The Witching Hour

They came for us at the witching hour. When it was dark and there was not a star shining in the sky. They came for us while we were at our weakest. When we were at our most vulnerable. We tried to fend them off. We grabbed our torches, chanted in tongues, danced around the flames. But still they came.

            Nanna was the first to go of all of us. She was the oldest, the frailest. The weakest. She always said she would accept it with open arms. She would not fight; she would give herself over. But when the time came, they took her kicking and screaming, flailing her limbs about. Like we said. Weak.

            Johnny was the next and perhaps the most surprising. He had fought of worse, much worse in the wars. The wars that he accredited his hard muscles and hard face for. The wars he sometimes pretended never happened. The wars that still woke him up in the middle of the night, screaming and wailing, covered in cold sweat. But in the end, nothing he found against, none of his hardships, did anything to prepare him for it. To prepare him for them.

            Next, they came for Susan. Poor, sweet Susan, who was barely out of childhood. Who still slept clutching an old, ratty teddy bear. Who still silently cried covered in blankets because she was scared of the dark. She was so small that they were able to steal her out of bed while she was sleeping, not even bothering to wake her up as they came for her.

            Then they were gone. For several nights in a row. Giving what was left of us a false sense of hope. For the first few nights without them, we sat up uneasily, taking turns not sleeping and keeping watch, cursing ourselves every time we felt our eyes slipping close. But after several days, we started turning in earlier and earlier, worrying less and less, thinking that the trouble was over.

            But how wrong we were.

            They must have been waiting, biding their time. Growing stronger. They came back stronger than ever the next witching hour.

             Their first night back, they went for the twins. The twins did everything together, so it was fitting that the they were taken together as well. The rest of us did not even here them coming, we just woke up the next morning and the twins were gone; their beds were still warm as the sun was rising. It was their first time taking more than one in a night, so that had us all a little on edge. Our numbers were dwindling, and it was getting harder to even pretend like we were going to be able to fend them off.

            The next night was a feast. They came for all of us, and they nearly succeeded. When the remaining few of us left woke up the next morning, it was eerily quiet. Going from bed to bed, it felt like we were just missing them; the beds were warm, and the blankets were a crumpled mess: a hasty get away.

            As the few people left, we all vowed to stay up and wait for the witching hour together; waiting to ambush them. We sat with our backs against the trees, gripping torches and various weapons. But one by one, we drifted off to sleep.

            I awoke to an ear-splitting scream, but as I wrenched my eyes open, there was no one there. The early morning sun shone brightly, and I squinted my eyes as I darted around, my eyes confirming the worst: I was the only one left.

            They came for them at the witching hour.

            And then they came for me.

Author's Note

Please let me know what can be improved!!!

Reviews

[JayG]

A few things jumped out at me that I thought you might want to know about. They’re not matters of talent or writing skill. In fact, your wordsmith skills are good. But in the words of Mark Twain, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

And it's those “just ain’t so” issues that are getting in your way, because like everyone else who leaves high school you suffer a major misunderstanding: We all leave our primary school years thinking we learned to write. But: You’re in college at the moment learning certain skills because all professions are acquired IN ADDITION to what’s commonly known as, The Three R’s—the set of general skills that provide employers with a pool of prospective employees who have a useful and predictable skill set. And after all, that is, and always has been, the purpose of public education.

Think about your writing assignments before college. What percentage of your assigned writing was for something other than reports and essays? Pretty small, right? So by graduation you were skilled at nonfiction writing, whose goal is to provide the reader an informational experience. It’s fact-based and author-centric. But do you know what the elements of a scene on the page are, and why? How about the short term scene goal, the three issues you need to address on entering any scene, or why a scene on the page ends in disaster for the protagonist?

Do we read fiction to learn the details of events in fictional people’s lives? Or, do we seek to be made to feel as if we’re living the protagonist’s life in-parallel-with-them, and in real-time? Are we seeking an emotional or an informational experience?

See the problem? And that Creative Writing class you’ve probable already taken changes that not at all. If yours was like most, after reading a chapter of on fiction-writing technique, in general, the class members attempt a short piece of fiction, which is critiqued, not by the professor, but by the class members, who know no more about writing fiction than does the one writing the piece. In other words, the blind leading the blind.

So while you learned one approach to writing in your primary schooling, they mentioned not at all the emotion-based and character-centric skills of the working fiction-writer, leaving you no choice but to use the skills you own. After all, you can't fix the problem you don't see as being one, or use the tool you don't know exists.

Unfortunately, using nonfiction skills for fiction comes with inherent problems. The outside-in, “Let me tell you a story,” approach means the narrator explains the story to the reader as an outside observer. And since the reader can’t know HOW to tell the story—the gestures to use, the expressions to wear, the body-language, or the emotion to place into their voice, what the reader gets is very different from what you, who know the characters and their backstory, the situation, and so much more. Have your computer read the story aloud (a good editing trick in any case).

Worse yet, because you do know all that you’ll leave out detail, which to you, is obvious. Look at the opening as a reader must:

• They came for us at the witching hour.

They? Who are “they” and how many are involved? And what is “the witching hours” in terms of this story? It could be near midnight, but just as easily be 4:00 A.M.

Moreover, how does the term “witching” relate to whoever arrives decision as to when to arrive? Without knowing that, this line lacks context, and is meaningless as-read. Does it matter if this will be clarified, eventually? No, because that won’t retroactively remove the confusion felt as it’s read.

• When it was dark and there was not a star shining in the sky.

First, this is a sentence fragment, and should have been presented as a comma clause to the previous line.

That aside, it appears that “the witching hour” is any cloudy night? That makes no sense.

In fact, from start to finish the reader lacks context for what’s going on, and why it matters to whoever is talking. Who came? Dunno. Why did they come? Never specified. Why were the unknown people who were taken to some unknown place not able to fight back? Damned if I know. What reason does the reader have to care for people they know nothing about, who live at an unknown time in an unknown location, who have unknown things done to them for unknown reasons? None.

For you? Every word acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and events, all residing in your mind. But did you write this for yourself or the reader? If the reader, the problem is, Every word acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and events, all residing in *YOUR* mind. And with you not there to explain as it’s read…

My point: For all we know you’re awash in untrained writing talent. But without that training it’s just potential. The solution is pretty simple: add the necessary skills needed to give your words wings. The library’s fiction writing department is filled with good advice. We already know you want to write fiction. If you’re meant to write the learning will be fun. So have at it. My personal suggestion is to pick up a personal copy of Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a warm easy read, like sitting with Deb as she talks about writing.

For a kind of overview of the subjects and issues to be found there, you might dig around in my writing articles.

But all that aside, hang in there, and keep on writing. The world needs more people who can be sitting and staring at a blank wall, and when asked what they’re doing, honestly say, “Working.”

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/