HALLOWEEN TALE: a mouthful of pins.

 

I sat on the rough earth steps that led up to the rolling moor, and the dark hills above that. I had a bottle in my hand, I always had a bottle in my hand nowadays - alcohol dulled my senses. It never truly took away the fear - nothing can do that, but the alcohol made me lazy, forgetful, casual.

The village left me alone since I stopped trying to hide my drinking, they avoided me, I was touched. I had been touched by something on the moor, and that was that. It was not something to be passed to another, but mine alone.

So I sat, one hand trembling on my knee, the other clutching hopelessly at the neck of a narrow bottle, dark bitter liquid lolling around in mock cheerfulness. 

I'd been up on the moor alone, like I'd been told many a time not to. But it had been daylight, a morning when the sun was up, the clouds were light, and the sky was a powder blue. What could happen?

I'd followed one of the narrow winding pathways across the moor, just as always. Paths were frequent, criss-crossing each other through the heather. It was just a pathway. This one dipped and fell into a hollow, filled with a clutch of tangled hawthorn - fairy trees. I didn't remember seeing anything on the moor but isolated hawthorns, but the moor could play tricks on your eyes as well as your memory. So I shrugged and moved in amongst the trees, their limbs catching at my jacket as I strolled along the path.

There was a silence here, some would call it eerie, but I preferred to call, it strange - strange I could live with, easily.

As I moved further into the trees, I had the unsettling feeling that they were becoming thicker, denser. I peered either side of me and realised that I could no longer see the moor. From the outside there had only been a handful of small hawthorns, but here, here it seemed like a forest of darkness.

I stopped, looked back to where I had come from, the pathway had disappeared, lost amongst the trees. I looked forward, but here the pathway continued clear and unhindered. I looked back, forward, all around me. Was I lost? Had I entered the woodland whilst daydreaming? No. I remembered only moments ago walking through the heather in clear sunshine. I mentally shifted my 'strange' to 'weird' and continued walking.

There was no longer any sound from the outside world, I couldn't even see the open sky anymore. The hawthorn limbs stretched across the pathway, linking themselves into a thick, impenetrable archway.

As I walked, the wood got darker, the silence now a presence in itself. I picked up the pace, started to run, looking for the end of the wood, looking for the sturdiness of the moor at the other end.

I was a fool to run, but a panic that had started in my gut, raced up to my heart, emptied my lungs, dried my mouth. I flew with a blindness along the pathway that seemed to go on forever forward. I ran with no thought but escape, escape into the outer world, the world of cars and phones, of laughter and gossip. I needed out, now! And then I tripped, fell spread-eagled, the wind knocked out of me.

I took a moment to recover, then looked around me. I was in a small clearing. I picked myself up, found myself kneeling on green grass, the greenest most luxuriant grass I'd ever seen. The grass formed a perfect circle, with the hawthorn trees of the wood surrounding, but never breaking into the circle.

I tried to steady my nerves, tried to think of something to calm me, but everything was just too strange, to stupidly weird. And then I noticed someone standing in front of me. A boy. No, a man, but small, only a little taller than me as I was kneeling.

I tried to stand, but felt that I couldn't, shouldn't. I stared as the small man, perfectly formed, slender, dainty even. He cocked his head as if curious. He wore a suit; the type you see in all those old Robin Hood films. But his was as startlingly green as the grass he stood on, as if they were one and the same. His skin shone as if it were burnished gold, and his eyes - as gold as his skin, danced with an ill-concealed mischief.

He held out a hand, long-fingered, as if to help me up. I felt hesitant, but gripped his hand as if I was meant to. As he was helping me up, I saw him grin, a grin so wide that I could see every one of his silver sharpened teeth, so sharp, it was as if he had a mouthful of pins. And then, as he pulled me close with a strength that I wouldn't have thought him able - I whimpered...

And that's it. I woke on the moor, naked and cold, my clothes scattered about me in a perfect circle. I ached all over, I soon realised why, I had scratches and bite marks all over my skin, many were layered on top of each other, all made with the sharpest of pins.

I had been away for months; I forget how many now. I've never been back to the moor, never looked for the hawthorn wood, but I want to, I am forever drawn towards it. I stay close to the village, lock my doors and windows at dusk. The village avoids me, I've been touched, the evidence is clear. My skin has a light golden sheen to it, my fingers are long and thin, but my eyes don't hide any mischief in them, only fear.

I took a swig from the bottle clutched in my hand. I cursed as the glass clacked across my silver sharpened teeth. Teeth so sharp, they are like having a mouthful of pins.