Pastor Oaken greeted me at the main doors with a glare of blasphemous disgust and I returned it with the brightest smile I could muster in the moonlight. He had a palpable energy about him that made it obvious why he was respected amongst the people of Boonestail. His giant hands and cabinet-sized Bible made him look like a religious folk hero. He preached the good Word and acted upon it by all accounts, coming to the aid of several children trapped in the schoolhouse on Brook Street in 1803. The center beam had collapsed after a bad ice storm and four children were trapped inside as the stove spilled hot coals across the wooden floors. Oaken had ran inside the fiery schoolhouse, broke through the smashed pillar with a shovel and carried the children out of the blaze on his back. I respected him for that but he never liked me.

He played the part of a town legend well, standing six foot seven and always seen with his trademark black Geneva gown. To me, that made him come across as an underworld ghoul rather than servant of God.

Our nonchalant meeting felt more like an invitation into a doomed dungeon. Luckily, the sheriff was there to shake the pastor’s hand, pat him on the back, and protect me from the man’s glare. I had to stifle back laughter. Although it was clear why he hated me (I was a staunch open-atheist doctor with dreams of redesigning the well water system and taking money away from the church), his taunts were never more than the whistling heat of passive-aggressive squabble on my “lack of beliefs yet unyielding faith in science”.

I would later learn from Oaken that the circular beams that made up the church’s entrance were “from the stern of a Pilgrim ship that came shortly after Plymouth’s settlers”. I hadn’t been one to frequent the church of Boonestail on Sunday or their middle-of-the-month feast days—they appeared secular on the surface until Oaken emerged from the dark church cellar with palms hungry for coin rather than a bowl of gruel. But despite my avoidance of religion in general, I did admire the craftsmanship of the woodwork. It allowed the quaint church that could house fifty people to appear as a mass worship temple, angled toward the milky night sky like a European cathedral. Made of historical ship stern or not, Oaken used that beggared coin to the best of his ability, at least where good varnish and crucifix carvings were concerned.

As I ducked under the solid arm of the pastor and he pulled the doors shut, a pungent mix of sweet red wine and heart pounding sour-ness sent me aback. The smells became stronger as the candlelight that hazed in a sickly orange exposed the harshly splayed corpse strapped to the jewel adorned chest reserved for taking communion.

“I sent the young ones home,” Oaken said, walking to the pews and staring out the red stained glass windows. “They don’t need to be a witness to this brutality.”

I agreed, with the suggestion that we needed to get the boys’ official statement later. Oaken’s face went red, questioning my authority in the house of God and in the presence of Boonestail’s sheriff. When I turned to Tiberius for reason, he returned a look that let me know there might not be an official report. I turned my eyes to the stage, greeted by an odd assortment of townspeople observing the body in morbid curiosity.  

Mick Ames of Ames Farm Supply down the street was sloppy drunk with his shiny silver flask in hand, leering over the body— staring directly at the corpse’s breasts, or where breasts should have been on the feminine figure. On the opposite side of the stage were the Hudson brothers, a trio of young carpenters who were always friendly and ready to give a helping hand for anyone’s home repairs. They were hunched over, like they all shared a stomachache, whispering amongst themselves.

The sheriff’s nephew was standing against the chest, his legs crossed as he smoked a pipe with nervous hands. His heavy wet boots were stepping on the curtain draped across the twig-filled corpse’s lower half. I asked him to take the pipe and its thick smoke elsewhere (in my kindest tone of voice). He stared at me with tired red eyes and then looked to his uncle—Tiberius stood beside me and gave me a leading pat on the back. The deputy rolled his eyes and held the pipe in his mouth, dusting grit off his trousers and squeaking his wet boots down to the pews.

And out of the darkness of the pastor’s quarters at the far left end was the Wiccan, her hands freshly scrubbed and her eyes shining with relief. We exchanged pleasantries with a look and Oaken rose to the stage, beckoning us both.

Pastor Oaken explained to me that when the boys brought the body in through the back door, it was “wheezing and thrashing about.” The boys had been hunting quail and turkey in the deep woods before nightfall when they watched an elm tree “breathe deeply”. The youngsters then heard the cat-like laugh of a spindly woman who was “swinging from branches and howling up some fifty-feet high”, appearing light as a feather. She was naked and dirty, flying across the treetops like a fish flopping in a strong current.

The younger boy, Thomas, told Oaken that the woman vanished into a puff of smoke before she leaped out of the ground in front of them like a malicious magician. She began to run at them on all fours and Edward, the twelve-year old, aimed his musket at the woman’s bare chest. A single shot mid-sprint hit her in the heart. She tumbled to the ground, writhed in pain, and a bubbling froth of dark red and white fluid spilled from her lips. But she was still breathing. So the scared boys used the bundle of twine for their hunting kills to strap her arms and legs and drag the monster woman carefully over the hour-long stretch to reach Boonestail. Thomas had said that the body went fully limp at sundown. So I estimated death at around five in the evening.     

