Young Hallow's Eve

The stones fell.

They made a pitter-patter sound as the year passed in darkness. Wind blew with a chilly hand. It was almost time for her wake. The cobblestones crumbled from the walls of her home like rain did fall from the sky.

She rose from the ground and rubbed her eyes surveying the walls of cobblestone that had tumbled from the rain and wind and snow and sun. She stood up without thinking. Like a phantom she hovered to the walls, now no taller than her waist, past the hole in the ground in which she laid dormant for a year.

Nothing had changed from her slumber. She hoped that something, this Autumn, something would be different. Nothing was wrong, O nothing! The leaves had donned their Fall colors: yellows, oranges, reds, and browns; the trees and animals were busy preparing for their slumbers, and the ravens sung to her their droning caws alerting the whole forest that she had awakened.

Young Hallow was the youngest of her kind. Samhain, All Hallow's Eve, Hallow's Even, and Hallowe'en were all older than she. A child, at 456 years old, that had neither the age or experience as Samhain, which may be more than the age of eleven hundred years. They had teased her with the name "Hallo-wean."

Young Hallow sat with her knees tucked into her chest at the feet of a great, black oak and waited. Soon, the leaves shifted with scratching from a rat at her side.

"Hello, friend. What news have you for me?" She said using her index finger to stroke the back of the gray rat's head. She lifted it to her face. It fixed its tiny red eyes on hers seemingly to tell her that the season is here. The Spirit World and Earth are so close now they could almost touch. . . !

There is much work to be done. She knows. It was routine for the past four centuries. But there was another sound in these woods. Not the songbirds who would soon migrate, not the falling leaves or the moaning trees, not the ravens, not the stones, and not the rat - who had already left. She knew these sounds, and the creatures who made them.

Young Hallow erected and followed the sounds to their source.

Humans. They always came bearing strange things.

One, a girl who must be no more than twelve, which on the crown of her head rested a band; red with black stripes. Hemispheres of a mechanical nature were pressed firmly to either ear. She produced a device from her denim pocket and it was attached to her head by a split white chord. Her beloved composers, commanded by she, at once played her favorite tunes.

The second, a boy, maybe three or four years older than the girl, motioned for her to hurry along with him. She continued at her laggardly pace. He jumped over a felled tree rotting of water-soaked bark. He did not seem to mind as he inhaled the scents of all the forest. The boy wore a sporty blue and white jacket and sewn in was the name of his school.

Their faces were fair and pink. She had grown fine, long brown hair. Her brother was a short, coarse, strawberry blonde.

Standing atop a boulder, he turned as to look at his sister.

"Would you move like you have some purpose?" He said with his brows flattened.

"Why?" She said finally taking her eyes of the device she constantly flicked. She extended her arm outward with her palm pointed up. "Where are you taking me anyway?"

"We would've been there already if you were actually moving."

They further disappeared into the hazy brown fog, the muck of decaying leaves and grasses clinging to the soles of their shoes. Young Hallow became a raven and followed them, gliding and perching upon the sickly, black branches when they left her sight.



The boy hunched over, struggling to lift the cobblestone, as it was one great in heft.

He piled a few stones vertically as to repair the walls of her resting place. Perhaps by trying to reconstruct what nature has taken, could he then imagine what might have stood here centuries ago. The girl indeed followed her brother into the ruins. She only touched lightly the crumbling walls as to not compromise their tenuous stability. Young Hallow watched them as they navigated the various chambers like a maze, finally arriving at the central bedchamber of a cottage sometime completed in the year 1550. There was a pit close to the corner.

"When did you find this?" The girl said, at last her skepticism answered by a true destination; the ruins.

"Zach and I found it poking around in the woods yesterday after school." He said testing the boundaries of the mouth of the hole.

"Figures. . ." Said she. "Get away before you fall in." In her voice was an absence of concern, but her eyes did not leave the back of her brother.

Young Hallow crept so near the boy she feared that they would see her, but she was not visible unless she wanted to be. Young Hallow peered just behind him to see what was it that so seized his curiosity. It was tempting to push him. She had always loved mischief, but she did not.

"AH!" The boy wailed. The girl so sharply inhaled it sounded like a shriek in itself. Young Hallow foolishly stowed deep in the sod.

The prevailing silence hushed them . . . until the boy laughed having never fallen at all.

"Idiot!" Lurched forward the girl. Young Hallow started to laugh hysterically as the boy did realizing that even she too was fooled—but she was quick to cover her mouth. The trees had made a terrible habit of mimicking her laughter.

But was too late. The forest in its entirety broke into an ominous spell of chuckles and guffaws. The humans ceased bickering and listened to their sounds.

"This place is definitely haunted!" The boy made haste through the maze drawing near his agitated sibling. "You coming back here with us on Halloween?"

"No, and I'm going home!" She pressed on, not entirely sure of the path from which they came. She resisted speaking as he assumed the lead. Young Hallow pursued once more knowing that they would not find the way. She wanted to know more.

In these woods they could wander forever. She had made it so that the land ahead transformed for every step taken, stealing from them their bearings.



"I knew you would get us lost!" The girl assessed the condition of her clothing. Likewise, her brother paused to swipe mud from his shoes. It was amusing to watch how easily the human children were piqued. The leaves and the twigs crawled up their pants' legs after many an hour aimlessly seeking their home.

The night forest was void of all motion and sound. Light, scarce from a first quarter moon, was broken by clouds. It was their only solace. Young Hallow decided she had deviated enough from her duties. She became a great black dog, only distinguishable from the trees' silhouettes by her reflective green eyes and glint of her coat. Moist earth squished under her mammoth paws. She crossed their path torpidly as to not startle them . . . too much

"Ashton, what is that?" Whispered the girl.

"Relax, it's just a Dane." Ashton said.

"Just a Dane . . . !" Incredulous was Ashton's sister. "Maybe it belongs to somebody." He finished.

The Great Dane's bark struck their chests. Its stare did finally yield. The massive dog advanced forward, they followed from a safe distance its sturdy hocks.



A yellow light returned to them. The street lights flickered once they reached the black rock which automobiles tread. The children passed the dog and into the street they went, forgetting their fear. A whole block of houses, Young Hallow remembers, were not there the previous year. Grateful to see civilization, the children ran to a house adorned with black cat and pumpkin stickers in its windows and scarecrows on its wooden porch.

They beat the door until there was light from within. They waited.

"Is it still watching us . . . ?" The girl pointed back with tense shoulders at the Great Dane without looking behind. Ever so slowly the boy turned his head. In the lamplight, he saw that it still observed them and its eyes were luminous green.

"Yeah . . . " He confirmed. Then, a middle-aged woman, their mother, stood in the door frame with arms crossed.

"I know what your going to say," He jumped. "but before you do—" Ashton was interrupted.

"He got us lost in the woods and he thinks this pile of rocks he and Zach found is haunted." The girl said halfway inside. "Do you know whose dog that is?" He asked. They turned to the curb.

There was no dog.



Young Hallow receded into the forest, back to her stony hearth. The rat, silent and vigilant, had waited for her there. She looked down into the blackness that was her bed, but did not lie down. She could not stand that the time was nigh. It was three days that she had before sleep would reclaim her. Tomorrow, she thought, she should see the humans, just once more.