The Shape of Stones

Read as part of the Tor.com Free Short Story Challenge 2025

This very short story (10 pages according to Goodreads) reads very simply. I'm not sure if it is because it was a translation into English or if the author wanted it that way. Either way it gave a light feeling to a creepy tale. I loved how the reader is forced to conjecture why the personal notes end the way they do.

There are many of the traditional horror tropes in this story, science if not necessarily scoffing, at least disregarding ancient verbal history, and the young disregarding the wisdom of the old.

I imagine the farmer in this story interchangeable with Enos the truck driver warning Annie, in the beginning of the movie Friday the 13th. Everyone remembers Ralph because he seemed crazy, but Enos also tries to warn Annie when he drops her off at the road leading to the camp. Like Enos the farmer warns the scholar. She does it plainly and after giving her warning, moves on. She, like Enos seems to feel she has done her duty with her warning.

All in all a very successful short tale.