1651

The young man led her into the house, where there were lit candles everywhere, all of them black. He brought her into a smaller room and told her to go lie on the bed, which she did and then he disappeared. She had very little recall of what transpired afterward, but for the rest of her life was woken screaming every night with nightmares. She didn't know anything else until early the next morning, at dawn when she was staggering back to her home. When she entered the house, her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen. She simply asked how she was, then told her to go to bed. Years later, she confessed to my mother that that same young man in the dark cloak had been visiting her over the years, telling her she must yield to him one of her children. First her eldest brother, then her brother who was a bit younger, then her sister who was a bit younger still. Our mother was the youngest. Each time, my mother refused to give up her child, and within months, each one died of a misterious ailment....