Everyone’s heard of the Toe Witch in one way or another. Names will probably vary from city to city, country to country. The story is quite simple, don’t hang your feet out the bottom of the bed or they will get gobbled up, chopped off, or something equally horrid. I grew up in a small village, miles from the nearest city. We had a school, local shops and markets, one doctors surgery, no hospital and a pub. Miles of forests surrounded our village situated between two tall hills and a vast lake. Pretty ideal and beautifully picturesque. On occasion, we would get hardened hikers passing through but apart from that, we were tucked away from the rest of the world.
Most of the people were elderly, younger families often moved back to the village to raise children and when they grew into adults, they would move to peruse a career, few people stayed during their prime. My parents did the same, mum moving to teach abroad where she met my dad and moved back here to have me and my sister. I did the same when I grew up.
Not much went on in the village, there was lots of gossip floating around between the neighbours but that’s expected. Mostly people got on well and invited each other for BBQs and bonfires. One thing that everyone agreed on however was the Toe Witch. The village believed the land was to blame. Resting between the forests, our little patch of land led to the perfect hiding place for a witch many years ago. Some people speculated that her bones were buried deep beneath our homes, others thought she cursed the village to make sure she would always return, whatever happened, they believed she was still there.
The story goes that the Toe Witch slept or lived under your bed, during the night, she waited for you to pop out a foot and she would crawl out, bite off a toe or two and go back into hiding. The stories varied depending on who you spoke to, each with its own plot holes and gory new detail. I don’t know whether I believed in the Toe Witch before that night, I probably did being only ten.
So, why did all my family and most people I knew have all their toes? Well, we were prepared. Each bed in each house had posts, a net or curtain would be draped around the bed and as an extra precaution, tucked under the mattress. That’s what my parents did anyway. I bet every house had their own little method to keep her at bay.
The only time the witch was mentioned between the neighbours was one of those nights around the bonfire, stories in hushed whispers. Another, and the times I remember most was when I was tucked into bed and my parents kissed my head,
“Good night, don’t let the toe witch bite”. Weird? Probably, I was a kid so it felt pretty normal to me. Anyway, I don’t think I lost much sleep over it.
There wasn’t many empty houses in the village, but there was a few and they sat in urgent need of care and attention, rotting into the ground. One day however, a van pulled up. A large white van, far too new and pristine to be here where everything was mud and wellies. Men in overalls began hauling in ladders and paint, setting up cement mixers and carrying huge panels of wood. I remember my mum twitching the curtains in our front room and beckoning my dad over, the phone rang off the hook as all the neighbours were doing the same. That night, we hosted a bonfire and the conversation was only about the potential new neighbours. I don’t remember what exactly was said, just a lot about how they couldn’t buy it, there must have been some law to stop them, going to the council, that kind of thing. I remember hoping they had children, preferably my age, I was quite excited.
Months passed, my village fought it as far as they could but soon enough, the new neighbours moved into their new beautiful home which stood out a mile from the others with its picket fence and rose bushes. I don’t know much about what happened next, my village was a friendly one and we did our best to welcome our new neighbours, nothing they could do now they’d moved in I guess. The family joined us on walks and gatherings, they had two sons, one my age and an older one my sister followed around like a lost sheep, flicking her hair, giggling really high pitched. I’d stand behind him when she was there, pulling kissing faces so she’d go bright red, the usually annoying sibling stuff. All seemed good for a few weeks. They moved in the height of winter, duck feather duvets and heated blankets were a must and they complained a lot about the cold and the lack of road access in the snow, yeah, they were pretty much stuck. We were use to it but they obviously didn’t expect it.
The villagers told them about the legends surrounding the witch, I heard my dad telling my mum they had a conversation about it at the pub, mum mentioned it when the neighbours mum came for coffee, neighbours told them at our bonfires. Each time, they laughed it off. The mum told her boy not to worry as they were just stories, this made one of the older villagers cross, he told her not to dismiss these legends and raves about how they need to respect the elders of the land if they wanted to be a part of our community, something like that. I don’t remember much but I remember the tension as everyone turned in for an early night. They must have thought we were crazy.
The boy and his big brother asked me and my sister one eve about the witch. No we’d never seen her, yes we had all our toes, yes we sleep with curtains on our bed like royalty, no we don’t have proof other than one old man that has two toes on one foot. They seemed unimpressed by our answers but continued to pry. I didn’t know what to tell them, I was young and hadn’t really been questioned about this before, I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, just don’t put your feel outside the bed, what’s the problem? A few nights later, when the boy and I played in my room, he told me about the plan he and his brother had come up with. They were going to set up a video recorder, prop it on the windowsill and sleep with one foot out of the bed. I felt anxious. Told him he couldn’t do that, but he shrugged it off, I didn’t know what to do.
After he left, I did the most noble thing and told my mum. She frowned, scrunched her nose and asked me if they were both going to do it. What an odd question I thought, yes? I answered. She smiled, that’s fine, the witch only comes when you’re alone, and went back to washing up.
