October 29, 1993

4. This is 4. Yeah, yeah,

I’m sorry. I can’t really, I can’t focus that well. I was feeling delirious the other day and I just, well apparently I fell asleep. For several days. I don’t know what happened. I think I’m fine now, but… I do have a bit of a headache. I think the stuff about my dad is just getting to me. Oh shit, I haven’t told you yet. Okay, okay, just pay close attention. And, I’m sorry… sorry… sorry in advance for any strangeness in my writing. It’s oddly hard to keep it together. But Sunday is almost here. If I have any bit of time, even if I’m not feeling well, I need to share everything. So… I’m going to keep going.

My dad is dead. He died this past Sunday. Sunday.

I already, what I did, I, just keep going. I told you about the goblins. Okay. Okay. He was fighting them off, swinging his axe, but he couldn’t properly kill them. Whatever, whatever cuts they had or limbs they lost, they just kept healing and coming back at him. That’s not what did it, though. He was fine My grandma, she threw pouches of salt at the green creatures swarming my dad, covering them in a powdered version of her seasoning concoction.

My dad, of course, well he didn’t know what my grandma was doing, but I don’t, I don’t think he even processed that she was responsible for doing anything. He just kept swinging at the now-white goblins, only this time they were disintegrating right in front of him. With him With each swing, my dad watched as the varmints around him crumbled into black dust, shriveling up like mummies left out in the sun. He took enough note of what was happening to barrel through all of them, to barrel through the goblins and, and he got them all. Sorry, I… I… lost focus for a second.

Standing over the laid-out varmints that all looked like raisins, my dad huffed and panted with the axe still in hand. He looked up at me again, this time with a different look in his eye. It wasn’t the kind of look that pierced through your soul, or heart or something. It was one that invited you in. That let you see the deepest depths… of a person, of someone, who had nothing to hide. He just, I could see everything he was feeling. The fear, the confusion, the worry, every indescribable emotion and thought in between. And all I could do… was look at him back. I wanted to grab my necklace. The gold chain. With, with the logging axe. I wanted to hold it up for him. Show it to him. Show him that I was holding him close. Holding mom close. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have it on me. I know it was supposed to be for good reason, I know, that, I know… I should’ve had it on me. He needed to see it.

Did my dad come over to me? I think he… I, he… no wait,

After looking at me, my dad looked back over to the shepherd. Not that he knew who he was. Actually, none of us did. He hadn’t told us his name yet. But this was when we learned it. Tilting his head slightly and gazing softly at my dad, the lumberjack, he uttered, he uttered… Fuck, I have to focus… this is, this is important.

“And so the shepherd roams, and wanders throughout the plain... If he sees you, catches you, he’s sure to leave a stain... Yet no matter what you do, don’t you dare say his name... For the shepherd herds all, and hunts them all the same.”

Fuck, what was that… I’m sorry I just, I don’t know. I got weird chills as I wrote that, the worst of which when I, when I was done. That, something felt weird.

We had learned who he was. The three of us… in that moment. However, the moment, all of it, ended soon after that.

My… dad, he asked the man to repeat himself. He said, “The who? ‘The Shepherd’? Is that you?”

The shepherd ignored him. He didn’t stay silent, he just didn’t answer my dad. Instead, he paused, and said, “And so he tends to his herd…” and raised a hand.

My dad flung toward him, completely taken aback. As I watched him fly forward, my instinct was to jump up and help him. Yet still, my grandma held me down. She knew. I know that I was, I know she knew. But… I can’t help but wish she hadn’t held me down.

Even being pulled so abruptly, and in a way that should have been impossible, my dad managed to hold onto his axe. As he flew towards the shepherd’s neck, he tried to swing the logging tool, but was stopped by his attacker’s other hand. The guy is strong. Strong. He grabbed hold of my dad, pulled him in close, holding his head with both hands. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t get what he did, but he tapped my dad with the curved/curled horns on his head and mumbled something. I couldn’t hear what it was, but he whispered it to my dad. And then it happened. I don’t think I want to, I…

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I have to. I just needed a minute.

