Next Time Bring the Salt

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.”

Mike leaned into his flashlight, sending eerie shadows across his face. He was making all sorts of attempts at being scary while telling his story, but Rachel was just bored. He droned on about the mysterious cabin for a while longer, and Rachel could already see where the story was heading.

Her mind started wandering as she lost interest, the younger kids seemed to be entertained by Mike’s story, but Rachel found the dark woods surrounding them to be much more interesting.

An owl let out a soft call in the distance, critters could be heard rummaging in the leaves, and there were a set of small glowing eyes watching the camp off to her left. She decided it was either a possum or a raccoon.

Mike howled suddenly and the other kids screamed in fright, her little glowy eyed friend disappeared in the commotion.

Camping was never one of Rachel’s favorite activities, at least, not with her lame family.

Mike was her cousin on her mother's side. He was a year older than her, and in the last few years they had gone from best friends to distant relatives. Mike was becoming more interested in chasing girls than hanging out with his nerdy cousin.

Rachel, for her part, was just bored. Everything seemed boring lately. Camping was boring. Mike’s scary story was boring. School was boring. Family reunions were boring. Life was boring.

She needed some action. Something interesting. Something dangerous.

After a little while, the younger kids all went to bed and Mike was the only one left across the fire from Rachel. It was a slightly awkward silence, but that was exactly what their relationship had become, awkward and silent.

After maybe half an hour, Mike stirred.

“Hey Rach, I brought something for you. I didn’t want to show you while the other kids were around though.”

Rachel eyed him for a moment before getting up and walking around the fire to where Mike was sitting. He pulled out his backpack from behind the log he was on.

He fumbled with the zipper for a moment more before he pulled out a book. An old book. It was bound in deep brown leather, and had symbols carved into the cover. Rachel thought they might be Celtic, but she was no expert.

She looked up into Mike’s beaming face, he was obviously proud of this present. Rachel smiled back and said, “Where did you get this?”

Mike shrugged and handed it to her. It felt heavy in her hands and almost warm to the touch. “Oh, you know how I love to go antiquing and all that.”

He winked at her. She knew perfectly well that he never went antiquing. She ran her hands over the symbols on the cover. It was a beautiful book.

Mike started poking at the fire as Rachel pulled out her little flashlight. It was her reading light at home, and never left her side. A little pen light her mother had given to her before- well, before she went away.

The inside of the book was at least in English, although it was weird, like reading Beowulf. It was all about curses and spells. The author was a man named Keith Baclan.

The introduction was all about the dangers involved in getting the information together. It claimed that Keith Baclan had fought off witches and defeated an Abhartach. Rachel had no clue what an Abhartach was, but it sounded impressive at least.

She flipped through the pages until Mike came over to her. He pointed at a page and said, “What’s that a picture of?”

The picture in question was of a tall, hooded figure. The caption underneath was slightly worn, so Rachel checked the page out a bit.

“Some sort of fairy. This page is a spell to summon one, it’s called a Sluagh, or something.”

Mike tried the word out carefully, “Slew-ah?” He asked.

“Close enough from what I can tell. There’s not much of a description of what they are though.”

Mike hopped up and said, “Then let’s summon one and ask!”

Rachel felt odd about that. She was having trouble placing the source of her discomfort, but she just felt like that was a bad idea.

“I don’t really think-”

Mike cut her off, “Come on, scaredy cat. Do you really think fairies exist or something?”

“No… I just. I don’t know.”

Mike started flapping his arms and clucking. Rachel had enough. She put the book down and said, “Fine. We need some small stones, a few sticks that are tied together with grass, and a candle. I guess the one in your silly cabin story isn’t around.”

Mike stopped and frowned at her. She had hurt his feelings. She had always liked Mike, and hurting his feelings had been an accident, but he also deserved it for the whole chicken dance.

“I’m sorry, that was mean,” she said. Mike bucked up a bit and smiled devilishly at her.

“It was meant to scare the kids, and I think it did that. I know it was sort of lame though.”

“It was very lame, Mike.”

The two laughed at that. It felt good to be friends with Mike again, and Rachel wanted it to last.

“Let’s go get some supplies and try to summon a fairy!”

Mike dashed off saying he’d get the sticks. Rachel busied herself finding eight small stones and arranging them in a circle around her. When she had finished, she consulted the book and drew a symbol in the dirt with her fingers. It was shaped almost like an eye, but with no pupils or anything.

Mike returned with a variety of sticks, and they sat together lashing them together with some long grass they gathered from the tree line.

