This story started with a Celtic calendar I bought that started the year on November 1 -- Samhain in the Celtic year. I did some reading and then I let my mind wander. This rather creepy place is where it ended up.

    The Celts crashed through the Roman legion like undisciplined children, challenging anyone, everyone, to fight. A tall woman with red hair streaming down her back led the charge, pushing through the common soldiers to face the opposing general sword to sword. She had him down within minutes, and the Romans began to retreat.

    “Excuse me.” Jack Martin tapped the arm of the young woman standing next to him. “Isn’t that Professor O’Meara leading the Celts?”

    She flinched away from his touch.  “Of course,” she said. “Weren’t you listening in class? She said she was taking part in the reenactment.”

    “I didn’t realize she’d be in the battle.”

    “I’m sure you didn’t,” the woman said. She turned away, muttering something to her friends.

    Jack caught the word “creep.” He sighed, staring at the tattoo of a face, framed by wild flowing hair, that covered the woman’s upper back.

    He heard her say, in a louder voice, “Professor O’Meara is so cool.”

    “Weird, though,” one of the others said. “Those skulls she keeps in her office.”

    Jack had heard about the skulls, but he hadn’t seen them. He’d gone by O’Meara’s office once, during her posted hours, but there had been a long line of students there – nearly all of them female – and he’d been too shy to wait around.

    He wandered toward the refreshment tent, alone as usual. What a fool he’d been, to think any of those women would talk to him. They never did.

    “It’s Mr. Martin, isn’t it? From my class in ancient European cultures?”

    He spun around to find O’Meara standing there. She was still wearing the short plaid tunic in which she had fought.  Jack found himself staring at her legs.

    “Did you enjoy the reenactment?”

    “It was great,” he said, still looking at her legs.  “Um, but didn’t the Romans usually win?”

    “They eventually won the wars, but they didn’t win all the battles. The Celts took a few heads.”

    Jack assumed this was a joke, so he laughed, a little nervously. A voice behind him said, “Hey, buddy, whaddya want?”

    He jumped, then realized he’d reached the head of the line. “Beer.” They only had one kind. And then, trying his best to sound as if he did this every day, he said to O’Meara, “What would you like?”

    “Thank you. I’ll have the same.”

    They walked off together. “Are you very interested in Celtic culture, Mr. Martin?”

    “That’s why I took your course,” he said. Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d taken her course because he’d been told it was a great place to meet girls. 

    The professor stared at him with an intensity he found unnerving. He wondered what she saw. Jack knew he wasn’t much to look at: a bit pudgy around the middle, going bald at twenty-two, a pasty complexion not helped by hours in the computer center.

    “If you’re really interested,” she said, “you should join us for Samhain.”

    “Sow-in?” he said. The word sounded vaguely familiar. He wished he’d done the reading for class.

    “That’s how you say it. It’s spelled S-a-m-h-a-i-n. Hallowe’en. Celtic New Year. When the veil that divides the living from the dead is at its thinnest. Our group celebrates in the traditional manner.”

    “I’d love to.” He could barely breathe.

    “Would you? Good. We’ll see you there. Thanks for the beer.”

    He stood there, watching her walk away. His luck was changing.

    Jack had some trouble finding the isolated farm where the Samhain event was being held. It was almost midnight when he finally turned down a  barely paved road and spotted bonfires in the distance. He parked half in the ditch, as others had done. As he headed toward the light he smelled meat roasting and heard drumming and harping through the breeze.

    But he saw no one until he approached the nearest fire. O’Meara stood there, wearing a green tartan tunic that stretched to her feet. The firelight picked up the gold at her throat and wrists. She looked every inch the warrior queen. Beside her stood an equally tall figure, who did not move.   

    “Join us,” O’Meara said, a command more than a request.

    Jack came willingly. “Where are the others?”

    “Around,” she said.

    He turned toward the other person, expecting an introduction, and was startled to realize that it was a statue. He looked at O’Meara.

    “Caileach Beara. She was turned to stone at Bealtaine – May Day. Tonight is her rebirth. She’ll join us later.”

    Jack laughed. He was impressed with the way they made all this seem real.

    “Come. Midnight is near. We shall seek the dead,” she said, taking his left hand and leading him toward the nearest bonfire.

    Jack stared into the blaze. The smoke formed itself into ghostly shapes.  He watched as one of the shapes resolved itself into the form of a grey-haired man with a wrinkled face. Another became a young woman skinny enough to be labeled anorexic.

    He shivered. He hadn’t expected to see anything like that. “How do you make it look so real?” he said.

    “It’s Samhain. The dead are easy to see.”

    He began to sweat, though not from the fire. “Uh, maybe, I should just wander around, see who else is here,” he said, trying to get his hand loose.

    “You’ll see everyone in a few minutes,” she said, holding his wrist more tightly. “When it comes time for the sacrifice.”

    “Sacrifice?” Jack had looked Samhain up on the Web, but he hadn’t seen anything about sacrifices. Just a lot about divination. And fires.

    “All religion has its sacrifice. The Gods demand it.”

    Now he shivered, and this was no more from the chill in the air than the sweat had been from the fire. O’Meara smiled at him, and he saw nothing of the friendly professor who had invited him to join them.

    Fear gave him strength. He broke her grip and turned to run back to his car. But someone grabbed him from behind.

    He wriggled around and managed to look at his attacker. Caileach Beara – stone no more – smiled at him as she tightened her grip on his arms. “You cannot leave now, brother. ’Tis time for the festivities.”

    Jack screamed, then.

    O’Meara said, “In the old days, they dragged out the young girls.”

    “But times have changed, brother,” Caileach Beara said in his ear. “Times have changed.”

    Jack screamed and struggled as she dragged him to an altar in the center of the bonfires. But it was as if Caileach Beara incorporated the strength of having been stone. He flopped around like a rag doll. The one-time statue threw him up on the altar, and chained him down.

    Now he could see others, so many others. The woman from the class – the one with the tattoo – stood nearby, yelling with what seemed to be pure joy. She was surrounded by what looked like hundreds of others.

    O’Meara drew her sword.

    “Oh, God no. Please don’t kill me. Please.”

    “We need the sacrifice,” O’Meara said. “It is an honor to be chosen.”

    “Please. Let me live.” He was whimpering now.

    She shook her head. “It is necessary.”

    He accepted that. Even in his fear he could feel the need for the sacrifice in the air. It wasn’t just the mob hysteria; something larger and more powerful than anything here demanded a life, would be satisfied with nothing less.  If this were God, it did not resemble the kindly old man he’d heard about in Sunday School. Though perhaps it made more sense.

     “But why me? Why not someone else? Surely you could find someone who deserves to die. Why me?”

    O’Meara stroked his forehead, like a mother comforting a child. “Because you will not be missed.” 

    She raised the sword. Jack screamed so loudly that he felt his throat go raw. And watched the sword fall.

    Jack continued to scream, but he could no longer hear himself. He could still see O’Meara, though a fog divided them. He watched in horror as she slit open his belly, and let his entrails spill out. She studied them, then raised her hands.  “The next year will be blessed.”

    The crowd cheered, a long continuous sound that filled the countryside.

    “Now it is time to celebrate,” O’Meara said. And suddenly all the people were drumming, dancing, singing, feasting. If he reached through the fog to the side of the living, Jack could almost touch them. Almost.

    At  sunrise the mortal world faded from his view.

    Much later, Professor O’Meara added another skull to the collection in her office. The Celts took the heads of their enemies, she told her students.  Only those with good imaginations wondered where she got the skulls. 

copyright 2009 by Nancy Jane Moore