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Printed from https://writing.com/main/handler/item_id/1624650-The-Witching-Hour
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by Bedlam Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · In & Out · Dark · #1624650
You're never too old to jump at shadows.
Around two, the clouds broke
And the moon came out.

It was so bright it painted the grass silver,
The lake and trees black
And made me think I had left the porch light on
Again.

I tried to see the moon,
Spurred by some primal longing;
Peeped through all the windows,
Spent long moments straining over the kitchen sink
Head resting on the pine sill
Thinking
If only I could find a single inch more
If only
If only

No avail.

I stepped out onto the roof through an upstairs window
Bare foot and bare-chested
Into the smell of snow,
And the promise of winter,
Let the cold trace knives down my arms,
My breath mingling with the last of the smoke from the stove.

The moon was high and full beside Orion
So bright it almost hurt the eyes.
The air was absolutely still
No sound but my own breath,
And the occasional popping of the wood stove.

As the long moments stretched and dripped away into the night
I found myself glancing down
Across the silver grass
The bare black trees
The obsidian lake
Expecting

Something
I don’t know what

But the cold moon
Put strange things to mind
Werewolves
And Wyld Hunts
And worse.

I would not have been shocked to hear
The baying of red-eared hounds
The temperamental snorts of snow-white horses
Mounted by wintry laughter
Or the waters swirling gently
About something more ominous still.
Nor to see dark shapes crouched among the branches
Watching back
With eyes of ochre and crimson and viridian.

Not on a night like tonight.

I am not a religious man,
But I’ve walked some long, strange roads
And heard too many stories
To scoff at these things.

I touched the iron spiral at my throat
Just in case
And muttered something reverent.

As I turned to go in
Beginning, finally, to shiver
I saw silent headlights through the pines
Whisking down the road
Faster than most.

I wondered briefly
Who the lights belonged to
And where they were going so fast
At this hour.

I closed the window behind me
On the all the awful quiet.

Tomorrow, I would laugh at all of this.

After a moment’s consideration
I locked it.

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Printed from https://writing.com/main/handler/item_id/1624650-The-Witching-Hour