My dad started to step back, clearly dazed. His body was limp, he looked like he didn’t even have the energy to stand. However, his head started to, started to change. It has hard to The skin of his neck and face darkened, gaining some weird texture that looked… rough. His facial features started to stretch and distort, branch-like extremities sprouting from all of his orifices. I don’t even know if I should The shepherd, he, he turned my dad into a tree. It must sound so silly to read, so unserious. But, he turned by dad’s head into a tree. Branches sprouted from out his ears, nose, and through his eyes. Then they spread until they were flowering. Or not? I don’t even remember, I’m still a little hazy about the whole thing. But, there is one thing I clearly remember.

I remember my dad, as it happened, raising a closed fist to his upper chest, just below his neck. He held it there, as if he was holding something, before dragging his hand down his chest. As he did, his body finally went limp. He fell into a sitting position, his legs stretched out in front of him, one arm draped on his lap, and the other by his side. What remained of his neck was tilted forward. And that tree. That ugly, disgusting, rotten, beautiful tree just growing out of him. I hated it. I hate it. I loved him. He was my dad. But I knew one thing then. More than I had felt, more than known I was feeling before this moment, and something I know still burns in me just as hot. I, I,… hate him.

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Grandma could not stop me then. She took Twisting my arm, she let go of my wrist and lost control of me. I sprang up, unable to think clearly. I didn’t care, though. I didn’t think I needed to. I had with me the iron poker that I had dropped the first night. I wasn’t letting go of it this time. Jumping out of the circle, everyone’s eyes were on me. And I mean… everyone. Not just my grandma and the shepherd, but every single goblin peeking from the bushes and hiding behind trees or behind the horned man. I swear I could even feel the gaze of outer varmints I couldn’t see. But I knew they were there.

Spinning, Spinning Spinning,

Sorry, I… I don’t know what that was. I ran up to the shepherd with my fire poker screaming, raging for my dad. I couldn’t even look at it, at him, but I knew he was there. I knew he was… watching, me. He was watching me. Nothing I did mattered to the shepherd, however. Of course. I swung the poker at him, and he didn’t move. He let me hit him, just to, to, just to, show me it didn’t matter. The swing barely scratched him, cutting so shallow the wound didn’t even start to bleed. If that wasn’t bad enough, it healed up a second later like nothing had happened. Of course, I didn’t care about anything rational. I swung again as he snickered at me. He snatched the weapon just as he had my dad. He laughed at me to my face. It was petrifying.

There is something to his laugh. His demeanor is so eerily charming. So deceitfully pleasant. Even his elegant laugh that sounds as if it belongs at a country club… has the most sadistic nature to it. Not just from the context. But you can hear it. Deep beneath the laugh, the overtone of his causality about him. You can hear it. It’s like a second voice. A hissing, scratching, ominous, something. You don’t hear it unless he’s right in front of you. Laughing at you.

“What vigor. What spirit,” he said to me. “You care for your family? You care to protect your family? You deserve a better one.”

It didn’t matter what Before he or I could say anything else, I watched as he was sprayed with a spritz of olive oil by my grandma, from safely inside her circle. This whole time, she still had not left. The shepherd let go of my fire poker, his strength having been weakened, and this was when I put two and two together. He has held the poker against me with so much force, and after being splashed it was like he didn’t have any. And that wasn’t it. The shepherd hadn’t just let go because he was weak. He let go… because he was in pain. I only saw it for a moment, but I managed to glance at his hand before he held my attention once more, and I saw that his hand was ever so slightly burned. The iron had burned him.

Instinct took over. I took another swing at this well-dressed freak, but missed. And then He dodged the strike, his reflexes still as fast as they had been a week before, against my grandma’s gun. I swung another few desperate swings, but even without his powers, the shepherd was untouchable. He kept backing up until he was next to a tree and swayed behind it. Still fuming with blinding rage, I spun around the tree after him with a wild strike, but he was gone. Around the tree, I was now facing my grandma again, still in the circle. And the shepherd was just outside of it, behind her.

