Long before the coal trains carved their paths through the mountains, there stood an ancient oak in the heart of Appalachia. Its gnarled branches stretched like skeletal fingers, and its hollow trunk hummed with secrets. Old-timers called it The Whispering Oak, for it was said the tree held the voices of those who’d vanished in the misty hollers.
One autumn, a young lumberjack named Ezekiel Hart ventured into those woods. He’d heard tales of the oak’s curse—how greedy men who struck it with an axe would hear their own death whispered back. But Ezekiel, hungry for fortune to impress his sweetheart Mary, scoffed. “Ghost stories for fools,” he muttered, his blade gleaming.
As his axe bit into the oak’s bark, the air turned icy. A woman’s voice, soft as creek water, seeped from the trunk: “Turn back, child… or join us.” Ezekiel froze, yet the promise of gold outweighed fear. He swung again.
Crack.
The tree split open, revealing not wood, but a cavity filled with glowing stones—rubies red as blood. Greedily, Ezekiel stuffed his pockets. But as he turned to leave, the forest shifted. The path dissolved. The rubies melted into ash.
For three days, he wandered, the oak’s whispers growing louder: “Thief… Liar… Fool.” On the third night, he collapsed at Mary’s doorstep, his pockets empty, his hair white as snow. The townsfolk found him babbling of faces in the bark and a woman in a tattered Quaker dress who trailed him home.
To this day, they say the oak still stands. Those brave enough to listen claim it murmurs two lessons: “The mountains give only what they choose,” and “Hunger for more than gold, lest the shadows hunger for you.”
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