classes ::: H_P_Lovecraft, Fiction, Horror, chapter,
children :::
branches :::
see also :::

Instances - Classes - See Also - Object in Names
Definitions - Quotes - Chapters


object:1f.lovecraft - The Tree on the Hill
author class:H P Lovecraft
subject class:Fiction
genre class:Horror
class:chapter

By Duane W. Rimel
and H. P. Lovecraft
I.
Southeast of Hampden, near the tortuous Salmon River gorge, is a range
of steep, rocky hills which have defied all efforts of sturdy
homesteaders. The canyons are too deep and the slopes too precipitous
to encourage anything save seasonal livestock grazing. The last time I
visited Hampden the regionknown as Hells Acreswas part of the Blue
Mountain Forest Reserve. There are no roads linking this inaccessible
locality with the outside world, and the hillfolk will tell you that it
is indeed a spot transplanted from his Satanic Majestys front yard.
There is a local superstition that the area is hauntedbut by what or
by whom no one seems to know. Natives will not venture within its
mysterious depths, for they believe the stories handed down to them by
the Nez Perce Indians, who have shunned the region for untold
generations, because, according to them, it is a playground of certain
giant devils from the Outside. These suggestive tales made me very
curious.
My first excursionand my last, thank God!into those hills occurred
while Constantine Theunis and I were living in Hampden the summer of
1938. He was writing a treatise on Egyptian mythology, and I found
myself alone much of the time, despite the fact that we shared a modest
cabin on Beacon Street, within sight of the infamous Pirate House,
built by Exer Jones over sixty years ago.
The morning of June 23rd found me walking in those oddly shaped hills,
which had, since seven oclock, seemed very ordinary indeed. I must
have been about seven miles south of Hampden before I noticed anything
unusual. I was climbing a grassy ridge overlooking a particularly deep
canyon, when I came upon an area totally devoid of the usual
bunch-grass and greaseweed. It extended southward, over numerous hills
and valleys. At first I thought the spot had been burned over the
previous fall, but upon examining the turf, I found no signs of a
blaze. The nearby slopes and ravines looked terribly scarred and
seared, as if some gigantic torch had blasted them, wiping away all
vegetation. And yet there was no evidence of fire. . . .
I moved on over rich, black soil in which no grass flourished. As I
headed for the approximate center of this desolate area, I began to
notice a strange silence. There were no larks, no rabbits, and even the
insects seemed to have deserted the place. I gained the summit of a
lofty knoll and tried to guess at the size of that bleak, inexplicable
region. Then I saw the lone tree.
It stood on a hill somewhat higher than its companions, and attracted
the eye because it was so utterly unexpected. I had seen no trees for
miles: thorn and hackberry bushes clustered the shallower ravines, but
there had been no mature trees. Strange to find one standing on the
crest of the hill.
I crossed two steep canyons before I came to it; and a surprise awaited
me. It was not a pine tree, nor a fir tree, nor a hackberry tree. I had
never, in all my life, seen one to compare with itand I never have to
this day, for which I am eternally thankful!
More than anything it resembled an oak. It had a huge, twisted trunk,
fully a yard in diameter, and the large limbs began spreading outward
scarcely seven feet from the ground. The leaves were round, and
curiously alike in size and design. It might have been a tree painted
on a canvas, but I will swear that it was real. I shall always know
that it was real, despite what Theunis said later.
I recall that I glanced at the sun and judged the time to be about ten
oclock a.m., although I did not look at my watch. The day was becoming
warm, and I sat for a while in the welcome shade of the huge tree. Then
I regarded the rank grass that flourished beneath itanother singular
phenomenon when I remembered the bleak terrain through which I had
passed. A wild maze of hills, ravines, and bluffs hemmed me in on all
sides, although the rise on which I sat was rather higher than any
other within miles. I looked far to the eastand I jumped to my feet,
startled and amazed. Shimmering through a blue haze of distance were
the Bitterroot Mountains! There is no other range of snow-capped peaks
within three hundred miles of Hampden; and I knewat this altitudethat
I shouldnt be seeing them at all. For several minutes I gazed at the
marvel; then I became drowsy. I lay in the rank grass, beneath the
tree. I unstrapped my camera, took off my hat, and relaxed, staring
skyward through the green leaves. I closed my eyes.
Then a curious phenomenon began to assail mea vague, cloudy sort of
visionglimpsing or day-dreaming seemingly without relevance to
anything familiar. I thought I saw a great temple by a sea of ooze,
