All Hallow's Eve ~ 2026

 

    Two years ago on the eve of All Hallows, the witches of Elderlinn fled the Old Chapel Ruins in the shapes of crows, and an unnatural silence settled over the forest surrounding Wychwood.
    The villagers had not forgotten the events of that year. Neither had Jael, the young daughter of the village elder. She remembered the shrieks of the witches, the overturned cauldron, and the voice of Morrigan promising to return.
    As twilight approached, crows gathered along the rooftops watching the villagers. They sat silently, and when something moved, there was a collective shifting of their heads and they would blink. It was a sideways blink, almost mechanical and entirely devoid of life. Even the dogs were afraid and had retreated beneath the houses.
    Jael’s father stood beside her at the village well.
    “The coven may come tonight,” he said.
    “I know,” Jael answered. “And Morrigan will not make the same mistake twice.”
    Her father nodded. “I know, but it is getting late and I need to return to our house and fix us something to eat.”
    “I am going to stay here for a while, but I will be home later tonight.”
    While Jael watched her father walking toward their small cottage,
    Morrigan stood deep within the forest, among the broken walls of the ancient chapel. Her hood concealed most of her face, but the dim firelight revealed the hatred in her eyes.
    Around her, the witches assembled their massive iron cauldron. Its cracked rim had been repaired with bands of black iron. The twice-cursed lance was driven into the earth more deeply this time. Then, to prevent the cauldron from being knocked off or tipped over, heavy chains were used to lash it to the lance.
    “No young girl will overturn our work tonight,” Morrigan declared.
    The witches answered with a low chant.
    This year, Morrigan did not intend to poison the villagers with a deadly brew. She had devised a more terrible punishment. She would summon the voices of Wychwood’s dead and send them through the village. Those who answered would fall beneath her enchantment and walk willingly into the forest, never to return.
    One of the witches poured in rainwater collected from open graves into the suspended cauldron. A fire was lit, and as the water began to boil, the witches added their offerings to the cauldron. They scattered in the ashes of funeral candles, dried jimsonweed, and crushed morning glory seeds. Then they dropped in handfuls of soil taken from beneath the chapel’s ruined altar.
    As the brew began to bubble, the witches began speaking words that were both ancient and forbidden. They made a complete circle around the cauldron as they chanted. The burning flames cast flickering shadows of the witches on the surrounding trees.
    At last, when the chant was complete, the witches came to a stop. Morrigan opened a small leather pouch and withdrew a lock of silver hair.
    “From the grave of the first elder who ordered my banishment,” she whispered.
    She cast it into the bubbling liquid.
    A gray mist rose from the cauldron. It spread across the ruined stones and flowed between the trees, moving against the wind toward Wychwood.
    In the village, the clock struck eleven.
    A woman sitting beside her hearth heard her dead husband’s voice calling from outside the door.
    “Open the latch, my love. I have come home.”
    Her hand trembled as she reached for the bolt.
    Across the lane, an old man heard his mother’s gentle singing, just as he remembered it from childhood. Farther down the street, a little boy heard the laughter of a sister who had died the previous winter.
    Doors began to open.
    Inside his house, Jael’s father heard a familiar voice calling softly from beyond the shuttered window. It was the voice of his dead wife, pleading with him to open the door. For a moment, grief overcame him, and he rose from his chair. Then he remembered the warning his own father had given him many years before. On All Hallows’ Eve, the dead sometimes spoke, but those who answered were seldom heard from again. He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer, refusing to acknowledge the voice that continued calling his name.
    Jael, who was still standing by the well, saw the first villagers emerge from their homes. Their eyes were vacant, and they moved toward the forest, following voices that only they could hear.
    She caught the arm of a woman passing the well.
    “Wake up. You must not follow them.”
    The woman pulled free without looking at her.
    Then Jael heard a voice whisper her own name.
    It was her mother’s voice, though her mother had been buried many years before.
    “Jael, my darling. Come to me.”
    For a moment, the familiar tenderness almost overcame her. She remembered her mother’s hands, the warmth of her embrace, and the songs she had sung beside the fire.
