Years ago, in the late summer, the townsfolk of The SHA were graced with a new resident named Miss Morgan. Strikingly beautiful and obscenely wealthy, Miss Morgan had moved into the rambling manor house where stone quarry tycoon Richard Lapham once lived.
Lapham himself was nowhere to be found. “Back East checking on his investments,” said some. “Ensorcelled by an enchanting beauty,” whispered others. If the townspeople could have seen the inside of Lapham’s home, however, they would have known that something strange was going on. Though Lapham himself was missing, his clothes and personal belongings remained untouched inside his former home.
Time passed, harvest came and went, and as Halloween approached, uneasiness gripped the town. A boy went missing in September, a teenage girl in early October. Soon there were ten missing, then twenty.
On Halloween night, a boy named Nicholas became the last of The SHA’s residents to disappear, and the only one who emerged to tell his story. That crisp fall evening, he was walking home from school near the river when he heard an angelic cry. “Nicholas, come play with me.”
The boy found himself compelled to follow the sweet-sounding voice. He was drawn through the woods until he found himself at the door of Morgan Manor. The door creaked open just far enough for him to step through. “Nicholas, come play with me,” beckoned the voice, this time from inside the old mansion.
The boy took a tentative step into the inky blackness that lay inside. Then another. As soon as he cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut behind him with a boom that rattled his bones. Hideous laughter erupted from every corner of the pitch-black room. The dizzying torrent of noise and taunts was overwhelming, and he sank to the floor. A pair of yellow eyes appeared before him, growing larger and larger until they seemed to bore into his soul. Then…darkness.
He woke in a dimly lit basement. It was damp and cold, and filled with cries of suffering and torment. Looking around, he realized that the torchlit faces surrounding him were those of the missing townsfolk. Some were babbling like idiots, while others were disfigured, their faces contorted in agony.
The shrieks increased when a woman stepped out of the shadows. It was Miss Morgan, the beautiful lady everyone had been gossiping about. Now her face seemed terrible and evil. She lifted her hands, and a wind seemed to ripple through her flowing black robes as she cried:
“By strength and by storm,
By blood and by bone,
Give me the life of these poor fools,
Drag their souls into Annwyn.”
As she spoke, a moan rose up from the floor. The people around Nicholas flailed in agony, their skin turning gray, bodies seeming to shrink as the life was drawn from them.
Nicholas felt sick and dizzy. He was young and strong, but he felt sure that in no time, he would be as crazed and sick as his fellow townsfolk.
Miss Morgan, however, looked radiant, and even younger than she had before. She gave him a cold look of triumph and said, “I’ll be back for you soon.” Her robes rustled like dead leaves in the wind as she departed.
Still feeling dizzy, Nicholas searched about for a means of escape. A rat scurried past, a strip of human flesh dangling from its jaws. Nicholas forced himself to watch the loathsome creature until he found the chink in the wall where the rat made its escape.
The rest was a nightmare of digging and crawling, until finally the mud-stained boy clawed his way out of his premature grave. He ran to the town constable and told him his horrific tale. Soon a crowd had gathered in front of Morgan Manor, shotguns and pitchforks glinting in the moonlight.
They found the tortured bodies of their loved ones, some living, some dead. Of Miss Morgan they found no trace, save for a portrait of that lady in medieval French garb, marked by an inscription:
“Morgan le Fay, Morgana to some,
of nine great witches, I am the greatest one.”
The townspeople carried the portrait onto the lawn of the Manor, and there they held a great bonfire. As the flames touched the canvas, a voice came to them on the air.
“I will return to my manor someday, rest assured.
No one is safe, of this you will learn.”
Since that fateful Halloween, the grounds of Morgan Manor have been vacant. Some say that if you watch closely, you will see signs that the manor is being cared for by a mysterious caretaker. Rumor has it that Nicholas, the ensorcelled boy who escaped, now lives on the grounds, waiting for the day when his mistress returns. Meanwhile, if you listen closely on a cold October night, the shrill threat of the sorceress can be heard.
“Morgan Manor is mine. One day I’ll return.”