The boys had stopped by Mick Ames’ shop through the backyard. The scared and confused farmer quickly ran to his closest confidant, Oaken, who urged him to bring the forest woman into the church. In the meantime, and against his better wishes, Oaken realized that he needed all of the medical knowledge available, which came in form of the Wiccan’s herbal expertise and my modern tools.                     

Upon my examination of the corpse at 6:20PM (and two rough sketches of the body) I was taken aback by the alien texture of the hairless skin. It was indeed a light shade of green, like a vibrant celery stalk. Across the scalp, through the cheekbones, and down the sides of the neck and shoulders were hundreds of tiny twigs and sticks, all broken apart and stuck into the skin. While some could have been gained during the body being dragged through the woods, most of the thicker twigs appeared to be intentional punctures, dagger-shaped pieces of birch tree bark. I noted that the wounds could have been self-inflicted and that the palms were littered with dark splinters.

My mind recalled the soft, almost rubbery feeling of mushrooms without conscious effort. I shook the thought away but on observing the corpse’s skin, the fungal thought hung around. Besides the roughed-up nature and several deep masses of bruising along the torso, arms, and back, it appeared human. It was womanly in shape, with definitive child-bearing hips, around five foot two inches tall and weighing approximately ninety-eight pounds. The eyes were of a drying jelly consistency, golden-brown in color behind the creamy film of mortis. The corpse appeared to be sleeping peacefully, save for the heavy ligature marks around the wrists and having the appearance of rolling down a rocky hillside.

After my initial shock, the arms presented the first true peculiarity. The upper arms were much longer than the average woman, causing the hands to stretch down five inches past the waist while laying supine. One of the boys had tied the woman’s wrists together and the large thumb indents from his hands were still visible hours after death. This made initial attempts at finding a vein difficult, as the skin was divided into many layers, thicker than subcutaneous fat. Pressing my thumbnail into the skin was akin to a cold, soaking wet rag. When I released, the flesh stayed in place. At that moment, I had noticed that the wind had picked up, the dead breath of winter howling upon the church.   

The corpse’s mouth had been tied shut with a fresh piece of linen, little fluffs of the new fabric covering the stage as I removed it. The lower jaw began to open slowly—rigor mortis had not fully set in, solidifying my estimated time of death. Now agape, the corpse’s mouth had roughly twenty teeth, deeply black and filed to points, specifically the canines. The lower molars were gone, replaced with a thin strip of reflective metal on either side of the mouth, stamped and seared into the gums. Raised lumps of scar tissue could be seen along the gum lining, puffy calcified bits of burnt skin resting into place.

The tongue had retreated backwards and I used forceps to pull it forward, exposing dozens of raised black veins across the surface. Each vein was connected to a web-like structure on the roof of the mouth. The inner throat was dry and crusted over near the area where the tonsils would normally sit, bundles of black veins packed into the corners. It puzzled me—how could this creature speak to the two boys? Or simply eat food? The filed teeth suggested a harsh diet of some kind, filling my mind with stories of cannibalistic monsters hiding in every forest from Missouri to Tibet. It was all rubbish, of course. But every glance at the corpse sent me spiraling further into a childlike state of wonder. Magic existed, if for a brief moment.

After I finished my examination of the head, Oaken emerged from the shadows of the stage to berate me, holding the discarded linen like the Shroud of Turin. He spoke of ancient natives who could destroy a man’s mind with simple words, hence the tying of the mouth. I shoved off his mystical suggestion by asking for a glass of water and continuing my procedure. Oaken stomped off, muttering about “witches” and “corrupted bodies needing to be burned.”

It became clear that while the corpse had bones and ligaments like our own human anatomy, the body lacked any recognizable organs, save for eyes, the tongue and various mucus membranes such as the sinuses and sex organ. I assessed the abdominal area, feeling a hollow cavity where the intestines should reside, and realized that the external examination was fruitless. I proceeded with open autopsy at 6:35PM, armed with a scalpel, a shaking Christopher holding a lantern close, and the sheriff’s nephew judging us in silence.               

On the first incision across the upper right quadrant near the kidney region (my first operation post-medical school), the first layer of skin peeled apart, receding and rolling over itself to reveal pale-white tissues, no blood—only a thin coating of pale yellow fluid from the secondary layers. The smell, was not that of rotting flesh, but earthy, as if from a dug up mound of rich soil in a worm-filled forest. The tissues were simple in nature, resembling fat but with much larger cell walls, honeycomb structures mashed together in unison inside the moist, spongy material. So, this corpse was more plant than person, as people do not have cell walls. After explaining this to the people in the church, the whole room became cold at the sight of something that had been masquerading as a human being.       

