Frankenplot: Ghosted

A silvery moon slides slowly up into the dark sky silhouetting the old gallows oak on the common. The village is curled quietly into itself like a cat by the fireside. Past the houses, the pub and the pond,  by the red sandstone church, creatures of the night begin to stir.

A dark shade swoops silently into the frosted field beyond the churchyard.

Flickering black shadows gyrate over the graves.

Having danced their way through the twilight, the starlings sleeping in the yew tree by the lychgate murmur and shift on their roosts.

A white tail disappears amongst the tangled roots of hawthorn and holly in the hedge.

Eery shadows slant across the frigid gravestones.

The hands on the church clock point directly upwards towards the cold, metallic sheen of the full moon. The rooster weathervane on the tower spins rapidly around and around and around.

With her  bony forefinger, Emma traces the worn lichen-covered words on the limestone as the clock ticks over to All Souls Day.

A scream curdles the silence. Probably a fox. In the shade cast by the church, a low mist swirls around the poetry of the epitaphs. Just the wind, she used to think when she came here as a child, playing dare with the others, just the wind.

Now she knows better.

The starlings are silently alert. The owl has moved further away, ignoring the church mouse scurrying for safety through the gap under the heavy wooden door. The rabbit feels secure back in her warm underground home. Even the bats have gone, feasting instead over the nearby village pond.

Fingers form the stonemason’s shapes once more: E, m, m ... the moon shifts behind the tower. In the sudden dark, shroud-like shadows engulf the grave. The wind whines around the corners of the church. The burnished brush of the vixen dusts the cold stone wall. Another shriek as the owl swoops in on its prey. Bony fingers flail silently on the limestone.

Abruptly, the weathervane stops spinning. The owl sits in the oak serenely dissecting its victim. The moon reappears, shining benignly on the sleeping village.