Screams filled the house. Bloodcurdling. Bone chilling.

Darcie had stressed one simple rule; never break the circle! Loren didn't mean it, she felt something touch her back. It was the fear that made her break away. But now that she had, the group had much worse things to contend themselves with than something brushing against her back.

The room filled with sticky, hot air, the scent of something putrid clinging to every breath they took.

The figure couldn't have been any bigger than a child, probably four feet tall. It was maybe hunched over, its frame tilted slightly to one side as it watched the five. But it was watching them with ruby flamed eyes, fixed on their movements and waiting for one of them to notice it.

Darcie was the unlucky one.

When she made eye contact with it, her mind's eye was flooded with terrible, horrible images that forced a horrified scream out of her, setting off a chain reaction from the others. Their screams grew and grew until Loren made a break to leave the room. Kina was right behind her, the two pulling on the door that they'd propped open.

It flung open and the two girls spilled out, right behind them was Ash, and then Luke.

Darcie tried to follow, but before she could get to her feet, the thing in the shadows had a grip on her. It wouldn't let her go. She screamed for help, but Luke couldn't get back into the room, the door had swung shut in his face and was stuck.

Towering over her, growing at least twice in height, the thing stared into Darcie's soul and whispered six words.

You should have followed her rules.

Regret and terror filled Darcie's chest as she screamed and screamed, fighting with all of her might to get free of its grip. She fell back onto the wooden floor, the thing hovering above her like a shoddy Halloween decoration. Shoddy as it may have looked, its presence instilled nothing but fear in Darcie. All of the air in her lungs came rushing out as a weight settled on her chest. It was crushing her.

Closing her eyes, in a bid to make the last thing she saw before death anything but its maw, she felt something sharp scratch her neck before two hands pulled her by the shoulders out of the room.

All at once, the air was icy, smelled of rotting wood and dust, and the weight from her chest was gone.

"Come on!" Luke yelled, getting Darcie to her feet and pulling her by the hand to the stairs. Kina's choice of room for the seance had to be on the second floor of the house, up a flight of stairs that were close to crumbling underneath the weight of the teenagers, fleeing for their lives.

The faces of unknown souls flickered in Darcie's peripheral, unable to make any of them out clearly, the sounds of their pleas meshing together.

One voice called above the rest, clearer than if it was right next to her.

You should have followed her rules!

          Darcie had no idea which way her friends had scattered, or if they'd even made it out of the house in one piece. She was more focused on her boyfriend running ahead of her, his hand holding hers so tightly, it felt like he was going to crush her fingers. But he was not going to stop, not until he knew they were at a safe distance away from that house.

Ashcroft House.

It was one of the most haunted locations in town. Every year, a group of idiotic teenagers, like Darcie and her friends, would go up there and try to stay until it struck midnight on Halloween. It was a rite of passage, a test of courage, and if you could make it until then, you gained some kind of popularity. Kina, one of Darcie's friends, was obsessed with the house and the stories about it, so much so that she'd roped three of her friends in, Darcie included, and had this ridiculous idea to perform a seance.

Ashcroft House had once been an idyllic house, but it became the scene of one of the worst crimes Newholm had ever bore witness to. The Ashcroft family were wealthy, were well known and beloved in town, but Orla Ashcroft, the wife of the family, was obsessed with witchcraft, with the occult, and would frequently perform seances in her home. One Halloween, she went mad, murdering her entire family, and then herself, but not before placing a curse on the house.

According to the townsfolk, Orla had been possessed by an evil entity, and that entity had driven her to madness, to killing her family, and cursing the house.

The Hawthornes, however, had an entirely different story to tell. Orla had never been the true perpetrator. The entity had never possessed her, but the town needed someone to blame, and they chose Orla because they knew about her fascination with the stranger things in life. This entity slaughtered the entire family and the Hawthornes, who were white witches, placed a seal on the house, not a curse, to contain the evil within. The entity's presence festered and rotted the house, but because it was unable to leave, its presence created the curse everyone was so fond of blaming Orla for constructing.

Darcie was a descendent of the Hawthorne witches who had sealed that evil away. She knew that she shouldn't have gone that night, because her grandmother had always warned her about the evil within that place. But she went, because she didn't want her friends to think she couldn't handle a little test of courage. But also, because she planned to use that seance to contact her grandmother.

Agatha Hawthorne had been the last of the Hawthorne witches who had practiced openly in Newholm. And she'd passed unexpectedly just two months prior to Darcie and her friends conducting their failed seance.

