The Samhanach Read online

  THE SAMHANACH

  Lisa Morton

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  First Edition published by Bad Moon Books

  This Edition © 2011 by Lisa Morton

  Cover © 2010 by Jill Bauman

  LICENSE NOTES:

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  MORE TITLES FROM CROSSROAD PRESS & BAD MOON BOOKS

  NOVELLAS:

  The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus & His Traveling Circus by Clive Barker

  Alice on the Shelf by Bill Gauthier

  The Better Year by Bridget Morrow

  Blood Spring by Erik Williams

  The Bone Tree by Christopher Fulbright

  Heart of Glass by David Winnick

  The Hunger of Empty Vessels by Scott Edelman

  Little Graveyard on the Prairie by Steven E. Wedel

  Mischief Night by Paul Melniczek

  NOVELS:

  As Fate Would Have It by Michael Louis Calvillo

  Black and Orange by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  Acknowledgements

  Huge thanks to my parents, who nurtured my love of Halloween; to Ricky, who shares that love now; and to the Dark Delicacies writing group, who offered support and invaluable criticism on this novella. And thanks to Roy, Liz, Cesar, Frank, and everyone at Bad Moon – there’s a reason authors like me keep working with you guys again and again. Lastly, I wanted to offer thanks to the author of The Halloween Encyclopedia and A Hallowe’en Anthology for providing all the authentic Halloween fact and folklore used herein…but that would be a tad narcissistic and more than a little silly, wouldn’t it?

  Merran

  Merran Alstead held the severed hand up to catch the light from the house, turning it slowly, admiring the blood that flecked its stump.

  Too bad it’s not Will’s, she thought, half-smiling.

  “Put it over here!”

  She turned, lowering the gruesome rubber prop, and saw Jeannie on the far side of the lawn, pointing at a Styrofoam tombstone. Merran crossed to join her daughter, stepping carefully around the fake spider webs, flickering pumpkins, and ghosts made from white sheets. She reached the leaning marker, knelt, and carefully wedged the hand down into the grass until it seemed to be jutting up out of the earth, an undead thing struggling to rise.

  “That’s cool!”

  She reached over and flicked Jeannie’s witch hat, causing the six-year-old to giggle. Under the wide black brim, Jeannie’s face was painted green and sported a long nose they’d glued on with spirit gum; the costume was complete with black dress and broom.

  No princess for my little ghoul, Merran thought, eyeing her offspring with amusement and pride.

  The girl was jittering with Halloween excitement; she flew across the yard, pretending to cackle with fiendish glee. “I’m the Halloween witch!”

  Merran’s attention was drawn away by a muttering coming from the sidewalk; she thought she’d heard something like “Halloween bitch," followed by teenaged snickers. Her stomach clenched as she saw Jay Saunders, Manny Posada and Luke Ehrens slinking by. The three sophomores were at least smart enough to know they were too old for trick-or-treat tonight, but Merran didn’t want to think about what alternative they’d come up with to act out Halloween. Manny and Jay leered at her openly, and Luke barely looked away, trudging along in his baggy, would-be gangsta clothing with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. She thought she heard someone mutter “milf” as they climbed into a parked car.

  “Mommy…?”

  She looked back to find Jeannie leaning down near the porch, eyeing something curiously. “Did you put these here?”

  Merran joined her, then squinted in the dim light; she could only make out small white shapes.

  “What are they?” Jeannie asked.

  “Huh. I don’t know.”

  Merran retrieved a lit jack-o’-lantern from the porch and carried it over to where Jeannie stood. Kneeling with the flickering orange gleam, she now saw that the pale forms were mushrooms, each the size of her fist, about twenty of them growing in a ring, enclosing a space six feet in diameter. In the center of the circle was a small book; even in the soft light Merran thought it must be bound in leather, the kind with ribbed bands on the spine. She picked the book up, saw that it had no lettering on the covers.

