send me 😈 and my muse will tell yours an urban legend/ghost story / NO LONGER ACCEPTING!!!
“Oh! One I heard in Greenleaf once was about an old family of apothecaries. I’ll admit, I probably can’t tell it as well as Motonari–don’t let him fool you, he can be scary when he wants–but I’ll do my best.”
“Deep in Greenleaf’s peaceful countryside was a cozy little home, nestled in a grove of cherry trees. It was the family home of a long line of masterful apothecary who derived potent medicines from the surrounding trees. In particular, the most effective of these often came from the tree that stood just beside the home, an ancient beauty - perhaps with the most lovely blooms in all the country, despite its age - and ancestor to all of the others in the grove.
“One spring, a traveler, weary from walking so far and looking for a place to rest a while stopped to admire the flowering trees. In particular, the grand tree nearest to the home caught his attention - the tree bore many a dead branch, as one might expect for its age, but the ones that still remained flowered with such bright colors and flowers that gave off the sweetest of scents. And as he looked upon the flowers, he noticed a beautiful woman sitting in the tree’s shade. However, when he tried to speak to her, she didn’t seem to be able to hear nor see him. Soon enough, the man who lived there - the apothecary - noticed the stranger outside his home.
“He explained the traveler that the woman was his sister–unfortunately, despite her beauty, a very sickly woman who had lost her vision and hearing due to illness. The traveler understood and apologized for intruding, but the apothecary didn’t seem upset. In fact, he accepted the apology with a kind laugh and struck up a conversation with the man, asking about his travels.
“The apothecary would go on to offer to let the man stay for a few nights as needed, to recover from the long journey he’d been on, which the traveler would gratefully accept. Where better to rest than such a beautiful grove, filled with the wafting scent of flowers?
“Little happened during the next few days; the traveler was treated as a welcomed guest and found himself quite at home there. Most days the apothecary was hard at work–when asked, he said he was attempting to create a medicine for his sister’s worsening illness. A reasonable enough story, when the traveler’s rarely encountered the woman - only hearing weakened coughing from somewhere up the hall, or occasionally seeing her outside beneath the tree as he had when he’d arrived, nestled in its roots it as if it were her own bed.
“Then on a morning a few days later, a young boy - no older than five - who came to the apothecary seeking medicine for his ill mother as he had in the past. The exchange seemed quite routine to the traveler; the boy was told to stay the night while the medicine was finished, and he would be off with it come morning. The rest of the day seemed to go just as routine afterwards–at least, until that evening, when traveler found the woman collapsed outside, her breathing shallow and weak. He helped the apothecary to bring her back inside, and was quickly dismissed by his now-frantic host.
“The hours that night passed without a single sound coming from within the house. The apothecary hadn’t passed by to even do so much as eat or drink–so the traveler, beginning to grow concerned, thought to bring him a bit of tea and hopefully ease his worries a bit - the very least he could do to repay his host’s kindness.
“However, as he went to check in on the apothecary, he was met with a horrific shock. Even with the door opened a mere crack, he saw the woman and the young boy who had come earlier that day both fast asleep–and the apothecary standing over the boy, axe in hand and raised as if to strike straight down on the child’s neck. The traveler was so shocked by this sight that he dropped the tray he was carrying–thus catching the apothecary’s attention.
“Fortunately, the distraction meant he hesitated to bring the axe down; the traveler reacted on impulse, charging in and attempting to wrestle the axe from the apothecary’s hands.
“‘Don’t interfere!,’ he said, voice awash with anger and desperation, ‘She’s going to die otherwise!’ The traveler, however, refused to listen, demanding the man explain himself–and as an answer, the apothecary told him to take a look at the woman’s own neck.
“Despite his better judgment, he did so–and now that he looked more closely, a realization began to dawn on him. At the base of her neck was a long, ragged scar, circling all the way round; the skin on either side seemed to be almost mismatched - the way botanists might fuse foreign limbs to a tree, but so sloppy and uneven that it had seemed to have been done many times over.
“The apothecary explained that the woman was not his sister–in fact, she had been his great-grandfather’s sister, adopted into the family as a mere baby when she was found nestled in the great old cherry tree’s roots. And though welcomed as a sister, the family would soon notice that she aged quite slowly, still little more than a child as the others grew into adults and eventually their parents passed on. The apothecary recounted the story passed down through the generations of how whenever the cherry tree fell ill, so would the girl. Try as they might to heal it–pruning the dead branches and keeping the tree alive, nothing quite seemed to work. That tree was their family’s livelihood - if it were to die, then surely they would starve. And in an act of desperation, the apothecary’s great-grandfather did something awful–he took the head of his youngest child, and replaced the sister’s with it.
“And so this went on for years–whenever the woman and her tree were to fall ill, they would take a healthy, young life and sacrifice it to prolong hers. Year after year, generation after generation, even long after both the tree and woman had suffered more pain and were far beyond the point of saving. The apothecary told this story with whispered breath, frantically trying to explain to the traveler why he had to take the boy’s head before it was too late.
“Of course, the traveler couldn’t let this stand, and refused–and as the apothecary struggled against him and dawn approached, the woman’s life slipped away.
“The apothecary was enraged by this–he screamed at the traveler, finally gaining an upper hand and casting him aside, seizing his axe from the floor. The commotion woke the sleeping boy, who was, of course, baffled and terrified at the sight of the man standing over him with the axe–when the traveler shouted at him to run, he listened without question.
“In going after the traveler’s life for vengeance, however, the apothecary made a reckless mistake, knocking over a candle-lit lantern as he chased the traveler out, weapon in hand–by the time they were outside, both the house and tree were consumed in flames, and seeing this, the apothecary dropped to his knees in despair.
“The traveler, of course, saw this as his chance to escape with his life and quickly slipped away. What became of the apothecary is unknown, but the house and the dead woman still inside were burned to ash by the time the fire was put out.
“Strangely enough, however, despite the clear signs of damage in the grove and to the grand tree itself, it seemed to make a full recovery from the fire. In fact, it still blooms every spring, every bit as beautiful as ever. Some say that those who visit and sit beneath the tree on a silent evening will hear the voices of children amid the breeze through the tree’s branches–the last remnants of the souls that had been sacrificed to the tree’s spirit to keep her alive.”
