BEST HALLOWEEN EVER

BEST HALLOWEEN EVER

By: Janis Van Meter

Everything was ready for the ritual. I had just finished setting up the extreme Halloween party that my friends and I had been planning for weeks. I’m Bridgette Ryan, aka, Egghead or Egg for short. As my nick name implies, I’m an over achiever and will be graduating for college in three years instead of the normal four. My Major is English with a Minor in Historical Studies of Ireland. Ireland has been a passion of mine since I could talk. My grandparents are Irish immigrants that still have a strong Irish brogue. They had filled my childhood with stories from their homeland. Their exciting tales were woven with colorful Faeries, Leprechauns, Witches and Celtic/Irish traditions. For graduation they were rewarding me with a trip to Ireland with them. They couldn’t have picked a better gift for me.

My parents own a secluded cabin about 25 miles Southeast of San Antonio. This area is heavily wooded with a mix of several kinds of tall, thick trees. There’s a nice clearing that we use for camping inside the woods. It’s not too far from the cabin. At least we’ll have access to the bathroom. Hey, we’re girls!  The bonfire will be in the middle of a large circle of boulders that my dad had transported in years ago so we could safely have campfires or bonfires there. I set up a large folding table and even splurged for a black plastic table cloth and some dollar store, brought a half barrel that was an old whiskey barrel and filled it with water. We were going to bob for apples. A large cooler was placed beside it to hold our drinks. I had filled it with ice, soft drinks, bottles of water and bottles of tea. The girls were bringing the food and Natalie was bringing some external speakers for her cell phone. She said she found some kind of Medieval witch music. I have no idea what she found but it sounds fun. I finished the decorations by hanging lots of twinkle lights in the low branches around the clearing.

The girls pulled up just as I had finished changing into my costume. I had chosen a long, black, tattered skirt with a burnt orange peasant top. My waist was cinched in by a leather lace up corset that allowed some breathing. We laughed and chatted about all of the accessories that everyone had chosen, especially the head pieces and scarves that we wore. Ava definitely won for most unusual. She had crafted a straw headpiece shaped like a deer head. It was amazing. All of our costumes were true to the 9^th Century.

We carried the food items they had brought to the clearing and we finished setting up. Liam came out and graciously lite the bonfire for us. It was warm and inviting on the chilly fall evening. We all took some photos of the decorated area and of us posing in a variety of very unprofessional modeling positions showing off our elaborate costumes. Becca, always the thoughtful one, had brought a couple of flashlights for our trips in the dark to the cabinet when necessary.  Natalie started the Celtic music paylist from her cell phone. The speakers worked great. We were surrounded by the soft music from a flute in a slow haunting melody. Natalie said she had the perfect music set up separately for later when we do the ritual. I passed out some little bells. I called jingle bells that could be pinned to our skirts. They made a happy tinkling noise everywhere we went.

We were all hungry so we decided to dig into the feast the girls had brought. I loaded up a plate of sandwiches, chips, a pickle and dug a soft drink out of the cooler. The girls did the same. We sat on some tree stumps that my family had used as seats for years. We chatted about our classes, about boyfriends current and about past. Of course, being the future leaders of the world, we discussed appropriate fashions. This was but, such good friends. 

It’s now around 10:00 PM. We had been carried away with our conversations for several hours. With tummies full and a break in our conversation, I decided to explain the ritual and I passed out a piece of paper to each of them that contained an ancient chant, or so it claimed on a website I’d found. Supposedly, a coven of 9^th century witches, headed by Beollan, used this chant which guaranteed a good harvest to farmers providing food and grain to local townspeople. I walked them through how we were supposed to dance around the bonfire while chanting the words on the paper they had while jingling the bells on their skirts enthusiastically. We were supposed to repeat the chant three times while circling the bonfire. 

We all took our places around the bonfire ae Natalie started the special ritual music she had found. I have to admit, this music was extremely creepy. We all were a little surprised until Natalie said, “ok Egg, let’s do this!” I snapped out of my brain freeze and started around the circle dancing, jingling the bells and chanting.  The others followed. At first we were bumping into each other until we established a rhythm. Our chant began a little softly until we all became more comfortable with the words.

Wise one of the waning-moon,

Goddess of the Starry night,

We create the fire with your energies,

May energies go from darkness to light

Provide us a bountiful harvest from this night

Oh goddess, we ask of thee

Oh goddess. we ask of thee

Oh goddess, we ask of thee

(repeated three times)

We finished the chant and continued our dance until the strange song ended with several loud booms of some kind of drum.

 When the song was over, we all stopped and decided to get another drink and take a little break from the energetic dancing. Taking our places back on the stumps, we were silent for a minute or two. Sherry finally broke the silence and said, “damn, that was very weird even for us! We all laughed and released some of the tension that the dance and chant had created. 

Ava was looking around and out into the darkness and asked, “so what’s supposed to happen now?

