Saplings and Leaves

Percival Spruce never thought that his life would take him to Clark County. Three failed marriages and even more failed businesses do not lend themselves to happy endings, but somehow, he had found this small nook hiding in America's pantry, full of the bounty which the country had promised him, and some pretty good cheese to boot.

Although he'd hardly wanted to come this far west to start a new life, the adverts he saw in the penny papers were more than enough to convince him that maybe this time, he could really make something of himself. With only his Melson's leather briefcase and a carpet bag to carry all of his valuables, he got on the first train that would take him within twenty miles of Carpstonville, where a bus depot would make it easy to reach Clark County's heart and center, Qualm's Hollow. In this small town of only a couple hundred people, he found his place.

Within a matter of years, he made himself into an intrinsic part of town life. He was best friends with the Presbyterian minister, Father Xavier Szelkac, a man who, despite all outward appearances, knew far more about Spruce's eventual fate then he would let on. He became a member of the Holy Order of the Working Man, the local Masonic Lodge. He had found a woman whom he had once again promised to hold and to love until death, and for the first time, kept those vows.

The interesting bits of his life, if a life on the run from ex-wives, creditors, and every once in a while, the law isn't interesting enough, only started when he became mayor of Qualm's Hollow. The day he put on the large red sash with "MAYOR" drawn across it in Mrs. Ophelia Rose's beautiful gold embroidery was the same day that he was inducted into the second level of the Masonic Order, and the day he learned a little more than he wanted to know about the history of Qualm's Hollow.

Although, this story isn't about this particular town's history, it is worth noting that the town was not a happy place shortly after the end of the War Between the States. Many disaffected soldiers with far too much death in their eyes came to the town to settle, just far enough East that they could keep in touch, just far enough West that they could forget their old lives. These poor souls came from both North and South, hoping to forget many of the horrors they had seen, but were unfortunate enough to find a distinctly different type of horror in this place.

Unfortunately for Percival, he only found out all of this history after he had built his mansion at the end of a dirt road he had dug himself. Although nearly fifty by the time he became mayor, he was still spry, and the horse changing station he ran made him more than enough money to live well, seeing as how it was on one of the largest mail routes through the state. He dug himself a road, and built Spruce Mansion at the end of the newly minted Spruce Street.

Within a year of moving into the house, his wife was dead. No doctor, not even one sent from New York, could tell what was killing her. Her mind and body simply wasted away before Percival's eyes, only his duties as mayor bringing him out of his grief. When the doctors failed him, he went to the quacks, and when their snake oils failed as well, he went to the mystiks.

At first, the practitioners of the darker arts came to the house to look at the woman, but few would stay more than one night. They spoke of indescribable dreams wracking their sleep, of horrors too old to name nipping at their ankles as they lay in the large, soft beds of the house. Percival's oldest friend, Father Szelkac, would come on a regular basis to the house at first, but each visit became more and more strained, and the minister's reticence to pass through Spruce St. more and more obvious.

This state of affairs continued unaba

(Posted on litworld.compuserv.com by user sprucehenn, May 3, 1995. No continuation available.)