The Tree on the Hill

The Tree on the Hill is a short story written by horror author H. P. Lovecraft and Duane W. Rimel. It was written on 1934 and published on 1940 on "Polaris".

Plot

The story is written in first person. It depicts the main character going outside Hampden and finding a special tree. The tree makes him daydream about a big temple in a land with three suns. The temple was half-violet, half-blue. Some shadows attracted him into the inside. He thought he saw three flaming eyes watching him and he shouted twice and the vision was gone.

He had a camera and took many pictures of the tree to show them to his friend Theunis. He showed it to them later and they could see three shadows projected by the tree, indicating that there were three suns causing them, as he saw on his dream.

Then he tells a story of a shadow, maybe a demon or dark force who was trapped by an Egyptian priest, Ka-Nefer. He had a special gem to imprison him. Theunis goes to see the tree to imprison the devil and he goes unconscious. Finally, he tells everything to the narrator. He could imprison the shadow. At last, the author is instructed to burn the pictures and when he sees them the last time he can see a big shadow claw over the tree.