A View of the Town, Episode 10: The Strange Tale of Amaryllis Stemm

Welcome to A View of the Town, the adventures of Dr. Willis Fletcher in a small coastal town in Maine. Offering tidbits of local color and the lay of the land, we turn now to Dr. Fletcher and Amaryllis Stemm's Arrival in Misty Cove.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by corn.  Dent, flint, pod and pop, flour, and sweet. It's a-maizing. Corn.

And now on with The Strange Tale of Amaryllis Stemm.

From previous episodes, I've told you about a "witch" named Amaryllis Stemm who came to Misty Cove back in 1882.  When I first arrived, one of the first stories I heard about was Stemm and her disappearance into the woods north of town.  There's been a lot of mystery around the woods over the years.  People seeing lights, hearing chanting, and even a couple of the town's children disappearing for days.  I am going to recount for you one story from one of the town's old citizens -- Amos Wolf.

Amos recalled the day she walked into town and camped near the north edge of town.  She was strange and mysterious just like a gypsy fortune teller.  After a few days, she hired some townsmen to fell trees and build a cabin deep in the woods.  They chopped the trees downs, but never built the cabin.  It simply appeared over night.  Folks could barely see it, nestled between the fir trees. Smoke curled up from the top of the squat smokestack. Sometimes the cabin was hard to see, like it wasn't there at all.  At night, folks could see lights, floating balls of light really, moving about, weaving in and out of the trees.

But back to Amos, it was a Sunday morning, right before church, and Amos was out walking to the small Lutheran church he attended regularly, not far from the her camp.  As he passed, Stemm watched him, standing next to her tent.  She was in the middle of packing up.

"Good morning," said Amos, trying to be friendly.

As he recalled, her voice was sweet and silky. "Good morning."

"Are you leaving Misty Cove?"  Amos slowed down.

"I'm moving.  Into my cabin. There in the woods."

"I see the chimney peek." Amos picked up speed again and turned away, but he decided to stop and ask her if she would be coming into town and maybe she would like to come to church.  When he turned, she and the camp was gone.  Completely vanished.

"Hello?  Where are you?"  He yelled towards the cabin. "You were very quick to take down your camp."  But there was no reply.

Amos turned to walk on, but stopped again.  This time to listen.  From somewhere in the woods, maybe near the cabin, maybe from the sea, or maybe from the earth.  There was chanting.  He could hear it all around him.  He couldn't quite make out the words, but he swore it sounds like Latin.  Latin phrases that seems to swirl all around.  Then the faded and...  BOOM!  There was a flash of light from near the chimney of the witch's cabin.  The leaves in the trees rustled.  Birds flew in all directions.  And a ball of turquoise light popped for just a moment and faded just as quick as it came.

Amos didn't wait.  He ran to the church, and in moments, the whole congregation stood at the edge of the woods.  No one could see the cabin now. It was gone.  Searchers scavenged for a few days but found nothing.  No logs, no stones, not even a foundation on which could have stood.  Amaryllis Stemm and her cabin simply disappeared.

It wasn't until later someone thought they spotted it.  That was just a few weeks before Halloween when one of the town's children vanished, only to appear a few hours later.  Otis Major later disappeared for a few days.

Many people have seen the cabin appear and disappear.  I know I have, never believing at first.

And that's the strange tale of Amaryllis Stemm.

Join us again next time, when Dr. Fletcher tells us another tale from Misty Cove.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by corn.  Roast it, grill it, boil it, pop it, eat it on the cob.  Corn. Savor its sweetness.

Join us again soon for another episode of A View of the Town.

CSM