Witch Wings
On the night of a blood moon, a teenaged girl named Elspeth left her religious family to burn before they could burn her. Through the woods she followed a strange calling until she came upon the light of another fire, a blaze of unnatural hue. Surrounding it were witches young and old, chanting a primal language with joined hands.
As Elspeth approached, the witches broke the circle, but not for her—out of the flames stepped the Devil, horned and cloaked. In one hand he held a dagger, in the other a black book.
“In exchange for great power and riches in this life,” he said, “do you agree to let me claim your soul in death?”
“Yes,” Elspeth answered.
“And do you agree to never venture beyond the villages?” the Devil said.
“What’s beyond the villages?” Elspeth asked.
“You cannot know,” the Devil said, “for if you do, I will reclaim the gifts you are about to receive and your soul will perish. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Elspeth said, and she took the dagger, cut her hand, and used her blood to sign her name in the book.
Elspeth and her coven lived like queens in the tales of old, stealing and seducing in the night. From other villages they took milk, meat, clothes, furs, jewels, and the hearts of young men, and in the skies they flew as freely as they cursed. Everything that Elspeth’s upbringing had forced her to repress in stiff, modest dress and unanswered prayers was released like a wild animal that had been trapped.
One sleepless night, Elspeth thought about the stories that she had been told as a child, stories of how the world had been before the Lord had cast it in darkness. They were cautionary tales, intended to keep adults and children alike on the virtuous path that promised eternity in Heaven. Elspeth couldn’t help but wonder what lied beyond the villages. Nobody traveled out of fear of witches and monsters like the Devil, yet the Devil had entrusted her with a taste of forbidden knowledge. He was aware of what she wasn’t, and curiosity ate away at her.
While her coven slept, Elspeth mixed certain herbs into an ointment and spoke the words that would grant her temporary invisibility, and she took flight. For what felt like hours and hours she traveled, finding nothing below but woods and crumbling buildings that nature had reclaimed. Then a light emerged ahead, shining from a place that was alive with music, food, festivities, and people in masks and colorful costumes.
Elspeth didn’t understand. They dressed and danced and indulged sinfully, but these were not the Devil’s people. Exploring further, she noticed on the doorstep of every home burned a candle inside a carved pumpkin. Each pumpkin bore different carvings, some faces, others intricate designs. She stopped to more closely examine one that wouldn’t let go of her sight. It was painted a dark blue that faded to purple, glowing with a castle in a cloudy night sky.
“Do you like it?” a voice behind Elspeth asked, making her realize with a jump of fright that the invisibility spell had worn off.
The voice belonged to a girl who appeared to be around her age, wearing a feathered mask and a dress that looked as if it had been woven by the stars.
“Oh, I see you’re not dressed for the occasion,” the girl said. “You aren’t from here, are you?”
“What is ‘here?’” Elspeth asked.
“We call this place Trickem,” the girl said. “It is home to Headless Jack, the man who tricked the Devil more than once, even after he had his head cut off and replaced with a pumpkin. The fire that burns inside it is the magic we all draw from. Every Hallows’ Eve, on their sixteenth birthday, a witch carves a pumpkin and Headless Jack lights the candle that burns for however long they live.”
“How long do you live?” Elspeth asked.
The girl smiled. “However long we wish.”
Elspeth paused. “How old are you?”
“One hundred and eighteen,” the girl said.
Elspeth gasped. “I need to go. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“The Devil knows,” the girl warned. “If you leave here, you will never find your way back. You will be lost in the woods, left to starve and rot.”
Elspeth’s eyes stung with tears. “But my magic, and my coven!”
The girl took Elspeth’s hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “You will have better magic and a new coven. Please, don’t make the same mistake that other witches like you have made.”
Elspeth was conflicted, wishing she hadn’t found this place, yet wanting to free herself of the Devil’s grip on her soul.
“How is it possible to help me?” she asked.
“Come with me and I will show you,” the girl said, and led Elspeth into her home.
In the kitchen, the girl—who introduced herself as Dayana—taught Elspeth how to carve a pumpkin, and Elspeth carved a scene that best represented her heart’s desire: a bird flying out of a flame. While she was working, a question gnawed at the back of her mind.
“Where do we go after we die?” Elspeth asked. “Does Headless Jack claim our souls?”
“No,” Dayana said. “We go to whatever afterlife that our imaginations have cultivated while we were alive.”
“Oh,” Elspeth said. “I don’t know where I’d want to go.”
Dayana smiled. “You have all the time in the world and the largest library to think about that.”
Elspeth stopped, looking at her. “The largest library?”
“Indeed,” Dayana said. “We’ve collected books from all over the world. Books fuel our imagination, which in turn feeds Headless Jack. He wants nothing more than for us to be creative and curious. When you are out there tonight, standing before the end of the bridge, you will put down your pumpkin and tell an imaginary tale of how you arrived. If he approves, he will light your candle and you will become a new witch.”
“What if he doesn’t light the candle?” Elspeth asked.
Dayana frowned. “Then you will lose the magic you have now, and you will have to wait until next Hallows’ Eve to try again.”
But Elspeth was determined to receive her new magic by midnight.
When she was finished, Elspeth picked up the top of the pumpkin by the stem and placed the unlit candle inside. Then she followed the other witch out of the house, down the road, and into the woods to Headless Jack’s bridge. There, they crossed it to the end, and Elspeth set down the pumpkin. She stepped back and spoke her story:
“Once upon a time, in a cage like a crypt,
Lived a bird with feathers clipped.
A man came with wings wrought of fire,
And freed her with magical desire.
But the wings burned with a treacherous spell,
His power still binding her spirit well.
In the night she fled, free of his strings,
To a faraway land to seek her own wings.”
The night remained still. A gentle wind rustled the leaves, but nothing more. Elspeth’s heart sank, hopes dashed.
Then echoed the sound of galloping in the distance. Elspeth listened, but the sound seemed to be coming from all directions, and ahead, from a burst of flames, appeared Headless Jack on a black horse. Reaching the end of the bridge, he pulled the reigns, coming to a halt. He stared down at Elspeth, his pumpkin head carved with a wicked, blazing smile.
He did not speak, instead raising his hand, and in the pit of her stomach, Elspeth experienced an unpleasant feeling. She opened her mouth and out flew the Devil’s flame, landing in Headless Jack’s palm. Cold and powerless, she looked at the horseman in shock as he threw the little fire across the sky, sending it back from whence it came.
But then he raised his other hand, and the candle inside Elspeth’s pumpkin flared to life, and she was filled with a new power. She rose into the air, her spells now cast by sheer will, and the clouds parted, revealing a moonlit castle waiting for her arrival in the sky.
From thereon Elspeth learned to be a different witch. A witch that would bow to no King of Heaven nor Hell. A witch that would not rest in soil, but live on in imagination, here and after.