where three suns gleamed in a pale red sky. The vast tomb, or temple,
was an anomalous colora nameless blue-violet shade. Large beasts flew
in the cloudy sky, and I seemed to hear the pounding of their scaly
wings. I went nearer the stone temple, and a huge doorway loomed in
front of me. Within that portal were swirling shadows that seemed to
dart and leer and try to snatch me inside that awful darkness. I
thought I saw three flaming eyes in the shifting void of a doorway, and
I screamed with mortal fear. In that noisome depth, I knew, lurked
utter destructiona living hell even worse than death. I screamed
again. The vision faded.
I saw the round leaves and the sane earthly sky. I struggled to rise. I
was trembling; cold perspiration beaded my brow. I had a mad impulse to
flee; run insanely from that sinister tree on the hillbut I checked
the absurd intuition and sat down, trying to collect my senses. Never
had I dreamed anything so realistic; so horrifying. What had caused the
vision? I had been reading several of Theunis tomes on ancient
Egypt. . . . I mopped my forehead, and decided that it was time for
lunch. But I did not feel like eating.
Then I had an inspiration. I would take a few snapshots of the tree,
for Theunis. They might shock him out of his habitual air of unconcern.
Perhaps I would tell him about the dream. . . . Opening my camera, I
took half a dozen shots of the tree, and every aspect of the landscape
as seen from the tree. Also, I included one of the gleaming,
snow-crested peaks. I might want to return, and these photos would
help. . . .
Folding the camera, I returned to my cushion of soft grass. Had that
spot beneath the tree a certain alien enchantment? I know that I was
reluctant to leave it. . . .
I gazed upward at the curious round leaves. I closed my eyes. A breeze
stirred the branches, and their whispered music lulled me into tranquil
oblivion. And suddenly I saw again the pale red sky and the three suns.
The land of three shadows! Again the great temple came into view. I
seemed to be floating on the aira disembodied spirit exploring the
wonders of a mad, multi-dimensional world! The temples oddly angled
cornices frightened me, and I knew that this place was one that no man
on earth had ever seen in his wildest dreams.
Again the vast doorway yawned before me; and I was sucked within that
black, writhing cloud. I seemed to be staring at space unlimited. I saw
a void beyond my vocabulary to describe; a dark, bottomless gulf
teeming with nameless shapes and entitiesthings of madness and
delirium, as tenuous as a mist from Shamballah.
My soul shrank. I was terribly afraid. I screamed and screamed, and
felt that I would soon go mad. Then in my dream I ran and ran in a
fever of utter terror, but I did not know what I was running
from. . . . I left that hideous temple and that hellish void, yet I
knew I must, barring some miracle, return. . . .
At last my eyes flew open. I was not beneath the tree. I was sprawled
on a rocky slope, my clothing torn and disordered. My hands were
bleeding. I stood up, pain stabbing through me. I recognized the
spotthe ridge where I had first seen the blasted area! I must have
walked milesunconscious! The tree was not in sight, and I was
glad. . . . Even the knees of my trousers were torn, as if I had
crawled part of the way. . . .
I glanced at the sun. Late afternoon! Where had I been? I snatched out
my watch. It had stopped at 10:34. . . .
II.
So you have the snapshots? Theunis drawled. I met his gray eyes
across the breakfast table. Three days had slipped by since my return
from Hells Acres. I had told him about the dream beneath the tree, and
he had laughed.
Yes, I replied. They came last night. Havent had a chance to open
them yet. Give em a good, careful studyif they arent all failures.
Perhaps youll change your mind.
Theunis smiled; sipped his coffee. I gave him the unopened envelope and
he quickly broke the seal and withdrew the pictures. He glanced at the
first one, and the smile faded from his leonine face. He crushed out
his cigarette.
My God, man! Look at this!
I seized the glossy rectangle. It was the first picture of the tree,
taken at a distance of fifty feet or so. The cause of Theunis
excitement escaped me. There it was, standing boldly on the hill, while
below it grew the jungle of grass where I had lain. In the distance
were my snow-capped mountains!
There you are, I cried. The proof of my story
Look at it! Theunis snapped. The shadowsthere are three for every
rock, bush, and tree!
He was right. . . . Below the tree, spread in fanlike incongruity, lay
three overlapping shadows. Suddenly I realized that the picture held an
abnormal and inconsistent element. The leaves on the thing were too
lush for the work of sane nature, while the trunk was bulged and
knotted in the most abhorrent shapes. Theunis dropped the picture on
the table.
There is something wrong, I muttered. The tree I saw didnt look as
repulsive as that
