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Mystic Hollow Community Page
New post from Mayor Croft: Citizens, I’ve been alerted by numerous reports of small critters on carnival rides, eating wires, and causing havoc at the festival. Please avoid the area for the time being while we deal with this minor issue. Tricksters at work, I’m sure!
A scream builds in my throat as Colton’s head rolls to a stop in front of me, his eyes blinking in surprise.
The Horseman continues down past the lake, loping toward the cemetery, but I can’t look away from Colton’s disembodied head.
As if feeling left out, his body ambles over and casually picks up his head, which he holds like a football tucked under his elbow. I guess he is a quarterback.
“Cool, how’d you do that?” his head asks, laughing hard, not at all concerned. “Neat trick. I have to show the guys.” He jogs back toward the house, carrying his head.
I whirl around, but the Horseman has already disappeared into the woods. The cemetery is on the other side of the lake, and I need to find a shortcut. Fast. It’s not like I can run quicker than a horse.
“Wait! Stop!” I scream.
I hear someone snicker. When I turn around, I see a group of vampires.
“You’re too late, witch,” says the one who bit Tom.
She wipes a dribble of blood from her mouth, and I pale thinking of whose that could be.
“The Horseman has risen from your prison and now will raise the dead to assemble his army.” She steps closer, and I can feel the darkness in her trying to swallow my energy whole.
“By midnight, the veil will completely fall, and then Mystic Hollow will be ours.”
I picture the town green, where everyone is gathered for Halloween.
The carnival blazing bright in the night, the pumpkin patches, haunted corn maze, and the trick-or-treaters.
These supernatural beings our family have kept away for centuries will be allowed to run free and will take over our town. I can’t let that happen.
The vampires start coming at me, baring their fangs.
I know they’re expecting me to panic, but I refuse to be afraid.
I’m a witch. My family vowed to protect this town centuries ago, and somehow I lost sight of what these Samhain spells are for.
They’re not about finding love on Halloween.
They’re about coming together as a family to protect Mystic Hollow.
But it’s not midnight yet. There are still two Hadleys in this town, and together we can save Mystic Hollow.
Instead, I turn and race toward the little rowboat we keep by the edge of the lake. Yes, there’s a kraken. Yes, there are lights in the water trying to lure me to my death.
But my sister is across this lake, scared and alone in a cemetery, and the Headless Horseman is riding there to raise his undead army. I get into the boat.
The vampires hiss and lunge at me, but a tentacle rises out of the water and bats them aside like bowling pins. They topple as I start rowing.
On the far shore, tombstones seem to bob with every stroke of the oars.
While not a Samhain ritual, per se, Mom has always brought us to the cemetery on the holiday to visit the graves of our ancestors to thank them for all they did to protect Mystic Hollow.
There are many Hadleys buried here, but Beatrice was always our first stop because the woman was a rock star witch.
While our house holds more power, it makes sense for Harry to try to cast her spells there.
I jump off the boat, not bothering to tie it up, and race through the cemetery, trying painfully hard to ignore the blue orbs everywhere and the eerie low-lying fog as I reach the oldest part of the cemetery, next to the church.
There’s the sound of hoofbeats in the distance, and I know the Horseman isn’t far behind.
I whirl around, looking for his dark form, when I crash into another body.
Harry. When we crash together, she drops what she’s carrying—charred remains of hydrangeas, a nub of a candle, our family ceremonial rope, and a bushel of apples.
“Harry!” I throw myself at her for a tackling hug. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Harry falls to her side, me on top of her, and looks up in surprise. “Kat? Oh my God. I’m so glad you’re all right.”
We hold each other tight, and I think we’re both shedding tears.
“I tried doing the first spell on my own like you wanted, but I don’t think it worked,” she tells me. “As soon as I finished, there was an earthquake, and the graves are shifting. I—I think I might have raised the dead, Kat. I failed. You must hate me.”
“Oh, Harry, I don’t hate you,” I say, sniffling. “You’re my sister. I love you. That’s why I was so mad about the love spell. Why didn’t you just tell me Reese kissed you?”
Harry’s eyes widen in surprise, and she pushes her frizzy hair out of her face.
“You know about that?” I nod. “I felt so awful. I didn’t know how to tell you.
I knew how much you liked Reese, and right before Halloween he kissed me.
I didn’t want to kiss him! I pushed him away immediately, I swear.
And I told him I never wanted to see him again.
But then he started flirting with you, and I knew he was just doing it to get closer to me.
And . . . I didn’t want him to hurt you.
You’d been hurt so many times before with the others!
That’s why I cast the spell—to protect you.
