Did anyone else read "Yellowed Leaves" in grade school? - Part 2
A weird tale seemingly scrubbed from the internet
Since I really enjoy Halloween, I want to give my subscribers a special treat to end this month. Last year, I wrote a poem that went over pretty well but this year I decided to do a two-parter story in the vein of internet horror, which I’ve talked a bit about over this month. You can read the first part at the link below if you haven’t already!
Did anyone else read "Yellowed Leaves" in grade school? - Part 1
10/9/23 – chippiechamp replied to themselves: Sorry I’ve been gone for so long. I’ve only just now have had some time to sit down and catch up. Seems like you’ve made some progress! Capital idea with the list, gracie!
I got to have tea with my old teacher’s family this weekend. They still live in the same town (and same house actually), but unfortunately they donated or sold a lot of his books to schools and bookstores in the area since his death. They didn’t keep a full catalogue of his library and couldn’t name every place they gave his collection to, but I have a few names, mostly some used bookstores that I’ll investigate next time I get some time off.
10/9/23 – chippiechamp replied to resplendor: Thanks for the clarification on the bog story’s title. I think the H-word in the title was something that got repeated in a few of the other stories. It was a word neither I nor my classmates could find the definition of in any dictionary.
I must disagree with your theory on my teacher being part of any sort of conspiracy or secret society. He was just a man with a passion for teaching literature and classic English ghost stories. I’m doing well for myself as are most of my former classmates.
10/9/23 – chippiechamp replied to gracie77: Seeing the list almost gives me a visual of how the TOC looked. I think my teacher did something similar where he wrote each story’s title up on the board in order along with some assignments associated with it. A few of them were poems and he wanted us to be able to recite them by the end of the weeks they were assigned. One came right after “A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”; I annoyed my parents reciting it so often at home because I wanted to get top marks for the assignment. I think the first line went something like:
In far Carcosa, where dreams drift from trees…
“Carcosa” was another word we couldn’t find the meaning of. I tried googling it as I was writing this post, but only found a few metaphysical, spiritual Angelfire-type sites referring to it as some “lost city” in obscure mythologies. It came up a few other times in the stories but none of them actually took place there.
I’ll just update the list while I’m at it:
“A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”
??? (a poem)
???
“H-’s Teardrop” (?)
“H-’s Teardrop” (?)
???
???
“Silence and Flame”
???
??? (the play)
10/10/23 – gracie77 replied to chippiechamp: I remember the poem as well! Our teacher had us recite it together at the beginning of a few classes. I and a few of my girlfriends joked how it sounded “cult-y.” With what we’ve been discovering, I hate to say it but I think that may have been truer than I realized at the time.
There was one verse I think that said:
Where the clouds off Hali’s shores choke the stars…
Now that I just typed that out, I think the H-word in “H-’s Teardrop” is probably “Hali”!! Idk what it means but that’s probably the name for a body of water. Makes sense when thinking about how the story, “Hali’s Teardrop”, is focused on a bog.
Now I really wish we got to finish the book. It’s killing me not to have all the answers!
10/10/23 – resplendor replied to gracie77: Trust me, you’re better off not having read it. Think really hard about the stuff that happened with the kids in your class. Did any of them skip ahead in the book? If so, where are they now if they’re still alive?
10/11/23 – gracie77 replied to resplendor: I didn’t really want to satisfy you with an answer, but I couldn’t get to sleep thinking about what you’d said…
Something did happen with the poor kid who died in 2012. I did a little more digging and it turns out he took his own life.
When I was trying to go back to bed and put it out of my mind, something shocked me awake like when it feels like you’re falling right before you sleep. I heard him screaming. I think I had some half-dream half-memory, but that doesn’t really make sense since I know I was wide awake, just dull to everything around me in real life. I was back in my fourth grade classroom between class periods, talking to my friends about something when all of a sudden I hear this shriek from the back row of desks. I looked and saw the boy in the far corner bawling his eyes out and throwing his copy of Yellowed Leaves across the room. He shouted, “I don’t want to remember! I don’t want to remember!” as he ran out the door, our teacher following him.
Nobody had asked him what was wrong, but now that resplendor mentioned it, I think he might have read to the end of the book. I don’t think, however, there’s any connection between him reading the end of the book and his death. He was probably dealing with a lot of stuff at such a young age and wasn’t getting the support he needed.
