Their Fiery Vow

A chilly wind swept over the large garden behind the grey house. A moment passed and all the leaves- the new-borns, the adults, the old ones and the DEADS began to swing in a short slow rhythm. Slim lines of dark water started flowing on the outer wall of the watering pot at a corner. A cricket stopped chirping right in the middle of its monotonous note. The half-hidden moon came down behind the lemon shrubs and hid completely. And suddenly! Suddenly all the petals, red velvet in the light of night, together, fell off the roses. On the ground they fell, and dried, and in red dust flew up like a warning. At once there was a movement at the west wall surrounding the strange eerie garden. Three fingers, thin as a wolf’s tailbone, skinless as a withered twig, and black as a muddy pond appeared onto the edge of the wall. Close beside that, appeared two eyes- the deadliest and the wickedest pair of eyes ever. Each was whiter than the whitest dead body and in place of the coloured iris, there was a hole, which when looked at, seemed to allure one’s soul into it. Every bend of the garden became exposed under the cunning sight of those holey eyes. Then the fingers and eyes started to creep up the wall exposing a long lean body (if there was any) wrapped in a loose cloak, her hair hanging like a dead shrunken willow tree.

When she descended from the wall and her feet could be seen forming a horizontal line facing totally opposite directions, another movement began beneath the long eucalyptus tree. There was one more with her face stooping downwards, and eyes half closed. A muttering in a plaintive low tone with no pause between the indistinguishable words were coming out of her. In the next instance emerging at various corners of that cold inactive garden, stood three more of them. Each had different kind of unworldliness, yet they were all very very alike. When in slow steps they began to walk towards the centre of the garden and formed a small circle there, they seemed like uneven petals of a single dead smitten flower. Then they began their song…

Eehriee eehiree earth ishhh dreary

Sssshhh seeeh a witch ishhh sneery

Screech and hush a human deary

Eehriee eehriee earth ishhh dreary

…We arhhh comingh deary

...Comingh deary

“Whoooo ishhh ouhrrrr friend and foe?”, asked the holey eyed in a chilly whisper.

“A dead infant- tastyyyy blood, but lesssshh blood”, said a witch with mock despair in her last two shrill words.

“The eclipssse- deceptive hhh… deceptive hhh… ohhh deceptive hhh…”, hissed one vilely from her left.

One of the witches, bit short in height, a kite stuck in a nearby tree shadowing her face, said in a leering but muffled voice, “Me-en. I ha-a-ate the-em, bu-ut I e-a-at the-em.”

And the last one replied, “Nooohhh… The twilight whenhhh we arhhh mossshht powerful yet mossshht vulnerable.”

“Youhhh arhhh all wronggghhh”, shrieked the holey eyed witch. “It ishhh the Fire. Yessshhh the Fire. We werhhhe killeddd in it, we arhhh reborn from it. Fire ouhrrr friend Fire ouhrrr foe/ Let usss take ouhrrr Fiery vow.” The hint of laughter in her tone was mean as one of a wicked child.

“What vowww”, asked one, tilting her head dangerously.

Her fellow witch filled in, “I knowww… I knowww… Ruinnn ruinnn ruinnn/ Theirrrhhh little partyyyhhh thereee/ Ruinnn Halloween.”

Then the hissing voice- “Theyhhh sayhhh we hhh wicked, theyhhh sayhhh we hhh deadlyyyhhh. Yet hhh theyhhh dress hhh as us, mimic HHH US, MAKEHHH FUN HHH OF US SHHH SHHH SHHH.” She was hissing like a fire that had just burnt up several cities.

The witch who had a voice as if something was in her mouth suddenly began to shake. The shake grew violent and she burst into a hysteric laugh. Then as abruptly as the disturbance began, it stopped. And now when she spoke, there was something else in her voice. She was half-crying; though the sob, mixed with her undertone of longing and the strange muffledness was hardly able to evoke sympathy, rather it sounded horribly horrid-

“I I wa-a-as no no-ot a a wi-i-tch. The-e-ey ma-a-de me e wi wi-i-tch.”

The holey eyed slipped past other witches and reached behind the crying one. She moved her black shrivelled fingers past her waxlike forehead and eyes and lifted her face, exposing the source of that mysterious muffled voice. And in the slightest light of the hidden moon, growing slightly by the white flowers, the most horrible sight could be seen. The mouth of the short witch was open and a chopped hand was inside there, stopped in between the endeavour of tearing the two jaws apart.

The last tint of moonlight vanished as the moon went away in disgust. The garden was completely dark now- dark like those sinister customs of past, which even now lurked in some gloomy dens of civilization, dark like those hopeless screams coming out of every burning woman, accused of being a witch, the scream which became so ashamed when it saw the laughing faces of her tormentors that it deafened itself, dark like those horrible injustices before which the spookiest Halloween party would be deemed ridiculous!

The holey eyed stopped caressing the short witch and spoke with pause after her each vengeful word,

“None. offf. usss. wasss. witchhh. littllle. one. Theyhhh. made. usss. And. nowww. theyyy. will. burn, but. pity. aah, theyyy. will. not. be. reborn. likehhh. usss.”

The image of that strange garden was getting smaller and smaller as five cloaked women, all hands in hand, all different but extremely alike moved towards the grey house that was lit up by Halloween pumpkins, while reciting together,

Fire ouhrrr friend Fire ouhrrr foe

Let usss take ouhrrr Fiery vow

Fire ouhrrr friend Fire ouhrrr foe

Let usss take ouhrrr Fiery vow

Aaahhh...

Fire ouhrrr friend Fire ouhrrr foe

Let usss take ouhrrr Fiery vow

...