The Diary of Xander Tully, A Novella by Sanguine Woods

The Diary of Xander Tully is a historical horror story set in the years before America was a nation in the still very wild, wooded area along the modern day Michigan-Canada border. French-Canadian settlers have colonized an area near the River Raisin-a village they call "Montcalm" after one of the colony's oldest families.

Enter Xander Tulley, printer by trade, and stranger to the area. He sets up shop in Montcalm, and starts the village's first newspaper. When Tully becomes curious about a local legend concerning a group of old stones in the nearby woods, the colonists claim no knowledge of it: "We go not hither into darkling woods, Mr. Tully. We are a god-fearing people. We know our place. It is a frame of mind we heartily recommend."

There is no visible path to the outcropping of stones-reaching it is difficult unless you know the woods well. The stones cluster around a cave-like opening in the earth five or six paces across. A grove of trees surrounds the area in an almost perfect circle. The rest of the woods is made up of conifers, and other evergreens, with a scattering of deciduous trees whose leaves change color during the autumn equinox. But the trees near the cave won't change color until autumn has bled into winter, and an "Indian Autumn" seeps in; then, almost overnight, their leaves turn the color of firelight and stay that way while December creeps along toward the winter solstice. The morning after, the trees stand like sentinels-bare as gaol bones-not a leaf in sight.

The tale of the woods is an old one. And some geographies, some secrets, lay undisturbed for a reason. Xander Tulley has been dreaming about the burning trees. His obsession with the woods leads him to an indigenous tribe that once dwelt along River Raisin. It is in this tribe's myths and legends, wrapped tight in an ancient language, that Tulley begins to see something form from the forgotten shadows of time, something that once breathed life, and should have been left alone.