Hi everyone! Happy Halloween!!!!!!!! Here is maybe my longest oneshot yet, Emma's Witch. Later I will also be posting a picture of my Halloween costume, and maybe a little baby story, so stay tuned for that! Anyways, enjoy!
Everyone has a Witch. Every Witch has one person whose destiny they control. They use their scrying potions to watch them, and chant spells or add ingredients to change their fate. When that person dies, the Witch must drink her potions within five minutes, or those souls won’t pass on to the next life, and become Witch-Neglects, a sort of ghost. Everyone’s greatest fear isn’t to die, it’s to become a Witch-Neglect. I live in a haunted house. Every single owner for the past hundred and fifty years has become a Witch-Neglect - including my parents. I’m still alive. They are bound to our house, an old, creaky Victorian, so they can’t leave. Our house is right near a forest that I like to walk in. Others call it creepy, but it’s always felt familiar to me. One day, the week of Halloween, I came home from school to find everyone talking gravely with someone I’d never seen before. Dropping my bag, I asked, “Who’s this?” My mother rushed over and lifted me into the air with a gust of wind - small perks of being a Witch-Neglect - and carried me over to the somber gathering of ghostly silhouettes. When I stood up, everyone immediately stopped talking. “Erm, Lily,” my father began. “This is Jamie,” he said, gesturing to a figure in the center of the circle. I looked him up and down. “Oh,” I said in surprise. “I know you.” This was my best friend Emma’s older brother. I had no idea he had become a Witch-Neglect. Perhaps Emma had been too sad to tell me. The thought was depressing. Normally Emma and I told each other everything. “He has some bad news,” said Mrs. Welfare, a previous inhabitant of our house. Jamie came forward. “I was around Emma’s neighborhood earlier today, around dawn. Then I heard this sort of - I don’t know. It was like a laugh and a wail at the same time. So I followed it, and it led me to a clump of trees in that park- you know, the park at the end of our street? Yeah. And so I was there, and in the middle of it there was this lady, and she had really long black hair, and, like, red eyes. And she had a big cauldron and I was like ‘Oh, this is a witch.’ So I look into the cauldron and there was Emma! Sleeping in her bed! And so I thought, ‘That’s cool, I’m gonna keep watching,’ and I turned invisible, you know? Then things got really crazy. The witch was holding a big, old-looking book, right? So I went to look at it, and right there on the page, it said, “Spell of Murder” and under that, “(by subject’s best friend).” It was then that I felt faint and had to sit down. I grabbed a glass of water and drank. Could this be a mistake? Maybe Emma had another best friend that I didn't know about… But how could that be? As far as I knew, Emma was the only friend I've ever had - and vice versa. No, it would have to be me. But how could the witch make me do it? How did the spell work? If I could just figure it out... Maybe I could stop it from happening. It's not that Emma dying would have bothered me, if she would just become a Witch-Neglect. I didn't want to never see her again. Emma did tell me once, though, that she would rather die than become a Witch-Neglect. Would the witch respect that? And it was almost Halloween. Was that when I was supposed to do it? *** The next day, I decided that I had to find the witch. I followed directions I had gotten from Jamie earlier that day to the small clump of trees in the park. I found a place that looked like what Jamie had described. There, I noticed that there was a strange quality to the area. Everything seemed to distort and warp in upon itself. I tried to press on, but I was pushed back by a force-field-like presence. I shoved my shoulder against it, but it pushed me back and I fell to the ground. Grass stains marred my black jeans, and I sighed. Standing up again, I reached out to touch the air in front of me. It seemed to ripple, like the surface of water. Maybe there’s a weak spot, I thought. I felt all around, and discovered I could shove my arm through in one spot. The rest of my body soon followed, and once I was in, there distorted quality immediately faded. A splitting headache overtook me. I clutched my head, then suddenly remembered I was supposed to be stealthy. I looked up, and there in front of me, was a woman who exactly matched Jamie’s description. Her hair spilled down her back in long waves of pitch-black. She wore a tattered, old-looking black dress. Her blood-red eyes bored into mine, and my headache increased tenfold. So much for being stealthy. “Hello,” she said grimly. Her voice was gravelly, as though she hadn’t used it in a long time. “What do you want?” she asked. I took a deep breath, then said, “I’m Emma’s best friend. You know, the one who was supposed to murder her?” The Witch looked surprised, then smiled. “Well, isn’t this interesting?” That startled me. I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction. “Um, so,” I stuttered. “Let me guess,” said the witch. “You’re here to defeat me, to get your friend’s life back, blah-blah-blah. I’ve heard it all before.” “Uh, yeah.” What kind of reaction was this? “Right, well, let’s get this over with,” sighed the Witch. She sounded bored. Tying her long hair into a ponytail, she assumed a fighting stance and swirled her hands. A burning light appeared. “Wow,” she said. “You’re even weaker than the last one.” Weak? Me? I shut my eyes hard and dived into the air. I was just trying to startle her, but I actually made contact. I felt us fall to the ground. I pinned the Witch’s hands and the light stopped. Now able to see, I took off my