Blood Moon

A wealthy collector, named Henry Gibbs, didn't know what he would unleash on the New World when he left the old one.

He'd realized that the Old World held no more opportunity for him, no more wealth to amass or titles to accumulate, so with adventure on his mind, he packed up his belongings and set off.

He travelled by way of ship, those stinking floating, coffins of the sick, ill, and some healthy. Among Gibbs' treasured possessions was his wife, whom he loved quite dearly.

Agata was a kind woman, who knew from her grandmothers the art of herbs and humble magicks. The tricks she's once used to make Henry calming tea was turned towards their sickly travelling companions.

And no matter how much Henry forbade her, Agata always ended up cradling some screeching, fevered baby, the only one able to soothe them.

While tending to the ailing, screaming children, Agata too fell ill on the ship, which creaked and shook with the echoes of coughing and last breaths.

As she faded, coughing and turning, Henry couldn't bear to part with her. Or the corpse of this third child, still safely entombed in her stomach.

A child that would never know anything but fraught seas, panic, and the smell of sickness.

So Henry placed her body in their large, locked trunk, and hid her in his expensive cabin, far from the suspicious crew and worried passengers.

Each day another body was hurled overboard, into the jaws of the hungry sea creatures that trailed behind these vulture-infested ships.

All Henry remembered was her terror. Agata had been so terrified to travel and had reluctantly agreed to Henry's cajoling.

She felt cursed, like the New World held unknown horrors, but Henry dismissed it.

Now, alone on the cold deck, listening to the screaming of the wind instead of her gentle tones, he wished he'd chosen to stay. He was determined that she should at least be buried in the ground of their promised home.

Unfortunately for Henry, the plague didn't spare even the most well-intentioned, and he'd likely caught it when they'd last spoken, kissing poison off the lips of his dying wife.

Looters cared not for wealth, nor curses, and distributed Henry's things the second they made port. The locked chest was thought to contain the most priceless things, so it was carted off by the highest bidder, who snuck it away on a train.

The trains were new and carried only a few, so the looter managed to wrestle the chest to the far corners of it, trying unsuccessfully each key that had rested on Gibbs' belt.

During the night, as the train rattled through the country, the looter took a spade to the sea-greened lock, hitting and hitting until it burst open.

Instantly, the smell flooded the train, and the looter retched, staring at the contents, aghast.

A decaying woman's body, wrapped in a black gown, lying half curled atop clothes and finery.

The looter, versed in the arcane and mysterious, knew better than to touch her, but wealth was a far stronger motivator.

With a look to ensure that no one was watching, the looter quickly tossed the crumbling, leaking body off the train, as well as some of the more stained clothes.

The body rolled, harshly, away from the tracks, tumbling down hills.

It came to a stop, one hand resting half-curled in the grass, skin greyed and half gone.

In the distance, the light of a quiet, sleeping town and its glowing chimneys stood in pale competition with the overbearing, viciously bright moon.

The moon hungrily traced over the rotted, desiccated flesh. It glowed as the Fell witch's eyes snapped open.

The New World held many things, many secrets, and this was one.

Slowly, the witch staggered up, unburied, unholy.

She set her lizard-like eyes on the village, slowly making her way down gently sloping hills to it.

Everyone slept, safe in the knowledge that this world, was still safer than the one they'd fled.

There were less people, fewer poor, and fewer murderers.

For now.

The day was Samhain, and the butchered corpses of pumpkins ay strewn on the fields, each mutilated with a carved face.

The line between the dead and living had torn.

The witch stretched her fingers out, kneeling to pick up a knife lying in the whispering grass. It gleamed, liquid and dangerous under the thirsty, eager moon.

The house was quiet and asleep, and the witch entered easily.

She went to each floor, considering the family, considering the little ones, wrapped in their beds.

Agata Gibbs had come with life to the New World. The witch she'd become, brought only death.

Each child and member of the family was slaughtered, instantly, brutally. Agata swept through each room, silent, vicious, the plague of death unleashed.

In the last room sat a child, murmuring things under her breath as she rubbed the remnants of a nightmare from her eyes.

"Child." Agata crooned, ensconced in a dark corner of the room. "Are you afraid?"

The little one peered nervously into the darkness and shook her little face. "No. 'S just a nightmare." The r squeezed into a faulty w, and Agata smiled.

She glided forward, knowing that in this dark room, the child couldn't see her.

"Go to sleep." Agata whispered, tracing one rounded cheek with her hand. "I promise, you won't have any nightmares anymore."

The child shuddered. "Cold."

"Many apologies, little one." Agata chuckled, her ruined, rotted vocal cords rasping on the words. She gently brought the blanket up to the child's chin. "Sleep tight. And hold on even tighter to life."

The child blinked, frowning a little, before turning over and closing her eyes.

Agata hummed, drifting away and out of the house. She discarded the knife on the grass, the blood spilling onto the dancing, greedy grasses.

The train had come again, rattling and whistling. Agata climbed back on board.

As the train sighted upon another town, she climbed off, drifting again to find another knife, another family.