We’re supposed to receive some kind of sign from the Celtic Witch that this chant belonged to. Don’t hold your breath because this chant came off the internet, remember? We decided to just eat the apples instead of bobbing for them and mess up our awesome makeup. We all picked an apple. Just a we were sitting on our stumps, we heard a loud crack, something you hear with lightening. We all looked up but there was not a cloud in the sky. Another “Crack” followed by a loud boom sounded. We immediately jumped up and formed a group clutching each other while looking all around and out into the darkness. Ava let out a scream! We all looked in the direction she was facing. There glowing brightly just to our left was a black shadow that was shimmering and moving as if it was changing shape.

My mouth was suddenly so dry that I had no spit and found it difficult to speak. Sherry passed out cold and Becca bent down to check on her. The rest of us just stood frozen with mouths gapping open. The image finished twitching and swirling as it formed an old woman dressed in clothing very much like we wore.

She looked at us from a wrinkled face with a thin crooked mouth with only a few blackened teeth. She had a tiny frame that appeared to be all bones from her appendages that were visible.

In a screeching voice that was more like a hiss she asked, “what coven hath invited me to this festival?”

“Um. I guess we did,” I replied with a soft quivering voice. 

“Where are the children? We need three to finish our spell?” she asked.

“Children? Why do we need children?” I asked as I was racking my brain, trying to remember what I had learned about Beollan. Before she could answer, I remembered that in her spells she was known to have used certain internal organs of children to make her spells more powerful. I managed to keep from throwing up.

She was startled and unhappy that this coven was not familiar with her spell. She pointed a long, boney finger at us. At the end of this finger was a ball of fire.

“Egg, what’s going on? What do we do? This was not planned, right?” Becca asked clearly shaken as all of the girls were with the witch’s presence in front of us.

I nervously replied, “The chant we spoke must have been real. I’m so sorry. This is not good. Let’s walk around the bonfire in a circle and dance a little while I think of something. 

“Beollan, we were not expecting you so soon, let us honor you with a dance from our coven,” I said hoping to stall for some time.

She seemed pleased with that and lowered her arm. We wasted no time forming our circle and Ava started the playlist again, careful not to play the one we played during the chant.

Beollan said "what magic is that? “

I realized she had no idea what a cell phone or our source for our music was. “That’s a magic instrument that we’ve summoned for this gathering.”

She seemed in awe of the cell phone but turned back to watch us dance. She even tapped her foot to the music.

I whispered to Becca. “Water! Tell Sherry and tell her to pass the message forward. Becca seemed to understand and did as I asked. Sherry did the same and so on around the circle until all the girls heard the message.  The music stopped and I began to wave my arms in the air in a willowy motion and calmly walked to the barrel filled with water. I started humming Jingle Bells slowly because it was the only song I could think of at the moment. The girls did the same as we formed a tight circle around the barrel. As they continued humming, I said, “on three everyone grab hold to the sides of the barrel and throw the water on the witch. They looked a little confused but never missed a beat as I proceeded counting. “One two, threeeee!”

The barrel was heavy from the weight of the water but we were so scared the adrenaline had kicked in and we lifted it easily. We were all still humming so Beollan didn’t seem to think it was anything other than part of our ritual. We tossed all of the water in one swift motion and it landed on target, Beollan’s head and water flowed down her face and over her enter body.

She screamed and ran in tight little circles. She seemed to be in real pain which concerned me but only for a second. She screamed and hissed, “what have you done? You witches will be sorry…..” she didn’t have time to complete her threat. Poof, she disappeared in a puff of smoke. Nothing was left in the spot where she had stood except a puddle of water on the ground.

We hugged each other, jumped up and down, while crying then laughing. We collapsed into an exhausted pile on the ground. “Egg, how did you know how to get rid of that horrible hag?” Becca asked as we all were trying to regain our composure. I began to explain.

First of all, I’m so sorry that she appeared like she did. I thought a sign was going to be like a butterfly or some leaves falling, something harmless like that. I never dreamed the ritual and the chant were real. I remembered from my reading that Beollan had been tried and found guilty of practicing witchcraft so the villagers drowned her in a pond in the year 974. Once they were sure she was dead, they left her face down, floating in the water and they returned to town. Several of her coven members were hiding nearby and managed to revive her. After that, she was terrified of water. All I knew was that she was afraid of water. We just got lucky when it got rid of her.

We gathered up some of our things, doused the fire that was almost out anyway. Back in the cabin we felt warm and safe with electric lights and locks on the doors. As we all were getting ready for bed, we all agreed that this was the most terrifying experience any of us had ever experienced. We also vowed that for future Halloween’s we would just hand out candy to children dressed in Halloween costumes. 

We were all about to go to sleep when Ava, drowsily said, “this is the best Halloween ever!” We all moaned and in one swift movement threw pillows at Ava.