sweatshirt and used it to bind her hands and gag her. She continued to struggle, but even with her bravado, I could tell she hadn’t been in a fight for a long time. Now I would have to work quickly. I rooted around for the spellbook, and opened it to a random page. “Unrequited Love Spell”, it said. No. That wouldn’t do. I went back to the start of the book and right at the beginning there was a page that said “Spell Reversal.” I tore it out and went back to searching. I was near the middle of the book when I found it. “Murder by Subject’s Best Friend.” I tore it out, set it down next to the other page, and set to work. The instructions were very complicated. For the Spell Reversal, it said: First take a silver fishing net, and inside it put a piece of grass or clover. Then lower it into the cauldron. This will remove all previously used ingredients. So I did as the recipe asked, and sure enough, when I lifted the silver net out of the huge pewter cauldron in front of me, there was a bunch of brownish herbs and random objects that I never would have seen floating around in there. The next step said to read a complicated incantation in some arcane language. I stumbled over the pronunciation at the beginning, but once I got into a rhythm, the words sort of flowed out of me. I stirred the cauldron three times counterclockwise, as the spell ordered. Next I had to add a lock of the spell-maker’s hair. I grabbed a silver knife from the ground and hacked off some of the witch’s hair and then some of my own. The rest of the instructions went by in a blur. I barely looked at the recipe.When the spell was finished, I had to drop in a mirror shard to check on Emma. Sure enough, she was just at home, reading. I let out a sigh of relief. Now I could go back to my life. I picked up the silver knife again and used it to cut off the witch’s bonds. Instead of getting up, she just lay there, laughing, as I tried to leave. The forefield, once again, pushed me back, even though I could tell that this was the weak spot. Wait...how did I know that? The Witch laughed even harder. “What?” I asked. She took a deep breath, giggled once more, then said, “Oh, you poor naive thing. Just like me when I was younger. You should have done your research! “Don’t you know that if anyone but the Witch does a spell over a cauldron, they become a witch?” She laughed at the look of shock on my face. “How did you think we got here? Just - POOF- out of thin air?” She burst out laughing again. “Well, have fun controlling your best friend’s life! Oh, and you can’t make a clone of yourself so that no one mourns you, either. Ha!” She flounced out of the forcefield, still laughing. I grabbed one of the mirror shards lying near the cauldron and peered into it. My eyes were red. FIN Also lmk if you guys want a part 2 later on! *woks away*
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Helloooo! So, I didn't post last week, and the reason for that is *writers block*
yayyyyyy Anyway, I wrote a very short story, and I started a slightly longer one which I will hopefully get done for Halloween. The chair rolled down the hallway. Its creaking wheels alerted me and I stood up. Peeking my head out of the doorway to my sitting room, I saw that it had come to a stop directly in front of me. I reached for it, intending to steer it back into my study, where it had come from. Then, it swiveled around. Facing me was a man in long black robes, with a gaunt, skeletal face, pale as a corpse. I shrieked. “W-what are you doing here?” I demanded. The man smiled, as though he’d been waiting for this question. “Why, I am but a mere traveler, seeking shelter from the storm,” he said. “What storm?” I demanded. The traveler pointed to the window, and, right on cue, a burst of lightning split the air and rain began to fall. I ran to close all the shutters and lock the front door. I had never been too bothered about that - after all, with my house being so far from the nearest town, I assumed no one would find it. I suppose I was wrong. Though I had not invited the traveler to stay, he did so anyway, which I found to be annoying. He lurked near whatever room I was in. When I tried to read in my sitting room, he would take a book off MY shelf and begin to read. When I went to make myself tea in the kitchen, I found him already there, even though I had thought he was in my sitting room when I left. He was boiling water. Yes, in my kettle, in my kitchen, in my house. He got out two mugs from the cupboard, then two teabags from my tea drawer. He seemed to know that I drank chamomile at nine o’clock every night, though I can’t imagine how. For himself, he took my last elderflower tea bag. So I would have to go to market the next morning. While in my sitting room, I tried to make small talk. “So, what brings you here?” I began. The man smiled his eerie smile. “My work takes me all over,” he said simply. “And what is your work, exactly?” I asked. His grin widened. “Some people need a little nudging in order to move on.” He didn’t answer any more questions after that. Nervously, I went to bed. I thought it would take me a long time to fall asleep, but I slept as soon as my head hit the pillow. During the night, I woke up to use the bathroom. When I crossed into the hall to get to my bedroom, the traveler stood there, his long black robes pooling around his feet and flapping in the breeze from a half-open window. “Are you alright?” I asked. He looked somber. “I’m very sorry about this,” he said solemnly. “A-about what?” He did not answer. Instead, he swung a long sword out from underneath his cloak. “I hope this answers your question.” FIN Greetings! As you probably gathered from the title of this post, there will be two stories today: Pumpkin Face and The Mansion.
