On a dark Halloween night a long time ago the sea was deep and black under
the cape of the sky. The waves swelled shimmery green and crashed on the
shore. Then something else began to swell beneath the waters. Thirteen
silver fish boiled up to the surface of the sea and flipped onto the
land. The fish panted on the sand, and the moon slipped into the sky from
behind a cloud.
That was when the thirteen silver fish changed to
thirteen huge black dogs. The dogs leapt at the moon and then began to
run. They hurtled across the beach and onto the road where they ran and
ran until they came to the place where the road crossed with two
others.
And there at the road crossing, the dogs began to chase each other
clockwise under the light of the moon. Out of the blur of fur and black
came something else.
Not fish, not dogs. This time
girls. Women. Mothers. Cousins. Daughters. Nieces. Aunts. Grandmothers
and granddaughters. Friends. All of them dancing and stepping high under
the moon.
"Hecate!" the people shouted.
"Hecate!" they whispered. "Lady! Come to us!"
They tipped their heads back and called to the
moon. Called to the round white circle in the black velvet sky.
"Mother! Hecate! Come to us!"
A door opened. Up in the moon, a door opened. The
people on the ground below breathed. A ladder came out of the door. Rung
after rung, it slipped through the sky. Finally it reached the ground at
the center of the circle. While the people in the circle looked up, a
figure emerged from the door in the moon and began to climb down the
ladder.
The figure came closer and closer. And the people
in the circle below began to see it was a Woman. Hood and hunched. With a
huge bag slung over her robes. Down, down she traveled, until finally she
stood in the center of the people.
With both gnarled hands she heaved the bag off her
shoulder. Then she removed the hood from her head.
A little girl said, "You're here!"
The Old Woman's face smiled. The moon lit the
creases of her skin and the white mane of her hair. She opened the
bag.
Inside were glasses of milk foaming just at the
brims and chocolate chip cookies with raisins and almonds. For eating and
eating and eating. The girls ate. The mothers ate. The friends and the
cousins and the grandmothers ate. The aunts and the nieces ate; the
granddaughters ate. They ate until they were full."
Then the Old Woman closed her bag. And she climbed
back into the sky. She pulled up her ladder. And she closed the door. The
moon glowed.
The women and girls below began to dance. Faster
and faster they moved. A circle of light. Whirling round and round. And
then black. Furry and black. Thirteen dogs, howling at the moon. Then
running. Bounding and leaping together. Away from the crossroads. Away
down the road. Back across the beach. Then panting at the edge of the
sea.
Panting and panting. Panting silver fish. Thirteen
silver fish on the sand. Then a flinging of those fish bodies into the
sea. The sea deep and dark under the cape of the sky.
And that's how it was on a Halloween night a long,
long time ago.
- Carolyn McVickar Edwards, from The Storyteller's Goddess