The Bite Beneath the Oak

5:30pm

In the stillness of Halloween night, the air crackled with beguiling sorcery, and she felt the weight of her father’s cruelty dissolving into the ether. Tonight was her night. No staggering boots scraping against the unfinished Pebble Tec floor. No remotes flying through television screens. No barbarous ramblings directed at her for hours. For once, the house seemed a place a tranquilly.

Her father had left an hour earlier, tossing his duffel bag into the passenger seat of his baby blue Ford Ranger with the same vehemence he’d used to tear her sketchbook in half the evening prior.

“Back Sunday,” he’d grunted, the air around him thick with the cloying scent of stale rum. “Don’t touch my stuff. Don’t you dare leave this house. Don’t make a mess. Don’t…”

Her mind drifted off as he continued to blather. Some girls from school, not friends exactly—she only knew them from chemistry class—where they'd laugh about mundane things or make a comment on the bizarre sweaters Mr. Krosby would wear; had invited her to trick or treat with them. Her favorite night of the year, and he’d be gone. It was as if the universe was lining up for her.

She didn’t breathe until the truck disappeared over the hill. That’s when the tension floated from her shoulders and the ghost of a smile cracked her façade.

7:11pm

She walked behind them, black velvet cascading like dancing shadows, lace covering her arms and chest, synthetic blood strown across her chin, from a dust strewn bottled tucked away years ago.

jack-o-lanterns grins dancing across weather porches, flickering orange and red lights behind dense patches of manmade fog. The girls laughed too loudly, ate candy straight from pillowcases, and passed around a plastic bottle of cinnamon whiskey stolen from an older brother.

But she wasn’t drinking. She didn’t need to. The air was intoxicating enough. The veil thinning, the taste of old magic; those were her drugs of choice. There was always something ancient lacing the breeze on All Hallows’ Eve, but tonight it implied more than ever. It felt as if the stars were aligning, a prophecy being fulfilled. The sharp smell of fallen leaves, the distant moan of a mechanical ghost, the way porch lights blazed like altar candles.

“Cori?” One of the girls called, attempting to hand her the bottle again. One of the girls called her boring, the others cackled.

8:02pm

The neighborhood thinned with every block. The houses grew older, more scattered, shrouded behind looming twisting trees and oxidized fences. Manicured lawns and genial parents were far behind them now. The other girls didn’t seem to notice, they were high on chocolate delights and booze, tossing mini candies at one another and snickering of puerile matters.

Cori’s breath curled in the air like incense in a witch’s chamber. It felt as if the temperature had suddenly dropped twenty degrees. Her eyes rose to a house set back from the street. It appeared slanted, ominously perched on a slight hill. It’s yard, enormous, overgrown and wild. Creeping ivy writhing like dark veins across crumbling stone, obsidian flowers blooming in illogical clusters, iridescent petals, gleaming thorns. A scarecrow boasted just beyond the gate, straw-hat long slung, arms out as if ready to grab unsuspecting prey. Its head a real pumpkin, rotting in on itself, slick with black mold.

“An old witch lives here,” one girl whispered. The other chuckled as they pushed up the hill.

The porch light wavered as if it were struggling to stay apart of this realm. A sickly pale-yellow glow rhythmically pulsed behind the curtains upstairs.

“You guys, I don’t think…” Cori started, but one girl had already pressed the button, a shirking bell thundering through the stillness.

“She’s not home,” another girl declared. “Probably died in the bathtub.”

Then, the door swung open with a portentous moan. Sage, myrrh, something else, spilled out. There was no one in sight, only the sliver of a candle’s flame appearing far within the darkness inside.

“Treat or trick,” the girls stated boisterously.

One of the girls sighed. “Let’s go.” They turned on their heels just as Cori discerned a pair of beady eyes materializing. A hunched silhouette, obscured in shawls. She glanced to the side, realizing she was left alone the porch.

“Come in, dear.” She couldn’t distinguish the woman’s face. Something shifted on her shoulder: a slick, feathered thing with eyes too sharp, too knowing. “You are marked, child,” she crooned, revealing a glint of silver rotting teeth.

Cori’s heart began to thud, a reactor beyond control. She stepped back. The porch light died, and she ran.

8:17pm

The girls called her name from down the street, oblivious. They were eventually drawn to a house illuminated in purple and green, a pirate ship, complete with foam tentacles and a smoke machine spilling dense fog across the driveway. A few kids spilled across the driveway, screaming in delight. Someone in a Ghostface mask yelled, “Boo!" Chasing a toddler down the lawn.

Cori didn’t follow. She had become captivating by the sky. The moon, a magical orb stained a dull copper, like blood rubbed into an old coin, emitting power to those who revered it. It hung just above the rooftops. Cori felt like she could climb the telephone poles and touch it. The moon was watching, like a forgotten god. The wind whispered in a new direction, causing Cori to tingle. Not from cold, or fear, but from recognition. Something was shifting. As if this divine night, had decided to make her its center.