PUMPKIN FACE Two children walk through a forest in autumn. It’s night. One says to the other, “Will we be home soon?” The other turns to the side. In the distance, she sees smoke. “Look, Mia! There’s our house!” The girls run towards it, and only when they reach the front door, panting, their mother opens the door, offering them a plate of apple turnovers. They each gratefully take one, apologizing for being late, when Mia screams. “What’s wrong, darling?” says their mother kindly. “Mother’s face has turned into a pumpkin!” cries the little girl, shrilly. Mother laughs, shaking her pumpkin head, then reaches up to it and says, “No, no, darling, this is my costume. It’s Halloween!” She takes off the pumpkin, but this time Eva is the one screaming, for under the mask was a horrible, rotted, blackened version of their mother’s face. “Oh, Eva, don’t be smart with me,” says their mother, stern now. “There’s no need to mock me. Now come in and warm up before Papa gets home.” Mother puts on the pumpkin again. Mia is now acting like everything is normal, but Eva is terrified. She can’t avoid going inside, though, so she warily follows Mia inside, not eating her turnover, unlike Mia, who is happily munching on the warm pastry. Inside, their dog, Jack, also has a pumpkin on his head. Not wanting to see a deadened version of her beloved pet, Eva simply pets him without taking off the pumpkin head. But then he rolls over and the pumpkin falls off and there is simply no head, as though it has crumbled away to dust. Eva tries to hold back her tears, and watches as Jack hunts down the pumpkin, blundering into things,. Once he puts it on again, it is as though it has replaced his missing head. He can see perfectly well, smell, and hear. It reminds Eva of the stories of the Headless Horseman. “So, girls,” beings their mother. “I made you costumes, so you might like to wear them, as it is Halloween.” Eva shudders. “Oh, no, I-“ “Wonderful! Let’s get you all ready!” Mother pulls out two smaller-size pumpkin heads. Mia begins to reach for one, but Mother swats her away. “No, no, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says. “First we need to prepare you! Now, drink this.” She hands over two identical mugs of what look and smell like hot chocolate. Mia immediately downs hers in one gulp, before Eva can stop her. Mia’s face begins to wither, like a plant without water. It blackens and chunks fall away, as though it is being burned at the edges. After about 30 seconds, Mia’s desiccated head simply falls off her shoulders and, once it hits the floor, crumbles to dust. Mother sweeps away the remains and plops a pumpkin on Mia’s shoulders. Mia immediately starts acting normal. Eva doesn’t want this. “No, no, no,” she mutters, backing away. Mother grabs her by the shoulders and she’s forcing the drink down Eva’s throat and… Eva jolts awake. She turns to her sister, who is in bed next to her. “I had the most terrible nightmare…” Then Mia turns and Eva knows that it wasn’t a nightmare. Her sister’s head is pumpkin, and, feeling around her shoulder, she realizes that hers is too. FIN THE MANSION The mansion creaked. It didn’t like to be kept waiting. *** A knock on the front door. The mansion listened carefully. “TRICK OR TREAT!” they screamed. The mansion opened the door, then closed it again. It knocked an armchair over. Still, the children in their garish costumes refused to leave. One cried, “WE WANT CANDY!” and soon the group had turned it into a chant that shook the windowpanes. The mansion opened its mouths and roared, the sound echoing through the walled garden. The invaders fled immediately. The house settled down again. Another knock. Was it them? The mansion was getting hungry. It opened the door. Outside was a girl in a pink dress holding a pamphlet. “Excuse me, do you have time to talk about our lord and savior Je-“ The mansion slammed the door. She walked away nervously. The mansion sighed. Today was Halloween. It was HUNGRY. Where were they? Another knock. “Let us in, old friend,” called a deep voice the mansion remembered. “We brought fresh ones,” a raspy voice said excitedly. The mansion quickly put back the armchair and blew the dust away. It lit the candelabras and made a fire burst up out of nowhere. The six humans entered the house. The mansion tried to remember who was who. The deep voice was Leo, the man with the scar on his cheek. The raspy voice was Charlotte, a blonde girl who wore an extravagant red tulle gown. Other less memorable members of the group drew a circle in red chalk along the house’s floorboards. They brought forward two teenagers, a boy and a girl. It was time The teenagers were laid in the chalk circle. The others stalked around it like vultures, or lurked in the shadows, waiting for the ceremony to commence. Leo brought an intricate old dagger from the folds of his cloak. He made two incisions on each of the sacrifices’ necks. They cried out, but not for long. He cut their wrists and their ankles, then stepped back, saying, “O great House, connector of the past and present, drink of this blood and may your thirst be quenched.” The blood dripped through the floorboards. After the mansion drunk its fill, it creaked to tell them to proceed. Charlotte held up a glinting knife that matched the sparkle in her eyes. She cut off their calves and forearms, then waited for the mansion’s breeze to carry them away. “O great House, connector of the past and present, eat of this flesh and may your hunger be satisfied.” Finally, the less important humans picked up what was left of the two teenagers and threw them into the fire. The flames shot up, no longer cheerfully crackling orange, but a wall of red flame, the color of blood. “O great House,” chanted the group, “discard of their bodies and be at peace.” “See you next year,” said Charlotte. The mansion burped. Okay that's it for now! *woks away* Hey guys! In collaboration with Oliver Twist of Potato Productions, I’m writing one Halloween story for every week in October. Check out her stories! Happy Halloween!
