The Red Witching Hour by Colleen Wagner

The Red Witching Hour

By Colleen Wagner

            A long, long time ago, there was a village that was shrouded by a thick forest. It was hard to find and few residents ever ventured outside of it. The only real evidence that it ever existed was from the stories that people told about it. Some people thought that the stories were just used as teaching tools to scare young children from misbehaving. Other people say that the stories are real factual events, no matter how far-fetched they may seem. The real believers will tell you that if you listen carefully during the witching hour, you can still hear the voices of trapped souls howling to the moon.

            In this village, there lived a young girl who was known by the people as Red. She was rich, beautiful, and mysterious. She had long brown hair, fair skin, a slim figure, and green eyes. Her eyes were so green that they would remind anyone who saw them of emeralds. The most surprising and yet important feature to remember about Red was that she was young; too young. When children began to grow taller and hit puberty, Red would just stay the same and enjoy her childhood. Some people just ignored it and figured she was a late bloomer, nothing strange about it. Other people would avoid her and swear that there was something unnatural about her looks and her youth.

            Red was the granddaughter of a powerful figure in the village, Regina Esmeralda Dullum. No one remembers what happened to Red’s parents, just that they were no longer alive and that Red lived with her grandmother in the biggest house in the land. Although no one had set eyes on her in many years, Regina weighed in on all important decisions about the town. A messenger would deliver documents to the house, Red would sign for them, and her grandmother would look over them and send in her decision. Once Regina’s decision was sent in, no one on the council ever opposed it.

            What few people knew about Regina was that she was a powerful witch. She would use her magic to remain youthful and vanquish foes. The reason no one ever opposed Regina was because they were afraid of her turning them into a horrible beast, a werewolf. They would be a man by day and a blood lusting wolf by night. One time a council man wanted all of the local shops in the village to plant trees in front of their stores to make the town more aesthetically pleasing. Regina did not approve of this idea and when he still pressed the issue, she turned him into a werewolf. She did this for decades every time she decided someone was a nuisance.

            One afternoon, when Red was returning home to her grandmother’s house from collecting flowers, she ran into a young man. He was handsome, with dark hair and deep blue eyes. He was well build with a small scar over his right eye. He asked Red, “Where are you off too today young lady?”

            She responded, “Home to my grandmother’s house. Have we met before sir?”

            The gentlemen responded, “We have not, but I believe that I am an acquaintance of your grandmother. Your grandmother is Regina, right?”

            “That’s right.” Red responded. “And how do you know each other?” she asked.

            “We are old friends, from a long time ago.” The gentlemen told Red with a glint in his eye. “Would you mind if I walked with you to her house? I was just on my way to pay old Regina a visit.”

            Red was curious and agreed that they could walk together. As they walked they chatted about the weather and the village, but both dodged and avoided questions that were about themselves. When they arrived at Regina’s house Red invited the stranger inside. She made tea for the both of them and they sat in the parlor as they waited for the other to say something. Time passes quietly as it grew darker outside. Finally the stranger said, “Red, is your grandmother coming down any time soon?”

            Red responded, “She might. She does not move the way that she used too. If you want, I can take a message to her and bring you back a response.”

            The stranger looked out of the window, up toward the sky and responded, “No, that won’t be necessary. I have waited this long, I can wait a little bit longer.”  

            Red looked at him suspiciously. She turned to him and asked, “What are you waiting for Derick?”

            Derick looked at her and ask, “How did you know my name.”

            “You told it to me earlier.” she responded.

            Derick stared at her and replied, “No, I didn’t. In fact, I made a point not to tell people my name many years ago. There is power in names.”

            He looked around the room and began to realize what was going on. In the kitchen, there was one chair at the table. Not enough food for more than one person. The house was huge, large enough for a large family to live in, but there was only one coat on the hook by the door. Only one set of shoes on the floor, and no evidence that anyone else inhabited the house.

            He turned to Red, his deep blue eyes large and full of shock. “Red. R. E. D. Regina Esmeralda Dullum! You are Regina! You used dark magic to keep yourself young! You have been fooling everyone! No one else lives here taking care of a little girl! You have been fooling the whole village making them think that an old woman and her grandmother live here. You have been controlling the town all the while you have been parading around as a child!”

            Red looked at him with a wicked smile, her green, emerald eyes sparkling in the now moon light. “Yes Derick,” she said. “I fooled you, like you tried to fool me. Pretending to befriend a little girl in order to come seek revenge on me. Pathetic! I know why you came here. You figured that if you killed me, maybe the change would stop. Maybe you wouldn’t have to become the hideous beast I turned you into all those years ago. A desperate man’s choice! But here is what you don’t know. The kills you make as werewolf, keeps me young. Those souls that you have taken to feast on their bodies have helped make me invincible! While you think you tricked me into letting inside my home, I tricked you into coming into my trap! When I kill you and eat your heart, the heart of my first transformation, the first man I ever turned into a wolf, I will live forever!”

            Derick turned Red and said, “While you were so focused on luring me in, you forgot to make sure that you were not followed! I did think that I was tricking the granddaughter of the wicked Regina to let me into her home, but I did not think that it would be such an easy fate to kill her. I brought friends. You may recognize them!”

            By this point, the moon had risen to its fullest height and the witching hour had begun. As Derick and Red stood staring at each other inside the stale cold house, howling began to rise outside of the house. The howling of the wolves.

            “Do you think you can take me down?” Red asked. I am more powerful than all of you, what is more important, I control you!”

            “Not when you have ingested water from springs that lay beyond the forest. Water that you have not inflicted with contamination to enslave the people. That water stunts your power. Not for long, but long enough. I slipped it into your tea in case you possessed the same dark magic that your supposed grandmother had. Now I am glad that I did. You have no power. You took everything away from us, now we will have our revenge.”

            The handsome young Derick then walked into the moon light and transformed into a wolf as a pack of more than a hundred other werewolves burst into the house.  They surrounded Red, bit her, scratched her, and tore her skin off. A shriveled old woman with skin hanging off her bones was revealed under her disguise.

            Red looked at Derick the wolf and said her final words, “When you are the alpha of a pack, always be ready for someone to try to over throw you. When you think you are the trickiest person in the room, you may be the one getting tricked.”

            Red was then killed by the very werewolves that she created. They then burned down her house in hopes of destroying all of the dark magic that may be forcing the beasts to change from form to form.

            Before they could get out, a few of the wolves fur got too close to the flames and caught fire. In hopes of putting it out they ran into the forest, but the lack of rain that summer only made the grass and the trees catch fire. The whole village burned down, and many story tellers will say that there were no survivors after the disaster. But if there were no survivors, where did the stories come from?

            If you hear a howl during the witching hour, stay inside and know that making enemies and seeking revenge can lead you down a dangerous trail.