Writers’ Ring is a writing club on campus, and each week the club discusses a different genre of writing. Writers’ Ring had their annual Halloween Poetry and Prose Competition within the month of October. On Halloween, the winners of them were announced.
The judges for this competition were Professor Michael Sheehan, Professor Saundra Liggins and Professor Rebecca Cuthbert.
The winners were divided into three categories; poetry, fiction and overall winner.
The winner for poetry is Airlea Deutscher, “My Mommy’s Eyes are Blue”; the winner for fiction is Jake Davis, “The Girl on the Porch”; and the overall winner is Kathleen Ball, “Ghost Stories”.
Poetry Winner: “My Mommy’s Eyes Are Blue” – Airlea Deutscher
My mommy’s eyes are blue
Like the skies above.
She made sure I knew this
From a very young age.
I’d stare into them as her blond bangs Hung over her forehead.
She used to quiz me,
Or tell me in a song.
“This I know is true,
My mommy’s eyes are blue.”
I never forgot.
When I was about nine,
The color started to shift.
One eye was still blue like the sky, The other brown like dirt.
Mommy said they changed sometimes, That was normal.
She would tease her dark black curls As I sang a different tune.
“This I know is true,
One of Mommy’s eyes is blue.”
When I was about twelve,
The color shifted again.
One eye was still brown like dirt, The other green like grass.
But I knew I trusted Mommy
With her beautiful red braid,
And Mommy said the change was normal. “This I know is true,
Green comes from blue.”
I got a small present from Mommy On my sixteenth birthday.
A blue like the sky jewelry box. “Open it,” Mommy said,
And so I did.
And Mommy’s eyes stared back at me. Blue like the sky.
I looked back up at Mommy,
And beneath her blonde bangs,
Where I once saw ever-changing eyes Were sunken valleys dripping with blood. This was definitely Mommy.
I still don’t know who the other two women were.
Fiction Winner: “The Girl on the Porch” – Jake Davis
Dan shivered in the cold as he stood in the open doorway and watched his daughter Abby get into the back seat of her mom’s van. She was just a flash of red against the dim overhead light as her mom pulled out of the driveway. It had been daylight when the silver minivan pulled in, but now, even its obnoxious LED headlights did little to fend off the darkness as it swallowed his ex-wife and daughter just a little ways down the unlit street. He waved goodbye and flicked off the porch light, smiling slightly as he closed the door. He limped down the hall towards the old sagging couch he had set up in front of the TV, dragging his booted foot along behind him. He was supposed to have Abby for halloween this year, but after breaking his foot at work, he wasn’t going to be able to take her trick-or-treating so her mom had stepped in to help. No one ever came trick-or-treating down his out-of-the-way street, and even if they did, everyone knows to skip a house if the porch light is off, so all he had to do was relax and watch some shitty horror films until Sarah dropped Abby back off. He grabbed the remote and sank into the couch’s deteriorating brown cushions, flicking through channels until he found some black and white slasher that must’ve come out back when he was in middle school.
Dan’s eyes snapped open, he wasn’t sure what woke him or how long he’d been out for, but it was clear he’d dozed off watching the movie. Grabbing for his phone from the cushion next to him, he checked the time. It was 10:24; he had been asleep nearly three hours. He threw the phone back down and called for Abby, hoping that she hadn’t come home to find him passed out in the living room. The stairs creaked out a response but otherwise the house was silent. Relief stretched his mouth into another small grin as he turned his attention back to the television, where some masked weirdo was chasing college kids around on a bloody lawn mower. One of them tripped and was immediately turned into red paste by the mower’s spinning blades as Dan realized what woke him: someone was at the door. They weren’t really knocking per se, it was a series of rapid faint taps, like someone was drumming their fingers on the door, but Dan couldn’t see any silhouette outlined in the fogged glass. Cautiously, he hoisted himself off the couch and dragged himself down the hall. The drumming stopped as he felt the cold metal of the doorknob against his hand, as if whoever was on the other side knew he was there.
He opened the door and stepped around it, his voice catching in his throat as he realized there was no one there to greet. He turned to close the door when a flash of orange caught his eye. There was someone there after all: a kid who looked to be no more than five or six years old was staring up at him through a plastic jack o’lantern mask. She was wearing a bright orange onesie and was trembling from the cold.
“Trick or treat.” Her voice was quiet and hollow, muffled by cheap orange plastic, and she was trembling in the cold as she stood unmoving about four feet in front of him. “Hey there, I’m really sorry, but I don’t have any candy or anything, we don’t normally get many trick-or-treaters out he–” he cut himself off as he scanned the sidewalk leading up to his property. There was no one else in sight.