Aggie had warned her granddaughter that some things were not to be tampered with and had provided her with a few simple rules. But one was more important than the rest and she always stressed that Darcie never break it.

She, like the other witches in their bloodline, was born with a gift. Darcie's gift dealt with the dead and the other side. Spirits, souls, ghosts, however you wished to refer to them, were drawn to Darcie and she could see and hear them, as clear as if they were still alive. But she learned from an early age that it wasn't just dead people who were drawn to her. Things from the other side, entities that were forever looking for ways of crossing back into this world, would be drawn to her, just the same. And the worst part of the gift, by Aggie's understanding, was that these entities could use her granddaughter to cross over. She was a bridge. The only grace that Aggie could find was that Darcie had to open a gate, so to speak, in order for them to successfully cross over. And that was when she implemented the rule.

Never call out without knowing who is there. Never answer an unknown voice. And always close the door behind you when you are finished communicating.

Darcie had broken the rule. Entirely. But the true horror was yet to come.

          Racing into her home, Luke pulled a sodden Darcie behind him and locked the door as quickly as he could. He put on the latch and pulled the curtain across the glass to block any light from getting in.

The only light was the moon and it was burning a pale red. A ring brimmed it as it peered down on the house.

Darcie shook from the cold, rain soaking through to her bones and chilling her. Luke was just as soaked. He'd left his jacket in Ashcroft House, as had Darcie, but there was no way they were stopping to get them. They had no time.

"What time do you call this?!" Connie Hawthorne shrieked from the bottom stair, shrouded in shadows. Both Luke and Darcie screamed as they turned to her, Luke standing in front of his girlfriend. But that wouldn't protect her. Not now that her sister had spotted her. "You said you were staying at Kina's house, why are you here?"

"Connie, I did something─"

"Kina had others over and they were drinking. Darcie didn't feel comfortable, so she called me to pick her up," Luke lied, quickly covering for Darcie before she could get herself in more trouble.

Well, that would give her some time to get her story straight. Connie wouldn't be forgiving of her sister's mishap at Ashcroft House, even if it wasn't her fault entirely. She'd blame her, no matter what. Luke knew them and their history, and he didn't want Darcie to be blamed for something that she hadn't meant to happen.

"So you walked in the rain, all the way from Greers Street?" Connie arched her eyebrow, shaking her head as she stepped into the dim light emitting from the sitting room lamp. "Go upstairs and dry off. Get to bed."

Neither knew why Connie was letting them walk away, but they took it. Luke had to guide Darcie up to her room, to get her to sit on the edge of the bed. She was still frozen in terror. He had jolted out of it when he heard her screaming and was grateful that he had.

He'd seen the creature sitting on top of her. He had no idea what it was but he knew that it was going to hurt her, or worse, kill her. He'd acted purely on adrenaline, no bravery. But he would do it again to save Darcie.

"I'll grab a towel from the─"

"Luke...it marked me."

Darcie's neck had been throbbing the whole run back to the house. There was blood on her skin, but no cut. If it had broken skin, she had somehow miraculously been healed. But there was indeed a mark left on her neck. Three long scratch-like lines, blending from red to purple, like a bruise starting to fade.

Luke didn't say anything as he checked her over. Even though he could see it, he didn't want to scare her or make things worse. He just smiled at her, stroking her cheek. "I'll get the towel."

          Sweating profusely, Darcie couldn't lay in one place too long. The bed was far too hot, her skin felt like it was on fire. She couldn't get comfortable, no matter how she tried. She felt like she was sleeping on a mattress made of bricks. She rolled from side to side, kicking Luke in the process, before she settled facing the window.

It was open. A cool breeze swept into the room. But as the second one crept across her cheek, a thick sense of violation encased her. The third trailed down her neck and her body froze. Her eyes were open, her mind was screaming. Someone was there. Someone was in her room and touching her.

Darcie tried to clench her fists, tried to move to kick Luke, to wake him up. If he woke up, if he saw her in this frozen state, he could somehow jolt her out of it. All of her efforts weren't working, however, she knew by now not to be too shocked by that.

Sleep paralysis.

She'd dealt with this for a few years now. It was apparently a draw back to her gift, according to her grandmother. The living and the dead weren't supposed to coexist the way they did with her gift. Some souls didn't mean to do it, they didn't know they were doing it. And sadly, all Darcie could do was wait until she woke up, until she miraculously broke free of the grip, or they let her loose.

However, this someone knew what they were doing. It was intentional.

Come back, Little Hawthorne, the voice from Ashcroft House rasped in her ear.

Malicious intent shot straight through to Darcie's core, forcing bile up her throat as panic flooded her mind.

