This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MaxMic11 on 2024-11-02 00:14:53+00:00.
The holidays are always an emotionally very confusing time for me. I love the decorations, the festive mood, but I also feel a melancholy nostalgia that lingers in the back of my mind. Not a yearning for younger times, but vague childhood trauma and family inadequacies bubbling to the surface. My sister and I individually still live in our hometown. My parents do too, and so did my grandparents. I have no desire to move, I do really like it here. That doesn’t mean though that I’m not affected by the proximity of parts of my past.
I practice Wicca in a modern, cultural sense. I was raised loosely Catholic, and I still celebrate Christmas. But I also celebrate the Wiccan sabbat of Yule which overlaps with Christmas. It’s nice to be able to have something to share while also having something for “yourself” to enjoy and experience. This year’s holidays were different though. Surprising, but not shocking, my grandfather died.
He was ninety-two, so his passing was not unexpected. Active and mentally alert up until the very end, but still, ninety-two. Just the timing of being so close to the holidays was not foreseen in the brief overview of planning for his passing that my parents, sister, and I happened to discuss earlier in the year. Getting funeral arrangements made for December 20th was a pain, but we got it done. We made it simple. A public wake and a private funeral. Of my family, I was the closest to my grandfather and I felt treating his death arrangements in a more logical, left brain matter just made sense and wasn’t insensitive at all. He would have wanted people to move on quickly and continue with their lives.
I learned of Wicca from my grandfather. Many people are surprised to hear that being Wiccan, or a witch, is not just some New Age fade. My grandmother was Wiccan too. My mother, their daughter, decided not to practice which is of course totally fine and her decision. I decided though that Wicca really aligned with my values and felt best for me. Cooking, especially baking is a main aspect of my practice. Since I was a kid my grandfather and I would bake together in his big kitchen. Savory or sweet galettes (depending on the season), witch’s bread pudding using buttery brioche bread, and much more. Nine out of ten times, we made perfect creations.
Wicca is very much individual-centered. While my grandfather and I practiced together, he also encouraged me to develop my own practice for myself as he did his own. When my grandmother died three years ago, it was nice to see that he had a “system” in place for himself to process the grief in a healthy way. What exactly that system was when he was alone, I’m unsure. But it worked for him.
Speaking of speedy death arrangements, I happened to get a call from my grandfather’s lawyer maybe 10 minutes after the funeral. He wanted to go over my grandfather’s will. He was able to arrange a meeting for my family and I to come into his office the following day. The convenience was very nice.
We all sat down in front of the attorney’s desk. “It’s honestly one of the most simplified wills I’ve ever been designated to carry out,” the lawyer said.
“As he stated in his will, you are already aware he is donating most of his money to charities and causes he cared deeply about. However, he left $10,000 total to divide amongst the four of you equally.” Thankfully, we all understood and acknowledged that we knew this well in advance. No one contested it. The lawyer handed each of us a check for $2,500. The lawyer proceeded.
“The only thing left is this.” The lawyer lifted up onto his desk a small, old wooden chest that was maybe a foot wide and half a foot tall. The dark brown of the wood was almost black, which matched the black metal of the hinges, lock, and corner edge plating.
“This is for you Zack.” The lawyer handed me the chest. My family looked at me inquisitively but said nothing. Right then and there I tried to open the chest, but it was locked.
“Is there a key?” I asked.
“No” the lawyer replied firmly. The lawyer then stated that my mother was designated as the executor of his “estate” or what would happen with the rest of his belongings like his home. That concluded the will distribution and the lawyer ushered us out the door because he assumingly had other things to do.
The plan was we would all get together for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents’ house, which was normal for us, unfortunately. I drove back to my place. I put my keys down in the bowl by the door and took the chest into the kitchen where I placed it on the dining room table. I made myself a mug of herbal tea and then sat in front of the chest, thinking. Should I try to pick the lock? Do I try and pry it open?
