The Lady of Lavernum – A Chilling Supernatural Tale of Fear and Neglect

The Lady of Lavernum – A Chilling Supernatural Tale of Fear and Neglect

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In the coldest of winters, when the wind rattles the eaves and the snow piles up like barricades against the world, the mothers of Lavernum gather their shivering children close. The log fires leap and crackle, their flames casting reds and golds across weary faces, yet the warmth never quite reaches the small ones, who tremble in threadbare clothes and brittle bones.

To keep fear at bay, the mothers hum softly and whisper stories—one story more chilling than the cold itself: the tale of The Lady of Lavernum.

“She wears a cloak of patchwork hide,
Her gaze fixed low in gloom.
She walks the woods when night is near,
To gather lives for her loom.”

Outside, the woods loom like tangled iron, twisted and gnarled. No moonlight can pierce the blackness within. Still, the story persists: beware the Lady’s song, they say, a melody that slithers through roots and branches, wrapping itself around any who hear it. Those who listen too long are led away, their souls stitched into the Lady’s cloak.

“Her eyes are deep, her lap is warm,
But pity the child who strays—
Her song will lull, her smile will bind,
And steal your soul away.”

One frigid night, a small girl wakes. The icy drafts biting at her skin have disturbed her slumber. She hears tapping at her window—a branch perhaps, or the paw of some forgotten creature. When she parts the curtains, she spies a swinging light at the forest’s edge—a lantern swaying gently in the dark.

Curiosity bests caution. She cracks the window, and the wind carries a tune, a silken lullaby that coils around her, wrapping her in imagined warmth. The cold that shackles her chest loosens, replaced by an irresistible comfort. The song guides her like a mother’s hand. Before she knows it, her bare feet are padding downstairs, past her sleeping mother, past the dying embers of the fire, to the door—now mysteriously ajar.

Outside, the snow accepts her silent steps. The lantern sways ahead, carried by a shadowed figure whose presence is more felt than seen. Her heart does not tremble; her body feels no chill. The Lady of Lavernum drinks the cold from the air, drawing it into her veins, keeping it away from her chosen prey.

The child follows the light to a cabin buried deep in the forest, a hollow place of creaking wood and shadowy corners. Inside, the song lingers, but the room is empty save for scattered clothes—tiny garments in piles, tattered and abandoned.

And then she sees her. The Lady of Lavernum.

A towering figure draped in a grotesque cloak made of stitched skins—faces, fingers, toes, all woven together, some twitching faintly as if half-alive. Her eyes are pale stones, her breath a chilling mist. She bends low, her coat rustling like a bag of dry bones. She whispers something unintelligible but suffocatingly dreadful into the child’s ear.

All around, the discarded clothes stir. From each heap, pale, hollow-eyed children rise, bound to mindless chores—sweeping, scrubbing, twisting garments dry. When the Lady wears her cloak, these children vanish back into cloth and thread, their essence imprisoned within the stitching.

Days—if days still pass in this dark world—slip by. The child watches and remembers a forgotten rhyme:

“And the charm shall only be broken,
When a chosen one takes the cloak,
While Lavernum sleeps, unknowing,
And the captives wake when broke.”

One night, the Lady’s breath comes soft and rhythmic. She sleeps.

With trembling resolve, the child creeps to the dreaded hook where the cloak hangs heavy and hideous. She lifts it carefully, though the thought of its touch is unbearable. With a burst of fear and courage, she flees into the endless night, the bundle clutched tight in her arms.

She runs, branches tearing at her flesh, her feet sinking in frozen mud. Behind her, no footsteps follow, yet her mind imagines the Lady’s cold breath on her neck.

At last, she reaches the village. The first grey light reveals her home. She sees the door swing open, her mother stepping out, drawn by some instinct. Their eyes meet—hope, relief, a mother’s joy. The child runs, her arms outstretched.

But the cloak slips from her grasp, spreading across the snow like a discarded shadow. The mother freezes. Others join her, staring in horror at the abomination on the ground. Faces pale, they pull the weeping mother away, back into the safety of the house. The door slams shut.

The child stands alone, calling out, her cries unanswered.

“But once the coat is off the hook,
And the chosen child returns,
The village scents the cursed cloth,
And the outcast’s fate is learned.”

Shivering, the child picks up the cloak. She feels the cold again, for the first time since her flight. She dons the terrible garment, the skin tightening, the trapped faces writhing against her own flesh. She steps back into the forest, her steps unafraid. In the shadowy cabin, the old Lady of Lavernum sits, lifeless in her chair. Yet the forest knows—the Lady lives on.

The child has become the new Lady of Lavernum.

“And children, heed this warning well,
And mothers, keep them near—
The things we shun and turn away,
Are the very things we fear.”


Moral of the Story

Neglect and fear can turn the innocent into the monstrous. When society rejects those it does not understand, they may return transformed by that very rejection. Embrace the lost before they are forever consumed by darkness.

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