Finish what you started, Little Hawthorne, it purred, as though it was a lover, tempting her back into bed.

          When she checked the clock, Connie could have screamed when she answered the call. "Reg, you had better─"

"Darcie went to Ashcroft House and she woke it up. Con, it's attached to her."

Connie sat upright and listened to her younger sister on the phone, listening as she explained the misfortune she'd seen. She knew that her little sisters were stupid, but they knew the rules about going to that house.

Oh no. Darcie didn't actually know that rule, not yet.

Grandma Aggie died in the summer, she never had the chance to tell her youngest granddaughter about the house and their involvement in its history. Or the monster that was trapped in there. Connie and Reggie had been told about it in their senior year, and Darcie would have been told about it, as well, if only...

Phone gripped tightly in hand, Connie ran along the hallway to Darcie's bedroom and swung the door open, ready to demand answers from her youngest sister. But as the door swung open, the only person in the bed was Luke, who shot up in surprise from his rude awakening. "Where is Darcie?!"

          The chilling breeze continued to dance over Darcie's bare legs and arms, her feet moving on their own, splashing through puddles. She approached the house, her eyes heavy with sleep and something else.

She walked up the stairs to the front door, still open from the escape she and her friends made earlier in the night. But this time, there was a light on, emanating from somewhere deeper inside.

She stood a few feet from the doorway, staring blankly, the trance so thick, it would take a miracle to snap her out of it. A person was waiting for her, their hand out to greet her, beckoning her inside.

It was Grandma Aggie. She was waiting for her.

But before she was able to cross into the house, into some warped version of reality, a hand yanked Darcie back.

Screaming in surprise and fear, Darcie's free arm swung and connected with the chilled face of Luke, but he didn't let her arm go.

"Wake up!" he shouted at her, jarring her out of that in between state of sleep and consciousness. She struggled against him for a brief moment as he practically carried her down the stairs toward the car waiting down by the gate.

Connie was leaning across the center console, watching the two.

Managing to get Darcie into the car, Luke clipped her in and Connie took off without waiting for him to get himself clipped in.

          "Do you have any idea how stupid what you did was?" Connie yelled at her sister as the car slipped through the streets of sleeping Newholm. She didn't sound mad, she just sounded horrified. "You could have gotten not only yourself but your friends killed."

Darcie and Luke stayed quiet, allowing Connie to yell as much as she wanted. She clearly needed to get it out of her system.

"The stories about that house aren't just stories. They are real. Very real," she reiterated, for the third time since she'd started. "If Reggie hadn't called me, do you even know what could have happened? No, of course you don't. She had a vision, Darcie, a vision! You know what that means!"

If Reggie had a vision, that meant misfortune was on the horizon. Reggie's gift was seeing misfortune before it visited. It was never a good thing when that happened. And if she'd seen misfortune visiting her little sister, that was even worse.

"Whatever you did in that house was stupid, irresponsible and downright...well, stupid!"

Connie's rant wasn't over until they got back to the house. It wasn't a long drive but listening to her sister, it felt like they were driving across the country. Darcie shook in the backseat beside Luke, using him to keep herself warm, even with his hoodie on. Even though the rain had stopped, she'd ventured out without any shoes on her feet, in just her pajamas.

When she gave her the chance, Darcie tried to explain to her sister what had happened. Luke had probably told her some, but kept certain parts to himself, not wanting her to get into more or worse trouble. But it was important to tell her everything. With Reggie's forewarning of misfortune coming, she divulged what she saw, what it had done, and how she was sure it had somehow followed her out of the house.

          Connie's car skidded to a stop as she hit the brakes. The way she sat dead still, staring ahead, her hands clenched so tightly, her knuckles popped out, pure white. Darcie saw something flit across her sister's face in the rearview mirror.

Fear?

"It did...what?" her voice trembled, her eyes meeting her sister's in the mirror.

"It was in my room," Darcie said, her words small and shaking, like Connie's. She'd been afraid before, but now, knowing that Connie was also afraid, it made it so much worse. She didn't want to go on, though she knew she had to. "It wanted me to go back into the house. But I saw Grandma Aggie─"

"What you saw was not our grandmother," Connie quickly dashed the hope that had built in her little sister. Darcie had known it wasn't her, the way that she'd looked at her, the hissed whispers that seeped from the house, it wasn't like their grandmother. But Darcie hoped... She didn't know what she hoped for, just... "It attached itself to you. Which means, until you sever that attachment, you are going to be haunted by that thing."

