Samhain 2010 - a reading (on YouTube)
Samhain is upon us, the season of leaf mold and decay.
Spun white threads of fungus creep across the forest floor like spider silk in hiding. The grove that glowed at midsummer has sickened, its heartwood is corrupt. In its final act of dying, the sacred tree laid a scent trail upon the wind. Now, rival colonies move in to fight over its remains. Under foot, its acorns crack and crumble, their soft interiors rot and blacken to reflect the misty night.
Beyond the hidden border, beyond the wall of thorns, the churchyard stands empty. A headless witch lurks near the crossroads, a black shadow snuffling beside her. She cradles a basket of steaming sweetbread to entice the unwary she plans to bake into her pies.
Deep in her woodland lair, tailors unravel the bewitching threads of her bloodstained kirtle. They whipstitch her victims' lips and eyelids shut. As her spellbound minions ply their delicate, golden needles, she stuffs unspun wool deep within their ears. Too late for them; they've already believed her lies.
Her shadow slides steel against naked steel in preparation to carve up thought and memory, like the dark familiars of an elder god already crackling within the fire. The smoke inside smells sickly sweet, like a horde of apples left to overwinter one year too many.
By moonlight, she ransacks the burial chambers of misty, musty cairns. She grinds their nitered bones beneath a pestle, then soaks them in rancid blood. She kneads the mixture smooth with ancient, arthritic hands. At midnight, she wagers with the shadow for butchered souls to leaven her sweet, dark, gobshite loaves. She stores their broken knucklebones in a bag beside her bed.
Behind her decrepit cottage, a midden rises where a single acorn soon takes root. A seedling feeds on discarded blood and bone until it grows strong enough to weave a spell around the somnolent, sated witch. Its golden branches then entwine through her rafters, its roots collapse her cellar walls, casting down her evil reign, crushing her quietly beneath.
And from the foundation of that tangled knotwork, the sacred grove will rise again.
© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III