  “You didn’t put this here?” she asked Jeannie, already suspecting a Halloween gag.

  “No. What are those other things?”

  “Mushrooms, or maybe toadstools. They must’ve just come up.”

  “How’d they get so big?” Jeannie asked.

  “Good question. Halloween, I guess.”

  Jeannie started to reach for one. “I could use these for my witches’ brew –”

  Merran’s own hand instinctively shot out and blocked her daughter’s tiny fingers. “No, I don’t think we should touch these. Some mushrooms are poisonous.”

  “Oh,” Jeannie said, her eyes wide at the thought.

  As Jeannie ran off into the house, Merran pocketed the book; she’d look at it later. She gazed up into the night sky and shivered once. It was completely dark now, almost time for the trick-or-treaters to appear. The air was slightly chilled, just right for late October, and the evening breeze carried a faint scent of smoke and decaying leaves. She loved this night, always had; in fact, her affection for Halloween had eventually led to a major in Folklore Studies…and a useless degree that had nothing to do with her secretarial job in a dull office.

  She inhaled deeply, trying to fill her lungs, to chase out the thoughts of a failed marriage and lackluster career and single motherhood. She wondered if Will was off at a party somewhere, girlfriend on his arm, glass in hand, dressed as a pirate, or a cowboy.

  Stop it, she reprimanded herself. He’s gone, a thousand miles away, and it’s Halloween, and you’ve got Jeannie and you’ll both enjoy the evening.

  “Hey, Merran.”

  She looked up and saw her neighbor, Keesha Johnstone, waiting for her. Keesha was dressed as a cat, with one-piece jumpsuit, tail, ears, and painted nose; her five-year-old, Darren (rigged as a Transformer) peeked out from behind her striped leggings, and her seven-year-old, Marissa, a queen in crown and home-sewn robes, stood regally off to one side.

  “Oh, hi, Keesha. Let me get Jeannie.”

  Merran leapt onto the porch, calling into the house. “Jeannie, Mrs. Johnstone’s here.”

  From the bathroom just off the kitchen came a muted reply: “I’m fixing my nose!”

  Merran bent to a large bag by the door and came up with mini candy bars, which she placed in Keesha and Darren’s outstretched bags. “I’ll be your first tonight. One for you, Your Highness, and for you, your…uh…truckness.”

  Both children shrieked out gratitude, then started off for the next house. “Don’t go beyond the Lees’!” Keesha called after them, then turned her attention to Merran.

  “My witchling is fixing her nose.”

  Keesha laughed. “Witch, huh? I thought she wanted to be a vampire.”

  Merran shrugged. “She did, but we couldn’t find any fangs small enough.”

  A moment lapsed, as Keesha glanced past Merran. “Your yard is great, but…y’know, I’ve got Jeannie for the night, if you want to go off to Rick and Shirl’s party…”

  Merran wrinkled
her nose. “Thanks, but…”

  “What? C’mon, girl, there’ll be some nice men there from Rick’s dealership…”

  “I’m not interested in men, Keesh. I mean…right now, I’m not. It’s just…y’know, too soon.”

  Keesha gave a halfhearted nod. “Well, if you want to change your mind…I’m just saying, I don’t mind keeping Jeannie for the night.”

  “Thanks.”

  The screen door erupted, and a small cloaked figure rushed into the night. “Trick or treat!” she shouted to no one in particular.

  Keesha rolled her eyes. “I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me, trying to corral these three.”

  “Go get ‘em, mama cat.”

  Keesha set off after the three anxious children. Jeannie paused at the edge of her own lawn long enough to call back, “‘Bye, mom! I’ll be back with candy!”

  Merran waved her daughter off, then sighed and headed back to the porch.

  Trick or Treat

  An hour later, Merran had given out four full bags of candy, and opened two more. She’d seen a dozen Disney princesses, at least ten pirates, six cartoon characters, four zombies, three ghosts, two politicians, and a lot of creations she couldn’t begin to name. Plus one witch, who she’d assured herself was no equal to Jean.