Are you sure? Theunis grated. The fact is, you may have seen many
things not recorded on this film.
It shows more than I saw!
Thats the point. There is something damnably out of place in this
landscape; something I cant understand. The tree seems to suggest a
thoughtbeyond my grasp. . . . It is too misty; too uncertain; too
unreal to be natural! He rapped nervous fingers on the table. He
snatched the remaining films and shuffled through them, rapidly.
I reached for the snapshot he had dropped, and sensed a touch of
bizarre uncertainty and strangeness as my eyes absorbed its every
detail. The flowers and weeds pointed at varying angles, while some of
the grass grew in the most bewildering fashion. The tree seemed too
veiled and clouded to be readily distinguished, but I noted the huge
limbs and the half-bent flower stems that were ready to fall over, yet
did not fall. And the many, overlapping shadows. . . . They were,
altogether, very disquieting shadowstoo long or short when compared to
the stems they fell below to give one a feeling of comfortable
normality. The landscape hadnt shocked me the day of my visit. . . .
There was a dark familiarity and mocking suggestion in it; something
tangible, yet distant as the stars beyond the galaxy.
Theunis came back to earth. Did you mention three suns in your
dreaming orgy?
I nodded, frankly puzzled. Then it dawned on me. My fingers trembled
slightly as I stared at the picture again. My dream! Of course
The others are just like it, Theunis said. That same uncertainness;
that suggestion. I should be able to catch the mood of the thing; see
it in its real light, but it is too. . . . Perhaps later I shall find
out, if I look at it long enough.
We sat in silence for some time. A thought came to me, suddenly,
prompted by a strange, inexplicable longing to visit the tree again.
Lets make an excursion. I think I can take you there in half a day.
Youd better stay away, replied Theunis, thoughtfully. I doubt if
you could find the place again if you wanted to.
Nonsense, I replied. Surely, with these photos to guide us
Did you see any familiar landmarks in them?
His observation was uncanny. After looking through the remaining snaps
carefully, I had to admit that there were none.
Theunis muttered under his breath and drew viciously on his cigarette.
A perfectly normalor nearly sopicture of a spot apparently dropped
from nowhere. Seeing mountains at this low altitude is
preposterous . . . but wait!
He sprang from the chair as a hunted animal and raced from the room. I
could hear him moving about in our makeshift library, cursing volubly.
Before long he reappeared with an old, leather-bound volume. Theunis
opened it reverently, and peered over the odd characters.
What do you call that? I inquired.
This is an early English translation of the Chronicle of Nath, written
by Rudolf Yergler, a German mystic and alchemist who borrowed some of
his lore from Hermes Trismegistus, the ancient Egyptian sorcerer. There
is a passage here that might interest youmight make you understand why
this business is even further from the natural than you suspect.
Listen.
So in the year of the Black Goat there came unto Nath a shadow that
should not be on Earth, and that had no form known to the eyes of
Earth. And it fed on the souls of men; they that it gnawed being
lured and blinded with dreams till the horror and the endless night
lay upon them. Nor did they see that which gnawed them; for the
shadow took false shapes that men know or dream of, and only freedom
seemed waiting in the Land of the Three Suns. But it was told by
priests of the Old Book that he who could see the shadows true
shape, and live after the seeing, might shun its doom and send it
back to the starless gulf of its spawning. This none could do save
through the Gem; wherefore did Ka-Nefer the High-Priest keep that
gem sacred in the temple. And when it was lost with Phrenes, he who
braved the horror and was never seen more, there was weeping in
Nath. Yet did the Shadow depart sated at last, nor shall it hunger
again till the cycles roll back to the year of the Black Goat.
Theunis paused while I stared, bewildered. Finally he spoke. Now,
Single, I suppose you can guess how all this links up. There is no need
of going deep into the primal lore behind this business, but I may as
well tell you that according to the old legends this is the so-called
Year of the Black Goatwhen certain horrors from the fathomless
Outside are supposed to visit the earth and do infinite harm. We dont
know how theyll be manifest, but theres reason to think that strange
mirages and hallucinations will be mixed up in the matter. I dont like
the thing youve run up againstthe story or the pictures. It may be
pretty bad, and I warn you to look out. But first I must try to do what
old Yergler saysto see if I can glimpse the matter as it is.
Fortunately the old Gem he mentions has been rediscoveredI know where
I can get at it. We must use it on the photographs and see what we see.
