I pulled the vehicle up alongside it, turning off my engine. According to what I’d read, this was it. I wouldn’t be able to drive any further; from here, it was a twenty-minute hike back into the trees.
I gathered my supplies, double-checked the batteries on my flashlight, and headed out. The path I found through the trees was narrow, and largely overgrown with brush, but I’d expected far worse. The wind rattled the pines overhead, and fallen needles made every step soft. The rain held off, for now; but I still felt the occasional cold drop hit my face.
I spoke to my camera as I walked, recording some backstory for the viewers. “In 1899, forty miners took the lifts down to the lowest level of Abelaum’s notorious silver mines — two weeks later, only three of them came out alive.” It was the same legend I’d first heard told in elementary school, the story every kid in Abelaum knew. The Tragedy of 1899 changed Abelaum forever, bringing its booming mining industry to a sudden grinding halt. “The mine experienced a massive cave-in, and the lowest levels rapidly flooded, leaving the miners trapped inside. Over the coming days, as they waited for rescue, the men survived in the only way they could: by cannibalizing the dead, and later — killing and eating the living.”
I paused as I came to a fork in the path. I knew I had to go to the right; the path sloped slightly downwards, and around the sharp bend, I should find a clearing and the cathedral. A tree stood at the center of the trail’s fork, and I could see something buried among the twigs and leaves piled around its roots. I grabbed it, and tugged out a wooden sign chipped with age. The ghosts of old painted letters remained on the wood, reading: White Pine Central Shaft, 1 Mile.
I held it up to the camera. “After two weeks, rescuers were finally able to clear a way down, right here at White Pine. Only three men remained alive, including the owner of the mining operation, a man named Morpheus Leighman. The bodies of the others were never recovered.”
I turned the camera up the trail to the left. It was almost completely overgrown; twigs, fallen branches, and grass left the path nearly invisible. “Once freed, the men were brought down this very trail. Accounts of the rescue describe them as energetic and strong, despite the days trapped underground. Apparently, cannibalism does a body good. But the rescued men claimed they had experienced something else down in the mines, something otherworldly.”
Despite the instructions to head right, I walked a little way up the left path. Something was dangling from a low-hanging tree limb: a small bundle of twigs held together with twine, swinging gently in the breeze. I plucked it down, holding it still for the camera. The twigs were woven into a circlet, and a design had been formed in the middle using more twigs, twine, and...fishbones.
Just like the strange trinkets Mrs. Kathy used to hang around her porch.
“Even now, the legends of what the miners experienced underground lives on in this small town’s local culture. The rescued men claimed they met a monster, a God who had been sleeping deep in the earth. They claimed this God granted them mercy, allowing them to escape in exchange for worship. According to the legends, Morpheus would eventually buy the church located near their rescue site, and dedicated it to the worship of the underground God.”
I turned off the camera, satisfied as I headed back toward the other fork in the path. Down the fork and around the bend, the trees cleared. For a moment, the sight of St. Thaddeus took my breath away. The cathedral had three magnificent spires at the front, reaching high into the sky, rivaling the tops of the pines. The wood was blackened with age, covered with patches of moss and fungi. A low stone wall lay in crumbled heaps around the church’s dirt courtyard, and it looked as if the steep roof had caved in on one side.
I began to record again, in silence this time, letting the view speak for itself. The church was far larger than I had expected; it was a relic of exquisite Gothic architecture. Beneath the center spire was a large round window of stained glass, although it was so covered with dirt and grime that I couldn’t make out what it depicted.