Welcome to Halloween in Miniature 2020! Day 4
👻 Go to intro & contest! on Day 1 - https://candidcanine.blogspot.com/2020/09/halloween-in-miniature-2020-start-party.html
Read Part 1 of this story on Day 3 - https://candidcanine.blogspot.com/2020/10/halloween-in-miniature-2020-3-halloween.html
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💀 Continued - Part 2 of Superstition! by Carola Dunn
With some argument Peter persuaded his friend that his plan was a harmless lark, and gave him the blunt to buy a few old sheets from Mrs. Gregg, the landlord's accommodating young wife. While Freddy went to round up his accomplices, Peter stood for a minute watching the dancers.
Amelia was light on her feet as a week-old
lamb. Her ringlets bobbed merrily as she
smiled at her partner and turned on his arm.
She loved to dance. If only she
didn't change her mind about going with him!
Then she grimaced, and he guessed the
curate really had trod on her toes, bless him.
Peter went to harness his gig.
The cold outside made his head swim. "No more punch," he muttered to
himself, blinking. What the devil did
Gregg put in the stuff?
After a moment, his head stopped going
round and he made his way out into the stable yard. It was a clear, crisp night, the moon just
past full. The yard and the street
beyond were crammed with the motley collection of vehicles that had brought the
local gentry and the wealthier farmers to town for the Halloween assembly. Fortunately Peter had arrived a little late,
so his gig was easily accessible.
(Photo: pixabay.com)
His trusty roan, Snap, snorted his
objection to being extracted from the friendly warmth of the stable. He stood patiently between the shafts, his
breath steaming in the frosty air.
Peter fastened the last buckle and went
back into the inn's entrance hall. In a
dark nook by the staircase, Amelia was lurking, enveloped in her scarlet
woollen cloak and hood. As she hurried
towards him, he noted with approval that she had changed from dancing slippers
into half-boots.
"Quick, before someone sees
me." She took his arm and hurried
him back through the door into the yard.
"I told Mama I was going to sit with Mr. Gregg's mother for half an
hour."
"How noble!"
"I did go and see old Mrs. Gregg for a
few minutes earlier, so it is only a little bit of a fib. Hello, Snap." She stroked the horse's nose. "You must take us quickly there and back
or I shall be well and truly in the briars."
(Creepy clock, luvcats9, Ebay)
Snap whickered and turned his head to watch
them climb into the gig. At Peter's
signal, he set of trotting through the little town and started up the hill
toward Salisbury Plain as the church clock chimed the third quarter. The road was in excellent repair after a
period of dry weather, so they made good time. The hour had not yet sounded
when they reached the road's closest approach to Stonehenge.
For the last few hundred feet, the light
open carriage jolted across sheep-cropped turf.
By moonlight the great stone arches loomed supernaturally immense, their
black shadows stretching across the plain.
Handing Amelia down from the gig, Peter shivered--up here in the open a
biting breeze cut through his top coat.
Amelia shivered too. He put his arm about her shoulders and together
they picked their way through the four rings of stones to stop close to the
altar stone.
"Do you want to sit down?" he
asked in a hushed voice.
"On the sacrificial stone? Heavens, no!
I hope it is nearly midnight, for I am half frozen." She turned to put her arms around his waist
and hid her face in his shoulder.
He hugged her, suspecting that, though cold
and scared, she was actually quite enjoying herself.
From the distant town, the first stroke of
midnight wafted to his ears. He glanced
hopefully around the massive circle. Freddy had not had much time to gather
their friends and bring them up here, but if they came too long after the clock
stopped striking the impact of their arrival would be spoiled. Besides, an inflammation of the lungs would
be a sorry end to this adventure.
Ah, there they were. White-robed figures drifted through the arches
and he heard a low, solemn chanting. How
had they managed such a realistic show in so short a time? Four, then half a dozen, a score--who the
devil had Freddy brought with him? Peter
didn't want a bunch of strangers catching him here with Amelia in his arms.
More and more of the mysterious figures
filed into the inmost ring, treading a stately measure. One carried a leafless branch on which grew a
bush of mistletoe, its berries lucent as pearls in the moonlight. In the hands of another gleamed a sickle, and
a third bore a blazing torch, its fiery light glinting on the wide gold collars
and headdresses worn by the three high priests. The rhythmic chant grew louder,
faster, almost drowning the screams.
Screams!
Peter saw that the torchbearer, at the altar stone, was setting light to
a huge wicker basket, shaped like a man. And inside the basket were men, living
men, and wailing women and children, bound with ropes of straw.
A pale fire sprang up. The sacrificial victims writhed in agony,
their tortured shrieks piercing the night.
The smell of burning flesh reached Peter's nostrils.
Appalled, he tried to rush to the
rescue. His legs refused to move; his
feet were frozen to the ground. He tried
to shout a protest. No sound emerged
from his throat. He realized that he was
not breathing. His heart, which should
be pounding in terror and fury, was standing still. He could not even clasp Amelia closer to
him to keep the dreadful sounds from her ears.
The three high priests watched their
victims last struggles with grave detachment.
Around them the dancers had halted, facing inward. Peter saw avid faces and averted faces, the gloaters
and the sickened, and some who looked upon the ghastly death of their
fellow-beings with a lack of interest almost more horrifying than the greedy
relish of others.
