S1/E2 | The Cauldron

The architect designed it after his own childhood kitchen. The cast iron cauldron was said to belong to one Martha carrier who was tried and executed for witchcraft some years ago, though I suspect she only used it for cooking. Well, do not mind the strange, sickly green of the fire. The wood here burns strangely. Don't breathe too long, a bit, trust me, the sleep it brings off as little in the way of rest. Please sit. Mm Hmm, that smell. Can you describe it? That's right, you're a quiet one.

Allow me a venison stew, onions and garlic browned at the bottom in rendered bacon fat and then layered with fresh killed game. Added to that green albums for bite and yams for sweetness and heft, dried sage and time from the garden. Ah, my mother's recipe. When she died, there was still a little of it left in the cauldron. I ate it slowly over the coming days, a spoonful at a time, a taste slowly slip in a way, until it was gone, lost to memory, until the first

day I walked into this kitchen and smelled it. I wept. It's a trick. What you are smelling is not what I am smelling, is it? It's something that you loved, isn't it? Don't tell me. It doesn't matter, because what is in the Quldron is most assuredly not that. I think it's the fire that gives off the smells. That's why I don't trust it, nor the one who wields it. In all of my years here, I've never met our chef. Whenever I enter the room I'm always keenly aware that

someone else is just vacated suddenly. I try to assume that whoever it is has good intentions, because there is always ample food and the poisonings have stopped. Now, my friend, I have a task for you, if you're willing. You're so bliant, such a pleasant change of pace. Follow me. I'm going to introduce you to another of our guests, who regularly requires assistance. I'm sure you'll get a full explanation here. Give her these. You'll understand. Della, my dear,

this is my good friend. He's excited to meet you and he comes bearing gifts. I'll return shortly. Oh, I'm sorry, I have a seat. Make yourself comfortable if you can. I must look pretty crazy. Huh, skinny old lane living up here in an empty room, no chairs for company, like hanging everywhere and not a drop of shade. You don't even have a blanket on the bed. Did you notice that blanket makes dark, so blanket had to go. You can't understand, I know, but if they had their

sights on you. You've ever seen those greasy stains that show about of nowhere, sometimes on the wall or ceiling, sometimes they're soaked into the carpet or your mattress. I used to think that they were just sweat stains, but now I know better. They're what gets left behind when they sink back through into the dark, the residue of

whatever or whoever they took with them. I think it's the pressure, the physical pressure of being squeezed right through into another dimension does the same thing to a human body that a juicer does to an orange. Just rings the Grease and oil right out of your skin. Moush, you're gone. That oily stain is all that's left. Or that's my theory on it at least. M Hmmm. I thought I had more time, but they just started popping.

And that one light over there in the corner, you see it, that one shattered first, just the main fluorescent in the kitchen net one a few minutes after that, and I figured I was looking at trouble. I've been keeping them at bay for so long now, but if they figured out how to blow the bulbs, well, I'm lucky you arrived, really I am. I'm grateful there's still light in here for now, but if I leave to get more bulbs on my own, just too risky for me.

Too many shadows, too many places where they can grab on. But they haven't attached themselves to you yet, right, they haven't, have they? No, but having you in here for too long really isn't a good idea. The longer you're in here, the more likely they are to notice you and then, but anyway, they haven't seen you yet. You can still go out and do whatever you want in the night and the dark, without them sinking the bony little spurs into you. Why are you here again? Right, the light.

You've brought me more light. That's right, you're an angel. M Hmm. You don't know how grateful I am. Really. Do you happen to know how fresh these are? I could swear the caretaker has been purposefully fetching me bulbs that go out immediately, it was. Some of them even burn out before you've been done screwing them in. I wonder about him some Nimes. Have you ever noticed anything about this? Oh Jesus, we're sorry, I'm doing that thing again. I don't see people very often, you know, and I'm

not really used to conversation. I could be nerve is, but I think that it feels this way all the time. I don't feel like I'm nervous. Probably would help if I slept better, but all hard to sleep with all the lights, you know. I mean, look at this place, like a football stadium in here, right. How many lights do you think I have? There's forty two of them, varying watts. Well, there's thirty seven, now thirty four. No matter, as long as the big floodlights stay on. I should

be okay for a while. I bet you've seen their leftovers before and didn't even know what you were looking at. Probably just wrote it right off right. And sometimes they leave more than just the stains behind too. When they took my husband, Joseph, back in our old house, they took him right through the mattress. I remember we were going through a heat wave and I was sleeping on

top of the covers, but Joseph never could. I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt the bed shift, like a weight had suddenly lifted right off the box spring. And Joseph it was just gone. Skin slick discoloring his side of the bed and all the men made parts of him just laying there in the indentation his body. Left behind one full set of false teeth and three metal pins, like they were too corporeal for wherever he was going. I thought after that

they'd be done, but that's not how they work. When they see you, when they really he could notice of you, they come for you too, in the dark. They saw me when they came after my husband, and they've been coming ever since. Joseph said he picked it up at work like a flu or something, a virus. I didn't know what he meant, but right away he started acting different, funny little anxieties that turned a corner out of nowhere and transformed into full forn paranoia. Do you want to

know the first thing he did? He bought a night light, a little kid's night light shape like some sort of cartoon character. I didn't even know who was supposed to be and we never had kids and I wasn't on to date on it doesn't matter. The point is he started sleeping with that thing on, lighting up our bedroom, and didn't bother me at first, but after about a week I woke up in the middle of the night to go pee and I found him there, curls up on the floor, nestles up against the wall and the

