The Flower Children at Halloween – Part 2

“My lunar sisters”, said the High Priestess of the moon, raising her silver staff high in the air, “On Halloween, this glorious night, we are able once more to feel the autumn chill upon our cheeks and the autumn wind in our hair; able to weep real, wet tears and breathe to sigh warm sighs; able to smell a flower and brush it against our skin.

When we were alive, we took those things for granted. We did not cherish them and instead, wasted our days in weeping. Now it is our fate to have back our lives for just one night each year so we may understand the preciousness of life”.

Then, with the end of her silver staff, the priestess drew a circle within the forest floor and it glowed as brightly as the autumn moon and then, round about the circle the moon people skipped and danced to the music of tinkling, silver lyres.

But then, suddenly, the younger sister of the high priestess, whose name was Cylinda, heard the sound of someone approaching through the forest and, raising her hand to silence the music and
bidding the dancers to be still, Cylinda then placed both her hands over her eyes and Rose, who was now standing at the edge of the clearing, watching the moon people and believing herself safe because of her pendant of invisibility, saw that tattooed upon the back of each of Cylinda’s hands was an eye that suddenly became real and opened wide, glowing with a pale, silver, celestial light.

“The eye of the moon sees everything”, she said, “Even those who hide themselves within magic and, now, I see a young woman spying upon us”.

Rose was so startled that she completely forgot about the thunder she could summon from her fingers. Instead of fighting, she merely gasped, then screamed, then turned and tried to run as Cylinda pointed a glowing finger towards her and all the moon people fell upon her, binding her up with moon beams that they tied like ropes around her.

“No mortal is allowed to see us”, said the woman wearing the crown with the crescent moon, “Now you shall be taken back with us as our captive to the crystal caverns of the moon”.

Hearing this, Rose only began to despair, wishing that she had heeded the warning of her mother and stayed at home with her sisters but, just then, zig-zagging through the trees, she saw a strange figure, dressed in a long coat of autumn leaves and riding upon a broomstick and, remembering the song which she and her sisters sang every Halloween, she immediately recognized him, “Hal Owen?”, she said, gasping, “Is that really him?”.

The moon people also seemed to recognise the stranger with orange hair and bright green eyes for they immediately seemed to flee in fear of him, shedding their mortal skins and turning back into ghosts before sliding upwards as quick as a glimmer, over beams of gleaming moonlight, all the way to the moon.

“Hal Owen?”, asked Rose again, slightly dazed by all that had happened, “Is it really you?”.

Her mother Clara took off the orange wig and mask with green eyes as her broomstick landed beside her daughter, “No. Just a Halloween costume, my dear”, she said, “But it certainly seemed to frighten away those spooks”.

Then Rose flew home with her mother, back to the mushroom house where Lilly and Violet were anxiously waiting and then Clara served them all up a glass of her famous, flaming pumpkin punch.

“But mother”, said Lilly, “You told me that Hal Owen was real so why didn’t the real Hal Owen save
Rose”.

“Daughter dear. The Spirit of Halloween is real and does scare away the monsters. It’s the spirit of standing up to fear and shining a lantern in the darkness and it’s a spirit that’s in all of us”.