    But Jael knew that the dead did not return to call the living into darkness.
    She hurried to her father.
    “Their voices are drawing everyone toward the chapel. We must stop the spell before midnight.”
    Her father looked toward the silent procession.
    “The old chapel bell,” he said suddenly. ”Before the chapel fell, its ringing was said to drive unholy spirits from these woods. Your grandfather saved the little bell that hung beside the altar.
    He led Jael into their house and lifted a tarnished bronze handbell from a wooden chest.
    Jael grasped its worn handle.
    “Gather everyone who can still hear you,” she told him. “When you hear this bell, ring the village bell as loudly as you can.”
    Then she disappeared into the forest.
    Jael’s father hurried from house to house, calling upon those villagers who had not yet been touched by the evil mist and fallen under the witches’ enchantment. He first told them what was happening. Then he told them of the ancient belief that the sound of consecrated bells and the striking of metal could weaken the power of evil spirits. He instructed them to gather whatever metal objects they possessed and, when they heard the village bell begin to toll, to strike them as loudly as possible. Once he was certain they understood, he hurried toward the village tower.
    The mist had grown thick beneath the trees. Damp leaves clung to Jael’s shoes, and the smell of rotting earth filled the cold air. All around her, pale figures wandered slowly toward the ruins.
    At the chapel, Morrigan raised her arms over the boiling cauldron.
    “Come, children of Wychwood. Your ancestors call, and you must answer.”
    The witches’ chanting grew louder. The villagers approached the circle, their faces empty of expression.
    Jael stepped from behind a fallen stone.
    “Morrigan!”
    The witch turned, and her lips twisted into a cruel smile.
    “The troublesome child returns. Have you brought another vial of holy water?”
    “No,” Jael replied. “I have brought something older than your hatred.”
    She raised the bronze bell and rang it.
    The clear, piercing sound swept through the ruined chapel.
    The witches staggered. Their chant faltered, and the gray mist shuddered as though struck by a sudden wind.
    Morrigan shrieked and thrust out her hand. A black tendril of smoke lashed toward Jael, striking her shoulder and throwing her against the chapel wall.
    The bell slipped from her fingers and landed among the broken stones.
    Morrigan advanced.
    “Your courage cannot save them this time.”
    Jael struggled to her knees. Beyond the ruined archway, she saw the villagers continuing toward the cauldron. She reached for the bell, but Morrigan placed a foot upon it.
    Then, from Wychwood, a deep toll sounded through the night.
    Jael’s father had reached the village tower.
    The bell rang again, and again. The bell rang again and again. Other sounds joined it as the villagers who had escaped the enchantment began striking pots, pans, and metal tools, following the instructions of their elder.
    The forest trembled with the clamor.
    Morrigan cried out as the mist began to break apart. The spellbound villagers blinked and stumbled, suddenly aware of the cold and the darkness surrounding them.
    Jael seized the moment. She pulled the little bell from beneath Morrigan’s foot and rang it directly above the cauldron.
    A violent gust burst from the boiling liquid. The iron chains snapped, the earth around the twice-cursed lanced opened, and the lance toppled among the upheaval of dirt and stones. The fire died beneath the cauldron, leaving only a foul-smelling steam.
    The witches’ coven ran away in terror.
    Morrigan glared at Jael, her face twisted with rage.
    “You cannot guard the people of this village forever.”
    “Perhaps not,” Jael answered. “But you will not have them tonight.”
    With a furious cry, Morrigan spoke the ancient words that transformed the witches into crows. The black birds rose above the ruined chapel and vanished into the darkness.
    By dawn, the villagers had returned safely to their homes. The last traces of mist disappeared among the trees, and the familiar sounds of morning filled Wychwood.
    Jael placed the bronze bell on the mantel above her father’s hearth. She knew that tonight’s victory was not hers alone. She was thankful that more people now believed in the threats from the witches and would help her in the future to protect the village.
    At the edge of the forest, a solitary crow watched with an unsettling stillness as the first sunlight touch the rooftops. When it finally took flight, its cry sounded disturbingly like laughter. It knew that Morrigan and the coven of Elderlinn would return again to Wychwood on an All Hallows’ Eve, driven by her unholy desire to destroy this village and all who lived there.

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