Trouble | Eddie Munson

【9】

Take heed my darkened voice has warned
The witching hour soon upon
As nights cloak wraps ahead of time
And creatures stir wickedly among
With eyes that hide and follow from
The lairs of dusk
And screaming song
The change to Samhain cold and damp
From summer love to sleep for now
And lo the air is mischief bound
To weigh heavily upon the brow
For in the shadows lives the ghoul
With sneer and fang
Perturbing all
All Hallows Eve true time descends
The inner mind allowed to out
Our deepest knowledge kept at bay
To finally let the world about

Lily sits in her bedroom, criss cross applesauce on the floor, applying mascara while looking in her floor length mirror, door wide open. A presence in the hallway looms over before it finds its way to the doorframe. She sees a poof of blonde hair in the corner of her eye, but doesn't remove her attention from the mirror.

" You're looking cute," Agnes says, leaning against the doorframe as she compliment the costume, " But it's not exactly traditional."

" It's for a party," Lily states as she closes the tube of mascara.

" It's Samhain," Agnes says, " We have our rituals. You know this. We do them every year."

" I know, mom," Lily says as she begins to apply some lipstick," I'm going to the party after the ritual."

Agnes inhales deeply, holding her breath for a few seconds before she releases the air from her lungs. Despite her deep desire to keep her child within the protections of her home, she leaves it at that. She departs from the room to allow Lily to finish getting ready. Lily stands up off of the floor and goes to leave her room, but is sure to snap her fingers to extinguish the flames of her candles. She makes her way down the stairs and joins her mothers in the bewitching room of their home.

Agnes and Wanda take turns dropping ingredients within the dark and bubbling cauldron as Lily approaches and places a robe a top her costume. She puts the robe over her head as she stands in front of the cauldron. The women form a circle around it and join hands with one another as they prepare to speak.

" Fire red, summer's dead
yet it shall return.
Clear and bright, in the night.
Burn, fire, burn.
Chant the rhyme at Hallow's time,
when the fire's burning.
Fire glow, vision show
of the heart's desire,
when the spell is chanted well,
of the witching fire.
Chant the rhyme at Hallow's time,
when the fire's burning.
Fire spark, when night's are dark
makes our winter's mirth.
Red leaves fall, earth takes all,
brings them to rebirth.
Chant the rhyme at Hallow's time
when the fire's burning.
Fire fair, earth and air,
and the heaven's rain,
all blessed be, and so may we,
at Hallow's tide again."

The cauldron releases it's thick and pluming smoke as a fire erupts in the middle, soaring and swirling up above as the spell completes itself before it soon falls back down within the cauldron and disappears in the smoke. The women all lean forwards towards the cauldron to inhale the smoke deep into their lungs and then soon pull back. Lily removes her robe a little too quickly, earning questioning looks from her mothers. As she departs, she pinches off a piece of bed from the kitchen and places it on the altar for the dead in the front room. She walks passed the ring of salt that surrounds the house to get to her car, ignoring the fact that tonight is when the veil between realms is at its thinnest.

Her car drives along the dark road, the gusting wind sounding like the chilling cries of the dead.