glow of at night light. And it just got worse from there. He insisted on sleeping with all the overhead lights on too, kept the closet doors open all the time. I taped the windows up to get the night time out. I thought he was crazy, I really did. The problem was he wasn't crazy enough. He didn't think things through. He kept all the lights on, sure, but like make shadow and they can travel even in that it doesn't matter what kind of dark it is. If it's dark,

they'll come. That's how they get you, and they were you down, wait for you to slip up and leave some blackness for them to hiden behind closed doors, under blankets in your shoes. When they first came from me, I didn't know what I was hearing. Scraping like fingernails on a window pane. It was quiet at first, so quiet and slow that I wasn't even sure I was really hearing it, and then it got louder. There I guess you'd call them fingertips. They're sharp and hollow, like

birds bones. They Sound Brittle, like the snap right off of the scratch too hard, but I never do snap right off. And once you filled them, they're cold grasp. It's like clammy flesh pulled tight over glass shards, like somebody spilled orange juice on a stretched leather hide and didn't bother to clean it up before it dried sticky to the surface. But it's colder than that and meaner. Those glass, burnt bone fingers are vices, strange and the teeth smarted and colow and cold all at the same time.

You see that you see this mark. It happened about a week after they took Joseph. Talk until Joseph was gone before I believed any of what he had been spouting off about. But after I did everything he did. Kept the light on, keptain windows taped over. But still I was too careless. I hadn't yet learned from my husband's and steaks. I had a raised bed, more comfortable clothes. I used to like wearing hats. I thought they suited me.

I looked pretty in them. Just the thought now a hat, that much dark space between the fabric and my head, my head of all things. I can't believe I was ever that reckless. I think they probably came in through the silver withdrawer, slipped down under the kitchen sink, crept through cast shadows until they dragged their sharp damn bodies into my bedroom, scraping against the surfaces. They couldn't be seen in the lights were on. I thought it was safe,

but I hid underneath my blinket. At the time. Should have learned my lesson from Joseph, but I surely didn't, and one of them met me there. I couldn't quite see it. It was too dark under the things in the comforter and the tears were cloud in a fishing but I can tell you that there was something reminiscently human about it. Quite maybe it was more what would you call it in the Mammalian crinkled paper flesh and clumps of coarse hair, the hazy memory of a creature

from a campfire story, you were told. As the child, dead and alive at the same time and desperate hungry, somehow scraped up the foresight to kick the blanket off and the thing in the dark went with the blanket. But it left me this scar, a reminder for both of us, for me a reminder of what's always there, hiding for the thing in the dark, the scar is a reminder of my taste. So it can follow me.

I had to leave our home, where my husband and I lived together for three decades, to get away from all the nooks and crannies that come with a house like ours. You can't keep it all lit up all the time. It's not possible. But here it's just one room, manageable. But I'm tired now, all the time. I'm just so, so tired. Down to have you've been keeping count. It's fifteen lights in the past half hour. At this rate,

they're popping faster than I can screw them in. All right, go on, get out of here, scoot gotta get these bulbs changed while I still can. And I've kept you here too long already. They've noticed you by now. Ain't a way around that. I'm sorry about that. Well, that was one of the big security floods, only afterw I guess I'm probably no better than a set of false teeth in a grease streak at this point, but still, I made it this far. There's still a chance with

what you've brought me here. But wait, before you go, I need you to listen to me for one more minute. Okay, you're listening good, and this is important. You need to go out, go right now, and buy all the lights you can. Set them up in your room, hang them from the ceilings, prop them up on the floor, put them all over, then strip everything down and keep out the dark. Being particulous about it more than you think you have to be, because it will be worse that

you think it is. You hear me, they're clever, nasty, deathlike things, every one of them, and they are coming for you and they're going to find a way to kick you. Yeah, in the dark, am h h AH, done so soon? Yes, well, don't worry about running out to the store, and I'm afraid you wouldn't find one. We will replenish Dalla's supply from our own stocks, which are plentiful. My friend, you look positively piqued. Don't worry, we'll make sure your room is also well lit, should

you find it necessary. Dela is right about one thing. You do well to mind the shadows and Hawthorn manner. Most are friendly, but a handful of them undecidedly. Not a question, though. Did you discuss it all the door we spoke of yesterday? Did it come up in the course of conversation? Worry not, we still have plenty of time. My friend, I am afraid that I must take my leave of you. I can't take this job is never complete in a place so complicated. Meet me tomorrow in

the garden. Yes, rest well tonight and do yourself a favor. Sleep with a light on. I have so much to show you. Thirteen days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams and executive produced by Aaron Manky, starring Keegan, Michael Key as the caretaker. Today's story was written by Zoe Cooper, performed by Jeane Rakiki and directed by Matt Frederick, with editing and sound designed by Josh Thane, additional writing and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski, casting by

Jessica Losa. Only eleven days remain. Tomorrow another story. I watched a single drop of Red Appear in its center. I stared at it, the Bright Crimson Dot in the Sea of pure white batter. It was blood, my blood. I didn't have another mix, I had no fun facts, I had nothing else to offer. I only had cupcakes. Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,

Blumhouse television and Grimm and mild from Aaron Nankey. For more podcasts from my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and learn more about thirteen days of Halloween at Grimm and mild dot com. H