I gently shook the chest. I couldn’t hear anything inside. Was it just decorative? That doesn’t seem like something my grandfather would leave in a will. Wicca tends to be utilitarian, and that’s how my grandfather was. Practical, but not in an emotionally detached way at all. He didn’t like giving or receiving gifts. He liked to show his care by providing experiences, acts of service, words of affection. Baking was a clear example of giving an experience of the senses.
I left the chest on the table and decided to light a fire in the fireplace. Some find it contradictory, or a dichotomy? I don’t know. Anyway, people find it weird that I use natural kindling from the woods but put one of those packaged logs you light on top of it. To continue the theme of Wicca, I think it’s a perfect representation of the practice. “Old” and “new” together. I lit the fire, and it immediately went up in a roar and then settled down. It’s a traditional fireplace, it doesn’t use major flammables like gas. The wood must have been really… dry? A moment after the fire settled, I heard a thud come from the kitchen. I got a little scared. Just in case, I grabbed the fire poker hanging near the fireplace and slowly walked to the kitchen.
Stepping into the kitchen I looked around. Nothing was there. The door that connected the garage to the kitchen that I normally walk through was closed, and so were the windows. I looked over at the dining room table and saw the chest. That, was open. I walked over to it and looked inside. I had to blink a few times to make sure nothing was in my eyes, and that what I was seeing was actually what I was seeing. There were eleven teeth scattered within the chest.
A shiver shot up my spine. Teeth? Real human teeth? How did I not hear at least a rattling when I shook the chest? The question in itself made me uncomfortable. Whose teeth were they? I had to assume they were my grandfather’s. Where else would he get human teeth? I thought of the worst possible scenario. Did he hurt someone to get these? I was just being paranoid in the moment. I never saw my grandfather get even remotely angry at anything. I don’t think I ever even saw him slightly irritated. Is that a good trait, or the trait of a psychopath?
I needed to calm down. I know my grandfather. Horribly, these had to be his teeth, and the coroner or funeral people didn’t notify us because, for some odd reason, they didn’t see his missing teeth as abnormal. Maybe they just thought he had poor dental hygiene? There was a part of me that wanted to pick them up and inspect them, but the shock was still subsiding in me, so I didn’t.
It’s an old chest. It must have been spring-loaded and broken open. I left the open chest there and decided to bring my tea over to the couch near the fireplace and just relax. I would try reading a book I was almost done with and organize my thoughts about this discovery after. I decided not to tell my parents and sister. At least not so close to Christmas. Again, I already feel weird around my family this time of year. It’s not an emergency, and I wouldn’t want to sour their Christmas and create more tension just like I wouldn’t want my Yule shaken up like that. If I was going to tell them what Grandpa left me, I would wait until after the holidays.
Only three to five pages into reading, I started to smell a really pungent odor. It wasn’t bad-smelling, just really strong. It was cinnamon. I didn’t add anything to my tea. I thought maybe some of the wood I was burning could be producing a smell? I went over to the fireplace, but it wasn’t that. I remembered I had mini cinnamon brooms hanging outside each of my house’s doors. I thought that was ridiculous, because how could they suddenly become that strong in smell, but I checked anyway.
I opened the front door and the cinnamon smell hit me like a wave. Yes, it was ever so clear that it was coming from the cinnamon brooms. When I bought them, you literally had to put your nose up to them to smell the slight scent they held. Now, it was as though the scent radiated off them like a nuclear reactor. I checked the one outside the connecting garage door, and it too was overwhelming.
For those that don’t know, in Wicca, it’s tradition to hang a cinnamon or spiced broom outside your door during the colder seasons’ sabbats, especially Samhain/Halloween and Yule. It’s a very contemplative time of the year. The brooms protect your home from “bad energy” and ground you in the physical realm while the veil between life and death is… thin. They’re symbolic. The same concept applied to lighting fires in the fireplace.
Whether you notice it or not, air circulates through homes constantly. Air pressure changes dramatically simply by opening and closin...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1ghk03d/my_grandfathers_teeth/