‘Twas the night of one of my first Halloweens, I had been newly introduced to such a holiday, and this night in particular was awful, yes, for a day of celebration.

“Wherefore hath we went from our abode?” quoth I, ambling abroad amidst my mother and father, elsewhere from my brother, who remained at our residence. Within the damp and dark streets of Kennett Square we walked beneath the sable sky among the hooting of owls and cries of bats. We sauntered thenceforth unto a daunting home. My parents brought me upon the staircase upward and a sudden terror befell me. As my finger crept towards the doorbell, my mother encouraged me. I was but a mere ant to the house, which, coated in spiderwebs, seemed to me as a den of arachnids. The windchimes sounded in response to the wind, and the knell of the bell sent me to hell.

A witch opened the door, cloaked in green. Warts on her nose, she was a wicked, obscene, fiend. She grabbed from her twine pail a rotten tangerine, and unto me she rendered it, which demeaned the scene that heretofore was sufficiently mean. I cried in horror of what befell my bag and refined my hatred of the old hag.

“Fie! What hath thou bestowed me? What a terrible, terrible thing! Wherefrom hath thou received such an ort?” I demanded, stifling at the putrid and horribly poignant scent.

“Beest as thou mayest, but in my despite thou shalt not discard my bequeathment!” the witch erupted.

“Nay, I shall!” said I. And I ran back to the warmth of my parents. But before we could leave that wretched woman’s house, she uttered a malison, “Thou shalt not forget such a thing, for this thing itself is but a bounty that thou hast forsaken! And so this shall haunt thee for evermore!”

And thereafter I have suffered such a malediction, and it has burdened me. I still struggle with the terrible evocativeness that she put onto me. And shall that terrible beldam ever reappear to me, I shall slay her with great might.