All Hallows Eve

Mirrors are not just pieces of reflective glass.

They are glimpses into a world unknown.

A world of the dead, damned and not so dearly departed.

A world that is neither Heaven nor Hell.

An in-between.

A torture that is reserved for those who die soulless. The creatures that stalk the night unnoticed, feeding on the life force that they crave.

Purgatory.

Everyone knows that one night a year The Veil is thin. So thin that it is easily punctured; once The Veil is punctured all manor of monster are able to escape.

But this story is not about your run of the mill monster. This story is about the monster.

Mother.

** * **

Another year has come and gone. Another year the sun rises on the day of All Hallows Eve.

Tonight the Veil will be at its weakest.

Tonight she will try again.

Tonight it is, again, my job to stop her. To strengthen the thin spots so she can’t break through.

** * **

I am a witch.

I did not wish for this. I did not wish to be born with cat eyes the color of antique gold or for the weather to shift with my mood.

Witches can be either made or born. I was born. The only witch born in more than 300 years. Being born with magic is both a blessing and a curse.

Blessing because… well, I didn’t have to sell my soul for it.

Curse because, I didn’t have to sell my soul for it.

Quite the conundrum.

A complicated situation with a simple answer.

A mortal soul is the most powerful energy source in the world. Its like a super nova compacted into every single cell in the body.

As the only living born witch its my job to find the Access points. To strengthen them, year after year so that the Veil isn’t broken.

Again.

Over a millennia ago there was no witch that had been born with magic. The world was ignorant and cruel. Sacrificial offerings, the spilled blood of innocent victims kept the Veil weak and thin. Creatures of nightmare constantly clawed at the largest specs of vulnerability.

Mirrors.

Though at that time mirrors were not what we thought of in this day and age. They were pools of crystal clear water. So pure and clean that they were considered sacred.

These extinct cultures would build shrines to the forces of nature that they didn’t understand. Forces they tried to explain by giving them names.

Those named forces were powerless against what was to come.

On All Hallows Eve before the church gave it its name, before the Celtics called it Samhain it was known as the Dawn of Darkness. A night of bloodshed and death.

These unfortunate souls that archeologists so misjudge. They were believed to sacrifice people to faceless gods to attain favor. We, children of the night, know the truth.

They were setting a feast.

They thought that if they fed the creatures that slipped through the cracks that they would be safe. They thought the majority would survive the night by taking the lives of the few.

They were wrong.

They underestimated what was to come.

They underestimated her brutality, her hunger.

** * **

Her hair was the color of a starless night. Her eyes as black as coal. Her skin was pale as moonlight and soft as satin.

Her dress was woven of the finest cotton, embroidered with silk. The long sleeves were slit from shoulder to wrist, the neckline was a low square, edged with sapphire lace. A corset cinched her waist to an unhealthy degree.

She smelled of rose water and Oriole lotus.

By definition, she was beautiful.

Beauty could be dangerous.

As the moon reflected against the turquoise water ripples drifted from a secular point. From the depths of the sacred mirror pool she arose. Drenched and dripping she walked with purpose from the frigid depths.

Lilith

A crown of braided hawthorn adorned her head. The petals of withered spider lilies clung to her dampened flesh.

Her lips were the color of wine when she smiled at the sky and spread her arms wide.

Chanting in an ancient language unknown to all but the angels and demons she awoke her children. The disfigured abominations born of the bile of a cursed barren woman.

The once clear water blackened from the miasma that oozed from the wound she had created. The rip between the realms that released her creations unto an unsuspecting world.

Creatures that even the children of the night feared. Werewolf packs fled, vampires took flight and the seelies hid in the vegetation they so carefully pruned.

By dawns light the creatures would be destroyed by the purifying rays of the sun.

Dawn, however, would not come soon enough.

Bed linens would be soaked in blood. Flesh strewn about the village. By the hour flies would swarm and the beast that fed on the flesh of the dead would flock in hoards.

Their society, so new, would be decimated. Only the children would survive the hell.

Lilith hated the sons and daughters of Adam. Despise them as she did her longing for offspring of her own prevented her from being capable of harming a child. She would gather them into a bubble of peace and quiet. Use her hell spawned magic to shield their innocence from the carnage around them. Like a dream they would know not what had occurred.

As the black sky faded to blue only she would remain

She would walk from the village to the lake, children in tow and weave her magic to create a home.

She would raise them, teach them, curse them.

Fore children demon raised can go not without stain. Slowly she would bestow upon them magic untold. This however, would replace their souls.

The magic mingling in their veins would drive some of them insane. Those that survived her twisted game would be cursed to be the same. Same as her. Barren. Infertile. Incapable of bringing fourth life to love.

Without love, you die.