmer would willingly turn his head, certainly not at night. There, in the weak moonlight, someone else waited. A gentleman, dark and upright, with a pointed beard and eyes even more penetrating than those of the small man. This could be only one: the Devil himself, in flesh and blood.

Jan dared not approach closer, but from behind a birch thicket, he saw everything. The gentleman pulled white parchment from his coat—a paper that seemed to glow with inner light. Then, with fascination, he reached into his jacket, withdrew a feather, and slowly pulled it from the wing of the black rooster. The bird shrieked in a tone no natural creature ever produced.

Jaques Demoor rolled up his sleeve, baring his arm, his pale skin now visible in the moonlight. With his other hand, he took the feather from the Devil. At first, Jan thought he would write, but no—he pressed the feather against his own wrist. Blood flowed down his arm, bright red and real. With his own blood, he wrote upon the parchment—or rather, he made his signature, three swift strokes that meant eternity.

At that moment, the parchment burned completely away in a green flame. The Devil laughed—a sound like ice cracking on a winter night. And then, quite suddenly, as if a candle were blown out, he vanished into the darkness. Jan Vandevelde stood there, trembling and exhausted. Then his fingers touched his own head. His hair—all of his hair!—had turned completely white, every black strand transformed to silver. Fear had accomplished in moments what years could never do.

After that night, everything changed in the village. Jaques Demoor’s powers grew stronger. It was said he possessed a "gallows child"—a cursed mandrake root that grew beneath the feet of the hanged, an object believed to grant supernatural power. Upon his neck was a red mark, and people whispered that he drew blood from it to feed the small figure he kept hidden. Whenever he entered the tavern, chairs would dance and the floorboards would moan. His own chair always creaked, sounding like an old coffin lid.

Years passed. The people of Vichte made wide detours around his house at the forest’s edge. Children never paused at his door. Even the dogs would not bark at him—they sensed something upon him that transcended flesh and blood. And then came the day, many years later, when Jaques Demoor fell ill. The priest from the parish, Abbe Mertens, was summoned. He found an old man in bed, gray and exhausted, his dark eyes dimmed by impossible suffering.

"I am ready," Jaques whispered, "but he will come to collect me." The priest whispered prayers, but Jaques did not close his eyes in sleep. That night, at the moment the clock struck twelve, a storm broke loose such as no one in Vichte could remember. The wind howled like a thousand wounds, lightning split the sky, and thunder shook the ground. The abbe called brave men from the village to watch over the dead man. But as midnight passed, it happened: a terrible crash shook the house, cards flew through the air like birds, the clock shattered, every bottle and glass burst. The dead man’s cat became wild and uncontrollable, wailing like a spirit.

The abbe took holy water and prayed, crossing himself amid the chaos. Then, quite suddenly, everything calmed. The abbe knew what had truly happened: the Devil had come to collect his due. And three days later, at the funeral, when they closed the coffin, they discovered something impossible. The dead man’s body was gone. In its place lay nothing but mice—hundreds of dark mice—that poured from the coffin and scattered in every direction. To this very day, the road curves around his old house, for generation after generation, people walk in wide arcs past it, a broad path where once there was a straight way. The Dry Tree still stands there, and on certain nights, they hear the sound of black wings.