"It marked her," Luke chimed in, his hand on Darcie's knee to stop her legs from bouncing. "That's how it did it, right?"

"Probably. And that means, it's going to be even harder to fix this. God, Darcie, what the hell were you thinking?" Connie's frustration was starting to bubble over the fear that had settled in her gaze. "We have to fix this. Before midnight."

Connie rushed the two teenagers into the house, salting the front doorway in a bid to keep the entity out until they were able to formulate some plan. Reggie, their middle sister, was already on her way, but she wouldn't arrive until at least seven in the morning. With some luck, however, that would leave enough time for them to come up with some solution.

"Okay, we have to perform a specific type of ritual to seal that thing back up inside the house, but in order to do that, we need something special," Connie stated, rifling through a box of things that Grandma Aggie had once mentioned would be useful to the trio. In it were a bunch of candles, all burned at least once or twice, loose paper that had yellowed with age, and a book.

The book was like a grimoire, as Connie had discovered. Seeing as their ancestor had been the one to originally lock that thing up in Ashcroft, she assumed they'd find the instructions to do so again in this book. Hawthorne witches were exceptional at keeping records, it seemed, because the entries in the grimoire were all dated.

She scoured every entry, looking for one that mentioned Ashcroft. And she found one, but the date didn't seem right. She expected the year to be some time in the late 1800s, however, seventy years ago, someone created an entry in the grimoire.

The ritual was a success, but we are now without our sister. I understand that she was at fault and with mother's help, we were able to seal the entity away once again. This entry is for any Hawthorne witch to repeat our mistake. First of all, never go to Ashcroft House. But if you have already done so, if you have done the same thing we did, you have to put that thing back where it came from. No matter what you must sacrifice in return.

          When Reggie arrived just as the sun began to rise, Connie let her read the entry, both confirming that the date meant the person who had unleashed the entity then had been their grandmother. It was a surprise, given how afraid of that house she had been when they were growing up. But if she'd lost someone to the house, it made sense why she was so afraid now.

"She has to sacrifice someone to the house?" Reggie asked, concerned that her sister would have to...kill someone, just to put that monster back where it belonged. However, Connie shook her head.

"Grandma Aggie wrote one thing at the end..."

          The three sisters, and Luke, sat in the sitting room, all with harrowing expressions on their faces. "No, absolutely not," Luke protested.

"We have no other option," Connie said, begrudgingly, a lump in her throat. "Our great-aunt, Grandma Aggie's sister, did the same thing you did. She released it from the house, it attached itself to her. In order to seal it away, she..."

"Killed herself. Spilled her blood to seal it away," Reggie explained.

"No. You're asking her to commit suicide because she made a mistake!" Luke was well within his right to be against the plan. He wasn't the only one, but the only one who hadn't made a comment was Darcie herself.

"I'll do it."

          Luke tried and tried with all of his might to change Darcie's mind. She couldn't go through with such a ridiculous plan. Their plan all hinged on him being able to carry her out of that house again, but while she had gaping cuts on her wrists.

Darcie would go into the seance room, just like she had before, and light all the candles. She'd repeat what she'd done with Kina and Loren, before Ash and Luke arrived. And then, from there, she'd call on the spirits, and it.

The only reason it had escaped was because it had drawn blood from her. That was how it had attached itself to her. So, while chanting an incantation provided in the grimoire, she would spill her blood to complete the sealing.

After she did that, she had a very slim window of time for him to get her out of the house and back to the car, where Connie, the nurse, would suture her wounds and get her to hospital.

"But if the ritual doesn't work, if I can't get you out of the room, you'll bleed out and die," Luke tried once again with Darcie, but she wasn't listening to his pleas. She had made up her mind and would go through with it, regardless of if she might die.

          When it started to get dark, the sisters ran over the plan once again, Reggie providing Darcie with a razor and Connie providing her with something she'd mixed together to help her blood coagulate quicker.

"Don't cut too deep," Reggie told her, "just enough to spill some."

"And make sure to take this before you start the ritual."

"And remember, we'll be outside in the car, and Luke will be in the hallway."

Darcie could hear the reservations in their voices. She was glad they had some, because she had many. She was afraid that she wouldn't be able to go through with it in the moment, but she had to try. If only to stop the mental torment she was under currently.

It had gotten so close to her in her bedroom, it had been right beside her. Its main objective would be to possess her and it would if she didn't do this. It would only get stronger and stronger, and she'd get weaker and weaker. She had to do it.

          Newholm was populated by little vampires, witches and werewolves this Halloween. So many of them skipped past Ashcroft House, none stopping or even daring their friends to go up to the door. No, they had more sense than that.

