The end of this year's Halloween story
It is a dark Monday morning, full of clouds and portents, and it may well be a horrible Monday ahead. But we will think good thoughts!
And as part of those good thoughts, I offer this conclusion to the year's Halloween story, with a smile. Thanks for reading along with me.
We left off with And then it leapt for her throat.
Onward for the last time....
Knife. Hatpins. Jeffrey's revolver. She couldn't think which would work best to stop the thing.
The creature had tried to attack her every month, of course, but not when it had been trapped inside a circle of her own making, with the blessed candle keeping it close rather than over the line.
Even as this thought blossomed, even as the creature's breath all but felled her, she held out the candle and dropped two bits of hot magick wax on its head, one above each eye.
Howling, the creature went down. Then it raised its face, at which Guin couldn't repress a gasp.
This was the sorcerer's face, all bones and tear-tracks in the moonlight. "Lady," it said in a hoarse, growling voice she had never heard before, "you may save me yet. But you must put aside wrong--"
Whatever else it might have said was lost, as human became badger, became wolf, became all three at once. Writhing, it went inside itself in agony. Fangs snapped on air, claws scraped at the light, but in vain....
"You might finish tonight's task, Guin," Jeffrey prompted. It was only then that she realised he had his arm around her, ready to pull her out of danger.
"My dear man, do not get in my way," she said, and then, softer, "but you're quite right."
She knelt to the creature and nicked the furred yet human shoulder with the tip of her long knife, as she did every full moon, after battle and magicks. The sensation that travelled through metal to flesh was a shiver of past lives, a flash of a thousand years of regret and blood.
Thus touched --not stabbed, because it could not die by any natural method -- the creature became only shadow in the moonlight. It would stay thus, ghostly insubstantial rage, a bad wind in the good forest, until the full moon came again.
As it faded, however, one word came in the sorcerer's voice. "Wrong."
Guin didn't know how long she knelt there, lost in thought, before Jeffrey touched her arm. "Dearest," he said gently, "you'll catch your death on the cold ground."
"A less apposite remark I cannot imagine, Jeffrey darling," she said, but allowed him to help her to her feet, and pressed his hand before letting go.
She lifted the circle of protection with a murmured word. Then, as Jeffrey ushered the silent and bleeding Smithie into the pub -- luckily Constable Pigmore was already inside, drinking -- she escorted the shadow-creature back to the edge of the wood. Leaves hiss-shuddered as it drifted inside, and shadows deepened, and the bad smells of recent death were as a bludgeon. But it wouldn't attempt to feed again until the full lunar light touched the world.
Guin, still thinking about its comment, collected the wicker basket (which held magick supplies and a bit of a picnic) which Jeffrey had dropped when the murder had been discovered. Then she stood vigil until the village authorities came, and after their brief statements, Jeffrey drew her away.
It was not until they were on the North Road that he gave her back her hat which he'd remembered was still in the snug. Once she was properly covered, they walked arm in arm through the village toward the Vicarage, which stood hard by her own cottage.
Nether Sett looked quite strange tonight, all edges and newness. Or perhaps, she thought, that perception came from her own internal confusion, her sense of herself shifting from one face to another.
When they reached the Vicarage gate, Jeffrey said hesitantly, "Er, Guin dear, should you like to come in for a glass of brandy? Not for your nerves, of course, just for, well...."
"I know what for, Jeffrey."
"Yes. Yes, quite." He drew a line in the damp ground with the toe of his boot, absently. The dappled moonlight underneath his oak tree seemed to ruffle that nice thick grey hair of his, seemed to make his already pleasing appearance a thing of mystery and attraction. "And we might consider the matter we spoke of last night, perhaps?"
She looked at him keenly. For five years, since she had inherited the job from Aunt Isolde, the two of them had operated under the assumption that the James woman who protected Nether Sett must perforce be virginal. (So it was laid down in the seventeenth-century history, anyway.) This was extremely inconvenient, since Guinevere found Jeffrey rather astonishingly tempting, and together on multiple occasions they had come very close indeed to crossing the line. But Jeffrey recently had gone through the history with his Oxford-trained intelligence, and last night had suggested firstly that the word in the chronicle might not be 'virginal,' as there was an ink-splatter there, and secondly that "your Aunt Isolde, after all, had what you were sure was a sapphic connection with Lady Beatrice, and your aunt was the first in a thousand years to make the creature speak," and thirdly that he was very much in love with her and, if she might see her way to it, would like to marry her. (He had immediately promised that she should go on pursuing her novel-writing career after marriage, of course; he further had made it clear that although he was fairly well set on Christianity, he had no objection to her own secret Druidical leanings. Seeing as he was accomplished in magic, he'd have been an ass not to say so.)
"Guin dear?" he said, at which she realised she'd been staring at him for some time. He was very easy to look at.
The echo of the creature's words rang in her ears. 'Save me yet.... wrong, wrong, wrong.'
"We might consider it indeed," she said softly, and as Jeffrey caught up her hand and passionately kissed her wrist there under the ruffles of her blouse, she smiled at his moonlit head. Then, "Do you come in, Jeffrey. I think it's time we stopped waiting."
