A Soul to Take

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. The air is crisp and fresh. I love to watch the leaves fall from the trees with such beautiful colors. My favorite holiday is Halloween.

I live in an old 1800s home in a very secluded area. I also have no neighbors. There is a lonely dirt road that leads to my home. Needless to say, I have never had a trick-or-treater. That is okay by me though. I make my own Halloween.

My home and yard are decorated to the max. I also have a yearly costume contest for all my adult friends. Everyone loves seeing the latest addition to my decorated house and yard. I plan for this year to be one of the best years I have ever had.

What no one knows is that my family goes as far back as the colonial days. I have heard many family stories about the witch trials where we were murdered. Yes, you guessed it. I am a witch and so were all the women before me in my family. It is not something that anyone knows for sure and I will never tell. My pet is a very beloved black Persian cat. She is my loyal companion and protector. She is my familiar. She sees and hears all that happens around me. She gives me energy and calms me.

For each Halloween season, I always start my outside decorating with pumpkins. I do not just go and buy them on the side of the road or in a store. No, no. I love to actually go to the pumpkin patch and find the perfect pumpkins that I will carve myself and surround my home. The pumpkins have to be perfect for their evil faces that I will carve into them and then light. My pumpkin flames never die until I am ready for them to go dark. Part of the wonderful art of magic.

I spent many nights carving my pumpkins. There are about fifty or so pumpkins in all. The scarier their faces the better I like. They just look evil when they are lit for all to see. You may think that fifty pumpkins would take forever to carve but they do not since I have nothing else to occupy my time other than spells and forecasting futures. I have my own business as a fortune teller. No one realizes that I actually know what is coming for them. Being a witch has its advantages. Always knowing what is coming and being able to heal as well. I hate to say that I have put many curses on a number of my enemies. Those are so much fun. People are clueless about what is happening to them, but I do. Pays not to make an enemy of mine. I have started doing less and less healing and leaning toward the darker side of my craft to keep my powers strong and my youth.

The outside of my home is very decorated as well as the inside of my home. You already know of all the pumpkins, but there is so much more. I acquired a nine-foot air-inflated skeleton that glows in the dark last season and will use it again this year. Very eerie looking as you drive up my 2-mile driveway and are greeted with the skeleton. You just do not know what else you are about to encounter.

Around the exterior of the home, I have a cemetery filled with headstones. People do not realize that these headstones came from some incredibly old cemeteries. I have moved them to my home over many years. Most of the cemeteries have been long forgotten. This is my little way of bringing them back to life, not really to life.

I am 90 years old. I have the appearance of a 20-year-old woman. That is the power of being a witch and a curse that was put upon me when I was a little girl. No one ever told me how conniving I would have to be to keep my youthful appearance.

The headstones are placed in several areas to portray vast cemeteries. I put a spell on the yard to create a never-ending fog over the cemetery. Very scary and amusing to me to see the reactions that people have when they come within sight of the yard and house. I just love to see the look of horror on all their faces. Makes for such a good night for the costume party.

I have ghosts floating around the yard. The actual bones are from their real graves. No one knows that these are very real spirits that I have called to appear each year. If I were a normal person, I would be terrified to get out of my vehicle. I a sure that I have had a few potential guests tuck their tails and run in the other direction. I let the spirits in the cemetery act as they want. I only ask them not to hurt one of the spectators, at least until the party is over. Just one of my many spells that I cast for this special season.

The inside of my house is also decorated for the occasion. I always make sure that my spell room is locked as well as my many potions. That is all I need for my secret to get out. I remember from my ancestors what happened to witches. We may not be burned at the stake or drowned anymore, but there are so many other ways to kill our spirit.

My downstairs is decorated as an eerie castle. I have vampires, witches, and many other horror characters all around the rooms. The lighting is of red and green hue depending on which monster is on display. I have called all my scary friends who are willing to come for their pleasure and pretend to be just characters. They love the chance to scare people and take one or more victims later in the night of the party.