10/11/23 – resplendor replied to gracie77: Such is the case with many others in my class. Whatever he read at the end of the book must have brought that kid ego-death and his poor, developing brain couldn’t handle it. A similar fate probably awaits us here, but with how things are going in my life I could care less—maybe I too looked at the back of the book and my brain just blocked out all memory of it, I did get a few sleepless nights after reading some of those stories.
10/14/23 – oldkenkenobi posted: Sorry I’ve been away for a while, guys. I actually took a trip back to my old “neighborhood” and town where my school was. Everything’s changed there; some big company bought up all the land and I had to park my car some ways out in the woods to even have a chance of sneaking in—they have fences and construction vehicles everywhere. So I don’t incriminate myself and so that no one else gets any ideas, I’ll keep the exact location to myself. The short of it is that this town was just some place that set itself up for people who had seemingly few prospects and fewer dreams to just get by. It wasn’t a good or bad place to live; it just was a place you either left after high school or stayed behind to be forgotten with it.
My “neighborhood” (I have that term in quotes because it was just a collection of trailers and a few old ranch-style homes) has almost been completely levelled. I remember all the lawns and woods being so overgrown when I was a kid I imagined jungle animals on the prowl whenever I walked home from school. Now, the dirt’s all overturned and piled high like a bunch of Indian burial mounds. The bog is still there, oddly enough. I got the same uneasy feeling I had after I’d read the bog story all those years ago (nice work finding the title, guys), like someone was watching me from across the way. I sort of lost track of time standing out there, because it must have been sheer luck that I avoided some late night security making the rounds. I hid in the bushes on the other side since that was the only cover left. I’m not sure how long I waited, probably for less time than how it felt. During that time I had gripped what I thought was a piece of my shirt or pants, but once I stood up after the coast was clear, I realized it was something else. It was a strip of tattered yellow cloth. I still have it with me, which might have been a mistake, because that feeling of being watched seems to have followed me home.
The school was completely inaccessible so I didn’t even try to break in there. However, while we’re on the topic, I did some research on my fourth grade teacher. It turns out that a few years back, she passed away in some accident—news reports around her death talked about how her car went off the edge of a cliff along a mountain road. Every official source points to it being completely accidental, some implying weather conditions, other drivers, and possible vehicle malfunctions. I checked it out myself and that road isn’t really a main thoroughfare. It’s not in spectacular shape but also not so dangerous that most cars would go flying off or crash into each other. I also looked at the weather reports on the day my teacher died—sunny, warm, and not a cloud in the sky.
Maybe it could have been completely an accident. Maybe her car did malfunction or something. Maybe someone else did come around the bend and she didn’t have enough time to react. I can’t really say for certain, but I know she always read the books she had assigned us all the way through. That’s why her lessons and activities for our book reports were so thorough. So, if what resplendor is saying is true, maybe my teacher also learned something at the end of the book only for it to ruin her. Based on her obituary, it didn’t seem like she had many family or friends left in that town. As I type this, I’m starting to wonder if chippychamp’s teacher could have had a similar revelation (though, you said it was an illness, right?).
I’m starting to regret bringing up this topic. I’m worried one of us might find something we can’t handle and that’ll be the end of it. It just seems like bad luck is all that surrounds this book.
10/15/23 – chippychamp replied to oldkenkenobi: You’re right in the fact that my teacher died from an illness. However, when I spoke with his family, they did mention that he actually refused treatment and let the disease run its course. It was ultimately his choice but I suppose that in and of itself could be considered a form of suicide.
I understand what you mean with the “changing of the times” in your old town. When I was visiting my teacher’s family (not far from my old school and childhood home), everything is being torn down and built over by these garish chain businesses. It’s not the place I grew up in and, barring the visit with my teacher’s family, I am not keen on going back there.
Thankfully, one ancient churchyard has remained untouched but does have a few spots of graffiti and vandalism. I used to go there sometimes during free periods to read by myself. The plot of “A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road” came back to me as I was walking amongst the headstones. Naturally, I had assumed we all recalled the plot since we remembered the title, but in hindsight there were a few details that we probably should have figured out. One of the vocabulary words we gathered from this story was “knave” and I remember because it was written on one of the gravestones the narrator passed by. The story, in general, was told from the perspective of someone walking down a wooded trail on a sunny autumn day that also happened to be lined with graves. The narrator had stopped for a paragraph or so by the knave’s stone and thought about who that person might have been in life.