Mike put some more logs on the fire and sat cross legged next to the symbol, pulling a candle out of his backpack, he asked “Now what?” He was genuinely excited. It was infectious and Rachel started to grin in response.

“Alright, we need to put the candle in the center of the sticks, and light it on fire. Oh wait, we need to make a containment circle of salt around everything. Do we have any salt?”

“Not enough to do that, do we really need to contain a fairy anyway?” Mike asked.

Rachel paused and thought about the fairies she had read about before, “Probably not,” she finally said.

They used a stick from the fire and lit the candle in the middle of the wood bundles. Both stood back and Rachel read the passage:

A small sacrifice for a larger horde

A larger sacrifice for a reward

Bound together time that’s left

Joined as one sets to west

Enter now from night’s lament

Sluagh come while all repent

The candle burned, the fire burned, the kids slept, and nothing else happened.

“Bummer,” was Mike’s only response.

Rachel was confident that spells and summoning fairies were just stories that would never actually work, but she still felt disappointed that nothing had happened.

They sat around looking through the book for a while longer, but their hearts were no longer in the adventure. Finally, they decided to go to bed.

Rachel clambered into her little tent and into her sleeping bag. The night was starting to get chilly, and she was glad her father had insisted she brought it.

She brought out her little flashlight and continued reading the book. Eventually, she came to a description of the Sluagh.

The Sluagh were soul hunters, feeding most easily on those that were sad or frightened. They could feed off of happy people too, but it was a harder task for them. In order to fight one off, a person needed to sacrifice another soul to them to satiate their hunger.

People who died by the Sluagh would become part of something called “The Wild Hunt.”

Well, good thing one never showed up then. Rachel was just starting to get sleepy when a sound came from outside the tent. It was a harsh breathing noise, gritty and labored. Her first thought was it was a Sluagh, but that was silly. Her second thought was it was Mike, trying to scare her.

“Very funny, Mike.”

The breathing stopped. The woods had become still, no crickets, no owls, no wind even. Rachel shivered a little in her sleeping bag. She turned her flashlight off and said, “Mike?”

There was no response, the fire had gone out, and there was nothing but silence and pitch black surrounding her.

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, willing the panic to go away. The Sluagh was nothing but a fairy tale. Magic and fairies don’t exist.

A scream broke the silence.

It was a small scream of terror, cut off sharply just as it had begun.

Rachel grabbed her flashlight and waited. She squeezed the little metal cylinder, finger on the switch. Her tent flap suddenly opened, almost tearing off the structure. She turned the light on, pointed directly at the intruder. It was Mike.

He whispered, but yelled at the same time, “One of the kids is gone. I think that’s what the scream was.”

Rachel flew out of her sleeping bag and joined Mike by the fire pit. He was relighting the fire as the kids were all standing around, a few were crying.

“I’m going to go get the adults,” Rachel whisper-yelled to Mike. He nodded in response and continued trying to light the fire.

As she started away, Rachel noticed the circle of stone was destroyed. The bundles of branches were thrown around, and the candle was broken in half. All that went through her head as she ran to the adult camp was “Fairies aren’t real. Fairies aren’t real.”

When she arrived at the adult camp, she went straight for her father’s tent. It was empty.

She tried her aunt and uncle’s, also empty.

Starting to panic, she ripped open every tent, no one was there. Not a single adult to be had. No trace of anyone except for an empty beer can sitting next to the fire. Rachel almost ignored it when a glint from her flashlight illuminated a stain on the can. A red stain.

Before she could investigate further, another scream came from somewhere in the woods. Just like the last one, it was cut short and followed by abrupt silence.

That silence was immediately broken by the crash of something charging through the woods. Branches were breaking, and it was heading straight toward Rachel.

She almost ran, but found she was frozen in place. Terror was holding her, like an invisible hand holding her in place. She had no options, her mind was a chaotic mess, filled with images of her own demise.

Mike crashed out of the woods followed by a few of the kids.

Rachel almost passed out from relief, but it was short lived.

There were only a few kids.

“Mike, where are the rest of the kids?”

Mike was pale, his eyes darting around the campsite. He was breathing heavily, and he had small cuts all over his arms.

“I.. I don’t know, Rachel. They just, they disappeared,” he let out a small sob as he spoke, “Where are our parents?”

“I don’t know! What’s going on, Mike?”

Mike and Rachel both spun as a voice answered her question. Booming and deep, yet somehow also raspy and quiet. The voice echoed through the adult campsite. The younger children all huddled closer together when they heard it.

“You called for me, I have come.”

The woods went still and quiet once again. Mike started building a fire in the cinders of the previous one that the adults had made. Blowing into them to ignite them. Rachel realized how dark it was at that moment, her little flashlight barely illuminated the trees surrounding them.

