Spinnenfrau’s shoes splashed through the mud down the natural dirt path of the shadowed grove.

“No!” Elisabeth thrashed, much to the creature’s displeasure. “No! I refuse to be here! Take me back--take me back!” She eyed the umbrella in the demon’s hand. Elisabeth seized it and repeatedly bonked the woman over the head.

“Loslassen!" Bonk! "Loslassen!” Bonk. Bonk.

Spinnenfrau hollered Elisabeth’s name through the relentless buffets of umbrella but began another torrent of coughs and gasps. Not so tough without the preserves now, huh demon? Unfortunately for both them, an exposed tree root suddenly materialized from the heavy mist.

Spinnenfrau tripped over the root. Both tumbled down a muddy hill. The monster dropped her victim, who dropped the umbrella and whose right slipper went flyin’.

Rolling. Rolling. Rolling...

Still.

Elisabeth struggled up in the mud. She spat out dirt and wiped her eyes clear of slop and clingy leaves. After fixing her hairband, she made sure her rosary was still wrapped around her left hand when she suddenly coughed and wheezed. No inhaler to save her this time. The ground felt as though it was spinning below her; it looked it, too, as she scanned the area. Pines glued together in thick darkness huddled around a small meadow. Easy, muted rain sparkled like powdered silver. Her breathing slowed, the ground stopped its spinning, and Elisabeth was able to focus. That’s when it hit her.

She had been here before.

The wheezing girl finally found her footing. Clouds circled around the meadow, showing a patch of clear night sky occupied by the full, white moon. Spider webs dotted with droplets intertwined in the pines and moss. Snake skins were left behind with the leaves and mud. A pumpkin patch grew around the mound. Within it, tangled in snaking vines, was her right slipper.

While trying to rip her shoe free from its snare, Elisabeth spun around at the sound of Spinnenfrau’s coughing. The woman lay in the mud, weakly reaching for the umbrella just out of her grasp. Elisabeth quieted her own troubled breathing and climbed the mound, her naked foot tripping here and there on vines, until she made it to the top.

Yep, this was the place where she hid when she got in trouble at church, all those years ago. She couldn't remember why. She didn’t want to remember why. It was too painful to try.

“This is all just a dream,” Elisabeth said to herself. She twisted the rosary in her trembling hand. “I’m still asleep in my bunk bed--that knock on the noggin from the top bunk knocked me out cold... Mein Gott, that has to be the case. A woman cannot possibly run that fast.” A twig snapped. Elisabeth spun around, seeing nothin’ but pumpkin, but she was still here--the demon was definitely here.

With fear gripping her heart, Elisabeth, muddy and scratched, yelled out with a choking voice, “Leave me alone! Go away!” The girl checked the hill. No use, anybody in her state would be too slow to climb hills that steep. She was trapped. With nothing else to turn to, she dropped to her knees, made the Sign of the Cross while holding the cross on her rosary, and bowed her head. Lips a’mutter.

The ground shook.

Elisabeth blinked at the mound then around the forest. The pines swirled from sudden wind and stones tumbled down the surrounding embankment.

“Earth...quake?” Elisabeth said in a panic as she stood. “Here?”

Then the craziest thing happened.

The shadows from the forest bled into the meadow, swallowing everything in their path. They slowly oozed up the mound. In utter terror, Elisabeth looked up at the white moon. It was bright... and full... so beautiful--but... It was all wrong. The moon vibrated madly! It shook so violently--that--before her eyes--the moon... The moon had split into three orbs of different colors.

Without warning, without making a sound, Spinnenfrau snatched up Elisabeth’s wrist. The shadows puddled and bubbled at their feet. The ground evaporated, like sand receding from under their toes. White mist circled around them.

Elisabeth felt herself fall backwards into nothingness as she watched the woman falling above her, clenching on to the girl’s hand while her umbrella struggled to catch up a draft. Behind her, or more like above them, the white moon joggled terribly into red, blue, and green spheres burning through the black sky.

Elisabeth’s screams trailed off as they fell deep, deep, deep down into the laughing shadows.

           HAH-HAH-HAH!

                           EE-HEE-HEE!

                                                        HOO-HOO-HAH-HAH-HAH!