The Hags of All Hallows

The prompt:

Nathalia sat by her window peering out... brooding in a mood Scrooge would have been proud of. She had completely lost the feeling of cheer she once felt for the All Hollows celebration. Nowadays, it was all humbug.

Still, she didn't feel much like sitting at home alone either.

From her bare and unadorned house, she watched the mass of blood-soaked victims, ghouls and happy little ghosts compete for candy and overall monstrous fun. ---Grabbing her coat, she decided to go for an aimless walk, gingerly navigating the crowd and disregarding the bowls of heart attacks and artery clogging deliciousness which once fascinated her younger days.

...But, the night seemed to sort of cling to her in a strange and eerie way as she walked, the streets suddenly began to change...not all at once, but in a gradual, subtle and darker way.

A fine rain had begun to fall.

Not a cheerful kind of autumn rain, but a cold, whispering mist that seemed to drift upward from the cobblestones as much as downward from the clouds. Nathalia pulled her coat tighter and wondered why the neighborhood had become so suddenly and ominously silent.

Moments ago the streets had been alive with shrieking children and laughing adults hidden behind masks. Now the noise had faded into an uneasy quiet.

One by one, the pumpkin lanterns along the sidewalks extinguished themselves, and the darkness gathered around her like a cloak.

Nathalia stopped walking, she stared hither and thither. Something was definitely not right.

The street ahead was no longer her street. The familiar houses seemed older. Crookedly bent. Their windows had narrowed into watchful eyes. Ancient black trees leaned over the road like bent old women sharing dreadful secrets.

Then she heard it.

A cackling. Three or maybe more voices. The sound came drifting through the mist.

"Here she is". Rasped a gravelly voice.

"At last". Hissed another.

"The one who has forfeited her cheer." Snarled the next.

Nathalia turned sharply.

Four figures sat beneath a dead oak, its limbs curling like serpentine fingers reaching for flesh.

Three were women. Or had once been. The other was an enigma...being neither woman nor not woman.

Truthfully, they resembled nightmares flung asunder from age itself.

They sat deep in frightful conversation, perhaps deciding my fate, Nathalia thought. Then they arose.

The first was tall and skeletal. Her hair hung in silver ropes to the ground. In one hand she carried an hourglass whose sand flowed upward.

The second was broad and crooked. Her cloak appeared woven from funeral shrouds. Beneath its folds she carried bundles of black flowers tied with strands of white hair.

The third and fourth were impossible to judge.

Every time Nathalia looked directly at their faces, they seemed to shift from older to ancient.

A hundred years old. A thousand years old. Far Beyond Full Past Dead.

And yet somehow still breathing.

The hags all smiled hollow, toothless smiles. Teeth emerging and disappearing in unison. They scared the Bejesus out of the shrinking Nathalia who wanted to run away...but was frightfully rooted to the spot.

"We are the Hags of All Hallows."

The first bowed. "I am Memory."

The second bowed. "I am Regret."

The third bowed low. "And I am Death's Companion."

The fourth just stared...Speechless. Still, she was the scariest of all.

Nathalia laughed nervously. Somebody was putting on quite a performance for her, she thought.

"Nice cos...costumes." She stammered.

The four hags stared. Then the fourth...who was Death, asked softly...mouth not moving:

"Do you truly believe this is a costume? The mist thickened.

And suddenly Nathalia felt something she had not felt in years.

Fear. Real fear. Not the manufactured thrill of haunted houses. Nor the playful terror of masks and decorations. The old fear. The primitive fear. The fear of standing too close to an open grave.

Death's companion stepped forward. "Tonight is All Hallows." Her voice sounded like pages turning in a dust infused book.

"The night when the living pretend to be monsters." The hag pointed toward the distant streets.

"But monsters are not what they pretend."

Nathalia frowned. "What do you want from me?"

Memory raised her hourglass. "What every spirit of the season seeks."