I was entranced. Just a few hours earlier, this creature had supposedly been up and about, climbing trees fast as an animal and floating about the sky like a wraith of legend. Whatever its goals had been, whoever it called friend or foe, none of it mattered now—I almost felt ashamed at my investigation. Despite the corpse clearly not being human, I felt a growing sense that this was nothing more than butchery of something I couldn’t comprehend. And for once, the thought crossed my mind that maybe Oaken was right.

By 7PM, an unusual first frost had broken into the church, wafting through the cracks with a damp chill. Two of the Hudson brothers, the eldest Ira and youngest William went off to bed. Ames was half-asleep but no one wanted to bother him as he slept on the front pew. Christopher, the middle Hudson brother of eighteen was fascinated by the autopsy, eager to grab a specimen jar or wash a scalpel when the gore turned thick. Besides Oaken and the policemen standing guard and challenging their view on reality, Christopher and the Wiccan became my only assistants as I continued dissection and fed my fascination.

Truth be told, this was the unspoken dream of any true doctor that worships the human form. But as the scalpel split through spongey flesh and I found nothing but hollow cavities where organs should lay, I came to understand this woman-thing was not human in the slightest. More of a plant-based clump of pure nature material molded into the familiar shape of a person. The cavities were quite large, hollow except for the yellow fluid that seemed to function as an insulator. It was slightly warm upon touch and the cavity fluids were noticeably gritty in texture rather than the runny liquid that billowed from the dermis. A morbid part of me wondered if the soft skin could be penetrated without causing harm, a reasonable guess based on the large sticks stuck in the corpse’s flesh by its own hand.

I once again checked the corpse for veins, starting at the long wrist. I made a small slice down the center of the right forearm, the flesh peeling back the same as the torso. During the first cut, I felt the blade scrape across several spherical objects embedded deep in the flesh. I used a set of forceps to push the sides of the forearm apart, the metal hooks parting to reveal four neatly packed objects that the Wiccan referred to as “strange walnuts”.

The ‘walnuts’ were around the same size as their namesake, but dark green in color, like the shades one would see at an undisturbed lake plagued by algae. While the outer shell was tough, it was slathered in a lard-like substance that drifted around the surface of the sphere like oil separating from water. The swirls of nature green and golden yellow were mesmerizing and as I brought one of the walnuts to my eye, I felt an intense burn snake down my arm.

The yellow slime sizzled with a white-hot heat and I dropped it while backing up from the chest. My arm went fury-red in an instant and I watched the fluid drip off my elbow and splatter on the floor. The Wiccan kicked the rolling walnut from the stage, smoking through the floor as I grabbed the curtain from the corpse and began wiping the scorching toxin away.

The walnut bounced down the stairs and exploded into a mist of golden yellow, a shower of tiny feathery orbs drifting across the expanse of the church. Pastor Oaken opened a window quickly, appearing from behind the stage with a cloth wrapped around his nose and mouth. He believed that the yellow mist (which had no scent or effect once it floated its way toward the stage) was a toxin, perhaps a defense mechanism for the human-looking plant. Christopher said the name first—“pellet round”. The Wiccan agreed that it was better than calling them walnuts.

We applied a cooling mint salve to the four pockmarked burns and wrapped my arm in a bundle of linen. I assured myself that the strange coating had not dissolved further into my flesh and I decided to return to the dissection, ever more careful of the pellet rounds.    

Perhaps only because I was performing this unholy ritual in a church, I was reminded of a Bible verse from the book of Genesis—“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".

I thought about the Greek myths, gods forming humans out of clay. A mold. And then the realization hit me like a Eureka bolt of lightning straight from Zeus himself. The tissues were not unlike mold. Not unlike a fungus. Is that all this creature was? A walking, talking, laughing plant? And the pellet round. The yellow mist was similar to pollen spores, spreading the seeds along the wind. It was quite a windy night.

My mind was racing but I had no further time to deliberate as the front doors to the Sanctuary blew open, washing us in a shock of red wine and fresh meat. The Wiccan attempted to shield the corpse with the curtain, draping it over the upper half and rolling up my bag of medical tools. I ducked behind the chest with her, glass showering the stage as the back windows shattered and a flurry of cackles echoed into the church.

The laughs were malicious, followed by sharp taunts in an unspoken language not meant to be understood. I closed my ears with my hands, watching the panicked men look all about the church as the lights were snuffed out. The Wiccan held onto the corpse, almost embracing it as the wind sent more objects flying. Christopher emerged from cowering in the corner of the room to help her keep the corpse safe. The front doors crashed against the small lobby walls, smashing the welcoming table and sending Bible pamphlets into the air.