“Get some more wood,” she called to the young cousins. As she started blowing on the embers with Mike, trying to get some warmth and light into the blackness of the night.

Another scream sounded and was cut off.

With that scream, there were only two kids left. Rachel hollered at the remaining two to get near the fire as it started to sputter to life. They ran back to her, terrified but with some extra sticks, and quickly Mike added those to the flames.

As the fire built, Rachel noticed a form standing near the tree line. It was on the tall side, and shrouded in what appeared to be a cloak. It was all black, and the darkness made it hard to see clearly.

It moved, and vanished to the left somewhere, Rachel tried to follow it with her flashlight, but it was already gone. It had given her the impression of a great big bird, minus the beak. She was unsure if she had even seen it, and shuddered it off as nerves.

“Mike… do you think this is the Sluagh? Is this all our fault?”

Mike looked at her, tears were in his eyes but he seemed determined not to let his fear show. He was pale, and dirty. A single twig was stuck in his wavy hair. Rachel reached up and pulled the twig out, they both smiled at each other for a brief moment, before the voice came back.

“You called for me, do you wish me to leave?”

“Yes!” Rachel screamed at the top of her lungs, “Leave us alone!”

Another deafening silence followed. The only sound was the children whimpering and the meager fire making small popping noises as it burned.

“You must pay the price.”

“What price?” Rachel yelled into the dark. No answer came.

Mike came up alongside her and said, “The book.”

Rachel gasped. The answer was so obvious. But, the book was back in her tent.

She turned toward the path that led to their campsite, and Mike followed her gaze.

“I’ll go,” he said, “Watch the kids.”

And with that he grabbed a branch from the fire and walked into the dark. Rachel watched as the fire from his makeshift torch moved away, and was suddenly obscured by the black shadow figure she had seen before. The remaining kids all screamed, and Rachel yelled for Mike.

The shadow moved suddenly, and she could see the little fire again, moving further into the woods. Then, it went behind a tree and silence reigned again.

Minutes passed.

Nighttime animals began making their little sounds. Crickets started making little chirps, an owl hooted somewhere in the distance, and everything started to come back to life. Rachel stood with the remaining children huddled around her, staring into the woods.

The moment Rachel remembered she had already read the part about how to vanquish a Sluagh, Mike came bursting out of the woods, he was covered in small scratches, and holding his arm at an odd angle.

Behind him was the Sluagh. It was flying, its cloak spread as if it were made of wings. Darkness seemed to follow the creature. A wave of nausea overcame Rachel. Mike was too far away. She doubted he would make it to the safety of the fire. If the fire was even safe.

The Sluagh stopped abruptly, hovering in place, it pointed directly at Rachel. The voice returned, “You. The summoner. The daughter. You are the one who owes the debt. Will you pay?”

“I can’t let you have any one’s soul!” Rachel screamed at the creature. She was desperate, but not so desperate that she was going to sacrifice any one to this monster.

It stayed there, hovering silently in the dark. The voice said, “Only the summoner’s is sufficient. All others would be returned.”

And with that, Rachel knew what she had to do. She didn’t like it, but it was what must be done. Mike was arriving at the fire now, he was crying and shaking his head. Rachel took his working hand in hers, “Mike, there’s no other choice.”

“There’s always another choice! I got the book.”

Rachel looked deep into his eyes. His eyes were such a lovely shade of green. She had never noticed that before. He was frowning deeply, tears landing in the corners of his mouth before rolling down his chin.

“Good, then figure out how to get me back.”

And with that, she turned to the Sluagh, and began walking. Mike was yelling something at her, but she paid no attention. She only had eyes for the creature in front of her now. She could feel her feet crunching on the leaves. She passed through a spider web as she walked duly on.

The Sluagh moved toward her, and Rachel felt a sharp pain behind her eyes, and then there was nothing but dark.

Out of that darkness, she could hear the Sluagh’s voice. It was less raspy and resonant now, and sounded much more normal, less terrifying, than it had before. She could feel her body changing, wings replacing arms, senses starting to alter, as the Sluagh said, “Welcome to The Wild Hunt, Rachel. I’m glad you decided to join us.”

She began to float away on her new wings. Her eyes opened and the darkness turned to light, she could see her entire family back with Mike, below her, hugging. They at least would be safe. As she was joined by the Sluagh, she heard Mike’s voice one last time, “Rachel! I’ll find you! I promise!”

Rachel laughed a wicked laugh, she was counting on it now that the hunger of The Hunt was starting to take hold. She was counting on it.