Kepit had been blessed with a caring wife, Levita. Despite his greed, and his tendency to vent his frustrations upon her, she loved her husband, and always reasoned that he would turn out the better some day.

It was on a typical journey of Kepit's, when he came across a Kavi in the woods. He, in his greed-filled madness, assumed that the Kavi was looking for treasure as well. In fact, reasoned Kepit, with the sort of luck the fates usually visited upon him, this Kavi had probably already found an entrance to Moltpaa, delved inside, and might even now be heading off to seek his kin to help carry off mounds of gold, so that there would be none left for Kepit. This scenario so infuriated Kepit that he cried out in anger and threw himself upon the Kavi, boxing him about the ears and chastising him for daring to steal his treasure.

The Kavi protested this harsh treatment, as loudly as his lungs would allow, but they were deep in the forest, far out of earshot of the nearest village. This wailing on the part of the Kavi served to Kepit as "proof" that his suspicions were correct, and that the Kavi was crying out in anguish at being discovered in his treachery.

Kepit repeatedly demanded that the Kavi show him the way to the Kavi's treasure, but the Kavi had none, save for a hand-carved wooden Skreek doll that he – being a worker of wood – had made to deliver to a child in a village he was journeying to. Kepit, of course, would never believe such a story, supposing it to be a pathetic attempt on the Kavi's part to sound humble and giving, and maybe even to cause Kepit to feel guilty. Kepit would have none of that, though, and insisted that the wooden doll was in fact an ancient relic of Moltpaa, perhaps possessed of magical powers.

By this time, the Kavi had figured Kepit for a madman, and, in desperation, "confessed" to this, giving over the doll, in hopes that Kepit would be satisfied with it and leave the Kavi alone. Alas, this attempt at appeasement was for naught, as it only fueled Kepit's greed the more, reassuring him that he was on to something. He continued to beat the Kavi, demanding more, but the Kavi was poor, and knew nothing of any treasure.

So bad was the treatment that the Kavi soon realized he was going to die, for there was no way he could satisfy Kepit's lust for treasure, and Kepit would never let him go. With the Kavi's last breaths, and in a fit of desperation, he made a curse upon Kepit:

"By the light of the sun, and the dark of the night,"
"By the waves of the underground sea,"
"For this evil you do, your insistence to fight,"
"I curse you for murdering me!"
"For you son of King Kroz, though you have strength and might,"
"I am not what I'm seeming to be,"
"For your greed you shall pay, though you run and take flight,"
"The idol will bring death to thee."

And with that, the battered Kavi keeled over and made a rattling noise in his throat.

Kepit gave not a thought to the fact that he'd just killed a Kavi, but rather that he had just lost his chance to find out where the rest of the treasure might be. He moaned and wailed … but looked down at the wooden "idol". He sneered at the curse, and reasoned that if the Kavi was so intent upon scaring him away from taking it, then it must be of great value indeed. Feeling happier with such thoughts, Kepit snatched up the wooden doll, leaving the body for the trogs and the groots and the other monsters of the woods to deal with, and headed home.

When Kepit returned home, his wife was not in the house, as Kepit had spent all night in his adventure-seeking and his act of murder, and it was now morning, and time for Levita to go down by the river side to do the wash. Kepit, feeling exhausted, took off his blood-spattered clothes and tossed them in a heap on the floor, and set the wooden doll up on a shelf next to the bed. He promptly fell into a deep sleep.

While Kepit's dreams filled with images of gold and jewels, Levita came back with the wash. When she found Kepit sound asleep, and saw the blood stains on his clothes, she reasoned that he must have hurt himself while hunting for treasure. He seemed to be sleeping so peacefully that she reasoned it would not be wise to disturb him (since he usually would box her about the ears for doing so) so she decided to take up his clothes and take them back down to the river to wash them. In the place of the bloodied clothes, she neatly folded up another set – which looked exactly like the first, since the family was not especially rich, and dressed plainly. Then, she realized just how unreasonable that Kepit could be, and that if he wanted his clothes in a pile on the floor, then he might object to having them all folded up. Kepit could be very hard to please, after all. So, she took the clothes and just dumped them in a pile about where they were before.

