Dear Fellow Traveler,
It was late at night as he walked the foggy road, during Halloween of all nights. He had gotten caught up helping at the store after closing, so late, that it was already too late to go to the drive in with his friends.
So onward to home he went.
It was already a spooky night, but the oddly empty roads made it a bit worse, he felt insulated, and lonely. There weren’t even any children running about to trick or treat. Which was especially odd, considering it was such a clear night, with a bright full moon to light the streets.
It was almost amonous. Now he really wished someone had answered the home phone. On top of that, he felt like he was forgetting something very important. Did his mom ask him to pick anything up for her? NO that wasn’t it. Maybe it's something about the time?
He turned his head to the clock tower over city hall, to see that it was very nearly midnight. He hadn’t realized it was that late, so he picked up his pace heading towards the bare road that led home.
Despite the night being so clear, the groves trees practically created a cave, it was only thanks to the bare branches letting little streams of moon light shine through, that he could see where he was going. It also left the view ahead bth erie but slightly pretty, and was almost calming until the cloak tower finally struck 12.
The sound of the bell’s deep chime almost seemed to signal a powerful howl of wind as it entered through the grove, in his direction.
The strong gust nearly pushed him over, but he was more startled by the haunting call of a barreling herd of horses and the thundering of their hooves against the dirt road, but before he could react, he was thrown aside as the herd of horses ran past him. Even though this was an urban area surrounded by farms and open fields, you were more likely to be mowed down by a car, not a horse.
So when he was thrown into the trees lining the road, it was a shocking sight to see as the herd thundered by.
All of them were glowing white like the moons beams had attached themselves to their coats, and more shocking still, were the band of riders that mounted them. Men and women, all dressed in furs and cloaks, with bows and swords. And yet, as real as they surely sounded, and as sure as the ground trembled beneath the hooves, the horses and their riders' forms were no denser than fog.
They were there, and not there at the same time.
He was in such a state, all he could do was watch in awe with his mouth hanging open at the sight of them. He couldn’t get up, he couldn’t think to question what he was seeing.
He didn’t snap out of it until he heard one call his name.
“Oisin!” he turned his head to see a young ghostly girl turn her horse towards him, and as she slowed down to stand before him, the memory hit him harder than the horse, and he felt like a dunce.
“Hello, Fiona,” he gave an embarrassed smile, “I-” he rubbed his neck, not wanting to admit it, “I forgot my cloak…” Oisin apologized, as he stood up, he felt his foot nudge something, and Fiona kept shouting at him as he knelt back down to pick it up.
“I’ll say you did, you dunce!” she scolded him louder, throwing a white cloak at him as he took a moment to reposition what he had knocked over when falling into it the minute before. “The hunt has already started, and here your dumb ass is, playing around.” The girl shouted louder at Oisin, but he waved her off, ignoring his friend’s scolding. Once the hand made cross was put back into place, Oisin mounted the horse behind his friend,”Yea yea… sorry.” he smiled and Fiona groaned, before going on scolding him about how “The cloaks keep us from forgetting when in the living world,” and “If he missed the hunt, he’d have to roam the land for another year” and soon as they rejoined the group.
But Oisin ignored it all, and just thought over the irony of being run over by a horse in the same spot 50 years after he had gotten hit by a car on Halloween night.
To get the scolding to stop, he brought up something he had quickly noticed, “There are a lot of new riders this year.” he mentioned looking at the lost souls mounted with the riders. “Did something happen?”
“I’ll tell you when we make it to the other side.”
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