Regret smiled. "To show you what you refuse to see."

Death, finally finding a voice, said:

"To remind you that every All Hallows is a celebration of us."

The world vanished.

Nathalia stood in a different street. A younger street. A brighter street. The year was decades ago. Children ran laughing through piles of orange leaves. Among them raced a little girl dressed as a witch.

Nathalia. Age nine.

Her father walked beside her holding a flashlight. Her mother carried a jack-o'-lantern pail. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was alive. Memory stood beside Nathalia.

"Do you remember?"

The older Nathalia watched silently. She had forgotten this night. Forgotten her father's booming laugh. Forgotten the way her mother would squeeze her hand. Forgotten how endless the future had felt.

The child disappeared around a corner. The vision darkened. Memory's expression became stern.

"You speak often of death." The hag's pale eyes glowed.

"But what you truly fear is forgetting." The scene shattered.

Regret awaited her. This time they stood before a hospital room.

Nathalia immediately knew what year it was. The worst year. The year she did not visit often enough. The year she told herself there would be more time. Always more time.

Inside the room sat her mother. Older now. Fragile. Waiting. A chair stood empty beside the bed. Nathalia felt her stomach tighten.

"No."

Regret gave a sorrowful smile. The hag handed her a black flower.

"Every life gathers unfinished conversations."

The flower crumbled to ash. Words filled the room. Things never said. Apologies never spoken. Forgiveness never asked for. Love assumed rather than expressed.

Regret leaned close. "And every year, my garden grows."

Nathalia began to cry. Because this wound had never healed. Only hidden itself, like a grave beneath fallen leaves.

When the vision cleared, only Death remained. The oldest hag led Nathalia through a landscape of endless autumn. The trees were black. The sky was black. The ground was covered with millions of dark flowers whose petals shone like velvet shadows.

At the center stood a mirror. Death motioned toward it. Nathalia looked.

And saw a grave. Her grave. There was no date...no epitaph. No warning.

Only her name.

"Everyone asks me when," Death said.

Nathalia could barely breathe.

"But that is the wrong question." Death touched the stone.

The earth around it burst into bloom with black flowers.

"The question is whether you will be alive before you die."

The mirror shifted. Nathalia saw years passing. The same routines. The same loneliness. The same postponements.

Waiting for the right day. The right season. The right mood. The right tomorrow. Until there were no tomorrows left.

Death said quietly, "I do not steal lives." The hag's ancient eyes softened.

"Very often, people surrender them long before I arrive."

For the first time Nathalia realized something terrible. Death was not her enemy. Time was not her enemy. Forgetfulness was. The slow, comfortable sleep of believing there would always be another celebration. Another phone call. Another chance. Another year.

The bells of midnight began to ring.

🔔Clang!!!!

🔔Boom. Boom!!!!

🔔Clang!!!! Clang!!!! Clang!!!!

The Hags appeared together one final time.

Memory handed Nathalia the hourglass.

Regret handed her a black rose.

Death's companion handed her more time.

Death handed her nothing at all.

For Death had no gift left to give.

Only a truth.

"Live," she said. "Not because you will escape me." The old hag smiled. "Because you won't."

The world exploded into light.

Nathalia found herself standing in the middle of her own street. Children still laughed. Candy still overflowed from bowls. Ghosts and monsters still wandered the sidewalks. Everything looked exactly as it had before.

And yet entirely different. She looked up.

In the reflection of a dark window she thought she saw three bent old women standing together at the end of the road.

A fourth one with a scythe stood apart...Watching. Waiting. Patient as winter.

Then they were gone. But lying in her hand was the single black rose, wet with rain.

And somewhere behind the laughter of Hallow night, Nathalia could still hear three, or maybe four distant voices cackling in the dark.

They had not come for her. Not yet. Not yet!!!

But ... for one precious night, she had finally seen death and survived.

And tomorrow she would awaken to November's promise.