9:19pm

The others were starting to lose interest in trick-or-treating. Their bags heavy, their buzz fading. They discuss heading to a party on the other side of town. But Cori wasn’t ready. Something within compelled her: just one more street.

So, she turned down a road they hadn’t walked yet. No one followed. There was the entrance to the old cemetery. She hesitated for just a moment, the dense fog and dimness obscuring her view, before slipping through the gate. She walked between the headstones as if they were old friends. Brittle leaves crunched beneath her boots. It smelled of earth and stone. Damp crypts and candlewax. A hint of something metallic sweet hung at the edges.

Water had gathered where it was most overgrown, the forgotten part of the burial ground, where the moss clung to tombstones. Headstones with no names, just slashes, symbols. She stared into the ink-black puddle, the moon reflected in it, a knowing smile. Then she felt it. Static crawling up her spine. The awareness that she was not alone. Her hands trembled slightly, as she attempted to scan her surroundings.

I’ve been waiting for you.

A soft aching voice, not out loud, but inside her soul. Her heartbeat hastened. A tree branch lurched in the distance. And there he was. In the breath between heartbeats. Not stalking or hunting. Waiting.

She approached him slowly. He was leaning against a headstone; long coat buttoned to the throat.

“I thought you were a statue…” Cori half joked, hoping to disrupt the tension.

He smirked. “Mikaël,” he held out his hand.

She bit her lip, before offering her own. “Corrina, but I just usually go by Cori.”

“Most people don’t walk the dead alone, especially on this night.” Dark hair fell into his eyes. Eyes that gleamed like obsidian wet with blood.

She dared not move, as captivated as she was apprehensive.

“You don’t belong to this world, do you?” He probed.

She opened her mouth, nothing came out.

He stepped forward, gracefully as smoke on the water. “I can make it stop.”

“I’m sorry…?” She managed.

“The pain, the waiting, the fear.”

The trees groaned around them. A murder of crows stirred, not crying out, just rustling. He looked at the bruise peeking out her sleeve, the gash on her lip, before his eyes met hers. She saw centuries in a second—storm soaked onyx, blood covered villages, forgotten paintings. But most of all, something ancient, wild, and free.

She couldn’t breathe. He stepped forward, grasping her hand as he placed in it a single black rose, dusted with frost.

“He’d never touch you again. You’d be unstoppable. You’ll live forever in the shadows. Have all you crave.”

“Yes… please,” she beseeched.

Beneath an oak whose leaves burned blood-red in the moonlight, she let him bite her. His fangs were beautiful, white and delicate as needles. His kiss against her throat was soft. The pierce was exquisite. Like lightning rewriting you, like drowning in ecstasy.

11:11pm

She rose, no longer the same girl who walked in. Mikaël called for her. She followed his voice down a narrow pathway, leaning headstones eroding into lichen and dust.

A middle-aged man sat on the ground in front of him. A cheap plastic mask pushed to the top of his head, rodent-like eyes unfocused, his breathing shallow.

“I took his will,” Mikaël said gently. “He followed a girl you knew from the street with the pirate ship.”

Cori’s stomach lurched, but not from disgust. From hunger. Hot, primal, deep. Like a cord inside her had been pulled taut and was now vibrating with a note only she could hear. She glanced at Mikaël as if unsure of the gift.

“He’s all yours.”

She fell to her knees and titled his head. Her fangs slid in clean, his blood poured. Her eyes fluttered. It tasted like power. As if this was her birthright. As if she’d carried the hunger her entire life, and this was merely the time it had honored.

Her eyes snapped open, pupils widening to drink in the night. Her legs felt as if they were floating. Her skin buzzed with new sensations, her sharper, her vision perfect, even in shadow.

They stood at the top of the hill, the town below flickering with dying porch lights and the distant laughter of the last children still out. He brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, the blood on her chin no longer a mere intimation.

“Do you want to kill him?” he asked softly.

Cori thought of all the awful nights. The glasses thrown at her head, the ripped notebook, the bruises she’d had to hide. The all-consuming fear that every single night may be her last. That he’d finally snap.

She smiled. “I don’t have to. He’ll die screaming in a fire of his own making.”

They sauntered a long time without speaking. Passing silent crypts. Fallen statues. A headstone cracked clean down the center with no name, just the date: October 31st, 1876.

They reached the far end of the graveyard. Beyond the gate was the rest of the world, drunk teenagers, dull conversation, a police siren that didn’t matter. For a moment she thought she could see her house. That room, the broken lamp. The girl who slept there, barely breathing, always braced for the sound of keys in the lock, She closed her eyes, then opened them. The town was smaller, Quieter. It belonged to another version of the world. She let it go.

12:00am

Somewhere above, the moon watched them, silent and full, blessing the new child of the night.

Mikaël offered his hand again. This time, as an equal, a companion. And they walked.

Into the woods. Into forever.