Desert of Bone

Good evening MMers! We hope you all have sweet dreams tonight, unlike several of our readers have been having lately. Normally weird dreams aren’t something to write to us about, but we have been getting reports from all over the state of people having the same strange dream. 

“It starts with me waking up in a desert,” Katie from Freeport told us. “The sky is grey, the sand is this really deep red and feels really scratchy. All over the sand are these white trees, or at least they look like trees that are this bleached white color. I feel like I walk for hours in this dream and never get to where I am supposed to be, and the whole time I just feel scared.”

The desert and trees have a similar feel to this

Joe from Standish has reported a similar dream, “Its been happening for a few weeks now, I go to sleep and almost immediately wake up in this freaky desert. The sand is coarse and gets everywhere, and there are these white pillars everywhere. At first I thought they were trees, but when I got close they were bleached bone. And not regular bone, it was covered in these tiny spurs almost like there was something wrong with whatever died and left them.”

What does Javier see in the distance?

Javier from York reported that he has had these dreams for months now. “I get a little further towards my goal every time. I have no idea what ‘the goal’ is, but I feel like I’m getting very close. I saw something in the distance last night, but the heat coming off the horizon kept it obscured, whatever it was was dark and huge.”

Whatever this dream is, it seems to be affecting a large amount of people, we can only hope it is something innocent and not a portent of something dark looming on the horizon. If you or anyone you know is experiencing these dreams please write to us. Stay safe out there Maine!

Black Tarot

 Good Morning, MMers! We've got a story for you that spreads out all over the state. Several of our loyal readers have sent us emails about a mysterious envelope they have received in the mail. The envelope itself is black, about 3.5 inches by 5 inches. The recipient's name and address are written in silver ink. There is no return address, and strangely enough, no postage. So far, four different people have contacted us about these envelopes, Larry Gilbert from York, Sharon Messina from Farmington, Dominic Stoddard from Corinth, and Sara Burgess from North Yarmouth. 

Here's, Sara Burgess. 

"This envelope just showed up one morning," she wrote us. "I didn't know what it was, but figured someone sent me a card or something. It felt heavy, like one of those nice cards. It wasn't my birthday or anything, but you never know. So when I opened it I was shocked the find these five cards."

Sara recognized them as tarot cards, but there was something off about them. "I don't know much about tarot cards - just from like movies and stuff, but just looking at them, something didn't feel right."

The cards themselves were slightly larger than playing cards, about four inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide. Their backs were black dull gold designs reminiscent of fancy playing cards, with two eyes staring outwards. 

The back of the cards each received

The other side, the face sides, were terrifying. Here's Dominic Stoddard:

"When I was a kid, I read those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. Scared the crap out of me. The art looked like that, but I did some looking on the internet, and it clearly isn't the same guy. I can't find these images anywhere."

For those readers who are unfamiliar, the art of Stephen Gammell is quite terrifying in its simplicity and style. It's given thousands of readers nightmares for decades, but Dominic was right - this wasn't the work of Gammell. His agent even clarified it for us stating, "This is not Mr. Gammell's work, though obviously an inspired imitation." 

Sharon Messina was shocked. "My mailbox is at the post office - a P.O. Box you know - and yet there was this envelope. I asked the postmaster, but he had never seen it. He couldn't explain it either."

Larry Gilbert, fifty-two, recognized what was wrong right away. "The art was unsettling, for sure, but at the end of the day that's just pictures. It was the cards themselves that was all wrong. As a kid I got really hooked on this occult stuff, you know? Aleister Crowley, H. P. Lovecraft, tarot, all that stuff. So I sorta knew the cads, and these were cards of the major arcana that don't exist in any tarot deck I've ever seen."

For those who don't know, a tarot deck is broken into two sections - the minor arcana, consisting of four suits of fourteen cards (1-10 and 4 "face" cards) and the major arcana (22 suitless face cards). Unlike playing cards, the suits of the minor arcana are typically: swords, cups, coins, and batons. The suits of these cards were blades, wands, sigils, and grails, all pretty clear interpretations of the familiar suits. It was the major arcana that differed wildly.

These cards, which we are dubbing the "Black Tarot" contain cards not found in the normal major arcana; cards with titles like, "The Necromancer" or "The Black Sun." It's clear this deck has drawn some sort of twisted inspiration from a traditional deck, but seem to be something of their own.

There seems to be no connection between the recipients. They have little in common. They do not know one another, are separated by locations, ages, jobs, you name it, these four people seem to be randomly selected. So why did each one of them receive five of these Black Tarot cards in the mail. These could be construed as a spread of some kind. Here's one such spread:

What these could mean and who is sending them is still a mystery. We asked all four of the recipients for pictures of their cards, and they were happy to oblige. Without knowing what the cards all mean, what the spread is, and maybe most importantly, what the initial question asked was, it's almost impossible to determine what all of this means. Still, it doesn't stop Sara Burgess from feeling creeped out.

"It's weird, you know?" she said said. "I mean, who has all these creepy cards and why send them to me? How do they even know me? I don't know, it just feels like... like an invasion of privacy or something."

If you have any information about the Black Tarot, their meaning, or sender, please reach out to us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. 

Sara Burgess' cards

Larry Gilbert's spread

Dominic Stoddard's spread

Sharon Messina's spread

Stay safe out there, Maine.

Tiverton

Heads up, MMers! We've got a real spooky story for you on this Friday the 13th! This one concerns the town of Tiverton in Franklin County. Not many people have heard of Tiverton and that's because there are only 12 full time residents! That's because Tiverton is known a vortex of dark energy. Visitors to the town, which was originally settled by Puritans in 1692, have reported seeing orbs of light, wolf-shaped black shadows, and hearing disembodied voices whispering their names. 

Then there's the mysterious group said to patrol the woods around Tiverton. They're called the Dark Watch and some say they're a cult of descendants of the original inhabitants. Others claim they're a group of black magicians who want to keep people from entering the town.

If you do visit Tiverton, make sure you don't take anything home with you. Reports say that anyone who takes an artifact from the town will be cursed. Dark shadowy figures will follow you around and terrorize you. 

One loyal MMer, Torey from Bath, claims he took a small statue he found in an abandoned building. He said that at first he just had some bad dreams. Soon he began to see shadow people around his house and heard strange noises, like a cross between a growl and some sort of whispering. He said every night the shadow people got closer and closer to his bed.

We haven't heard from Torey in some time, but we're sure he's fine. If anyone hears from him, please let us know. And as always, stay safe out there, Maine.

courtesy of Torey, 2019

courtesy of Torey, 2019