Its more or less like a lens or prism, though one cant take
photographs with it. Someone of peculiar sensitiveness might look
through and sketch what he sees. Theres a bit of danger, and the
looker may have his consciousness shaken a trifle; for the real shape
of the shadow isnt pleasant and doesnt belong on this earth. But it
would be a lot more dangerous not to do anything about it. Meanwhile,
if you value your life and sanity, keep away from that hilland from
the thing you think is a tree on it.
I was more bewildered than ever. How can there be organized beings
from the Outside in our midst? I cried. How do we know that such
things exist?
You reason in terms of this tiny earth, Theunis said. Surely you
dont think that the world is a rule for measuring the universe. There
are entities we never dream of floating under our very noses. Modern
science is thrusting back the borderland of the unknown and proving
that the mystics were not so far off the track
Suddenly I knew that I did not want to look at the picture again; I
wanted to destroy it. I wanted to run from it. Theunis was suggesting
something beyond. . . . A trembling, cosmic fear gripped me and drew me
away from the hideous picture, for I was afraid I would recognize some
object in it. . . .
I glanced at my friend. He was poring over the ancient book, a strange
expression on his face. He sat up straight. Lets call the thing off
for today. Im tired of this endless guessing and wondering. I must get
the loan of the gem from the museum where it is, and do what is to be
done.
As you say, I replied. Will you have to go to Croydon?
He nodded.
Then well both go home, I said decisively.
III.
I need not chronicle the events of the fortnight that followed. With me
they formed a constant and enervating struggle between a mad longing to
return to the cryptic tree of dreams and freedom, and a frenzied dread
of that selfsame thing and all connected with it. That I did not return
is perhaps less a matter of my own will than a matter of pure chance.
Meanwhile I knew that Theunis was desperately active in some
investigation of the strangest naturesomething which included a
mysterious motor trip and a return under circumstances of the greatest
secrecy. By hints over the telephone I was made to understand that he
had somewhere borrowed the obscure and primal object mentioned in the
ancient volume as The Gem, and that he was busy devising a means of
applying it to the photographs I had left with him. He spoke
fragmentarily of refraction, polarization, and unknown angles of
space and time, and indicated that he was building a kind of box or
camera obscura for the study of the curious snapshots with the gems
aid.
It was on the sixteenth day that I received the startling message from
the hospital in Croydon. Theunis was there, and wanted to see me at
once. He had suffered some odd sort of seizure; being found prone and
unconscious by friends who found their way into his house after hearing
certain cries of mortal agony and fear. Though still weak and helpless,
he had now regained his senses and seemed frantic to tell me something
and have me perform certain important duties. This much the hospital
informed me over the wire; and within half an hour I was at my friends
bedside, marveling at the inroads which worry and tension had made on
his features in so brief a time. His first act was to move away the
nurses in order to speak in utter confidence.
SingleI saw it! His voice was strained and husky. You must destroy
them allthose pictures. I sent it back by seeing it, but the pictures
had better go. That tree will never be seen on the hill againat least,
I hope nottill thousands of eons bring back the Year of the Black
Goat. You are safe nowmankind is safe. He paused, breathing heavily,
and continued.
Take the Gem out of the apparatus and put it in the safeyou know the
combination. It must go back where it came from, for theres a time
when it may be needed to save the world. They wont let me leave here
yet, but I can rest if I know its safe. Dont look through the box as
it isit would fix you as its fixed me. And burn those damned
photographs . . . the one in the box and the others. . . . . But
Theunis was exhausted now, and the nurses advanced and motioned me away
as he leaned back and closed his eyes.
In another half-hour I was at his house and looking curiously at the
long black box on the library table beside the overturned chair.
Scattered papers blew about in a breeze from the open window, and close
to the box I recognized with a queer sensation the envelope of pictures
I had taken. It required only a moment for me to examine the box and
detach at one end my earliest picture of the tree, and at the other end
a strange bit of amber-colored crystal, cut in devious angles
impossible to classify. The touch of the glass fragment seemed
curiously warm and electric, and I could scarcely bear to put it out of
