The earth was black with blood: slaughtered livestock swung from hooks in the killing shed. Big John and others worked their knives, cleaning, skinning beasts.

Turnips and tatties were stacked in clamps. Necklaces of onions dangled from the barn’s beams. Each apple that hadn’t been crushed into cider was wrapped in dry straw and stored in trunks, or placed out like marbles up in the eaves near the hay pile.

Bonfires were heaped in the bottom field. I’d gathered branches, the wind blown, dead limbs, with others. And we’d arranged them into two stacks. We’d scrambled up and down, heaving up wood, cracking twigs with our clogs, scratching legs as we ran down laughing, jeering at the ones looking up, those littler than us.

When darkening came the fires were lit by men in masks. Orange sparks blew Westwards, twigs cracked again. Every villager walked the cleansing path between the burning heaps. Old Maggie was pushed in a cart, her hollow cheeks appeared deep and black as rock pools, her cackles - shrill as herring gulls’. Her eyes glinted around the merry crowd, then she laid a hand upon the one pushing her and said, ‘There’s an extra amongst us.’

Word went round and those who could count counted the throng; some used a finger that they pointed at each person, counted aloud.
Those without the counting, swung about, tried to guess who was the stranger behind the masks.

‘Maybe it’s an ancient come about us at Winter’s birth. Do not fear, this is their evening, they walk amongst us.’ Echo said.

Most turned back to the trestle where a roasted boar was now showing its ribs.
‘The ancients are here with us tonight, but this is no ancestor that sneaks through the smoke. Look,’ Maggie grabbed my arm as I went to find my little Sister, ‘ Look down there abin the copse. See the folks stood in front of the old oak?’
I looked towards the rowan wood and through the gloom, after a while I could see lines of people stood as thin as the birch trunks in the Hare field. But I did not look towards Hare field.

‘See,’ Maggie’s fingers dug into my arm, ‘see the tiny ones wriggling on the floor? Not waiting for an answer she continued, ‘That’s the unborn, the unwanted ones that were poisoned, or stabbed in the womb with knitting needles, or just withered because they weren’t meant for this life’.

I saw many. They looked like the skinned rabbits that would be put onto the embers before the storytellers started. I felt for the paw I’d ferreted from the midden pit, had delved in about the entrails and had it in my pocket. Us boys had all fished one from the pile of guts and waste that the foxes would feast on before the dawn came.
It curled cool against my fingers, had stiffened now. I rubbed my thumb against its soft fur, traced the slight scratch of its claws. Its pads had the feel of smooth blisters.

‘I’ll be stood there next Samhain, beside my Joe.’ Maggie whispered.

‘Will I see you?’ I asked.

‘You will indeed, you have the sight.’ Maggie’s fingers released my arm, her hand dropped to her side and she sighed, ‘Now Fingal go seek the stranger.’

I looked again at the gathered departed and left Maggie staring at those she would soon be stood beside.

I wove in about people I knew by their clothes or stance. Snatches of conversation came as I walked by: all the accents the same, but the pitch or a pause of a word gave my ear their name. Some masks had slipped, lay on collars, or the ground. Some villagers were missing, lay giggling in the hay pile, or under hedges with their winches. I stepped over legs, until I came upon a robed man with no face beneath his cowl.
I watched as he walked down towards Maggie laid on her cart.