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The Season of the Witch - Ninurta - 10-16-2025
First, a song to set the mood:
Gather 'round, children. Have a seat around the camp fire, and let old gramps tell you a tale.
It was a few years ago now, back when I was able to get around better than I can today. I was out in the woods poaching searching for deer sign so as to know where to go and what time of day to go there to get my quota of deer on the first day of deer season so's I didn't have to spend the entire hunting season in the woods among armed and dumbassed Yankee visitors - that's a reipe for gettin' yerself shot by accident, y'know? It was just about this same time of year, early in the fall just before the harvest.
Now, you need to know a little bit of the lay of the land in these here woods. I live on the side of a mountain, a great ridge that separates the waters on the west that flow westward into the Ohio River from the waters on the east, which flow southward into the Tennessee River. A great high dividing ridge, that divides two separate watersheds. The mountain rises to the clouds behind my house, covered in a quilt of forest that hasn't changed much since Methuselah's possum hound was just a pup.
Near the top of the mountain lies a line of rock cliffs where it looks like the mountain tried to outgrow it's blanket of forest. In those cliffs, in a small alcove that nature cut into them eons ago, there is a small cottage or cabin, built, it appears, of field stones. This is a few miles back into the woods, way up high on the mountain. The cabin built of stone in that alcove appears as if whomever built it was trying to camouflage it among the cliffs, building it of stone the same color as the cliffs, and using the cliffs themselves for the left and right exterior walls and the back wall - mostly it looks like a single wall was laid out between two cliffs and a roof plopped onto to it. The roof itself looks old, very old, and has all manner of greenery which has taken root on it and grown into a tangle over the years, further camouflaging the structure.
In the winter time, curls of smoke can be seen emerging from the brush and laurels that cover the roof, wafting upward until it is whipped away and dissipated by the winds before it can fully emerge above the cliffs. You have to be pretty close on to the place to see any smoke at all, although the smoke can be smelled - but not precisely located - for some distance away.
Now given that description of the old cabin, and the fact that it is so far back into the woods, even more so than my place, one might be forgiven for assuming that anyone living there means to be isolated, even more so than myself... and I purely hate what has come to be referred to as "civilization". T'ain't nothing civil about it, near as I can tell.
So anyhow, there I was, just a-minding my own business, slipping through the woods scouting for deer sign, when I found myself near to that ancient cabin in the cliffs. From my vantage point, I could see into the alcove where the cabin resided. There were slight wisps of smoke wafting among the brush on it's roof before rising above the brush and being dissipated by the wind. Bunches of gathered herbs hung here and there in front of the cabin for drying, and there was a medium sized fire burning cheerily in the front yard of the place, with an old iron kettle, the sort that looked like it came across these mountains on some pioneer's wagon two or two and a half centuries ago, suspended on a tripod above the fire, steam lazily rising from it's contents. Nary a sign of a living soul or inhabitant of the structure was in evidence beyond those few meager indicators.
After that brief observation of the place, and desiring to give the inhabitant the privacy they so obviously craved, I simply and stealthily slipped past the scene, and went on my merry way, keeping to my own business and leaving whomever lived there to theirs. It was just the neighborly thing to do.
It was about 40 or 45 minutes after that, and some distance farther along the trail, that things got weird. As you might imagine, scouting for deer sign is not a quick business. You have to move along slowly and stealthily, and keep an eye to the ground as you go in order to ferret out the faintest of signs - a scuff here, a nibbled twig there, the occasional foot print or scat pile, that sort of thing. It's easily missed if you go too fast. So, time-wise, i was well beyond the cottage structure, but distance-wise, perhaps not so much.
It was then that i heard a thin, wispy, papery-parchment voice saying "Yoo-hoo! Little bo-oy!...". Now, you must understand the culture of these hills. You do not call a grown man "boy" unless you're ready for a tussle. I bristled at the appellation, and was about to spew forth a retort of "Boy? Boy HELL! How are you gonna like going home and tellin' your mama that a 'boy' whipped the piss outta you and then whipped you fer pissin'?" when my seeking gaze caught sight of the speaker.
The retort froze on my tongue, and my blood froze in my veins... and that cold seeped into my bones down to the marrow. The sight I beheld was a horror, the likes of which I'd never seen before. To say it inspired fear is an injustice to the word fear. Understand, boys and girls, that I have been around the world 9 times. I daresay that only one other Rogue has been around the world more than I. I have fought wars on 3 different continents. So understand, young-'uns, that when I say I felt fear, it's not a light statement.