Kepit was startled by the sound of the front door closing as Levita left again, and, half-awake, looked about, though not having the force of will to actually get out of his bed. Then, he looked again, belatedly noticing something different about his clothes … the blood was gone! This stirred his imagination to conjure up notions that the Kavi might indeed have been one of the ancient Moltpaa, taking on the appearance of a mortal … and that the blood had faded because the apparition was never truly alive. Kepit responded by pulling the covers tight over his head and curling up in bed. When he fell asleep again, his dreams involved far less gold, and far more images of half-seen monsters chasing him as he tried to escape a curse to no avail.

While Kepit tossed and turned in bed, Levita returned again, having finished the wash, and ready to mend clothes. She checked in on Kepit again, and at last noticed the little wooden Skreek doll up on the shelf. She smiled brightly, supposing that Kepit had gotten it as a gift for her (since he obviously wouldn't have any use for a wooden doll himself), and she took it off the shelf and out to the porch, where she had her needle, thread and old garments to either be patched up or cut up for patches. As she worked on mending clothes, she saved a few scraps, and with them sewed up a simple little set of clothes for the doll, and dressed the wooden doll in them. Satisfied with this, she left the wooden doll in her chair while she went off to fetch a bucket of water to use in preparing a meal.

Kepit woke up again at the sound of the closing front door, but still his mind did not register the sound of the door … only the fact that he had woken up with a start. He looked about, seeing the clothes still there, and then looked up at the shelf … and felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he saw that the doll was, in fact, gone!

Kepit, certain by now that something was afoot, leapt out of bed and hurried about, searching for the lost doll. At last, he found the doll, fully dressed, and sitting out on a chair in the sun, surrounded by Levita's sewing materials, as if it had been spending the morning there fashioning up garments for itself.

It also finally dawned on Kepit that Levita wasn't present, and – as far as he knew – had been gone all morning. (Kepit never concerned himself with the chores he left for Levita to do, generally being out doing whatever he pleased during the daytime. Therefore, he really had no idea that she didn't simply spend all day sitting upon her tail in the cottage.) Once again, he retreated to bed.

Levita returned, and filled up a pot to heat over the fire, to fix up some soup. It began to look cloudy outside, so she took her sewing chair and her needles, thread, cloth, and the rags and clothes back inside. After cutting up some potatoes, she noticed the doll sitting out, and she figured she should put it away so that it didn't get dirty from her meal preparations. The doll, she put back up on the shelf, since it seemed to look nice enough there anyway. She happened to have a chitin knife she was using to cut potatoes in hand, and set it down on the shelf while she was rearranging the doll. In her hurry to get back and check on the soup, she left the knife up on the shelf.

When Levita left the room, her moving about once again woke up Kepit … who started out of another one of his nightmares. He was quite shocked when he saw the doll up on the shelf … and a knife beside it.

Kepit, convinced now that the little wooden idol was possessed with the spirit of the slain Kavi (or whatever the creature really was), cried out, "It's you, isn't it?"

Levita, caught off guard by the exclamation, chuckled to herself, then called out, "Yes, Kepit!"

Kepit, in the blur of sleep and his own expectations, failed to recognize the voice as belonging to Levita, coming through the wall. "You've come for me … haven't you?" he cried out.

Levita was a bit concerned at this odd question, but figured that it was best to answer, "Yes, Kepit!"

Kepit, at this point, was now quite scared out of his wits, and a roll of thunder from the afternoon shower outside didn't help matters in the least bit. He let out a terrible shriek, leaping out of bed and bursting out of his room. When he burst into the kitchen area where Levita was cooking, his sudden start and shrieking alarmed Levita, and she reflexively grabbed up a rolling pin to defend herself.

Kepit saw only another threat, thinking that Levita had turned against him as well, and not taking the time to ponder more rational explanations. Instead, he dashed out the door and into the rain. Every crash of thunder was the booming laughter of the spirits of Moltpaa. Every rustling of leaves was the chittering of the Snicjers. Every time he slipped and fell on the slicked grass, he was being tripped up by vengeful spirits. Every time a tree branch snared at him as he rushed past, it was a sharp claw tearing at him. And as he, blinded by the rain, stumbled and fell head-long into a ravine, it was the mouth of a great monster that sought to devour him. And as he burst open and died, it was, of course, the fulfilment of the curse.

The End.