The one story resplendor had mentioned, “Silence and Flame”, had a character called “the Knave” in it. I got to thinking that maybe these stories might have been told out of order. Since we don’t have the book right now, I can’t say for certain what order they would be in, but “Silence and Flame” would likely precede “Cemetery Road” if the grave featured in it does in fact contain the Knave from the former story. I think this weird sort of “time play” between these stories probably falls in line with some of the book’s themes and some of the patterns we’ve been noticing with those who have finished the whole thing. Now, I don’t believe there’s any sort of “curse” or the like and definitely no conspiracy attached to the book, but whoever wrote it filled it with some things that likely cut quite deep—philosophical concepts that challenged even children’s perceptions of their selves. The only things I could imagine the book containing are ideas like death, the futility of life, and the growth of new things over the old.
It's quite sad, really, that whoever wrote this book happened to target it towards children and it just happened to end up in the hands of our teachers—some of whom might have lost their lives because of it. I myself am starting to wonder if this inquest will have any semblance of a positive ending.
10/15/23 – gracie77 replied to oldkenkenobi: Even though I’m replying to you this also goes for what chippiechamp said in his last reply. I don’t think we should give up just yet. Even though this is probably inconsequential to our real lives, it’s still an interesting project that bears investigating since it doesn’t sit right with me to let any sort of media get lost, no matter what sort of “curse” it might have on it.
Thinking back deeper about this has sort of “awakened” a few memories from my childhood. I mentioned that my family had it pretty rough during the Recession; my parents would argue a lot in the evenings about our house and money mostly. It’s not as bad as it may sound since they really only just talked civilly for the most part but didn’t want me around when they did. There was one night before my class was reciting one of the poems from the book and I wanted to try an impress my teacher by memorizing it so I read it aloud over and over, getting frustrated and stamping my feet or making noise any time I messed up. I guess it happened one too many times because my parents stopped talking under my room and I heard my dad’s footsteps coming up the stairs. He burst into my room and yelled, “Gracie! Jesus Christ, get in bed or I’m going to knock you out cold!” My mom pulled him out by the shoulder and started scolding him. Too scared to hear anything she said, I jumped under my covers, leaving my book on the floor, and tried to stop myself from sobbing before I fell asleep.
I remember the poem I was reading. It was titled “Memories in the Black Wind.” It came right before “Hali’s Teardrop” and had a sing-song cadence to it, which probably made it so irritating to my dad. From what I remember of the verses, it talked about how peoples’ voices and memories fade away with time and swirl into the night sky.
I’ll update the list.
“A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”
??? (a poem)
???
“Memories in the Black Wind”
“H-’s Teardrop”
???
???
“Silence and Flame”
???
??? (the play)
10/17/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to gracie77: One more down. Good thing you remembered something else.
I guess my curiosity for this book is outweighing my reservations. Like you said, there probably isn’t any curse or conspiracy associated with it. I originally made this post out of curiosity and because I thought it would spark up some decent memories from childhood. Based on how our conversations have gone, I think the opposite has happened.
When I was sneaking through my old neighborhood, I realized the spot where I had buried my dog was just completely upturned. I got a little sick thinking I’d see his skeleton in the dirt and just at the very thought of this corporation coming in and tearing up the place like some kind of monster. Even if it was a town without many dreams it was still a home. People still had lives there and could be happy from time to time.
On the other hand, sometimes wherever you’re dropped down in feels like a gauntlet you just have to escape from regardless of what everyone tells you about family. I don’t think I ever slept right until I got out of that town. I’ve been having dreams recently and they’re messing with my sleep again. I’m always walking through some wooded path or along some streets with dilapidated buildings, but the common thing between them are the yellow leaves that dance around me. I walk through them and whenever they brush by me I get colder, and there isn’t anything I can do to warm up. It always feels like an eternity before something happens, and that something is usually when a figure starts walking towards me—a figure in yellow robes made from the leaves. In every dream it gets closer; last night it was close enough for me to see its face, or rather the white mask covering its face.
I think I had dreams like this when I read the book as a kid. It all felt so familiar once these started back up. Maybe I’m just not thinking straight
10/18/23 – resplendor replied to oldkenkenobi: Oh man, it’s probably time to call it quits. I thought I’d be able to talk you all out of it but no chance now. At this point, I don’t really care what happens with this damn book. Call it a moment of clarity or whatever but I’d rather just leave this all behind me and abandon this discussion. My life isn’t perfect but it’s still mine and I don’t want to wind up like the departed who’ve come up so far. I’ve got time and the will to fix things and I don’t think learning the mysteries of this book will allow either of that.
