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It was late at night. There was a great storm approaching. Thunder rumbled like a thousand rocks being tossed violently from a high mountain. Lightning zig- zagged in the sky, lashing at all beneath it and lighting everything in eerie cream. The ebony clouds let in only the tiniest slivers of moonlight to light the ground paths below. The moonlight, eerie, bore a red tinge this night above the clouds swirling like a whirlpool, spitting out the anger of the Gods upon the earth.
Young Morgana Wintersmith was walking home through the woods after a late night working in the family mill upon the hill. Morgana was a more unusual resident of the Hollow. She was not married, lived alone, she ran her own business, and she reserved the right to continue practicing her chosen religion of Paganism. At first, the villagers had not accepted this. Overtime, though, they found her to be a quite agreeable and economically useful person. She also knew much about herb lore and medicine. She was a regular fixture besides the beds of the ill and infirm, giving out tonics and balm to soothe their pains, leading to swift recovery practically all of the time. Most of all, however, she trod, and lingered, where the other residents still feared to tred - the woods.
Although the events that led to this fear occurred nearly twenty years previously, the villagers still felt the woods a place of peril and danger. They had been the residing place of the menace that took the lives of so many of the townspeople after all, including Morgana's own parents. She, thankfully, had been spared, having been visiting her maiden Aunt in the Great City at the time. She returned, mourned, and then continued with her life, after the menace had been destroyed by young Icabod Crane, his manservant, and his love, Katrina van Tassel. Adopted by the Wintersmith's, Morgana took their name and became part of their family immediately, eventually going on to open her own business making and selling products from the ingredients yielded by her and her father at the family mill, while also helping to teach classes with her mother during the rest of the day.
And so, on this night, Morgana walked home alone, her father having gone home hours before hand, after being persuaded by Morgana to allow her to work a little later by herself while he went home to rest. Returning home, she walked as quickly as possible to fight off the winter cold and also to aviod being drenched and buffeted by the approaching storm. Morgana pulled her cloak tightly around her to try and stop the chill of the night from freezing her blood and bones. She could not remember a bleaker Winter in the Hollow.
The season had certainly ravaged the land around her far worse than normal. The trees of the Hollow stood bare, stripped completely of their dying, blackened leaves. Frost had woven itself slyly into their trunks and branches and frozen the trees from the inside out, stunting their fragile growth. Those frozen branches stretched towards Morgana like gnarled, twisted Devil hands. She pulled her cloak around her tighter to prevent being snagged. Leaves were violently strewn across frozen, rock hard ground, and crinkled under each of Morgana's light footsteps, before blowing away with an eerie insect like scratching. Fog thickly enveloped the air, so that nothing more than two or so feet ahead could be seen. No sound of man or beast alike could be heard on the frozen night air, except for the sound of Morgana's footsteps as she hurried home, her ears straining for any sound on the air.
Then suddenlysomewhere behind Morgana came the faint sound of a horse whinying and the sound of footsteps falling heavily upon the blackened leaves. Morgana stopped, turned on the spot, and strained her ears for the sound. But as abruptly as it had begun, it had stopped. Morgana squinted, looking into the gloom, but she could not see anything in the denseness of the fog and the ebony of the night. Cautiously she called "Hello," but there came no answer. Not that she had truly expected one. She shook her head, thinking that she had imagined the sound in the surely deserted woods, and continued walking. Her pace was more cautious, yet quicker, more light now. Morgana felt something drop heavily onto her cheek: Rain. Immediately the Heaven's opened and it began to pour in the thickest, heaviest sheets Morgana had ever experienced. She thought that the Gods must be particularly melancholic tonight, to shed tears so thick and fast upon the Earth. Not an altogether positive omen. Within moments, Morgana was soaked to the marrow. The furious winds that were blowing froze her to the core, and beyond, and sent rain shooting sideways into her, piercing her a million times with little needles. Nothing would keep her warm anymore.
It was at this time, despite the raor of the wind and rain, Morgana, with her acute hearing, heard the footsteps again. They were closer now, louder, heavier. Morgana stopped walking, despite the deluge. The stalker, however, did not. Through the mist Morgana could see tiny, faint pin- pricks of light from the houses in the village. The footsteps were quite close now, almost upon her. And so Morgana ran. She ran as quickly as her legs would possibly carry her. No matter how many of those gnarled hands snagged at her hair, ripping it out, snagged her clothes, shredding them, she ran on, ignoring the pain of her scalp and her arms and legs, when countless tiny scratches and bruises were blooming.
By some miraculous kindness of fortune, Morgana had run in the right direction, despite the density of the mist and rain. She had reached the houses bordering the woods. Hers was the furtherest away. In her haste, she stumbled on a tree root sticking up through the soil. A shadow fell upon her as she was pushing herself up and massaging her hands and knees. She turned just enough to glimpse the uniform of a 1700's Heshian soldier. She scrambled away, sliding this way and that on the rain soaked soil, remembering fervently the stories of the menace that had plagued the village all those years ago.
Her heart thumping like a war drum against her chest, Morgana sprinted to her house, fumbling all the while in her pockets for the key to the lock on her door. She skidded the last metre or so to her door, jammed the key into the lock, and threw herself inside, slamming the door just at the moment a large black boot landed on the step up to her house. Morgana watched through a side gap in the curtains lining the window next to the door. Upon watching the boot recede into the darkness, she put her backto the door, chest heaving and heart thumping.
After a few moments, the sound of breaking glass tinkling across the cobblestones at the back of the house brought Morgana out of her reverie. Lighting the lamps with fire from the hearth that she always kept going, she took a lamp from its bracket and went to investigate. All she saw was a large branch sticking through her broken window. She reasoned that the strong winds of the storm must simply have dismantled the branches of the tree that stood behind her house. Her window had just been another victim of the storms' wrath. Then she saw a shadow fall over her; a shadow the same shape as the one created when the menace had came upon her in the mist. Morgana whipped around, only to find no one there. She reasoned that it was a coupling of annoyance at the broken window and the shakiness that still remained from her encounter in the fog that caused her vision. She shook her head, smiling half- heartedly and grimly, returning to the greeting room of her home. She was alarmed to find the door, unlocked and banging heavily against the wall. The lights, along with the lantern Morgana was carrying, were quickly extinguished by the vicious winds. She raced to the door and peered outside. She could see or hear nothing and no- one. Morgana fought against the roaring winds and slammed her door shut. She turned back and began to light the lanterns again. The last thing she saw was the shadow behind her gripping her hair and yankning her head back. The last thing she uttered was a strangled scream, before silence reigned.
Blood dripped from a wide arc on the ceiling and walls, and flowed freely over the floor from the headless corpse sprawled upon the cobblestones. The door banged on its' hinges and the wind howled. Lightning cracked vividly across the sky, illuminating the retreating shadow of the menace as it slinked away, a ball shaped object tucked protectively, almost reverently, under it's arm. It mounted it's Hell steed, black as coal with eyes of glowing ruby. It was satisfied with the nights work and ready to wait patiently, though not too long, to strike again.