The Golden Leg (3 page)

A
young lady was touring, travelling by
herself, when she became lost in a thick grey mist. Through the fog she could
see a light burning in the window of a remote cottage, and she knocked on the
door, asking if she could spend the night.

The couple who owned the cottage was an older man and woman. They took pity on
the girl and invited her in. They gave her a good hot meal, showed her to a
spare bedroom, and wished her a good night.

The room had a musty smell, as if it had been closed up for many years. A
single candle, her only source of light, cast eerie shadows on the wall. The
wind howled outside, and with it the girl could hear the howl of a dog somewhere
in the distance. The girl went to the window and made sure it was closed
tightly, then bolted the door. Tired out from her day, she soon fell
asleep.

The loud moaning of the wind woke her. There was a crash at the window,
followed by the sound of shattered glass falling on the floor. The curtains
billowed into the room and
the girl suddenly felt that she was no
longer alone. Outside, the dog howled again, much closer this time.

As she lay there, not certain what to do, she felt a cold, clammy hand grab her
ankle. It wrapped itself about her bones with fingers of steel. Her fear was so
great that she could not move or cry out. Then the hand started to move like a
cold, fleshy spider. It inched upward, over her knee, crawling up her leg,
crossing over her body and travelling to her throat.

Convinced that her last hour on earth had arrived, she summoned up what little
courage she had remaining. Desperately, she seized the clutching hand, only to
find it was connected to a sinewy arm, an arm that ended in space. There was no
body attached! This revelation was too much for the girl, and she collapsed
unconscious onto the bed.

In the morning, when she woke healthy and unharmed, the broken window glass on
the floor of the bedroom proved that what she had experienced during the night
had not been a dream. When she told her hosts of her terrifying experience, they
related the following story.

Many years before, the cottage had been occupied by an old woman. The old woman
lived alone, and had the reputation of being the sort of woman who knew ancient,
secret things that other people did not. In time, in spite of her knowledge of
herbs and healing arts, the woman grew very ill. When the doctor finally came to
see her, the old woman lay dying in the upstairs room of the cottage. Knowing
that death was coming to collect her, the woman confided in the
doctor that all her earthly wealth, a bag full of golden coins, was hidden in
the mattress of the bed.

The doctor was a very greedy man. Pretending to help the old
woman, he slipped his hand down under the sheets to steal the woman’s gold.
Realizing what he was doing, the dying woman rose up in the bed, and with her
final breath laid a powerful curse upon the man.

“Your clutching hand will never find peace in the grave!” commanded the woman.
“Instead, it shall ever wander the earth, until the end of all time!”

Having uttered her curse, she fell back on the sheets, dead. The doctor quickly
closed the door, and hurried into town. He told the woman’s friends that she had
passed away, and quickly arranged for a coffin to be taken back to the house.
When the friends arrived for the funeral, they found the coffin already in the
parlour of the cottage, the lid securely nailed down.

As the coffin was carried to the churchyard, the pallbearers remarked at how
much weight the old woman must have lost in her final sickness, for the coffin
was unnaturally light. Nevertheless, the coffin was buried in the churchyard
with due ceremony. Imagine the friends’ shock, however, when they returned to
the old woman’s cottage, went upstairs, and found her body still in her
bed!

A second coffin was called for, and a second funeral was held for the old
woman. When they returned to the graveyard, they found that the first coffin had
been dug up, and was empty. The doctor, not wanting to be seen removing the gold
from the house, had smuggled it out in the first coffin. He had then waited
until after dark, dug up the first coffin,
and had removed his
prize. Neither he nor the gold were ever seen again.

It was said that every year on the anniversary of the old woman’s death, the
clutching hand was fated to return to the location where it had been cursed. In
the excitement of receiving an unexpected visitor, the couple had completely
forgotten that the day of the girl’s visit was the anniversary of the cursing,
and they had unwittingly placed the girl in the room where the old woman had
died.

A
group of young men went out to a local
dance, looking for a good time, and hoping to meet girls, but they had no luck.
After the dance, they found themselves back out on the street. It was late, but
none of them wanted to go home. Instead, they decided to go wander among the
twisting alleys of Chinatown, looking for adventure.

Eventually the group of friends stumbled across the entrance to Dragon Alley, a
long narrow laneway which in the day was crowded with shoppers, curious
tourists, and business people selling everything from live chickens to charms to
keep away evil spirits.

Tonight, Dragon Alley was deserted, and the tiny shops that lined its length
were all tightly barred up, with great iron gates pulled across the doorways. As
they walked down the alley, however, the friends found one shop that was still
open.

It was a fortune teller’s stall, and the entrance was lit with lights that
burned in red paper lanterns. The sweet smell of incense drifted out into the
night air. Laughing, the group pushed one of their number forward, into the
shop. An old
woman sat there playing with cards. She sat
cross-legged at a low wooden table, her feet hidden underneath her.

As the noisy young men entered, she looked up, a smile flickering across her
wrinkled face. She indicated with one hand that the young man should sit across
from her at the table, and he lowered himself down onto the cushion.

“Ask her if you will meet any girls tonight!” one of the friends suggested, and
the others all laughed.

The woman only smiled, and reached out with aged, yellowed fingers. She took
the young man’s hand into her own. She turned his hand palm side up, and began
to trace the lines in his palm. She was silent for a moment, hunched over,
examining his palm intensely. Then she looked up. The woman’s eyes were a deep,
rich brown, so dark they were almost black. She stared into the young man’s
eyes. What she said next got the young man’s full attention.

“Tonight, you will meet a ghost,” said the woman, staring intently at
him.

For that moment, it was as if all sounds other than the woman’s voice had faded
away. Caught in the woman’s gaze, he felt a sudden coldness which sent a shiver
down his spine, even though the night was very warm.

