Happy Halloween. Please enjoy this short story by me.
There was a clearing where we camped, my sister Margot and I. We went all the time, we knew where it was. But we must have gotten turned around and lost our way in the forest. Because now there was a castle there, that had never been there before.
It was abandoned. Moss and sprawling vines grew thick on the grey stone walls. The front entrance didn’t have a door, just rusty hinges with some rotting wood still attached. Parts of the walls had fallen away to litter the grass below.
“Come on,” Margot said, heading for the entrance.
“We shouldn’t go in,” I replied. “It’s falling apart. We might go right through the floor.”
“But we’re lost,” Margot said. As though we hadn’t parked in the same parking spot, walked the same paths with the same backpacks, same tent and same camp songs as we always did. “We have to get to higher ground and see where we are.”
She was going to explore, and I wasn’t going to be able to stop her. So instead, I followed her.
The green had ventured inside the empty entryway. Grass protruded between loose stones. Moss lay thick and lush, creeping from floor to walls to meet with ivy and morning glory. We were not the first visitors. There were chip bags and bottles scattered here and there, faded with sun exposure and time.
A wide set of stairs led upwards, to a floor that was almost certainly not structurally sound anymore. Margot was already heading up them.
“Hey, don’t go up there,” I said.
Margot turned back for just a moment. “But there’s someone up there already. Listen, they’re playing music.”
I hadn’t heard it before she said something. But I could hear it now. A soft piano tune I might have heard before but couldn’t place.
Night fell when we climbed the stairs. It shouldn’t have for hours. It shouldn’t have so fast. But by the time we reached the second floor we were bathed in moonlight from the windows and cracks in the walls.
There was a light coming from a room at the end of the crumbling hall. It drew us both, but it drew Margot faster. We passed rooms with nothing, rooms with birds’ nests and small bones, rooms with vines overhanging and choking the open windows. And then we reached the room filled with light and music.
Like the rest of the castle, this room’s door was gone. Scents of roses and fresh soil poured out. This room was clean, fresh. It was filled with pink, white and green flowers. Petals fluttered like snow. And in the center of the room, a woman was dancing.
She wore a dirty white sundress and no shoes. Her skin seemed to shimmer, glowing with reflected moonlight. Her hair was long and loose, flowing down to the petal-covered floor. Even from outside of the room, I could see her brilliant green eyes.
She was spinning in a slow circle, swaying her hips to the music that still seemed to be coming from nowhere. When she turned and saw Margot and me, she grinned. Then she beckoned us with one finger, before turning back to her dance.
Margot stepped into the room, staring at the woman.
I almost followed.
All around the exterior of the room were mushrooms. They shone a supernatural translucent green. I knew what they meant. And what they must mean about the woman dancing in the room.
“Stop, come back!” I yelled. But Margot didn’t seem to hear me.
The creature who looked like a woman reached out a hand for Margot’s. She took its hand, and let it spin her into the dance.
“Come back!” I screamed. I didn’t dare go into the fairy circle, but I couldn’t reach her from outside of the room.
“What’s your name?” the creature asked. It pulled Margot close and whispered in her ear, and yet I heard it.
“Don’t!” I screamed. There wasn’t another choice, I had to go in. I jumped over the mushrooms, but I was too late.
Maybe I was too late when we stepped into the abandoned castle. Maybe it was already too late when we were still on the path, before we’d even seen the castle where it never should have been.
“Margot Meshula,” my sister whispered back.
The dancer’s smile widened, and she started spinning Margot. They spun faster and faster.
I tried to reach for them, but in a blink, I wasn’t in the room anymore. I wasn’t in the castle anymore.
Now there was no castle there, just like before. It was just me and Margot, standing in the clearing where we camped.
“So, do you want to set up the tent, or start the fire?” Margot asked. But when she turned to me, her eyes were a brilliant, supernatural green.
If you like this, you might like my haunted house novella, Quiet Apocalypse.
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