On a Moonless Night

On a Moonless Night: A Campfire Story

Rebecca L. Ferraro

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

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They met nightly in the woods.

By the light of the moon they picked their way down around the winding path off of Old Fern Hollow Road. Past the dilapidated cabin, over the plank lain across a narrow stream, under the twisted vines that weave overhead, creating a tapestry of moss and leaves. Deep through the woods to the ancient Pennsylvania pines, their shallow roots forming a circle closed by two bifurcated oak trees.

The meetings began as a way for the women to release the thoughts that plagued them during the long days spent toiling away at their various careers. The world seemed to be changing rapidly, and sometimes it was all they could do to keep up with it whilst trying to keep themselves from drowning in the currents of day to day responsibilities and anxieties. Amidst plague, famine, war, and civil unrest, the women lived under a nearly constant cloud of dread.

Some say they were witches, a coven of them intent on spreading their darkness and deception. There was never evidence of this, so the women went about their lives, heads held high, with haughty expressions towards the gossiping hens. They weren’t witches, not really. They were just women who knew too much, and that was enough to get them killed. It was a dangerous time to be a woman, and even more dangerous if that woman was educated. Intelligent women are the greatest threat to a society who benefits from keeping them restrained.

And so the women met. They met, and they talked, and they planned. This is why it was imperative for them to meet deep in the woods, where they stood little chance of being overheard by anything other than the barred owls screeching overhead or the coyotes prowling in the distance, howling to celebrate their kills.

On this particular night, the moon was new, which was all the better as they made their way back through the woods and to the winding path they’d trodden passing through all these months. As they came upon the cabin, Cordelia, the woman in the lead, came up short. With a grunt and a stumble, the other two walked into her in the skulking darkness. Following Cordelia’s shaking, outstretched hand, they saw she was pointing to the cabin—that very cabin they had passed nightly for months, the cabin that had been abandoned for years, now with a candle aflame in the window.

It was indeed a dangerous time to be a woman, and more dangerous still to be caught out in the middle of the night, deep in the woods. The accusations that so long went unfounded would now have a basis, and this did not bode well for Cordelia, Emma, and Elizabeth at all.

Emma was the most adventurous of the group. It was, after all, her idea for the women to begin meeting in secret. She refused to go back to the Dark Ages and be persecuted simply for being intelligent enough to speak for herself, and convinced her sister Elizabeth and their friend to gather and begin discussing the murmurings they’d heard. They worked tirelessly to spread accurate information among the town in whatever way they could.

Tonight, Emma needed to know if they were in danger, or if this was someone else seeking a space to exist too. Dropping to her knees, Emma crawled on all fours towards the cabin, feeling rather than seeing Cordelia’s and Elizabeth’s eyes widen in shock and fear. Smirking to herself, she felt them drop behind her and begin following her towards the cabin. Raising a finger to her lips, Emma squatted under the little windowsill and peered in, her eyes growing large at what she saw—three men, days away from a shave or any sort of soap or water, and money, lots of it. They were gathered around a table that wobbled on three legs, its fourth lying rotted on the floor. The candle was in the middle, and the trio of men sat hunched around it, perusing a map.

Motioning to the others, Emma explained that it seemed the men would be in worse trouble than they were, assuming they were caught.

Elizabeth considered for a moment how the money would change their lives—would give them a chance to begin again, somewhere different. As they sat there on the loamy ground, the violet clouds rolled in on a pine and stardust scented breeze that tasted of possibilities.

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Inside the cabin was an entirely different dynamic. The three men gathered around the table were lethal. Smugglers who were wanted in three states, Horace, Emmett, and Clyde-- the Backbone Boys, as they called themselves-- were living lives of desperation, and desperation always made people do unimaginable things. The brothers had been on the streets stealing and killing to survive for as long as they could remember, and it had turned them cold and ruthless. They stayed together all these years more out of convenience than any sort of love or familial loyalty.

After robbing a bank in West Virginia, they made it into these woods on foot, tucking their car into the leafy growth on the side of the road. When they came upon the cabin, it seemed too good to be true that this abandoned wooden hut would provide them shelter while they planned their next move.

From outside, a sound so soft it could have been the leaves blowing in the breeze made all three men look up towards the door. Incidentally, a rain had begun to fall and one of the women had gasped as the cold drops pelted at them crouched beneath the sill.

Horace flung the door open and the candle’s flame just illuminated the faces of three terrified women looking back at him. The men grabbed them and brought them inside, demanding to know what they had heard or seen.

For all her bravado, Elizabeth was tongue-tied. She reached out and squeezed Cordelia’s hand, leaving Emma to speak. Emma saw this as the opportunity they’d been waiting for, and laid out a plan to the men: release them with half of the money or they would be handed over to the police. Cordelia added that others were waiting outside and would come searching if the trio didn’t return.

The Backbone Boys sneered at Emma, Elizabeth, and Cordelia, not buying Cordelia’s lies for a second. Clyde reached one long thin arm into his pocket and pulled out a revolver, gesturing the women into the corner away from the door—the corner nearest the money. Moving as one, almost as if they truly were witches, or perhaps merely in the way that women do when they’ve become wholly attuned to one another, they saw this as their opportunity. Because of their demure appearance, they were underestimated, but that element of surprise gave them the chance to spring. Emma grabbed the bags of money and raced for the door, Elizabeth delivering a kick to Emmett before the portly Horace even had a chance to react. Cordelia was furthest from the door, but she took the chance, running quickly, her white dress clinging to her in the rain as her hair streamed behind her.

Clyde, who was not as slow as his brothers, was across the cabin in two strides. With his firearm, he saw no need to hurry into the rain as the others had. He stood in the doorway, lifted his revolver, aimed, and pulled the trigger: once, twice, a third time.

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Cordelia fell to the ground, red blooming on her white dress like so many fallen rose petals. The scent of gunpowder lingered in the air with the earthy scent of rain and the rusty salt scent of her blood spilling over her.

Elizabeth surged harder, screaming in agony at the sound of the shots cracking through the night like a heron’s cry as she reached the tree line behind her sister, holding the damned bags of money.

The Backbone Boys raced into the woods after the sisters, although they didn’t have the advantage of knowing these woods as Emma & Elizabeth did, each valley and root and stream and twist. The women reached the road first, running to their car and peeling away.

The Backbone Boys emerged not long after, in time to see the car fishtailing out of sight down the black road. They jumped into their rusted jalopy and followed the car, hearing sirens in the distance. Clyde drove quickly, Emmett and Horace aiming their guns out the window on the chance they got a shot at the car ahead.

Abruptly, the car swerved to the right as Emma yanked the wheel, Elizabeth’s tears blinding her from seeing what lay yards away. The Backbone Boys were not as quick, and the police rolled to a stop that left the scent of burning rubber just in time to see the brown jalopy careening into a ravine.

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The candle fell over in the commotion that night, burning the cabin to the ground and taking any evidence with it.

While Elizabeth and Emma were able to get away and start a new life for themselves, they never got over the death of Cordelia. One day Emma returned home to find Elizabeth lying across the settee, an empty vial beside her.

The Backbone Boys were never recovered, though some claim to hear whispered voices angrily searching for their money.

Others claim a beautiful woman in a long white dress has appeared in the road late at night, warning others away from the same horrible fate.