In the reflections of two mirrors facing each other, the long black ears are repeated without count. The twilight swirls around. The candle-light flickers. The candles are of course also black, and they smoulder in a terrible way. That's the ghosts. They're trying to put out the wicks, which makes the flames dance around.

‘Mirror, mirror - show me the otherworld...’

Something dark appears at the end of the mirror tunnel. The otherworld turns out to be very much like an anthracite-black ball with eyes.

‘When will I die, oh Spirit of the Beyond?’ there is a shiver of hope in Hare's voice, but not fear.

‘Would it make a difference?’ a sceptical reply echoes surprisingly close behind Hare's back. ‘Considering we're already living in a tomb.’

The rest of the sentence, however, Root mutters to himself. Where Gothic Hare had just been sitting, the pages of the Black Book rustle orphaned.

Root makes himself comfortable on a high chair. He stares into the mirror tunnel with patience. When summoning spirits, you can't be in a hurry. At the other end, someone is stirring restlessly and there is an ominous creaking sound.

‘Bony Root?’

Rooty already knows from experience that all tunnels lead either in or out of the grave.

‘Will you invite me?’ the mirror well asks sinister.

‘Not yet,’ replies Root.

He blows out the black candles and the room falls into a soothing comforting darkness. In this darkness, even through the closed door, the green scent of angelica pervades. There is someone quietly scratching at the door itself. Root sighs and opens it exactly an inch. On the other side, Hare continues to hastily draw with chalk on the scraped wood. His eyes are closed. And it's not fear. It's magic.

Root swings the door fully open. Hare and a large piece of chalk fall over the threshold. The dreadful symbol, meant to locks the door forever, remains unfinished.

Hare lies as if dead. You can't even tell the difference.

‘It's me,’ Root decides to confess after a few minutes.

Silence follows, in which the gurgling of a pot from the kitchen is heard.

‘Too bad,’ Gothic Hare rises from the floor with dignity. ‘It would be too bad to lock up such a comfortable room for all eternity.’

‘Perhaps,’ Root nods in agreement. ‘Though I'd rather wait in the coffin.’

They both wrinkle their nose at the smell of the herb, thick as marzepan. Widows are always brewing something.... It makes the Special Night seem less special. In a large pot, the Cemetery Charm Potion is boiling in an ordinary and mundane manner. It smells sweet and seductive. No bitterness, no disgust. It's like the graves are overgrown with bluebells instead of ivy, holly and fresh snow. That ruins it.

‘What's love magic for when there's black magic?’ grumbles Gothic Hare.

‘Love magic is the worst,’ Widow's voice is heard from the puffs of sweet green vapours. ‘All the others grow from it like pumpkins from a seed.’

‘And the black one?’

‘Especially the black one,’ the old woman's dentures jaw whitens through clouds of steam. ‘Black magic came out of jealousy. And what's jealousy without love? Right, dear?’

‘Right.’

The black mug with white polka dots floats majestically in the air above everyone. It freezes in front of Hare. Out of the gloom, the silhouette of Vampire himself appears. He sips a large gulp.

‘Blood?’ inquires Hare as usual.

Vampire is mysteriously silent. Before he can answer, a gust of cold wind sweeps through the house. From the hallway there is a noise, a rumble, excited old women's voices and the loud slam of the front door. This is followed by the rustle of a dry bundle of garlic dropping to the floor from a clove above the threshold.

In the resulting silence, a disgruntled cat meow is heard.

‘What, the brooms have escaped?’ Widow drops the ladle into the pot.

The house gets dramatically colder. Even the ubiquitous smell of angelica tries to hide under the warm shawls of the other two widows who have emerged from the hallway. Their faces are as pale as mushrooms.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

‘Ladies, get to work!’

The old women throw plum wood into the fireplace with determination, chanting something incoherent and blowing vigorously into the embers. The house is engulfed in a blue smoke, through which the revived flames glow bloodily.

‘And you, all of you,’ a finger with a thick engagement ring is jabbed at Gothic Hare, Root and Vampire in turn, ‘find the brooms and bring them to Bare Hill. There we'll scatter the potion in the air. So that all will love death, so that they will long for the dead, so that their hearts will stick to the grave stones forever! Forever!!!’

The shrill voice haunts them through the cold and darkness for a long time to come. It frightens the stars and they hide behind the clouds. The forest emerges from the blackness with a chaos of trunks, fear and branches....

In the night woods dwells the Terror. But not for those whose souls are dark. Or those travelling in the company of a vampire. Vampire, however, has not been seen for a long time. Hare stares at the grey mass in front of him.

Branches. Branches and branches again. Bald, bare, hooked.

‘Why do witches always have to live at the edge of forest?’ grumbles Deadly Root.

He has it the coldest of all. Now and then he falls up to his head in snow or an icy puddle. Only an unripe sugar beet is paler than him. He stares into the dark wall of trees, trying not to notice shadows and ghosts.

