Witches In Circle

Ladies were standing in a circle saying words that didn’t make any sense to Laura’s ears. She had followed two women into the woods near her house thinking they knew a shortcut to the other side of the woods. No, they were standing in a circle grasping other women’s hands and muttering words that sounded like gibberish. Words that didn’t make any sense to her “Ohik Notman Didtn Seepe” or something like that. She wanted to go up to women and ask them what they were saying ,but something in the pits of her stomach told her to stay in the shadows as more women were arriving to join the circle. Maybe, it was a small group of women that was doing something from their past to bring in Halloween. Some type of enchantment that brings good luck to the children that would be out soon to enjoy the night’s fun times.

She hid in the shadows as the women looked up at the moon and called out their weird saying getting louder each time. One of the older women seem to be the leader as she was wearing a different more colorful dress than the other women. Her dress was made out of silk and had intriguing design of a dragon on her dress. The colors were black, blue, and purple that made the dragon look like it was ready to fly off of her slim body. The other witches’ dresses were a solid black with no special design on their dress which made them look plain compared to her dress.  The women of the circle didn’t act like they knew that Laura was watching them as they danced around the circle in the moonlight. She choked back laughter as she thought they may be witches doing some type of spells before they go out to hunt the children of the nearest town. Laura thought to herself that she shouldn’t watch, so many television shows and movies about Halloween time.

Thinking of several movies that she had watch this very evening before going out for her nightly walk, she knew that was probably prompting her imagination along the way to the gross department. She watched as one of the witches threw something into the fire which made it exploded with a life of its own.   Watching as colors started to do its own dance inside the fire which climbed higher and higher as if the fire was trying to wrestle its way up to the high heavens.  The fire was doing a dance of its own as if to memorize Laura and the other women into a hypnotized state of mind. Low at first with colors of different colors bursting inside the fire and then the fire would start to climb its way up to the sky with color bursting forth inside the fire as well as outside the fire.

 Cuddling lower in position, Laura felt in awe of the women and slightly afraid of what they might do if they found her hiding in the shadows. A few of the women had passed closely by her on their way to the circle of fire, no one really noticing her enough to cause her to come out of hiding. She was trying to breathing without causing any noise to have someone come looking where she was hiding. She was afraid of these women and what they would do to her if they found her hiding watching the little group of women that seemed to be growing in size as more and more women join their ranks.  Laura knew that she should get away from these women and go about her way to the party that she had been invited to. It was like she was glued to the spot and her body was frozen in time as she couldn’t bring herself to leave her hiding spot.

She sensed that the mood of the women had changed somehow, they weren’t dancing anymore. They were still in the circle, but not dancing anymore. They were holding hands and swaying back and forth to some invisible music that only they could hear. Laura tried straining her ears to pick up any notes of the music that they were hearing inside their heads. Quietly, she tried to move closer to the group to see if the music was just softer tune and she couldn’t hear the beat from where she was. Nothing, but empty air greeted her ears and the women were swaying as if some beat was moving their bodies. The mood was running high and wild nearer to the group of women which made Laura more nervous than anything. 

Laura thought about calling for help, but wasn’t too sure if she knew how to direction anyone to this spot. Creeping slowly and softly, she made her way to the edge of the woods where the women had entered. Turning back to the point where they had entered the woods, she tried to find her way back to the place where the women were dancing. She could hear noises off in the distances but wasn’t too sure if that was the women dancing again. Maybe, they had got to the point where they were dancing and calling out those weird sayings again. She got to the point where she had kneeled down on the ground, but the women were gone. Walking into the small clearing, she wondered what she had seen that night. She wondered where the women had gone, had they just disappeared into thin air.

Sensing that someone was near her, close enough to touch her, Laura slowly turned around to find one of the women from the circle standing there watching her. Watching her with intent of desire of knowing what she was up to and an intent of being afraid of Laura to the point of not knowing what she was going to do. Laura kept looking at her with an interest of asking her what she was doing at the point of the fire. Laura tried to smile at the woman to show her that she was friendly and meant her no harm. Taking one step toward the woman to close the gap between the twosome, Laura watched as a frightening look flashed over the woman’s face and soon followed by a puzzled look as if to question Laura on what she was doing there.

The silent between the two women was getting to the level of feeling suffocating and the body heat of the two women was heating the temperature of the air around them.  It was hot between the women and getting warmer as the minutes ticked off; Laura knew this woman didn’t mean her any harm which she wished that she could talk with the other woman. She had tried smiling and it seemed to puzzle her mind at what she was doing.  The other woman looked like that Laura meant her harm and would stop at nothing to do that. Why had she come back into the woods, she should have gone into town where her party was going on right now. She could be at a party with other people, enjoying herself and mingle with the townsfolk instead she had walked back into the woods. Now, she was standing in the woods looking eye to eye with a woman that didn’t look to happy that she had found Laura at the spot she had been dancing a few minutes ago.

Did she mean to harm Laura with some spell that she knew? They stood there gazing at each other as if to figure out who the other person was and what their intent was to the other woman.   Laura felt like some invisible hands were touching her, poking her, probing her to see what she was and what she was up to. Touching her softly and drawing back away from Laura as if she was afraid to poke her too hard. From where Laura stood, she could see the other woman’s hands moving in a way that suggested she was the one probing, poking her. Getting more afraid as the seconds ticked off, Laura was pretty sure she was in more harm’s way with this one woman than all the other women that had been dancing. 

Looking at her dress, she noticed the dragon was staring at her. She could feel the heat of the bad breath that the dragon would blow at her and the dragon’s eyes were going up one side of her to come down the other side. Was she in any harm standing here only few feet from the woman that had been in charge of the other woman? Did the dragon just move on her dress? Would the dragon be able to touch her with its powerful blast of heated air? She was too scared to run because the dragon would shot flames at her and hit her directly in the rump as she took the coward’s way out. She was too scared to just stand there saying nothing except, “Who are you? What are you?”

The other lady looked at Laura with a surprised look on her face before saying, “My name is Esmerdia and I am witch from the past that has come forward. What are you? Who are you?”  Esmerdia didn’t know what to do or how to act toward this strange lady standing in their circle of dancing. She would have been on her way home to the past if she hadn’t remember that she forgot her bag of charms that one of the other witches had given her.  She wanted to grab her charms and be on her way home instead she got stopped by some strange creature that was asking questions about the situation that was happening between the twosomes.

“My name is Laura and I am a woman of the race of human beings. You aren’t a witch, witch are fantasy for fairy tales. So who are you and what are you?” Pausing to let that sink in that she didn’t believe in witches and werewolf which were just fantasy made up for fairy tales. She continued by saying, “Oh, you mean you are in costume as a witch for Halloween. What was that dance you and the other so-called witches were doing?”  Realization went across the other lady’s face as she knew without a doubt that Laura had seen the circle and the dance. Grabbing the bag of charms off the ground, Esmerdia nodded to Laura before disappearing in front of Laura’s eyes. She heard Laura say, “Hey, what is going on?”

Esmerdia laughed at the notion that there were no witches and knew that Laura would be surprised to find out that she was a witch. Laura’s grandmother and aunt had been witches that participate in the ring of dance many years before they had passed on to go to the High Heavens. The ring of dance was only for women and it was two nights ahead of Halloween, the day when little children dressed up as someone that they wished to be.  Esmerdia liked the idea that most of the little girls wanted to witches because she loved being a witch of the past. All she wanted to know is why did all the witches look ugly with a wart on their nose?