  She’d watched in satisfaction as a few very young children, urged on by their parents, had tiptoed through her yard with many sidelong glances, snatched their candy, and fled back to the relative safety of the street. She’d scowled at teenagers who offered no costume but held out pillow cases already bulging. She’d fought back both temptation and revulsion as she watched an already-drunk couple stagger to Rick and Shirl’s place half-a-block down.

  But it’d been five minutes now since she’d had her last masked beggar, and she was considering going into the house to warm herself up with a shot of brandy when she felt a bulge in her pocket. She remembered the book, pulled it out, and, holding it out beneath the porch light, opened the cover.

  The paper inside was old, covered with small brown spots and a spidery but legible handwritten script. The first page bore an owner’s name, and Merran’s breath caught as she read:

  CONNELL McCAFFERTY

  McCafferty…her name. Before she’d married Will and become an Alstead. A name she’d considered reclaiming.

  Connell…she searched her memory, but couldn’t recall the name. She flipped to the first page, and saw the entry was dated 1910, although no month was given. She lowered the book for a few moments, calculating backwards – father, grandfather, great-grandfather…

  Connell McCafferty could be her great-great-grandfather.

  She’d always meant to learn more about the family, to trace her roots; when she’d had Jeannie, she’d vowed to research the family tree and present Jeannie with the information when she was old enough to appreciate it. But somehow, in the rush of raising children and working and living, she’d never gotten around to it.

  She did know that her great-grandfather, Ewan, had come to America from Scotland in 1925. Could Connell be Ewan’s father?

  She glanced down at the book again, and her eyes began to move over Connell’s fluid script:

  “‘Tis time to talk of Hallowmas – Samhain to some – and thus ‘tis also time, I think, to talk about the great unspoken secret, the McCaffertys’ tragedy and curse. I didn’t believe it myself until this year, but even in late summer you could feel a change in the air that had naught to do with autumn, a change that told us all something was coming, something very bad. ”

  Merran looked up from the book, startled, at the sound of footsteps on her walk. It was a small boy, no more than four, dressed as a tiny cowboy, and apparently as shocked by her response as she was by his arrival. He hesitated, until she forced a smile.

  “Trick or treat,” he said, so quietly Merran barely heard.

  She held out candy. He snatched it and then ran while his father, out on the sidewalk, chided him.

  But Merran wasn’t listening. She was pondering the book.

  Where could this thing have come from?

  She could only imagine that Jeannie had found it somewhere, stashed in some old trunk or box, maybe in the attic, and that she’d thought it would make a fine Halloween prop.

  She couldn’t have known how right she’d been.

  Merran glanced up and down the street again, saw no groups of kids headed this way, and so she settled down onto the porch to read the journal of an ancestor she’d never known, describing a family history she’d never learned…

  The Journal of Connell McCafferty – The Beginning

  ‘Tis time to talk of Hallowmas – Samhain to some – and thus ‘tis also time, I think, to talk about the great unspoken secret, the McCaffertys’ tragedy and curse. I didn’t believe it myself until this year, but even in late summer you could feel a change in the air that had naught to do with autumn, a change that told us all something was coming, something very bad.

  I’ll set the story down here just as my father told me, just as his father told him, back through two hundred years of McCaffertys. Back to 1710, when it was Michael McCafferty who oversaw the family, and Jamie his fine young son of eighteen years. The family lived out by Glen Creachan, and they’d prospered under Mike’s fine hand.

  So it was that on Hallowmas Eve of that year that the McCaffertys held a party, inviting all the young folk from the parish. They had nigh on fifty guests, ‘twas reckoned, and they held all the games that the season called for: Snap Apple, bobbing for apples, pulling the kale, burning nuts, sowing hemp seed, casting yarn into the kiln. Just as now, most of the games were about revealing the face or name or nature of the one you’d be marrying some day. I played a few of those games myself, I did, when I was younger, and I can tell you that most of them were but an excuse to sneak up on the lass you fancied and whisper your own name in her ear.