” Her lower lip trembles. “I had no idea the spell was powerful enough to make Reese’s family move right then.
When that happened and you were so upset, I knew I couldn’t tell you the truth.
I was so mortified and I felt so guilty, I guess I pulled away so you wouldn’t know what I did. ”
This all makes so much sense now. “I thought you shut me out because of something I did,” I confess, a lump forming in my throat.
“I thought maybe you stopped talking to me because I couldn’t live up to be the perfect Harriet Hadley’s sister—that I was pathetic.
That—that I couldn’t even get a boyfriend. ”
Harry looks shocked. “Is that what you really thought?”
“Well, yeah,” I admit. “You’re so good at everything. Spells. School. Life. Boys. You cast a large shadow. There’s just no competing with you and, believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Oh, Kat!” Harry hugs me again. “That wasn’t it at all!
I was ashamed about what happened. You were right—I was trying to control your love life, and I am anything but perfect.
” She wipes her nose. “Far from it. College is nothing like I thought it would be. I built my whole high school years around winning. Then I got into Boston College like I always wanted and everyone is smart there. Everyone does well. And now I don’t even know what I want anymore.
” She cries harder. “And to top it off, I think my roommate hates me. I haven’t made any real friends yet, so I just spend most of my time in my room talking to my parents on FaceTime. I’m the pathetic one.”
I squeeze her hand. I feel terrible. “Oh, Harry! Why didn’t you say something? You’re always telling Mom and Dad on the family call how BC is amazing.”
“I was so embarrassed,” she says. “My friends from home are all loving life at their colleges and don’t have time to talk. You and I weren’t really talking. I’ve just felt so lonely.”
“So have I,” I admit. “I know I have Laney, but you’re my sister. We’ve always been so close, and then when we weren’t, I was so mad. I’m sorry. I should have never let boys come between us.”
“I’m sorry too,” Harry says. “I wish you could forgive me.”
“Harry,” I say, smiling a bit through my tears, “you’re my sister. I know you acted out of love, and you made sacrifices too. Of course I forgive you.”
There’s a clap of thunder, and the sky washes with lightning.
“What was that?” Harry asks, just as a metallic screech cuts the air. The cemetery gate is opening.
“The Headless Horseman. You know how you think you raised the dead? I raised the Headless Horseman.”
“Oh my,” Harry says, watching as his black horse paces down the cemetery path. “What do we do?”
My sister holds tight to me, and she’s asking me what to do.
“We try again,” I say. “Together.”
She looks at me in surprise, and I reach for the closest flowers I can find—plastic daisies someone left on a grave.
“The ritual,” I say. “You and me.”
“You need your true love,” Harry says, staring in horror as the Horseman approaches, raising his axe in threat.
“I love you, Harry,” I say. “And that’s true.”
She strikes a match and holds it to the plastic flowers. They aren’t hydrangeas. They aren’t even real flowers. But I know my love for my sister is strong.
“Protect this town,” we both whisper. And then we hold our breath, wondering if the flowers will catch.
“Kat,” she whispers as the Horseman approaches, his axe glinting in the moonlight. “I want you to know, I love you—”
“Don’t,” I whisper back as the ground underneath us fractures. Green and gray hands shoot up, clawing at the earth. The Horseman’s army is rising. “I love you too, Harry.”
And then I shut my eyes.
Heat flares in my hands, there’s a ghostly whinny, and then a rush of wind.
When I crack my eyes open, the Horseman is gone.
“Did it work?” I ask.
“It’s just the first part of the ritual,” Harry says, squealing a bit as a hand reaches for her ankle. Because now we have zombies. “We need to finish it.”
I paw along the ground, trying to grab the rope and the apples, as an entire woman’s torso rises out of the earth, her eyes milky and unfocused, her hands reaching for me. Harry screams and hauls me back. “Leave it!”
“But we need the objects.”
Harry hauls me away from the cemetery, dodging zombies as we go. They groan at us, and Harry screams right back in their faces, a feral noise. That’s my sister. “We need to send the Horseman back to his final resting place. Just like Beatrice did.”
“We can’t behead him again.”
“I’m sure she used a spell. We just have to find her spell book. Mom mentioned she had more supplies in the office—”
“The green!” I say, pulling at my sister’s arm, tugging her in the other direction. “Eleanor said they buried her spell book in the monument at the center of the green. We get that—we get new supplies for the ritual—and we finish this!”
In the distance, we hear screams and that all-too-familiar call of the Horseman’s steed.
“We banished him into Eastbrook,” Harry whispers.
“Well, by the sounds of it, he’s headed back here. Let’s go!”
And with that, my sister and I take off running together toward the green.