She was sophisticated, poised, and cultured. In retrospect, this should have made them suspicious. A teacher like her should be presiding over a girlâs school in London or New York, not seeking a position in a small town in Georgia. But at the time, they were too delighted by her application to ask any questions. âIt will be good for our daughter to learn some culture,â the attorneyâs wife told the pastorâs wife. âAnd our boy may find some table manners at last,â the pastorâs wife responded with a smile. School was called into session in the local church shortly after the arrival of the teacher. And soon, the children were bringing glowing reports home. âTeacherâ was special. Teacher taught them manners and diction as well as reading, writing and arithmetic. All the children loved teacher. The parents were delighted by the progress their children were making at school. Teacher had been a real find. A God-send, said the preacherâs wife. But not everyone in town was so satisfied. The local ne-er-do well â called Smith â had more sinister stories to tell. âThat woman ainât natural,â he told the blacksmith, waving a bottle of whisky for emphasis. âI seen her out in the woods after dark, dancing around a campfire and chanting in a strange language.â âNonsense,â the blacksmith retorted, calmly hammering a headed iron bar on his anvil. âThey say sheâs got an altar in her room and it ainât an altar to the Almighty,â Smith insisted, leaning forward and blowing his boozy breath into the blacksmithâs face. âYouâre drunk,â said the blacksmith, lifting the hot iron so it barred the man from coming any closer. âGo home and sleep it off.â Smith left the smithy, but he continued to talk wild about the Teacher in the weeks that followed. During those weeks, a change gradually came over the school children. The typical high-jinks and pranks that all children played lessened. Their laughter died away. And when they did misbehave, it was on a much more ominous scale than before. Items began to disappear from houses and farms. Expensive items like jewelry, farm tools, and money. When children talked back to their parents, there was a hard-edge to their voices, and they did not apologize for their rudeness, even when punished. âAnd my daughter lied to me the other day,â the attorneyâs wife said to the pastorâs wife in distress. âI saw her punch her younger brother and steal an apple from him, and she denied it to my face. She practically called me a liar!â âThe games the children play back in the woods frighten me,â the pastorâs wife confessed. âThey chant in a strange language, and they move in such a strange manner. Almost like a ritual dance.â âCould it be something they are learning at school?â asked the attorneyâs wife. âSurely not! Teacher is such a sweet, sophisticated lady,â said the pastorâs wife. But they exchanged uneasy glances. Smith, on the other hand, was sure. âThat teacher is turning the youngâuns to the Devil, thatâs what sheâs doing,â he proclaimed up and down the streets of the town. âDonât be ridiculous,â the preacher told him when they passed in front of the mercantile. âI ainât ridiculous. You are blind,â Smith told him. âThat teacher ought to be burned at the stake, like they burned the witches in Salem.â The pastor, pale with wrath, ordered Smith out of his sight. But the neâer-do-wellâs words rang in his mind and would not be pushed away. And the children continued to behave oddly. Almost like they were possessed. He would, the preacher decided reluctantly, have to look into it someday soon. That day came sooner than he thought. The very next Monday, his little boy came down with a cold, and his mother kept him home from school. When the pastor returned from his duties for a late lunch, his wife came running up to him as soon as he entered the door. She was pale with fright. âI heard him chanting something over and over again in his bedroom,â she gasped. âSo I crept to the door to listen. He was saying the Lordâs Prayer backwards!â The pastor gasped and clutched his Bible to his chest, as goose bumps erupted over his body. This was positively satanic. And there was nowhere the boy could have learned such a thing in this town, unless he learned itâŠat school. At that moment, the attorneyâs wife came bursting in the door behind him. âQuick pastor, quick,â she cried. âSmith is running through town with a torch, talking about burning down the school. The children are still in class!â The pastor raced out of the house with the two woman at his heels. They and the other townsfolk who followed them were met by a huge cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the church, where the school children had their lessons. The building was already ablaze as frantic parents beat at the flames with wet sacks, or threw buckets of water from the pump into the inferno. Smith could be heard cackling unrepentantly from the far side of the building, which was full of the screams of the trapped students and their teacher. The fire blazed with a supernatural kind of force, and the pastor thought he heard the sound of the Teacher laughing from within the building when it became apparent that no one could be saved. The church burnt for several hours, and when it was finally extinguished, there was nothing left. Mourning parents tried to find something of their children to bury, and Smith wisely disappeared from town, his mission against the works of Satan completed. The teacherâs burnt body was buried deep in the ground and covered with brick tomb. The childrenâs smaller bodies were interred beneath wooden crosses. Of all the studentâs in the school that fall, only the pastorâs small son survived. To this day, voices can be heard in the graveyard of at Burnt Church, chanting unintelligible words, as the school children and the teacher once chanted in the woods outside town. Sometimes apparitions are seen, and dark walkers who roam the graveyard at night. And they say that a brick taken from the grave of the evil teacher can set fire to objects on which they are placed. Thank you for the help in finding this Amanda! :D ~Cynical
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:20:47 +0000