The man drew back his hand, quickly. As he did so, the woman lowered her gaze.
She folded her hands in her lap, and was still.

“Come on, come on,” called his friends, pulling the man away, “let’s go find
your ghost!” The friends all bustled out, and the young man searched his pockets
for some money to
leave the fortune teller. He left a few
crinkled bills on the small wooden table, but the old woman did not look up.
Then he left and rejoined his friends.

Laughing and joking, the group hurried their young friend down Dragon Alley.
Just before they reached the end of the lane, a man appeared from around the
corner. The figure was old, dressed in a long white shirt that hung almost to
his knees, and he used a wooden cane to help himself along. The crowd of young
men had to part, moving up against the wall to let the old man pass.

As he went to move by them, the old man caught sight of the friend who had just
had his fortune told. The man stretched out a bony finger and jabbed it in his
direction.

“You!” he exclaimed. “This is not a good night for you! Come, I will tell your
fortune.”

The old man hobbled back up the alleyway, tapping along with his cane. He
looked back and beckoned the younger man to follow. The friends all thought this
was a great joke, and teasing him, they pushed their companion back down Dragon
Alley in the direction they had come.

Much to their surprise, the old man took them back to the shop that they had
just left. The old man eased himself down onto the cushions, and directed the
young man to sit across from him. The few crinkled banknotes were still on the
corner of the table where they had been left.

“But we were just here,” said the young man. “The old woman already told my
fortune.”

The old man was puzzled.

“There is no woman here,” he said, with a confused look. Then,
the look of puzzlement on his face changed into something very different. His
gaze shifted, out past the young man’s shoulder. His eyes grew wide and his
mouth dropped open in amazement.

The young man turned around to see what had shocked the shopkeeper. There, just
outside the stall, was the figure of the old woman, walking down the alley. But
it was obvious that she was no ordinary woman. It was quite clear that she had
no feet.

She moved with a smooth, hovering motion, down the alleyway to where it ended
at a brick wall. When it reached the dead end, the ghostly form did not stop or
slow down. Instead she moved directly through the brick wall, and vanished,
leaving behind only a few wisps of mist that soon vanished into the night
air.

The old woman’s prediction had been correct. The young man had indeed met a
ghost that night.

O
nce, in what we call olden times, there
was a young man and his wife, who lived in a small house. The young man’s father
and mother lived with them. One night they sat around the fire with some other
young men from the village, telling stories.

All of a sudden, there came three loud knocks at the front door of the house.
Before anyone could move, the door burst open, and four men, dressed all in
green, walked into the house, carrying a small coffin between them. They walked
to the middle of the room and set down their burden. All of the four men were
strangers, not known to anyone in the room. Without a word, all four turned and
filed out the door, closing it behind them, and vanishing as quickly and
mysteriously as they had appeared.

All conversation had died at the sound of the three knocks, and none had dared
speak to the four men clothed all
in green. Now, the family and
assembled guests sat there in amazement, staring at the coffin before them. For
a moment, the only sound was the crackling and snapping of the logs in the
fireplace.

“Well,” said the young man. “I guess we better open it up, and see what lies
within.”

He went out of the room, and returned with a hammer and crowbar. The men pried
up the nails holding down the lid, and the nails screeched like living things as
they were eased out of the dry wood. When the nails were removed, the man looked
around at the faces of those gathered about the coffin. His wife nodded, and the
young man raised up the lid.

There, inside the coffin, resting on a cushion of the purest white silk, lay
the still figure of a little girl. She was only about eight or nine years old
and was dressed in a simple white nightgown. She looked completely at peace, her
hands folded across her breast.

“She isn’t dead,” exclaimed the young man’s mother, pointing out the colour in
the girl’s cheeks and the way her chest rose and fell with each slow breath.
“Take her up out of that coffin, and we’ll put her to bed.”

The men did as they were told, lifting the sleeping girl up out of the pine box
and carrying her to the daybed in the kitchen. The mother spread a homemade
quilt over her body, and they all stood around her, silent, watching her
sleep.

After a little while, the girl stretched and yawned. Her eyes fluttered open,
and she woke up, just like you or I would, waking from a deep sleep. When she
found herself in
a strange place, surrounded by strange people,
she became very frightened. The mother and the young man’s wife shooed the men
from the kitchen, and comforted the girl.

The mother gave the girl some warm milk to drink, and some bread to eat, and
eventually coaxed a story out of her. The girl said she was from a town that was
about half a day’s journey away, and that she had gone to sleep in her own bed,
same as every night, and then woke up in a strange house.

The next morning, the young man and his father hitched their horse up to the
wagon so they could take her home. By then, word had spread about the little
girl who had appeared the night before. A neighbour with a daughter about the
same age brought over some clothes for her, and before they left, the mother
pinned a few coins into the hem of the girl’s dress. Off they set, curious eyes
following them as they made their way from the village.

By afternoon, they arrived at the girl’s own village. When they got to the
girl’s house, they found it in a state of great sorrow, with all the family
dressed in the black clothing of mourning. When her family saw the little girl,
they were terrified, thinking her to be a ghost.

Three days before, the family had woken to find that their daughter had died in
her sleep, a cold corpse at rest in the bed where the night before there had
been a lively girl. A funeral had already been held, and the body of their
daughter had been buried in the churchyard. But when they looked at the girl,
talked to her, and held her in their arms, they knew that she was their true
daughter, and they wept with joy at her return.

A group of men were sent to the graveyard, armed with shovels,
to see what exactly they had buried. They dug up the fresh grave, and together
they hauled the small wooden coffin up out of the stony earth. The people of the
village gathered around, and half afraid of what they might find within, the men
pried off the lid.

There, inside the coffin, resting on a cushion of the purest white silk, lay an
old birch broom, and nothing else.