Dracula has his coffin that he stays in during the day. He comes out when the day turns into the night for our party. My werewolf friend is the hardest of all my friends to control. He always ends up turning several people into werewolves during the party. He just cannot be controlled when he changes form. I should not invite him to any of my future parties, but I just cannot seem to refuse him in his pleasures.

Several of my witch friends also joined us for the night. They have their cauldrons and potions for the spells that they cast onto the unsuspecting guests. I find the behavior amusing and let them do their bidding. As long as I get what I need by the end of the night, to each their own as far as I am concerned.

At about nine at night, the guests start arriving. The costumes this year are great. The costumes have gotten better and better over the decades. People look like the creatures that they are portraying.

There is a contest every year for the best costume at the end of the party. They think that they are going to get a big reward for their efforts. Little do they know what they are really in store for. Amusing and gullible is how people can be when they think that they are going to win something.

We have an apple bobbing barrel that is filled with bright green and red apples. There is a special apple in that barrel for one person who is the luckiest to find that apple. A spell will be cast upon them. That person who finds the lucky apple will age exceedingly faster than normal. Their younger bodies will nourish mine for as many years as their human body survives.

Everyone seems to have an excellent time. There is plenty to imbibe in and plenty to eat. I circulate the room to make everyone feel at ease. I am also looking at all the costumes and people in them to make my choice of who will be the sacrifice tonight. They have no clue that they really do not want to win my contest.

At 11:00 in the evening, we will be choosing our costume winner. I have to have the soul by midnight. After that, I will have to wait another year for a chance to take another would. I really do not want to wait and so far, I have never had to prolong my process. Keeping my fingers crossed that this will be another good year for me.

There are so many characters to choose from this year. We have a witch, vampire, Frankenstein, Red Riding Hood, a doctor and nurse couple, serial killers, pumpkins, ghouls, and so many more to choose from. I am having a really tough time deciding and time is starting to run out for me.

After much debate, I have chosen the witch as my winner. And no not because I am a witch. She just really was convincing. Her makeup was done with a mole on her nose. Her dress was long and black and flowing around her body. She had a gat that was just like my hat. She also had her broomstick to ride. I will say that my broomstick is more authentic than hers, but it was still good.

She had a poisonous apple in one hand that she had gotten out of the barrel. That would be awful if she were to take a bite of that apple before midnight. I am not sure that I will recover my youth at all but instead perish from being so very old. That just wouldn't work for me.

I announced the winner, she didn't seem surprised that she had won the contest at all. She is told that she has to wait for everyone to leave to collect her prize. She seems more than okay with my rules. I tell her that her prize is incredibly special and for her eyes only.

After everyone leaves, I call her to come before me to my cauldron so that she can claim her reward for her fantastic costume. She comes forward and I tell her that this year is the best so far for the prize. I asked her does she wanted to lay her broom and apple down so that her hands were free to get her prize. She tells me that she is fine and will continue to possess her belongings.

I tell her that is fine by me. As she walks towards me, she starts to laugh in a shrill tone and tells me that her costume is real and she often wears it for occasions such as my party. She keeps hysterically laughing. She tells me she is a powerful witch with souls to take. She is a beautiful woman indeed. I would love to steal her beauty and youth. She has thrown me a curve. I can already tell this isn't going to end well for me this year.

She tells me that the apple in her hand is indeed the apple that she retrieved from the barrel that I had placed in the room. She tells me that she is also over one hundred years old and that she has heard that the winners of my yearly contest never return to their normal lives. No one knew of their destiny. She knew the prize because she also needed to capture a soul for her youthful age. She told me that she intended to gain her soul tonight instead of me.

As she approached me, she took a small bite of the poisonous apple knowing that she had already placed her own spell upon the fruit. She knew that she would not perish or go into a never-ending sleep from partaking of the apple. She laughed so hard seeing the look on my face knowing that my end was near.

When she bit into the apple, I felt the life drain out of me and I fell into a deep sleep. Sleep was the curse that I had put on the apple. I would remain in the comas for as long as she wanted, my body failed me, or until a soul she could take. My well-thought-out plan of many years has backfired on me. She would remain a beautiful woman and not me.

The End