“Are you out here all by yourself? Where are your parents?” The girl tilted her head to the side as if she didn’t understand the question, though the black triangles that must’ve concealed her eye holes gave Dan the impression that she never broke eye contact.
“Trick or treat.” She repeated herself exactly, panting out each word in that same sort of breathy intonation. A strange feeling started to claw its way into the pit of Dan’s stomach. “Hey, I don’t think you should be out here on your own, especially without a jacket. Is there somebody I can call for you?” She didn’t respond, letting the mask’s sharp-toothed grin speak for her.
“Alright, well why don’t you come inside and warm up while I figure out who to call, ok?” Dan half expected another quiet ‘Trick or Treat’ but instead the girl simply stepped inside. She was barefoot and left a few wet leaves on the carpet. Her skin was dangerously pale in the warm light of the hallway and the late October wind had left blue splotches on her hands and feet. Dan closed the door and turned to face her but she was no longer behind him. Her leering plastic mask stared back at him from down the hall, where her wet feet were soaking into his couch cushions.
“Alright, you just uh– stay there, and I’ll find someone to come get you, ok?” Dan hoped he didn’t sound as nervous as felt. He awkwardly clomped his boot down the hall, grabbing his phone and walking straight past the girl into the kitchen. She shifted and turned, staring silently at him no matter where he went. He stepped out onto the back porch and turned away from her, dialing the sheriff’s department as he slid the glass door shut behind him.
“Dusk county sheriff’s department” The woman’s voice startled him, he was so weirded out that he’d forgotten he called.
“Hi yes, my name is Dan Foster, I’m at 207 Willowbranch Street and I think I’ve found a missing kid?” his voice tilted up as if he was asking the woman a question. “She uhh- just kinda turned up at my door like she was trick-or-treating but she was out there all alone and half frozen to death.” He waited a half beat before the woman replied, “Have you tried contacting her parents?”
“Well, I asked her who I could call but she wouldn’t answer, she looks about six so I figured she might just not know her parents’ number.” Again, the woman on the other end waited a few seconds before responding.
“Alright well, there haven’t been any missing kids reported, but it is halloween, can you give me a description of the girl?” Dan paused for a moment, shocked that he hadn’t thought to take her mask off before calling.
“Actually, not really, she’s been wearing her costume the whole time, but she’s about waist high, and super-”
“Sir it’s halloween and this is a busy line, why don’t you go see if she’ll talk now that she’s had time to warm up, and give us a call back with a description ready if she doesn’t.” The woman cut him off sharply and the line clicked dead before he could respond. Stunned, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and waddled back into the kitchen. He expected to see that jack o’lantern face staring him down as he came in, but instead the girl was nowhere to be seen.
“Hello?” he cried as he limped his way back through the kitchen. He had the overwhelming feeling that something was missing from the counter, but he figured he must just be wondering where the girl is.
“Hey where did you go? Is everything ok?” Dan called out, but the house was as quiet as when she’d first woken him up. As he rounded the corner into the living room, he instinctively clutched his arms together. It was freezing. The front door hung wide open and the porch light was on, causing each drop of the rain that must’ve just started to flash yellow for a moment just before the icy wind sent it hurtling into his house. Dan tramped down the hall in his boot and stuck his head out into the night, scanning for any traces of the girl. He hadn’t been on the phone for very long and she couldn’t have gotten that far, but he couldn’t see any sign of her. He pulled his head back in and flicked the porch light off again before closing the door. With the screaming wind gone, Dan’s ears picked up a new sound, a sort of low droning from upstairs. Slowly and painfully, Dan made his way up the stairs, heaving his heavy, injured leg up each step as the noise got gradually louder.
“Hey, are you up here? What’s going on?” Dan called as he reached the top step and caught his breath. Looking down the hall, his bedroom door was open and the lights were on. He hadn’t slept in there since he hurt his foot, it was too much trouble trying to get up the stairs with the boot on. As he stepped carefully down the hall, it was clear that the sound was coming from his room. It was a single note being held, like a sort of drawn out moan. He swung around into the doorframe and almost ran into the little girl. She stood there staring at her own reflection in his large standing mirror. She was the one making the droning noise,
“Uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—”
She almost sounded like little kids do when they try to make funny noises with fans. She stood there with her hands clasped behind her back rocking back and forth on her heels. A single stream of clear liquid – either drool or snot, had forced its way out from under her mask and was slowly lowering itself toward the purple carpet.
