What follows is not a complete record. Scholars and archivists across Pennsylvania and New Jersey continue to piece together fragments of the People of the Tree and the lore surrounding Devil’s Wood, work that remains ongoing and, in places, deliberately obstructed. What is presented here reflects what has been recovered so far—understood to be incomplete, and likely to change as more comes to light.

What follows is not a complete record. Scholars and archivists across Pennsylvania and New Jersey continue to piece together fragments of the People of the Tree and the lore surrounding Devil’s Wood, work that remains ongoing and, in places, deliberately obstructed. What is presented here reflects what has been recovered so far—understood to be incomplete, and likely to change as more comes to light.

In the Beginning 

An ancient tree standing in a clearing in the Pennsylvania woods grows at the epicenter of time and space—if its keepers are to be believed. There have only been eight as of the writing of the book based on Devil’s Wood (the term used locally to refer to the place, as in Shakespeare’s Binam Wood (Macbeth), or A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh). The tree might be a thousand years old, if anyone qualified to age it could be found, but those who know where the tree is are either servants of it or victims.

The ground stays unnaturally warm around the base of the tree. No snow settles there, even in the harshest winter. The origins of the tree—its progenitor—have remained unknown since it was first observed in colonial Pennsylvania. It is said to have been brought to this part of the country by someone, or some ones, from Central Europe, though whether that was as a seedling, a sapling, or something more mature will forever be a mystery, like the tree itself.

The Founding Pact

In the mid-1600s, an ancestor of Benjamin Delacorte—a name you’ll recognize in the  story—came to an arrangement with the tree. He knew what it was and what it could offer, and in return he gave it what it needed. Soul after soul, life force after life force, keeping the tree and himself nourished into impossibly old age. Were you to average the number of caretakers by the age of the tree, each would have lived at least one hundred and twenty-five years. Some lived longer, and some shorter, but their lifespans continue to defy comprehension without exactly the type of supernatural explanation at work here.

The Delacorte family remained the central providers for the tree since it was first placed at center of the community’s world. This is still an unbroken chain, at least until the Devil’s Wood Journal is found in an abandoned cabin in New Jersey. Beyond that lies the future.

The People of the Tree

The tree’s worshippers are not a coven, and are loathe to be called that. Like their predecessors on the European continent, they’re more aligned with Druids and worshippers of nature gods. The tree is nature itself, both good and bad, life-giving and indifferent to death. And while they no longer rely on it to provide harvests and good fortune, they still consider it central to their spiritual well-being, despite the harm it does  to those not among them. They’re neither malevolent nor benevolent. Like Christians who believe God blesses them when they survive a plane crash that claims the lives of a hundred others, the People of the Tree see no contradiction in celebrating their successes and ignoring the sufferings of their neighbors.

The Walking Stick’s Curse

Like Adam’s rib that gave us Eve, the walking stick was given by the tree to perpetuate its bargain with those in service to it. It was carved long before Banjamin Delacorte took ownership of it—if it could be said to be owned at all. The carvings (glyphs) on the stick are an active, living contract, which some may call a curse. Whoever possesses the stick has entered into a deal, incurring a debt that must be paid. Devil’s Wood is the story of one man who sought to renege.