‘Their broomsticks are made of forest. That's why witches settle closer to it.’

The thickets sway to the tact of Hare's words. Scraps of red silk padding remain on the thorns, knots, and rotten chips they have to pick their way through.

Gothic Hare has not been in the woods for a long time. He knows that in the ravines lurk Foxes-who-are-not-Foxes. There is a Wolf-who-isn't-a-Wolf hiding among the fir trees. Dark shadows of shadows that always seem to be something scary. The night forest is full of ghosts and the ominous crunching of twigs.

A large black snag blocks their path. Something wicked can be seen among the crooked limbs.

‘Eagle-owl?’ asks Root in a whisper.

‘Worse,’ also in a whisper replies Hare. ‘It's an eagle-owl-which-isn't-an-eagle-owl.’

‘How is it worse?’

‘Because you never know what it really is...’

The black ominous mass on the long curved stick shakes and spins.

‘I know what it really is,’ declares Root squinting.

His colour turns an ashen-black. The darkness, the snag, and the night itself immediately swallow him up. It's warmer for some reason. And also...

The broom, not expecting a trick, jumps into the air as it is snatched from the deep puddle in which it had settled so nicely for the night. It really does look like an eagle-owl now. Branches sticking out in all directions. The stick resembles a ravenous clawed paw.

‘To Bare Hill!’ commands Root.

The broom soars into the night, sparing him icy pools and cold snow covering the green of violets. Droplets and rotten needles fall down. Hare throws his hood over his head and follows them with his gaze. Now he is alone in the Darkness and there is no one to help him. What could be better?

His black whiskers twitch contentedly and Hare continues on his way. He struggles through bushes, stumbles over invisible stumps and climbs over centuries-old trunks. His soul is full of a cold fog, into which the whole forest quietly sinks. The darkness is watching him. Something is stalking him. Fir trees, mosses and ghosts stare at him. Closer and closer. One scarier than the other…

From somewhere above, a spruce cone falls on Hare. Then another. And another. Something rustles and there's a screech of an owl.

‘Vampire?’ Hare wrinkles his nose in displeasure.

There is something unspeakably pleasant about being buried alive in the night woods and fog. But not when there's something constantly crackling overhead. Gothic Hare clamps his eyes shut, trying to keep the magic. Worthless. The owl's cry is repeated right in front of his nose. Hare opens his eyes and stumbles into a yellow unblinking gaze.

‘Stephanie,’ he nods courteously.

The owl hovers motionless in the air a paw's length away. Too crazy even for the thick fog in the dead woods. Hare slowly turns on its axis. Still there! The barn owl hangs in front of him as an ominous omen. In her paws is a long stick that smells of pine needles and Christmas. If, of course, Christmas happens for those lost in the darkness.

‘To Bare Hill!’ orders Hare.

The second broom, with the owl perched on it, solemnly disappears from his sight.

Now he's surely alone. At last...

Darkness, fog and magic tighten up again. There is no road, no path, no good sign. How wonderful! Gothic Hare cheers up. He slowly rambles on in silence. Stalked by Fox-who-is-not-a-Fox. By Wolf-who-is-not-a-Wolf. By Eagle-Owl-who-is-not....

‘AaaHHH!’

The slippery gully happens somehow too unexpected. A sudden blow of otherworldly freezing wind. A fall downwards. There is only darkness below, with a thick fog laying shrouded over it. Hare is laying down, as well.

He knows that high above him the stars are shining. One day they too will come to an end. And no one will ever find them either.....

Hare folds his paws on his chest, preparing for the inevitable. That the long-awaited peace will be broken again. That's how it always happens.

At first, he starts to get very uncomfortable lying down There's something hard against his back. Next, prickly twigs start tickling his paws. To top it all off, he just soars up into the air. The gully where he had just been is now covered by a large black shadow. A predator. Or-not-a-predator. Hare is not destined to find out what it really is. Wisps of fog sweep past him.

Obviously onto Bare Hill, he thinks as he listens to the buzzing in the wind of the broomstick he so unluckily plopped down on. He also thinks he'll go back to the Night Woods someday.

Alone.

Without broomsticks, without the shrill voices of Widows chanting vicious spells on top of Bare Hill at the side of the cemetery, without a pot of hot brew that smells sweeter than angelica. Far away from the sparks of the campfire and drops of the Charm Potion that makes him feel too good and too happy. Only night, only darkness...

***

The Widow's house is finally quiet and empty.

Vampire steps out of the shadows of the high antique clock with the pendulum. He steals noiselessly along the hallway and peers into the open room. An empty mirror tunnel stares at him in an unwelcoming manner. The wind is blowing, though all the windows are closed.

Vampire dips his finger into the black mug with white polka dots and in one move completes the unfinished symbol. Leaving dark paths, the thick red droplets creep down off it. Vampire slams the door shut a second before something heavy hits it. The blows shake the door from the inside, and then there is silence....