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May 26th, 2015
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  1. Those of us who wish to spend their holiday in the foothills of the Cascades must be sure not to take a wrong turn northward on the way to Hansens Pass just past Hummuck, for not only will they miss their retreat, but if they are of a curious sort, what they may find in the lonely country hidden to the more careful may leave them irrevocably damaged and insomniac. This pocket of land, known as the Eveswold Hills, does not bother those who have no habit of investigating the strange, and indeed would be one of the most beautiful places anyone could behold were it not for what it contained. For when one does make that turn, one notices many natural phenomena that attest to the strangeness of this countryside. The most benign, of course, is the increase in elevation, which none would think twice about, as it is a mountain road. The verdant nature of the Northwest seems exaggerated to a comic level in the Eveswold Hills, as the grasses, weeds, bushes, and trees all take on shades far lusher and fuller than anywhere else. The forested land is marked, too, by the tallness of the trees, which seems to exceed their natural range. I would wager a thousand to one that the average Douglas fir in the Eveswold Hills outstrips the tallest redwood you can find. Indeed, it is a beautiful country, magnified especially by the total lack of sunlight, a blessing that extends to the whole western half of this state. During the daytime and especially in the open country, one is confronted by an incredible stillness, a silence that engulfs the whole lonely region. Running through the Eveswold Hills is the Branchuck River, which flows next through Ruesvale along a winding, serpentine course. The state of the bridges over the great Branchuck are certainly a cause for concern, as when one travels over them, it is all too easy to imagine their collapse. Alongside the road are ruins of a once-mighty railroad, a testament to the continual neglect we have paid to our magnificent train system, and indeed, the deeper one travels in the Eveswold Hills, the rustier and rustier the fragments of railroad become until they end altogether.
  2. From the picture I have painted above, one might reach the erroneous conclusion that these lands are uninhabited. Indeed, one may get this impression when travelling, but it is altogether false: sparsely populated they may be, but uninhabited they are not. The Native American nations that had once lived in the Eveswold Hills had mostly abandoned the area by the nineteenth century on account of the general ethnic cleansing practiced by White settlers in the West as a whole, and at first, American settlement in the region boomed, as the eastern regions sprouted mining towns and the western regions became great centers of agriculture. However, this was not to last. The mining boom barely survived the nineteenth century, as the 1897 Klondike gold rush carried with it most of the miners, and was definitely dead after the Panic of 1907, with the over-optimistic assumptions of the 1890s having shattered. The great and terrible 1913 avalanche sealed the fate of the region, and its most promising towns disappeared from maps. Few permanent inhabitants remained.
  3. As one travels the lonely road further and further, one goes through a handful of small towns before culminating in the last great mining town, high in the foothills, before the road rejoins Hansens Pass. It is then that one learns they've been through what remains of the once-proud community of Marthasville, formerly the pride of the state for its rich mineral veins, and the town that carried the brunt of the 1913 avalanche. If one elects not to remain there, as almost all who travel that way do, they are merely confronted with a set of sad ruins, with an inextinguishable and inexhaustible air of gloom about them. The houses that remain there are of a mixture of styles, segregated by development, all in disrepair and rot. The historically poorer areas had shanty houses and log cabins, while what could be called the gentry of the town resided in mock-Tudor, Craftsman, and Eastlake style mansions.
  4. It was last December that I made a sojourn to the Eveswold Hills that has opened mine eyes to truths I wish had lied dormant. May this following testament put to rest the worries that plague my heart, and may my revelations be heeded, such that they may not be in vain.
  5. By trade, I am a humble student of languages at Fincliffe University, probably the only reason why Ruesvale, named by a particularly depressed Briton, continues to exist as a settlement and not merely a geographical feature. I had planned to take my winter vacation in Leavenworth, and so drove along SR-66, which follows the Branchuck closely, but by the time I reached Hummuck, night had already fallen. My eyes were weary and my memory failed me, so I took the north turn instead of staying the course to Hansens Pass. When I saw the tall silhouettes of the trees and felt the increase in elevation, I knew I had made the wrong turn, but it was already too late. While the thought of staying here held some displeasure and, I admit, fear, I was not well-enough acquainted with the legends of the Hills at the time to avoid it with any determination. Indeed, as it had grown late and I had become unsure of my bearings, I resolved to stop at the nearest town with an inn for the night, no matter what reservations I might have. As it happened, this was Marthasville. Upon entering the town, I was worried that the town had been entirely abandoned, but as it so happened, Taylor's Inn, just across the street from what looked to be a derelict former Masonic hall (perhaps from a different order such as the Odd Fellows), was still open and had a vacancy for the night. The hotel was one of the nicer buildings, being as it were in the richer districts, and had a mock-Tudor appearance. Still, it did not escape the general decay that had plagued the city, as was quite evident by the state of the windows, which were boarded-up. The innkeeper, who went by the name of Zebediah Taylor, was a middle-aged white man, with a leery look about him, a massive underbite, and a balding head--indeed, he looked like a King of Spain. Thankfully, accomodations were cheap--all I needed was a clean room, reasonably priced. As I went to my room, my curiosity started to gain ground against my fear, and I thought it might be a good idea to stay for another night and find out about this town before proceeding to Leavenworth. Surely the history of Marthasville must be interesting, and wasn't it curious that I had never heard of this place before? I resolved to find out whatever I could about this strange settlement at the library the next day, if there was one. The room itself was about as clean as one could expect it to be, with an abundance of dust betraying a lack of recent inhabitation, but without any clearly objectionable dirtiness or grime. It had electricity, though, as expected, neither Internet nor cell phone reception. The moon that night was gibbous and waxing, and as I was about to fall asleep, I found myself disturbed by a strange sound. The cawing of the crow and hooting of the owl were louder than they were at home, but that was not the noise that disturbed me. Instead, I heard what sounded like a dissonant parody of a church choir emanating from the former Masonic hall across the street. As I arose from the bed and looked out the window, however, it stopped, just as suddenly as it began. I returned to bed, but sleep was, unfortunately, no respite whatsoever, for within dreams
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