sight in Theunis wall safe. The snapshot I handled with a
disconcerting mixture of emotions. Even after I had replaced it in the
envelope with the rest I had a morbid longing to save it and gloat over
it and rush out and up the hill toward its original. Peculiar
line-arrangements sprang out of its details to assault and puzzle my
memory . . . pictures behind pictures . . . secrets lurking in
half-familiar shapes. . . . But a saner contrary instinct, operating at
the same time, gave me the vigor and avidity of unplaceable fear as I
hastily kindled a fire in the grate and watched the problematic
envelope burn to ashes. Somehow I felt that the earth had been purged
of a horror on whose brink I had trembled, and which was none the less
monstrous because I did not know what it was.
Of the source of Theunis terrific shock I could form no coherent
guess, nor did I dare to think too closely about it. It is notable that
I did not at any time have the least impulse to look through the box
before removing the gem and photograph. What was shown in the picture
by the antique crystals lens or prism-like power was not, I felt
curiously certain, anything that a normal brain ought to be called upon
to face. Whatever it was, I had myself been close to ithad been
completely under the spell of its allurementas it brooded on that
remote hill in the form of a tree and an unfamiliar landscape. And I
did not wish to know what I had so narrowly escaped.
Would that my ignorance might have remained complete! I could sleep
better at night. As it was, my eye was arrested before I left the room
by the pile of scattered papers rustling on the table beside the black
box. All but one were blank, but that one bore a crude drawing in
pencil. Suddenly recalling what Theunis had once said about sketching
the horror revealed by the gem, I strove to turn away; but sheer
curiosity defeated my sane design. Looking again almost furtively, I
observed the nervous haste of the strokes, and the unfinished edge left
by the sketchers terrified seizure. Then, in a burst of perverse
boldness, I looked squarely at the dark and forbidden designand fell
in a faint.
I shall never describe fully what I saw. After a time I regained my
senses, thrust the sheet into the dying fire, and staggered out through
the quiet streets to my home. I thanked God that I had not looked
through the crystal at the photograph, and prayed fervently that I
might forget the drawings terrible hint of what Theunis had beheld.
Since then I have never been quite the same. Even the fairest scenes
have seemed to hold some vague, ambiguous hint of the nameless
blasphemies which may underlie them and form their masquerading
essence. And yet the sketch was so slightso little indicative of all
that Theunis, to judge from his guarded accounts later on, must have
discerned!
Only a few basic elements of the landscape were in the thing. For the
most part a cloudy, exotic-looking vapor dominated the view. Every
object that might have been familiar was seen to be part of something
vague and unknown and altogether un-terrestrialsomething infinitely
vaster than any human eye could grasp, and infinitely alien, monstrous,
and hideous as guessed from the fragment within range.
Where I had, in the landscape itself, seen the twisted, half-sentient
tree, there was here visible only a gnarled, terrible hand or talon
with fingers or feelers shockingly distended and evidently groping
toward something on the ground or in the spectators direction. And
squarely below the writhing, bloated digits I thought I saw an outline
in the grass where a man had lain. But the sketch was hasty, and I
could not be sure.
Return to The Tree on the Hill


questions, comments, suggestions/feedback, take-down requests, contribute, etc
contact me @ integralyogin@gmail.com or via the comments below
or join the integral discord server (chatrooms)
if the page you visited was empty, it may be noted and I will try to fill it out. cheers



--- OBJECT INSTANCES [0]


--- PRIMARY CLASS


chapter

--- SEE ALSO


--- SIMILAR TITLES [0]


1f.lovecraft - The Tree on the Hill
select ::: Being, God, injunctions, media, place, powers, subjects,
favorite ::: cwsa, everyday, grade, mcw, memcards (table), project, project 0001, Savitri, the Temple of Sages, three js, whiteboard,
temp ::: consecration, experiments, knowledge, meditation, psychometrics, remember, responsibility, temp, the Bad, the God object, the Good, the most important, the Ring, the source of inspirations, the Stack, the Tarot, the Word, top priority, whiteboard,

--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



--- QUOTES [0 / 0 - 0 / 0] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



KEYS (10k)


NEW FULL DB (2.4M)


*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***


--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



0

   1 Fiction






change font "color":
change "background-color":
change "font-family":
change "padding": 113719 site hits