An entry to the Village Square's All Hallow's Harvest Prompt
It was early in the morning and the sun was just beginning to rise behind the old farmhouse, casting a hazy glow over the fields and conjuring a thick fog that seemed to have crept inside the house and over my bed. Unwillingly, I uncovered myself from the warm security of the bedclothes and hesitantly placed my feet on the hardwood floor. Where were my slippers?
The floorboard creaked and moaned under my weight as I wondered into the kitchen, eyes half-closed as my stiff hands fumbled with the wood stove. I reached for the box of matches...where were they? I always left them next to the porcelain jar of salt. Finally, my hands found the familiar box but they seemed to move away from me. I cursed the damn things as I caught hold of them, but as soon as I held them they seemed to fall from my hand. More curses as I groped beneath the stove, dust filling my nose as I swept my hand back and forth in the darkness. Then, just as I clutched the matches I thought I felt a hand clutch me. I lurched back suddenly, my head banging against the oven door handle and my arm covered in cobwebs. I really needed to take the time to clean this place.
Against the calls of my growling stomach, I decided to wait and light the stove once the sun fully rose. It was still too dim in the old farmhouse to do anything in there. With the box of matches still in my hand, I decided to light me a smoke. The familiar, sooty smell filled my head as I breathed in the smoke and the thick clouds that had rolled in from the sea. Just then I thought I saw a figure move from Takakura's place and into the field. My heart involuntarily began to race.
"Dammit, Murrey, ya damn scandral," my voice seemed to reverberate back at me from the wall of fog, and I took another drag, "always scroungin' for food, go on and geet out of here."
Instead of that proverbial 'moi' in response, I heard nothing but the soft call of a mourning dove.
Instinctively, I began to walk over to the cornfield where I last saw the figure before it disappeared back into the fog. As soon as I approached the wall of corn, I could tell something wasn't right. Even more pungent than the smell of my cigarette was the smell of burnt...hair? I knelt down and grabbed a chunk of the ground, the moist dirt held together by strands of wiry hair. I turned the clod over in my hand, the hair loosening from the soil and tangling around my fingers. My eyes looked up and into the rows of corn; there were rows and rows of hair singed and snarled between the plants.
"What the hell..." I proclaimed as I threw the contaminated soil back onto the ground. What kind of sick joke was this?
Hurriedly, I began walking back to the farmhouse which was obscured by the murky mist, but I knew where I was going. Oh god, but it felt like I just kept walking in circles... I should have reached the house by now! I stopped and turned around, faintly making out the shape of the barn. I was going the wrong way. Had I been walking in circles?
Pissed off and feeling like a fool, I turned back and kept walking.
"Whoever is screwin' with me is gonna get it, I got shit to do, can't be wastin' my time-"
Before I knew it, the ground was before me and I had fallen flat on my face. It felt like I had tripped over a tree branch, or like something reached out and pulled me down by my right leg.
It felt like someone was out to get me.
"Hey... a heard ya'a talkin' out here," Takakura's presence seemed to cut through the haze as he observed my condition, "you alright down there?"
"Yeah, yeah," I said, slightly embarrassed as I picked myself up along with my now snuffed cigarette. The old man pulled out his lighter to light himself a smoke, offering the flame to me as well. I moved the roll between my lips before continuing, "you ever seent burnt hair in your fields?"
His black eyebrows knitted even more tightly together as he mulled over the question.
"Is there burnt hair in your fields?"
"Yeah."
The fog, that had been so thick mere moments ago, was now dissipating by the second. I could see the clouds almost rise up from the ground and disappear into the sunlight.
"That there burnt hair...that's a black magic spell," he took a long drag and let the smoke fall from his lips as he spoke, "sounds like we got a witch in this town."
Bits of the fog held onto the trees as I made my way into town that morning. I was still a bit shaken by the events of the morning and wanted to ease my mind, and I could think of nothing more gentle on the spirit than the warm gaze and soft touch of my beloved Lumina. Her name suited her presence, she was luminescent. She brightened the darkest of days.
But as soon as I saw her, I wanted to scream. I could feel the muscles in my face contort as I took in her ghastly appearance.
Her once long, beautiful chestnut hair had been sheared! Those locks that were adorned with strands of copper...those locks that now lay strewn and burnt in my garden!
"Oh hello, darling," she cooed as she gave me a dainty peck on the cheek, "I knew you would be startled by my sudden change, but not this much!"
"I...uh..." I could barely form thoughts, let alone words! How could it be her? My radiant Lumina? A witch?
"I just needed a change, you know? I wanted to feel more mature and I felt like cutting my hair was the perfect solution," she smiled as her cropped locks morbidly fanned back and forth across her face,, "so what do you think?"
She must have saw the horror in my eyes, because her bright face seemed to be suddenly cast in shadow.
I tried to explain myself, about the burnt hair I had found in my fields and how Takakura said it was a black magic spell. The kind of spell a witch would cast. And that it seemed undeniable that the hair was her hair. She seemed confused, but was it feigned? How could I be sure? She cried and I eventually took my leave. My once crystal clear perspective of Lumina was now shattered with suspicion. It had to be her hair.
Plagued for the rest of the day over this ordeal, I found myself recounting the events to the townsfolk. Asking for their opinion, wanting to hear them say that I was going mad and that perhaps someone was just playing a Hallow's Eve joke.
But everything I heard about her only deepened my fears.
"She's very interested in the relics we find, especially gemstones and skulls," alleged the local archeologist as she absent-mindedly held a bone from a recent excavation, "she is curious in our archeological findings, and she always asks a lot of questions."
"When we were younger, I would go to the villa to play. Once, we went out to the old cellar behind the mansion and there was this strange board. It looked like an ouija board, but I can't say for sure! There were also books strewn about and candles...oh! And there was some sort of pot with strange plants in it," claimed the neighbor farm girl, "it was eerie, and I never went back in there again."
"You know, she doesn't sleep at night. She gets up at all hours, well, that's what I was told by the butler, Sebastian. One time, I saw her get up in the middle of the night and walk through the gardens," the blonde barmaid blushed deeply, "and don't you ask why I was at the villa so late at night."
"Why you asking me, I don't know the girl," snapped the redheaded tomboy as she reclined in her chair, "but she hangs around Rock a lot, and he ain't right in the head. So that doesn't reflect too well on her in my eyes."
It didn't take long for news to travel in this small town. Before the sun had set, everyone had heard about the burnt hair and exchanged the strange stories about the girl. Now they were just as suspicious of Lumina as I was.
And once night had fallen the stakes had been raised. The town gathered at the beach—an All Hallow's Eve celebration—complete with music, food, a bonfire, and even a witch.
"NO! Please!" she shrieked as her face lit up, more luminescent than I had ever seen it before! And her hands, oh those hands that I once thought were so pure and gentle, were bound together, no longer able to reek havoc with her hexes and curses. How relieving it was though to see her contained. Never again could she torture the townsfolk of Forget-Me-Not Valley.
"Burn the witch! BURN THE WITCH!" they chanted as the flames licked her skirts, "BURN HER BURN HER!"
And that's exactly what we did. We burned her.
The next morning, as I was plowing my fields, I found more hair in my garden. I held the clods of dirt in both hands. How?! In death, did she still haunt me? I looked up to find a woman before me. Her long, flaxen hair resembled the autumn wheat fields. Her eyes were cold and black like the night of a new moon. And I couldn't look away.
"Finally, she is gone and now I have you all to myself."
Well, that escalated quickly. Happy Hallow's Eve, everyone!