I must have pulled a face at the sight, for the apparition began to cackle, a wispy dry cackle that seemed as if you could hear the dust issuing forth from it and peppering the surrounding trees. I had just enough presence of mind to whip out my cell phone and take a few photos to document the encounter.
I present the sight I beheld here. I had to run it through the Rogue Nation Board of Censorship and Other Ugly Things, LLC, in order to post it, and they rubber-stamped over the more objectionable parts in order to protect the innocent, and shield the guilty from shame. So, it's not the original image, but an AI-generated reasonable facsimile of what it was that I saw, suitably redacted to prevent trauma to children under the age of 40.
What I saw was this:
Then it said, through the hideous cackling: "Boy, have I got sumpin' fer YOU!"
I've never been one to just stand around when danger presents itself. Fight or Flight takes over, depending on what the occasion demands.
I ran.
I ran like Hell, like the Devil's Hounds were nipping at my heels as I went.
I didn't run a little bit, I ran a lot, I tell ya! It's axiomatic that one does not run straight downhill in these mountains, for fear of momentum causing one to do a faceplant and probably break his neck in the effort. Heedless of that warning, I ran straight down hill, only catching the occasional sapling to fling myself off onto a zig-zag tangent in order to avoid a straight-line pursuit. I ran for all I was worth, and the net worth of all my ancestors. I was hauling ass outta there!
Behind me, I heard that same thin, whispery, dry and dusty voice calling after me: "Ya little bastard! Imma gunna gitcha! I'll work the roots agin' ye! I'll fling a hex upon ye! I WILL have ye! I WILL HAVE YE!"... but that only served to spur me onward and increase my breakneck speed in getting the hell out of Dodge. She pronounced "roots" more like "ruts", which imparted an extra layer of ancient chill on her curses.
I finally made it back home, entirely out of breath and unable to speak. My hair had turned two shades whiter during the flight.
That's been six long years ago. Since that day, I have been unable to sleep more than 4 hours at a stretch, and even then my wife stands guard over my sleeping form with a meat cleaver and dogged determination. For 4 hours a day, every day since then, she is my only Sentinel against the horrors that lurk without. Kill the witch or kill me, it doesn't matter - one of us has to go if she gets in.
Now, long ago, my Dear Old Dad told me the secret of dealing with spooks, and haints, and witches and such. He saud "Yuh cain't be skeert of 'em. Yuh treat 'em like reg'lar folk, an' iffen they wants to play that spooky shit, well, yuh make 'em skeert of YOU! That's how yuh git over on a haint of any kind."
Since that time, I've been what gives your Nightmares nightmares. I'm the reason the monster is under the bed - it's hiding from me, and maybe peeing itself a little when I'm around.
For all that, I seem to have been unable to inspire fear in this old bitch. I dunno why, just as I dunno why it is that no one in my family can have a hex flung on 'em. Hexes just don't take on us, for some reason. I'm sure there IS a reason, but whatever it may be, the tale has been lost in the dim mists of antiquity, and hasn't been transmitted to the present time - for us, it's just a thing that is. Work the "ruts" all you care to, it ain't gonna have no effect on us.
Every year, just about this time of year that I've come to think of as "The Season of the Witch", I feel a sense of overwhelming foreboding. I know she's out there, waiting, watching, biding her time to seize the opportunity in a moment of inattentiveness. I'm determined not to give her that moment.
Twice now, at this time of year and in broad daylight, I've spied her in the woods, lurking, staring, just watching towards the house for her opportunity. It still makes my blood run cold to think of the horror awaiting me. I don't go to the woods any more, day or night. I don't even leave the house at night.
On one occasion, I caught her image in a trail cam, standing on a rock cliff overlooking the house, just standing there... watching...
Life has now become a race. A race between Death and that dreaded instant of inattention, when I hear the chilling wispy, paper thin but triumphant phrase:
"I'VE GOTCH'ER NOW ME BOY-O!!"
.
RE: The Season of the Witch - OmegaLogos - 10-16-2025
Explanation: Wow , what a wicthypoo tale!
Her sex is on fire ...
What you gonna do? ...
When she sets your sex on fire too!
Personal Disclosure: Happy Halloween everyone!