.................
Happy All Hallows Eve to you all!
And as part of those good thoughts, I offer this conclusion to the year's Halloween story, with a smile. Thanks for reading along with me.
We left off with And then it leapt for her throat.
Onward for the last time....
Knife. Hatpins. Jeffrey's revolver. She couldn't think which would work best to stop the thing.
The creature had tried to attack her every month, of course, but not when it had been trapped inside a circle of her own making, with the blessed candle keeping it close rather than over the line.
Even as this thought blossomed, even as the creature's breath all but felled her, she held out the candle and dropped two bits of hot magick wax on its head, one above each eye.
Howling, the creature went down. Then it raised its face, at which Guin couldn't repress a gasp.
This was the sorcerer's face, all bones and tear-tracks in the moonlight. "Lady," it said in a hoarse, growling voice she had never heard before, "you may save me yet. But you must put aside wrong--"
Whatever else it might have said was lost, as human became badger, became wolf, became all three at once. Writhing, it went inside itself in agony. Fangs snapped on air, claws scraped at the light, but in vain....
"You might finish tonight's task, Guin," Jeffrey prompted. It was only then that she realised he had his arm around her, ready to pull her out of danger.
"My dear man, do not get in my way," she said, and then, softer, "but you're quite right."
She knelt to the creature and nicked the furred yet human shoulder with the tip of her long knife, as she did every full moon, after battle and magicks. The sensation that travelled through metal to flesh was a shiver of past lives, a flash of a thousand years of regret and blood.
Thus touched --not stabbed, because it could not die by any natural method -- the creature became only shadow in the moonlight. It would stay thus, ghostly insubstantial rage, a bad wind in the good forest, until the full moon came again.
As it faded, however, one word came in the sorcerer's voice. "Wrong."
Guin didn't know how long she knelt there, lost in thought, before Jeffrey touched her arm. "Dearest," he said gently, "you'll catch your death on the cold ground."
"A less apposite remark I cannot imagine, Jeffrey darling," she said, but allowed him to help her to her feet, and pressed his hand before letting go.
She lifted the circle of protection with a murmured word. Then, as Jeffrey ushered the silent and bleeding Smithie into the pub -- luckily Constable Pigmore was already inside, drinking -- she escorted the shadow-creature back to the edge of the wood. Leaves hiss-shuddered as it drifted inside, and shadows deepened, and the bad smells of recent death were as a bludgeon. But it wouldn't attempt to feed again until the full lunar light touched the world.
Guin, still thinking about its comment, collected the wicker basket (which held magick supplies and a bit of a picnic) which Jeffrey had dropped when the murder had been discovered. Then she stood vigil until the village authorities came, and after their brief statements, Jeffrey drew her away.
It was not until they were on the North Road that he gave her back her hat which he'd remembered was still in the snug. Once she was properly covered, they walked arm in arm through the village toward the Vicarage, which stood hard by her own cottage.
Nether Sett looked quite strange tonight, all edges and newness. Or perhaps, she thought, that perception came from her own internal confusion, her sense of herself shifting from one face to another.
When they reached the Vicarage gate, Jeffrey said hesitantly, "Er, Guin dear, should you like to come in for a glass of brandy? Not for your nerves, of course, just for, well...."
"I know what for, Jeffrey."
"Yes. Yes, quite." He drew a line in the damp ground with the toe of his boot, absently. The dappled moonlight underneath his oak tree seemed to ruffle that nice thick grey hair of his, seemed to make his already pleasing appearance a thing of mystery and attraction. "And we might consider the matter we spoke of last night, perhaps?"
She looked at him keenly. For five years, since she had inherited the job from Aunt Isolde, the two of them had operated under the assumption that the James woman who protected Nether Sett must perforce be virginal. (So it was laid down in the seventeenth-century history, anyway.) This was extremely inconvenient, since Guinevere found Jeffrey rather astonishingly tempting, and together on multiple occasions they had come very close indeed to crossing the line. But Jeffrey recently had gone through the history with his Oxford-trained intelligence, and last night had suggested firstly that the word in the chronicle might not be 'virginal,' as there was an ink-splatter there, and secondly that "your Aunt Isolde, after all, had what you were sure was a sapphic connection with Lady Beatrice, and your aunt was the first in a thousand years to make the creature speak," and thirdly that he was very much in love with her and, if she might see her way to it, would like to marry her. (He had immediately promised that she should go on pursuing her novel-writing career after marriage, of course; he further had made it clear that although he was fairly well set on Christianity, he had no objection to her own secret Druidical leanings. Seeing as he was accomplished in magic, he'd have been an ass not to say so.)
"Guin dear?" he said, at which she realised she'd been staring at him for some time. He was very easy to look at.
The echo of the creature's words rang in her ears. 'Save me yet.... wrong, wrong, wrong.'
"We might consider it indeed," she said softly, and as Jeffrey caught up her hand and passionately kissed her wrist there under the ruffles of her blouse, she smiled at his moonlit head. Then, "Do you come in, Jeffrey. I think it's time we stopped waiting."
.................
Happy All Hallows Eve to you all!