Once upon a time, in the small town of Ethel, there was a place everyone knew but never spoke of, the forbidden gourd patch. It lay on the sprawling, withered grounds of the town's founder, Alpheus Ethelbert, whose memory had long faded into legend. Ethel had started as a haven for those who lived by the mystical laws of nature: witches, warlocks, and others with dark knowledge of the seasons and elements. But the town had grown over time, expanding into a bustling community of 10,000 people, most of whom scoffed at their town's eerie origins.
Few dared to remember the magic, sorcery, and whispered necromancy that had once thrived here. And even fewer believed in the dark history of the Ethelberts, Ulrics, and Melansons, the three founding families whose bloodlines were said to be cursed.
The patch itself, once vibrant with oversized, twisted gourds, now seemed dead. Or, perhaps, merely waiting. For those who descended from the Ethelberts, Ulrics, or Melansons, it called in ways no one else could understand—a pull in their blood that quickened as the crisp autumn winds blew.
Mira, an Ethelbert by lineage but a skeptic of her ancestral roots, found herself drawn to the patch one October evening. She told herself she was just going to check out the place for a school project, maybe snap some pictures for her report on local legends. But deep down, she knew something darker tugged at her curiosity.
The old iron gate creaked when she pushed it open, the once proud estate swallowed by twisted vines and moss. The air was unnaturally still, the wind refusing to penetrate the boundary of the property. The gourd patch lay beyond the crumbling manor, the soil black and damp despite the dry season. A rotting stench hung heavy in the air.
As Mira stepped into the patch, a distant whisper brushed against her ear—low, almost inaudible, yet somehow familiar.
"Mira…"
She spun around, heart racing, but no one was there. The gourds themselves seemed to shift, their swollen bodies groaning as if they held something inside, waiting to escape.
A rustle came from the far corner of the patch, and a figure emerged. Evan Ulric. He was pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and something else. "You feel it too, don't you?" he asked, his voice low, as if speaking any louder might wake something they shouldn't.
Mira nodded, though she couldn't find the words to explain what "it" was. She felt it deep in her bones—like a tether, pulling her closer to the heart of the patch. That’s when she saw it.
An old journal, half-buried in the soil, leather worn and cracking. It looked ancient, but Mira recognized it instantly. Her grandmother had told her stories about a lost Ethelbert family relic, one that had vanished shortly before the tragic murder of Eleanor Ethelbert.
Mira reached for the journal, but before her fingers could touch it, Evan’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. “Don’t.”
His eyes, now almost wild, locked with hers. “You don’t know the truth, Mira. We’re all connected—your family, mine, the Melansons. That patch,” he gestured to the grotesque gourds, their orange flesh sickly and pulsing “—it’s a graveyard. Not just for crops. For our ancestors.”
Mira froze. “What are you talking about?”
Evan swallowed hard, his voice barely a whisper. “The love affair. The murder. It wasn’t just a story. Eleanor Ethelbert loved Victor Ulric, but when George Melanson found out, he killed them both. Buried their bodies… right here, under the gourds.”
A sickening crack echoed through the patch, and Mira’s gaze snapped to the nearest gourd. The thick rind split open, spilling not seeds, but blackened bones. They fell onto the ground, shattering like glass.
Mira staggered back, but the patch came alive—more gourds began to split, and the earth itself trembled as if something far older and more dangerous was waking.
“We have to go,” Mira gasped, but her feet wouldn’t move. The pull of the patch was too strong, the truth too heavy. The air around them thickened with whispers—voices of the dead, buried deep beneath the gnarled roots of the cursed soil.
“We’re part of this,” Evan said, his voice distant, eyes glazed over. “We were always meant to come back here.”
As the ground beneath them cracked open, revealing twisted skeletal hands reaching from the depths, Mira knew it was too late. The curse of the Ethelberts, Ulrics, and Melansons had waited generations to be uncovered, and now it demanded its due.
In the end, there was no escape from Ethel. And no one would ever remember they were there.
