Don’t look too deep into the dark— 

the stitch of old stories weave into the 

dancing constellations fiercely and alive, my 

eyes glancing to him. The now graying-haired 

man strums his fingers on strings, the blazing 

 

fire before him sending its embers and inky 

smoke into the night-ridden sky. The time of our 

youth, being our wild selves young and free with 

entwined hands, cupped faces, then the mask 

on his grimace as he sent me to the inferno  

grave. Spell caster, witch of the wood,  

 

the man changed the chord progression, a slithering 

chill creeping through the breeze as he looked 

up. It was known and retold again not to prowl 

to the moth-ridden crooks and crannies of my 

jilted cabin. Those malevolent eyes peering into  

 

the lurid forest unaware of my fearful presence,  

not like how they once did. Kindred blood  

spilled at his feet, now the muck of sodden 

dirt, hands stained of demise. A beast that lurked 

the lands, a maelstrom of decay.  

 

He knew I watched, sensing my wrath through the 

thicket of dark firs toppled with dusted snow, his 

breath hitched any time a crackle of a branch arose. 

Sometimes I dared to get close, too close to let him  

bask in his own unease. Haunting him awake as he  

 

did to me, the prickle of rising hair on skin recoiled  

from past thoughts, trials of terror, and the present  

flames slowly dying out. I left without a sound, the hum 

of his fingers on the strings ceasing—don’t look too 

deep into the dark, for then the monsters will emerge.