That Witch
By Victory Witherkeigh
Each year I warn the neighbors not to send the children to my house for trick or treat.
Each year, there’s always one or two children or teenagers who think they can outsmart this witch.
They are so used to seeing silly costumes with the black dresses with the pointy hats. I don’t cackle when I laugh. My complexion is that of my ancestors, bronzed, muscular, with curly dark long hair and dark brown eyes, flecked with sparkles of amber under the proper sunlight.
These children forget witches are found worldwide.
So, each year, a particular punishment is needed for those ignorant idiots who do not heed my warnings.
My tiny cottage was always tastefully decorated, black candles burning in the windows while red ones illuminated the gaping mouths of the orange dug-out gourds lining my walkway. Tiare and wild hibiscus grow along my gray exterior walls, the homage to my Pacific Island homeland.
Ding. Dong.
I answer the door, dressed in the ceremonial red pareo, my headdress of plumeria, palm leaves, and feathers cascading down my back.
“Wow,” the children gasp. They always gasp. “You’re so pretty….”
“Why, thank you!” I bat my eyelashes, offering my bowl of sweets. “Take a bite while we’re here.”
Chomp. Smack.
It’s the realization on their face that does it for me. The gooey, chewy first bite of raw human flesh always gets them spinning.
“Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to the children who disobeyed? Do they not taste delectable? Scrumptious?”
Victory Witherkeigh is an award-winning female Filipino/PI author from Los Angeles, CA. Her debut novel, The Girl, was published in December 2022 with Cinnabar Moth Publishing. The Girl has been a finalist for Killer Nashville’s 2020 Claymore Award and was long-listed in the 2022 CIBA OZMA Fantasy Book Awards. The Girl won Third Place for YA Thriller in the 2023 Spring The Bookfest Awards. Her creative content creation for her Author TikTok also won First Place in the 2023 Spring The Bookfest Awards for Creative Content. She has short story print publications in horror anthologies such as Supernatural Drabbles of Dread through Macabre Ladies Publishing, Bodies Full of Burning through Sliced Up Press, In Filth It Shall Be Found through OutCast Press, and Nightmare Fuel’s 2022 Edition: Objects of Horror, etc.
What a surprise of an ending.
She is right, you know: most of the cultures of the world incorporate some form of witchcraft into their mythology.