  It was late in the even, but before midnight, when Red Rab showed. His name was really Robert Fraser, but he’d been called Red Rab from birth due to his crimson hair…and fiery temper. Rab was no ordinary fellow on any account: He’d been born twenty years earlier on a Hallowmas eve like this one, near to midnight, and his mother – God rest her soul – had died just minutes after the birth. Rab had been raised by his father alone, and Widower Fraser had a heart of coal – he took to beating the boy on a regular basis. Of course there were those who said the beatings were not without reason: That Rab was a queer one because of his birth, that he had second sight and could commune with things that surpassed a normal man’s vision. But then the Scots have e’er been a superstitious folk…

  As Rab had grown, he’d become a great hulking figure of a man, tall and with a laborer’s broad shoulders. There were, it’s said, a few of the lasses who found him quite striking, with his red hair and strong arms, but Red Rab had eyes for only one: Mary Bruce. Sadly for Rab, Mary wanted naught to do with the likes of him, and anyway she already had Jamie McCafferty, who was happy to be had by her.

  So, you can probably imagine that the entrance of Red Rab Fraser into the McCafferty All Hallows party filled no one with joy. Rab had quite clearly started drinking earlier in the evening, and he kept at it, putting away cup after cup of the McCaffertys’ strong punch.

  Finally Mary brought out a barm brack she’d made herself, and one into which she’d baked a ring; the custom (as it still is) was that whoever should receive the slice with the ring would be first to wed. Rab had stood back most of the night, but now he angled forward with all the rest, hoping to get that piece of the cake that would tell him Mary would soon be his.

  But the ring was not to be uncovered by him. Instead Jamie finished his cake, and pulled forth the ring, holding it up with a grin directed at Mary, who blushed five shades of crimson but didn’t look away.

  Rab got it into his head that he’d been cheated somehow, and he began to have words with Jamie. The two finally came to blows, and although Rab was big, Jamie was faster and smarter. He knocked Red Rab
down in two hits, and told him in no uncertain terms to leave. Rab, who was bleeding from a broken nose now, spit to the side, told Jamie Hallowmas wasn’t over, and made his exit.

  What comes next in the story couldn’t actually have been witnessed by anyone, because none of the main folk involved survived that night, but the story’s come down to us as stories will, with moments that somebody had to make up, and that’s just how I’ll report it here:

  So just before midnight, Mary and Jamie went out to a haystack, intending to practice the old enchantment where you draw a straw to see who you’ll marry. Jamie, of course, probably had something worked out in advance, because he told Mary to close her eyes and he guided her hand. Just as she felt the hay under her fingers, she heard a strange, kind of “whoosh” noise, then felt something warm on her face. She opened her eyes –

  – and saw Red Rab standing there with a scythe in his hands, and Jamie’s headless corpse just falling to its knees, and Mary realized the warm stuff on her face was Jamie’s blood. She began to scream, of course, and Rab, he dropped the scythe, gathered up Mary, and hustled her into a wagon he’d got waiting. Jamie’s people, hearing Mary, came a-rushing out of the house just in time to see Rab’s wagon disappear down the road.

  They found Jamie’s body (and, some yards away, his head), and old Michael McCafferty just set his jaw, grabbed his gun, and jumped onto his horse. His next eldest son, Cameron, and a few of the other men did likewise.

  There was about eight of them who arrived at the Fraser farm twenty minutes later. There was no sign of Rab’s wagon, but just to be sure they went into the barn – where they found Rab’s father hanging, tied up by his wrists and completely skinned, just as Rab had left him before he’d set out for the McCaffertys’. His flesh had been tossed into a bloody corner, more blood had pooled around the old man’s feet…but the Devil must have loved those Frasers, because the old man was still alive.