Witching Hour

The sky was dark over the town of Summerville. Black clouds, rolling in their thickness, provided a barrier between the light of the stars and moon and the sleepy town that laid before them. On a typical night, the children would be tucked away in their beds and the darkness would hide the occasional straggler slipping through the streets to an unknown destination.

It was no matter, though, for the town wasn’t sleeping tonight.

The streets and sidewalks on every corner were lit by porch lights that exposed carved pumpkins, dangling hairy spiders, and skeletons that danced in the breeze. A countless number of nameless creatures ran and laughed through the streets, stopping at every door to collect their bounty before flying off to the next. 

Scoping eyes were everywhere tonight: behind the curtains of the next house in line, in the parents trailing the creatures, and within the masks of the creatures themselves. It was easy to blend into the organized chaos, but harder to pretend that one belonged.

A small form could be seen making its way past the busy streets and into a quieter part of the neighborhood, where fewer lights could expose one’s identity. Her cloak drug the ground as she approached the meeting place, and she didn’t bother to smooth the curly black hair away from her face as the wind whipped it all around her. She had business to take care of.

The cloaked figure flinched as the gate swung forward, squeaking loudly and possibly alerting half the town to her location. She gathered up her cloak and hurried into the clearing, leaving the streets and holiday fun behind her.

“You’re late.” 

The others were already there, three more shadows in black cloaks, all standing around an equally black cauldron. Their faces were solemn in the darkness.

“Sorry, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t followed.” Tara said quietly.

She stepped forward to take her spot, filling the gap in the circle around the cauldron. As she closed the circle, a hush seemed to fall over them at the importance of their meeting. The tallest one, the leader, lowered her hood and examined the three others with searing blue eyes.

“Did you bring the ingredients?” 

Her voice was low,  commanding, and she gazed at each of them in turn until they had all nodded in agreement. Black bulging bags were retrieved from the insides of their cloaks, dark enough to conceal their contents. The leader nodded at the girl on her left, giving her permission to start.

The witch lowered a hand into her bag and enclosed around the object she was looking for. 

“Eye of rabbit.” She whispered, and let the contents drop into the cauldron.

Tara stood to her left and followed in turn, retrieving the next ingredient from her stash.

“Bat wings.” She said clearly before adding them to the pot.

They went around the circle, each stating their contributions before allowing them to fall into the darkness of the cauldron’s mouth.

“Tiger claws.”

“Crow feathers.”

“Nightshade.”

“Spider eggs.”

“Unicorn horn.”

Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. The objects were submitted to the pot one by one, until the leader nodded that it was sufficiently filled. The girls stowed the almost empty bags behind them before facing forward once again.

A buzz seemed to fill the air as the witches looked around at each other, trying not to grin maniacally at what came next. This was the fun part. This was the reason they had agreed to meet and share all of their hard work as one.

“Join hands, sisters.” The leader commanded.

Their hands were cool and a bit clammy from the brisk October night, and Tara envisioned for a moment that she was joining hands with a group of corpses. She squeezed their hands slightly and was met with a soft squeeze in return. Not corpses, then. Just her sister witches who were as excited to be here as she was.

Hands clasped, the girls began to slowly walk in a circle around the cauldron, granting the leader the honor of setting the pace.

“Hagoo tromen rilo wormin!”

The leader began to chant as they stepped, slowly building in volume and speed. The others quickly joined in, adding their own chants to the mix and creating a strange song of unfamiliar words that might be recognized on an alien planet.

“Rono prowlock tuto brallock!”

“Yalley vainey oolew janie!”

“Mallow frojog kalhow walog!”

The witches’ faces were alight with pleasure as they continued to spout nonsense into the night. Tara didn’t suppress her giggle as she noticed the mole on the leader’s face, which had become smudged and was now smeared across her nose. 

The girls began jumping and galloping around the circle as they maintained the steady stream of chanted words, which were becoming less and less words at all and had evolved into simple vowel enunciations and eventually guttural shrieks. 

They were all rolling on the ground laughing when the backyard bulb flipped on, flooding them all in yellow light.

“Becky! It’s getting late, you kids need to come in now and get ready for bed!” Mrs. Long was standing on the deck in her bathrobe and slippers, beckoning the children inside with a sweep of her hand.

The witches stared up at her from their places on the ground before busting out in laughter again. Their black cloaks were soaked from the midnight dew and their teeth chattered as they made their way inside and disposed of their costumes. 

As they warmed themselves up with hot cocoa and prepared for a slumber party at Becky’s house, the clouds outside began to dissipate. The orange harvest moon hung in all of its glory and fullness in the sky, and shone down on the black cooking pot Mrs. Long had lent her daughter and friends to play with for the night.

In the breezy Autumn air, the moonlight flickered on the Reese’s cups, M&M’s and all the other candy wrappers filling the black pot. For a moment, the orange light bent over the foil wrappings and created a flickering fire in the cauldron, worthy to brew any witch’s potion. The wind carried an echo of the girls’ chanting, and together they swirled in the Halloween night before the backyard light was flipped off and the moon retreated behind its blanket of clouds.