Oliver's blog: https://potatoproductionsblog.weebly.com/ It was a crisp October morning. Tobias sat curled up in a pile of leaves, just on the edge of the abandoned pumpkin patch, which itself was just on the edge of the vibrantly orange forest.. Yawning, he got up and padded off in search of food. Now, Tobias was a cat. But he wasn’t very like other cats. For instead of a normal cat’s head, he had a pumpkin head, carved into a smiling face. Tobias wasn’t sure how this happened. It was just that one Halloween night when he was a kitten during the full moon, he had fallen asleep in a pumpkin patch, and the next morning, boom! Pumpkin head. Anyways, after this, Tobias found that he could still hunt perfectly well, and his diet of rats and mice did not change. So, harboring the idea to catch some wood mice, he set off into the forest. Tobias ventured deep into the forest, looking for the telltale scent and hurried scuffling sounds of an easy prey. A rustle in the nearby leaves caught his attention, and he stealthily slunk towards it, taking great care not to startle his soon-to-be-breakfast by stepping on a crunchy leaf. When he grew close to the source of the noise, he pounced, and quickly held in his claws a dead wood mouse. Perfect. Now he would just have to find his way back to the pumpkin patch. No matter, he told himself. I’ll just retrace my steps. On a normal day this would probably have worked out, but on the first of October, there was much magic afoot. Not which as much as on the thirty-first, but still quite a lot. Something about his normally well-known forest seemed to distort that day, getting him lost and eventually leading him into a part of the forest he had never been before. A deep, wailing song came from the direction of a clearing. Not in any human or animal language, it seemed to bend the trees towards it, and leaves flew in all directions. Tobias tried to leave, but the haunting lyrics had slithered into his head and he seemed to decide that he had to follow it. He moved as though in a trance, not even bothering to disguise his footsteps. When he reached the clearing, covered in a layer of bright orange leaves, he saw an incredible sight. Leaves floated suspended in the air, along with several bones. In the middle of it all, the was a girl. She appeared human, but out of her head sprouted tree branches, in the form of antlers, and her ears pointed at the tips. Her long hair seemed to shift between red and brown as it floated as though underwater. The tips of her booted feet floated two inches off the ground. Her brown dress and orange cloak flew out from her like wings. Above her head floated a deer skull, glowing as she sang. When she noticed Tobias, her song grew softer, and the floating bones and leaves fell to the ground. “Hello,” she said. Her voice had a melodious quality to it, and it took Tobias a few seconds to realize she was still speaking in her archaic tone. And he could understand it. “Who are you?” he whispered, startled to find himself replying in the same language. She beautful girl laughed, a sound that rang through the forest and shook leaves from their trees. “I,” she said, “am the spirit of Autumn. And it looks as though I’ve finally met my match.” “Wh-what do you mean?” stammered Tobias. Autumn leaned closer, a deadly serious look on her face. “Every nine hundred years, on a full moon, the past spirit of Autumn is compelled to abdicate, and nominate a new spirit to take their place. I was chosen one year ago, on the full moon of Halloween night.” The day that Tobias had gotten his pumpkin head. “And when a new spirit is arisen, the previous spirit of Halloween disappears to the Next Realm, and a new one is chosen. The first task of the new spirit of Autumn is to find their companion. Usually it takes only a few weeks, but I’ve been searching for almost a year. And it looks like it was worth the wait. The last to have a pumpkin cat companion was the first spirit of Halloween, at the beginning of time. So, Tobias, will you join me?” “Yes.” the word came out of Tobias’ mouth before he even knew what he was saying. There was something pulling him towards this Autumn, as though he knew deep down this was what he was meant to do. “Yes,” he repeated. A magical smile spread across Autumn’s face. Leaves flew up in the air and she took Tobias in her arms. They set off together, intent on making these next 899 years some of the best Autumns of all time. FIN Hope you enjoyed! I know this one wasn't very scary, but I'll make up for it next week! *woks away* |
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