The wicker form began to crumble as the
flames leaped higher.
The screams diminished
to moans, and ceased.
Amelia giggled.
Peter shuddered and breathed again, gulping
the icy air.
Amelia raised her face to him and said with
a teasing smile, "The last stroke of midnight. Do you realize that I am shockingly
compromised being out here alone with you?
I shall have to marry you after all." She sighed.
Bewildered, Peter gazed around. The druids were fading, becoming
indistinct. Through their dim images
skipped his friends, wrapped in sheets, howling in gleeful amusement. There were Freddy and his brother Ned, and
over there young Bob, and Chris, the last more balloonlike than ever in his
fluttering white drapery. And coming
through the arches, Tommy's lanky shape, last as usual. He'd recognize them anywhere, even with sheets
over their heads.
Ned's spaniel barked and frisked about
their legs as they capered round and round the altar stone, whooping or
cackling as the fancy took them. Chris
tripped over a trailing end of his costume, and Bob's eye-holes went awry, leaving
him blundering blindly. Amelia clung to
Peter's arm and laughed.
"Did you not..." he began
uncertainly, but Freddy pranced up to them and bowed.
The others followed suit. Amelia clapped her hands as they all
disrobed. "That was a splendid show,
gentlemen," she congratulated them.
"It was famous sport; glad you enjoyed
it, Miss Blake." Grinning, Freddy smoothed his ruffled hair and cast a
sidelong glance at Peter. "Well,
we'd best be on our way."
Peter put out a hand to stop him. "I don't suppose you happened to see
anyone else dressed up as ghosts?"
"Lord, no. No one around here but you would think of
such a lark. Come on, fellows. I just hope the breeze hasn't carried off my
best hat."
"I daresay one of the horses has eaten
it by now," Bob suggested.
With a screech worthy of the most unhappy
ghost, Freddy loped off through the arches and the others went after him.
Arm in arm, Peter and Amelia followed. By the time they emerged from the stone
rings, all the young men were mounted—and hatted. Their mounts, it seemed, had graciously
refrained from eating Freddy's best beaver.
The riders waved and cantered off across the grassy plain.
Snap came trotting up to Peter, the gig
bouncing behind him, and nuzzled at his pocket for the lump of sugar he always carried. Peter fed it to him, then handed Amelia into
the gig. Jumping up beside her, he still felt slightly dazed, unsure of what
was real and what was not.
"Did you not see or hear any genuine
ghosts?" he asked, doing his best to keep his voice unconcerned, as he
took up the reins and whip and gave Snap the office to start.
"Of course not. I am not quite the ninny you think me, and I expected
something of the sort when you proposed coming up here. They did it very well,
but no one could possibly mistake your friends for genuine ghosts. I hope they did not steal the sheets off
somebody's washing line."
"I gave Freddy the money to buy them from young Mrs. Gregg," he said absently. Thank heaven she had not been aware of the Druids. He would never have forgiven himself for subjecting his beloved to those gruesome sights and sounds. Taking a deep breath, he resolved to try to forget them.
While he was hesitating over how to phrase
his next question, a cold little hand, in a thin silk glove meant for dancing, slipped
into his. He dropped the whip--he never
used it on Snap anyway.
"Peter," Amelia confided, "I
don't really mind being compromised and having to marry you."
"You don't?"
"No. You see, I have loved you ever since you
stopped pulling my pigtails."
"You have? Oh, my darling Melly." The reins joined the whip on the gig's
floor. He gathered her in his arms, and
kissed her thoroughly.
Snap trotted on. When Peter emerged from the blissful embrace
and picked up the reins again, the patient beast merely gave an indulgent
snort.
"So you see," said Amelia,
"the Gypsy woman was quite right about everything, and it was nowhere near
as straightforward as you thought."
(Gypsy, Julie Campbell Doll Artist)
"What do you mean?"
"The stone ring--that was not a
betrothal ring, but Stonehenge. And the
white robes were Freddy and the others in their sheets, though I would not
precisely describe their antics as a ceremony."
Glacial fingers tiptoed down Peter's spine. He had watched a ceremony. "And the ancient place," he said
quickly in a lamentably hollow tone, "was Stonehenge again, of course, not
the church."
"Yes," she agreed, "and my
heart's desire is you."
Naturally he had to kiss her again, and the
warmth of her soft lips thawed his icy dread.
"Let us get married soon," he begged.
"If you wish, but I do hope, Peter,
that you will stop laughing at me for being superstitious."
"Believe me, Amelia," he promised
with utterly convincing fervour, "never again shall a single skeptical
word cross my lips!"
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The Corpse at the Crystal Palace, A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery (Book 23) - April, 1928: Discovering that her children's nanny, Nanny Gilpin, has never seen the Crystal Palace, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher decides to make a day of it—bringing her cousins, her 3-year-old twins, her step-daughter Belinda, the nurserymaid, and Nanny Gilpin. The ordinary outing goes wrong when Mrs. Gilpin goes off to the ladies’ room and fails to return. When Daisy goes to look for her, she doesn't find her nanny but instead the body of another woman dressed in a nanny's uniform.
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