Summer's End (9 page)
Authors: Lisa Morton
Halloween
It’s nearly midnight now on Halloween
night. Two thousand years ago, the Samhain sacrifices would have been
completed, and the feast celebrating summer’s end begun. The Celts would have
rested well knowing that they’d earned another year of prosperity and peace.
The Lord of Death would visit them only for those whose long lives were at a
natural end.
It won’t be that way for us,
though. Did I fail tonight? Could I really have granted the world a return to
that kind of serenity?
At the beginning of this
journal, I said this: “
It’s only been two weeks
since the world started to fall apart.” I realize now that sentence, while
dramatic, is not entirely correct. The world fell apart long ago. And yet we
continue to live in it; as messy and dangerous and ugly as it is, we somehow
continue along, occasionally finding moments of joy, love, or just quiet
reflection. We share love that bonds two of us together, and we share stories
that one of us has created from nothing. We bond with non-human species, and we
feel horror when we cause them harm.
I
don’t accept that I’ve condemned the world, because any world that requires
giving the lives of children (or adults, or animals) to gods is frankly not
worth living in. Gods are too arbitrary for me. Even the Morrigan’s righteousness
came with a vicious price.
I
know Conor might try again, that he might find another woman who possesses
skills greater than mine and the constitution to commit bloody sacrifice. If he
succeeds, and the world improves overnight next year, or the year after that,
then I will think of a young boy whose soul is owned forever by a black
abomination, and I won’t regret my decision.
I
won’t erase Mongfind’s manuscript or break the wand I was gifted with, but I
have no interest in casting spells or pursuing any other magical goals.
The
world is already magical enough.
The End
[1]
Dr. Wilson Armitage is the author of
Latin:
A Comprehensive Study of the Language
, now in its ninth edition.
[2]
“The Coming of Finn”
[3]
“The Story of Nera”
[4]
“The Story of Oengus”
[5]
http://www.churchesofchrist.net/authors/Walter_Porter/Halloween.htm
[6]
Mongfind is a legendary sorceress and warrior queen who supposedly died one
Samhain when she ingested poison meant for her brother.
[7]
In a famous letter from 601 A.D., Pope Gregory (later known as Gregory the
Great) instructed the Abbot Mellitus, who was then bound for Britain, to leave
pagan temples standing, because “if those temples are well built, it is
requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of
the true God.”
[8]
May 13
th
had probably been chosen as the original date for All
Saints Day because it had marked the climax of Lemuria, a Roman festival
honoring the dead.
[9]
The Conquest of Gaul
[10]
Abbot Jerome is apparently lost to history. Strangely enough, the timing—mid-4
th
-century—coincides
with the life of St. Jerome, an early church father who was involved with
translations of the Old Testament from the Hebrew; however, it seems extremely
unlikely that St. Jerome ever journeyed as far north as Great Britain and
Ireland, so this is evidently another Jerome. It’s also worth noting that
Mongfind’s journal contains no mention of Ireland’s patron saint, Patrick…but
then it would be unlikely to find Patrick in her journal, since he historically
appears in Ireland almost a century later. Perhaps Patrick was always intended
to be sent in as a sort of compassionate, unifying figure after the horrors of
the earlier missionaries.
[11]
In Celtic religion, the Dagda and the Morrigan are basically the father and
mother gods (respectively). They were thought to couple at Samhain to ensure
fertility for the next year’s crops and livestock, and they figure prominently
in a number of existing Samhain legends (the Morrigan, for example, was also a
warrior who, together with her son Oengus, drove the monstrous Fomorians from
Ireland one Samhain).
[12]
In the Celtic calendar, Beltane— which takes place on May Eve, exactly six
months apart from Samhain, or Halloween—was the great spring/summer counterpart
to the fall/winter holiday.
[13]
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” from
Monsters
of L.A.
[14]
I’m not including the actual chant here because…well, even though it can
supposedly be performed only by a Druid priest or priestess of the highest level;
let’s just say I nonetheless have some safety concerns. Don’t try this at home,
in other words.
[15]
The previous chapter was exactly what I found on my computer.
[16]
Mainly in the mid-nineteenth century, after the Great Potato Famine devastated
the food supply in Ireland.
[17]
The Samhanach
(2010)
and
Hell Manor
(2012)
[18]
According to Celtic mythology, Tara was the ancient seat of kings.
[19]
Thousand Oaks is a suburb to the west of the San Fernando Valley, about forty
minutes from Los Angeles.
[20]
“Blind-stamped”, from
Shelf
Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores
[21]
I confess I’ve written more zombie fiction than I care to list here.