Sorry, I, again I just, I don’t

I didn’t how know he had done that. I still don’t know how he did that. I would ask my grandma, but like I said, she’s been quiet. I think… he teleported? That’s the only thing I can think of. It’s the only thing that would make sense. We were both stepping farther and farther away from the ritual circle, and yet, and yet when I look behind the tree, he’s now back by it, standing near my grandma. Impossible. And he had the oil on him, too. I guess that powerless period really does not last long. It must have only been like twenty seconds. The week before it had been at least a few minutes. Unless he had just made us think it had that long of an effect. I don’t know anything. I can’t

Seeing me staring at her, my grandma turned around to see the shepherd standing behind her. She was so startled she nearly jumped out of the circle. I think secretly the shepherd was kind of hoping she would. The two of us were so stunned by him a what had just happened, it took me a moment to even realize I was still standing outside the circle. Or that there were more, more goblins around me. Or, most terrifyingly, that none of them were approaching me. He must have been mentally telling them to stand down or something. Or maybe they thought of me as “his” prey, so they had to back off.

I didn’t waste any time finding out. I needed to, I need to As soon as I realized where I was, or more notably where I wasn’t, I moved every muscle I could to get the hell back there. Once in the circle with my grandma, the shepherd smiled. He looked at me and asked, “You know we can still feel you, child?”

My grandma looked over at me, terrified, and muttered, “Once you leave the circle, it does no good to return. You’re not safe here.”

I thought I was a goner then and there. But the shepherd interrupted. “Actually, the child is fine. Well, for now anyway,” he said. Something about his voice lingers in you even after he’s gone. It’s menacing. “Your circle is useless, that remains true, but my presence need not be a threat at the moment. Unless you make it one.”

That last line, he directed at me, referring to the assault I had just given him.

“Nevertheless, my hunger does not scream at this time. For in this moment, I, as well as my herd, can revel… in satisfaction.”

He stretched out his arms wide as he spoke, though he tilted his head to the side, looking at something. I followed his gaze to see what he was talking about… and saw. He was looking at my dad. I whipped my head back at him and screamed to leave my dad alone, but all the shepherd did was bring his head back and close his eyes. I hate him. I hate him.

He told us he needed “nothing more here,… at least for now”. After he spoke, he turned about and walked… away. He just walked away. He walked into the deeper parts of the woods, all of his goblins and other varmints shuffling along after him. We heard him call out that we were “welcome” to stay, though we had no need to that night. My grandma didn’t care. She told me we weren’t moving. And then we Even as he went behind a tree and disappeared, just as he’d done earlier, and even as all the varmints after him left, too, we stayed. Minutes into hours after they’d left, we stayed. Until the sun started peeking over the horizon.

We, We, Okay…

We didn’t talk for the rest of the night. After my grandma said not to move, the both of us were silent. It wasn’t awkward, or uncomfortable, it was just… empty. My dad was sitting just meters away from us. But he wasn’t looking at us. He couldn’t hear us. He wouldn’t respond to me. I couldn’t help but think about him the whole night. I don’t know if my grandma was doing the same thing. Maybe she was trying to ignore it. I mean, she wasn’t his mom. She was my mom’s. He was just her in-law. Was that enough to not care? No, that’s mean. I’m sorry, Grandma. I didn’t mean that. I know you thought about him. You had to have thought about him. I know it would’ve… I know… I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so, so sorry, Dad.

I got your necklace though. Before I forget. Dad, I grabbed your necklace. The one I got you. It was in your hand. In the morning. I went over to you. Grandma couldn’t, I’m sorry, but I did. I went over. I… I couldn’t look too hard, but… I saw your hand. I saw something sticking out. It was the chain. I grabbed it. I’m sorry, dad. I grabbed it. I don’t know if you wanted me to. I don’t know if you wanted to hold onto it. But I need to. I’m sorry, Dad. I needed to. I have you. Okay? I still have you. It’s with me, don’t worry. Don’t worry, Dad.

Bella

Sincerely, I love you [Drawing made by author depicting an axe, with two lines emerging from a common point, suggesting a chain]