The boy couldn’t wait to show me his toes and tell me he was a survivor the next morning. His older brother just rolled his eyes and told him he wasn’t a survivor because there wasn’t anything he survived, it wasn’t real. I shrugged and went back to whatever I was playing when my sister come into the room.
“It won’t happen when someone else is there” She leant up the doorframe. I shot a glare at her. The older brother laughed,
“Of course it won’t. Should have known”. After they’d left, I asked her what she thought she was doing? Apparently he deserved it, she added no context and walked off. Don’t mess with my sister boys.
The next day, we were all awoken buy screams and slamming doors. My mum ran down stairs in her dressing gown followed by my dad pulling on his slippers. They opened the front door and were met with my new friends mum running around holding her head and the dad trailing behind, carrying his oldest son. Blood pooled whenever he stood still, staining the white snow with the think red gloop pouring from him. A sickly feeling built in the pit of my stomach. I looked at the dripping rag tied around him. I didn’t think much about why he was hurt at the time, it was all a bit of a blur. Dad sprang into action and ran to wake the doctor and helped take the boy to the surgery. Mum threw me and the neighbours son into our house and shut the door. We sat there on the carpet, his face pale and vacant, it was then that I felt the overwhelming dread of what might have happened to him.
“Was it her?” I asked. He nodded. I thought of how much blood there was.
“I didn’t realise a toe could bleed like…”
“She took his leg.” The boy interrupted, deep in thought. “To the knee.” He didn’t cry, he barely moved, then he looked at me.
“What is it?” I asked. He reached in to his coat and pulled out a video camera, so big on him I don’t know how he hid it.
“I need to see her.” He began to open the camera.
“No.” I grabbed it from him “you’ve seen enough.” The boy grabbed it back and we scuffed.
“No!” He screamed. “We need to know, this can’t go on, we can stop her.” My heroic child brain was too shocked to argue, the boy looked almost animal. I nodded softly as he opened the camera and pressed play.
We skipped a few hours of footage, first was a lot of him turning, sitting up, checking the bed. Then he stopped still. He had obviously fallen asleep. About an hour after, we saw something. Stop there. Rewind. The boy stopped , rewound and pressed play.
Something moved, slowly under the frame of the bed a sort of scraping from one side of the frame, all the way to the other. After a minute, the thing began to craw up the large wooden bed frame. It stretched out, it was a hand, fingers crudely bent at unnatural angles, too long to function properly, wriggling and writhing in different directions, an arm next, bony and bent. Another arm identical to the first grew from under the bed. Both the arms stretched wide to the sides of the double bed, holding on to the posts. When in place, the thing hoisted itself up, a head emerged next, pointed cheek bones and sunken black eyes, the head turned all the way around, assessing its surroundings in snapping, unnatural movements.
I was too scared not to look, I was frozen, so was my friend next to me. I don’t know what we expected in our moment of shock and confusion, but it wasn’t this. The gigantic arms allowed it to pull its body out from under the darkness. The body that emerged was long and pale, there were no legs, the body was almost snake like but the skin more human. The head slowly made its way to his brother who still slept, not moving. The Witch began to open its mouth. It’s head snapped back, swinging from one side to another, she opened her jaw to release a long tongue, her whole body seemed so unnatural and uncomfortable, like she didn’t have control of the clunky movements. She dropped her head, seeming too heavy to hold upright, to the side and lowered herself to the bed shifting towards his foot. The angle of her head made it difficult to see what was happening but we knew. A minute went by until there was a crunch, he didn’t wake. She moved up and the crunch came again, yet he slept. Her head flopped the other side so we could see more of what was happening. Its mouth was open so wide its eyes were facing up to the ceiling while her jaw, unhinged rested on the bed. This happened twice more until he twitched, it froze for a second.
He moved again, his brow frowning and a tear trickling down his face. In an instant, like when you let go of a balloon, the thing whipped back hitting the bed frame, the dressing table and bouncing backwards off the set of draws as if being sucked in from below. It wasn’t seconds after that he began to scream, lifting his bloodied stump off the bed, blood spurting everywhere and his mum bursting in clapping her hands to her mouth in horror. As I stared, I was sure I could still see a long, curled finger hiding under the bed. Just before the camera turns off, you see my friend run in and retrieve it before being ushered out by his dad.
I looked at my friend, his eyes fixed on the small square screen.
“I told him it was real” he said, “he didn’t believe you all”. I didn’t know what to say, the whole day was a blur. It wasn’t the only incident, just the first one from my memory and surprisingly, the family continued to live there.
The whole ordeal is however, what inspired me to become a writer and researcher, exploring myths and legends around the world. I can assure you that many of the locations I’ve visited, I’ve found no truth of the myths that supposedly reside there but some of them have proven to be far more creepier and far more disturbing than our Toe Witch.