As they started to disappear, the Hawthorne sisters and Luke emerged from the car. None of them looked too pleased to be standing in front of Ashcroft again. The bells in the cathedral rang out, signaling that it had turned 9:00 pm. Thankfully, they wouldn't have to wait until midnight this time.

Luke and Darcie walked to the door of Ashcroft, that light that Darcie had seen the previous night wasn't on anymore. And she couldn't see Grandma Aggie. He held her hand tightly, his fingers threaded with hers as he walked her in and up to the seance room. They didn't want to waste time.

They arranged the circle that Kina had set up the night before, but this time, Darcie had to make sure nothing was wrong. Lighting the candles, bar one, she took the same seat she'd had before, looking over her shoulder at Luke in the doorway. This time, he was keeping it open.

Darcie could hear the other spirits of Ashcroft gathering around her, one that seemed to make itself more known than the others. It whispered in her ear, as though it had known all of her life, and when she turned to it, she half expected to see Grandma Aggie...but she saw another person. A young woman, probably the same age as herself. She passed her a cold, gray smile.

Grandma Aggie's sister?

"Close the door," she told Luke. "It has to be closed." Luke wanted to protest again but she made sure that he understood it was an integral part of the rite. And she didn't want him to watch her hurt herself.

With the door closed, Darcie drew a match and lit it. Here goes nothing, she thought as she lit the last candle sitting in front of her.

"I call the spirits of this house," she began, tapping her fingers on her knees as the spirits began to grow more solid. The girl beside her, the same pretty blonde hair that ran in the Hawthorne family, the same blonde hair that Darcie had, smiled and took her hand. Darcie waited until she felt the entity enter the circle. However, she didn't have to wait for long. When it showed up, the majority of spirits disappeared. They were afraid of it, and rightly so.

The spirit of her great-aunt stood strong, however. She had done this before.

Little Hawthorne has returned, the entity hissed, the grip on her arm getting tighter. When Darcie glanced at her great-aunt, the icy chill she'd felt from the entity ran through her body once again. Something wasn't right.

"You and I are the same," breathed her great-aunt, her lips a mere inch from Darcie's ear as she whispered.

It dawned on her far too late that the entity wouldn't have been able to leave the house without a body to carry it. But another spirit would be able to, especially if it had a link to the person who opened the door for it.

"We will take this town by storm," the ghost went on, while the entity leered over them.

          Luke pressed his ear to the door and waited to hear Darcie begin with her chant. He couldn't hear anything from inside the room, but the horn of Connie's car was going crazy outside in the street. If she kept that up, the police would be called. When his phone began to ring, he saw Connie's name light up the screen. Answering the call, he didn't even have a chance to say anything.

"Get her out of there, right now! Now, Luke!" Connie ordered him, the sound of the car horn honking in the background and what must have been Reggie sobbing hard and loudly.

Luke didn't need to be told twice to get Darcie out and to safety. The door was stuck, however, and he had to throw himself against it to get it open. It didn't open as easily as it had the last time. Inside the room, he could hear Darcie screaming and begging someone not to...wait, did she beg the thing not to take her?

Smoke started to billow out from underneath the door as Luke mustered all of his adrenaline in his body from the night before, reminding himself that he was not going to lose Darcie to this house. He threw himself against the door one last time, the frame splintering as he fell through into the room. He was dazed momentarily as he coughed.

The room was on fire and right in the center, Darcie was sitting with someone standing beside her. A young woman who looked like Darcie's grandmother turned to look at him and he almost screamed, but pulled himself off of the floor.

Picking Darcie up, Luke kicked one of the candles and spilled wax everywhere. But he didn't stop to clean it up, as he had to carry Darcie out of the room. She'd already cut, she'd already started bleeding, and the wax mixed with the red on the ground. The young woman cackled before disappearing into nothing, the entity doing the same, and Darcie fell unconscious in his arms.

          When the fire brigade arrived, there was barely anything to save of Ashcroft House. Darcie sat in the back of her sister's car, her cuts stitched up and covered. The blood seeped through her dressings and she stared at it.

It had been such a long time since she'd bled like this. After all, her sisters had sacrificed her to Ashcroft seventy years ago.

But now, she was free. She could do what she wanted. She'd successfully burned Ashcroft House to the ground, and now, she was going to live a life.

So she'd have to live as Darcie, but they'd never know the difference. 

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Thank you to everyone who has read this short story! I'm entering it
into the Halloween Vault this year, and I hope it does well!!┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