The Monkey's Paw

The CampfireThe openingFree

It was a wet, windy night, the kind where the rain hits the windows sideways. In a small house at the end of a muddy lane, an old man named Mr. White was playing chess with his grown son, Herbert. His wife sat knitting by the fire.

They were a happy family. Not rich. The house wasn't paid off. But happy.

That night they had a visitor. An old friend of Mr. White's, a soldier named Sergeant-Major Morris, just back from twenty-one years in India. He was big and red-faced, and he drank their whiskey and told them stories about wars and temples and strange people in far-off places.

And then, almost by accident, he mentioned the paw.

Mr. White asked about it. Morris didn't want to talk about it. He tried to change the subject. But they kept asking, and finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and dried and brown.

It looked like a little shriveled hand. A monkey's paw.

"An old holy man put a spell on it," Morris said. "He wanted to show that fate rules people's lives, and that those who interfere with it do so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it."

Nobody laughed. Something about the way he said it.