The Shadow of Samhain

The(a Halloween reading in the Vincent Price tradition)

They say the last harvest ends when the smoke no longer rises from the hilltops.
That is not true. The smoke rises still—it only learns to hide among the clouds.

Long before the pumpkin and the masquerade, Samhain was the reckoning of the year.
The Celts did not laugh at death; they invited it to the table, offered bread, and hoped it would eat slowly.
They believed the world grew thin on this night, as if time itself took a breath and forgot which side to exhale upon.

I write this with one candle guttering beside me. Its flame leans each time I name the old things.
Perhaps it listens. Perhaps it remembers.

They lit their fires to keep the wandering souls at bay, but the truth whispered in the dark was simpler:
The fires were beacons, not barriers. They did not keep spirits out; they guided them home.
Every family had its own ghost to feed. Some ghosts only ate once a year. Some never stopped.

Outside, the wind combs the leaves along the road like fingers through the hair of the dead.
I used to think it was poetry until I heard it speak my name between the gusts.

Do you know why the living fear this night?
Because it is the one night the dead remember the warmth of their bodies.
They return to the places where their laughter once lived—and if the door is open, they step through whatever welcomes them first.

Listen carefully. You will not hear footsteps. You will hear your own floorboards remembering.

It is said that those who stare too long into the fire may glimpse the faces waiting behind it.
I looked once. They were patient. They were many. They had my eyes.

So I write quickly now, before the candle folds in on itself.
If your room grows colder while you read this, do not turn. Do not search the corners for the sound that is not there.
The dark is polite; it waits to be noticed.

And when you finish these words—
when you reach the place where ink ends and breath begins—
pause. You will feel the night lean close to see if you’ve understood.

The door is not in the hills or the graveyard.
It is in your breath, waiting between the next two words.