As a parting gift, I’ll leave one clue for you guys to do with as you will: Nathan Castello.
10/19/23 – gracie77 replied to resplendor: Okay, bye. Way to quit while we’re ahead.
ken, chippie, when you guys see this, would either of you be able to look into what he left in his last post? I would myself but some personal things came up and I don’t really have the time.
10/20/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to gracie77: All right, we’ll see what we can do. Hope everything turns out okay on your end.
10/20/23 – chippiechamp replied to gracie77: Best wishes, I’ll start digging right away.
10/27/23 – chippiechamp posted: Wow, it’s been quite empty here, I guess we’ve all been busy. Anyway, I found something on this Nathan Castello person. His online bios and some other details on different websites say he’s an alumnus of a New England boarding school called Yarrow Academy. He writes and edits a lot of fiction and poetry and it turns out one collection he edited recently has a poem called “Dreams Dance in Carcosa.” I’m not sure if it’s an original by him or if it’s something he plucked from Yellowed Leaves. He’s still living, thankfully, so I dropped him a line asking about the book and am just waiting to hear back.
gracie, hope everything is going well and ken, hope you’re getting some sleep.
10/28/23 – kenkenobi replied to chippiechamp: The sleep has been getting worse, actually, but this is pretty good news. The title is ringing a bell so I figure he would have pulled it from the book.
Does it say how old he is? I’m just curious because if he’s around our age he might have encountered it at the same time as us—that weird period of time where everyone just seemed to lose track of what their kids were doing.
If it hadn’t been apparent by my lack of activity on here, I hadn’t looked up Castello. I wanted to but with my sleep being the way it is now, I don’t have the energy to look at screens during the day. Apologies for not really pulling my weight but that’s just what’s happened.
The thing in yellow has been getting closer in my dreams. I haven’t had as many of them since my last post but they always come on really strong, like a surprise stomach bug. I always wake up dizzy and covered in sweat. I can never blink in the dreams; my eyes are always forced onto the thing’s white face—its mask. It just stares back at me with empty sockets. There doesn’t seem to be anything in those robes but it still feels like there’s an intelligence behind them, something that sucks out all motivation and desire.
10/29/23 – chippiechamp replied to oldkenkenobi: I’m sorry you’re dealing with that, man, it sounds really scary.
Based on the few pictures of him at different events, he doesn’t seem too much older than us so definitely seems like he would have also been in “our group” as it were. Wish he had joined us in this conversation sooner!
I actually got an email back from him and he said he did in fact get the poem from Yellowed Leaves. Not only that, but he has a copy that he’s willing to scan and send over to me. I went ahead and asked about the publishing info as well, but he claims it has none of that—no date, no publisher, not even the name(s) of any author(s). He says it’s the same copy he was given in fourth grade. I should be getting those scans soon and can find some way to get them to you both if you’re interested.
10/30/23 – gracie77 replied to chippiechamp: You don’t have to send me the scans because I have my own copy now.
I’m still processing everything but I want to be honest with you guys; my dad passed away around the time I went radio silent. I’ve been with my family since then getting our affairs in order. While we were cleaning out part of the house, I found my old copy of Yellowed Leaves. I guess I or my parents had held onto it even after it was banned from school. I brought it back home with me but haven’t opened it, I’m mustering the strength to tonight.
I’ll let you both know what I find.
10/31/23 – oldkenkenobi posted: Guys, this was a mistake. I never should have brought up this book ever. I should have just let it fade like all the other memories of my crap childhood.
I had another dream last night early into this morning. The thing in yellow came right up to me, and I felt frozen down to the bone. It told me, in a voice that sound like the night wind, “Stories will be forgotten; their characters will die. The playwright creates endless cycles with his dramas and the world itself is such a thing. How many lives go unseen and barren of applause? Enough to populate the distant winds with tales only shadows will hear. They will find their audience in Carcosa.”
I don’t know why but I woke up with this sick feeling and just had to get this out and make sure you two are okay. Please, just give me a sign that you are.
[This thread was deleted by moderators soon after this last post]
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“Did anyone else read Yellowed Leaves in grade school?” © Ethan Sabatella 2024 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
Argh! 😖. Great stuff, Ethan. It provided enjoyable evening reading while sitting on the front porch waiting for trick or treaters on this Halloween night. I hope I don’t have dreams tonight.
this was a very interesting and entertaining format, It reminded me of the old epistolary novels, but without the florid language, Very good job!