“Oh my god, what happened? Are you ok?” Dan knelt down in front of the girl, concerned by the state she was in. He put his hands on either side of her mask. “Listen we need to get this off of you so I can have a look, I’m worried you might be seriously sick, and the police need to know what you look like so they can find your parents, ok?” The girl made no move to resist so he started to pull, but as he did so, he felt two flashes of incredibly sharp pain. The girl cut off her intonation and he looked down, recognizing the pain as what was missing from the kitchen, his serrated bread knife, which she had driven into his stomach, ripped out, and was in the process of burying it in his thigh. He gave a choked squawk and dove across the hall towards the bathroom, kicking the girl off his bad leg with his good one before dragging it inside and closing the door. He grasped at the hole in his stomach and blood ran out between his fingers as he reached up and clicked the lock. Whipping his head around to find something to staunch the bleeding, he scooted back just seconds before something hit the door so hard that the windows rattled and he heard something fall and shatter downstairs. Dan held his breath waiting for the next impact, scooting towards the shower as he heard a series of
rapid taps on the door. She was drumming her fingers on it like she had at the front door earlier. Dan made it to the toilet and sat there, using one hand to hold himself up against the bowl while he wrapped the other in toilet paper and stretched his legs out across the linoleum floor. He was so focused on his task that he didn’t question why the shower curtain was closed, nor did he
notice the grubby hand that pulled it open. By the time he looked up he was surrounded by three masked children, each barefoot and dirty, and each holding another of his missing kitchen knives.
The last words that Dan Foster ever heard were those of his daughter Abby, at the front door downstairs,
“Daddy, we’re back!”
Overall Winner: “Ghost Stories” – Kathleen Ball
“Bloody Mary isn’t real,” you say, sitting in a circle with your friends, pajamas on and music blasting from someone’s phone behind you. All of your friends nod but the girl across from you, who leans closer.
“That’s not true. My sister saw her,” she says, a smile on her lips, but her eyes are serious and squinted.
Mary Tudor was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. In her youth she was used as a political pawn, betrothed and bargained with like a chip for power. Despite the focus on her hand in marriage, Mary often refused these advances and arranged marriages, claiming she would marry who she wanted on her own time. She was known for being a bright girl with a beautiful voice and articulate speech, which she got from her mother.
“You liar!” someone shouts.
“No, I’m serious!” she answers, but her eyes are still trained on your own. “She said that a few years ago she had a sleepover with her friends just like this and they played Bloody Mary, and,” she pauses, taking a breath in, “she saw her. Right in the mirror.”
Mary Tudor’s father was the King of England who decided to separate the country from the Roman Catholic Church, establishing the Church of England, to allow him to divorce from Mary’s mother, Catherine, as he claimed the marriage was incestuous due to her previous
marriage to his brother. Mary was seen as an illegitimate child, and therefore stripped of her title as the Princess of Wales.
Elizabeth Báthory was born into a wealthy family in 1560. At that time, it was commonplace for servants to be mistreated, even tortured, at their master’s whim. Elizabeth, even as a child, suffered from violent mood swings, epilepsy, and migraines. At the age of 6 she saw her first public execution during a family outing, and she was engaged to be married at 13, to an 18 year old. Her family was a dynasty that ruled over Transylvania, now modern day Romania.
The girls around you laugh but your lips stay still, the ends turned down as you stare at your friend across from you. She’s still staring, but her conspiring smile has faded from her lips. “What, you don’t believe me? Try it for yourself. We’ve got candles.”
“Do we need a candle?” one girl asks, looking more and more nervous as the conversation continues.
Elizabeth Báthory married Count Ferenc Nádasdy and had four children. The family moved to Western Hungary, where the Count showed Elizabeth the true joys of torture. It is said that the two committed many atrocities there, including not only abuse towards servants, but murder as well. The two were also accused of involvement in orgies, witchcraft, and sorcery.
Mary Worth was a woman who was, or supposedly a woman who was, or supposedly was, alive during the Salem witch trials. She was said to be an old woman who lived in the forest
by herself making herbal remedies that the locals shunned. She was often described as old and then youthful in a matter of days, haggard and then suddenly beautiful.
“Of course we do! It’s a ceremony to bring Bloody Mary’s ghost back from the dead, there needs to be candles,” your friend says, getting up from her pillow on the floor, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. As she walks away, your other friends start murmuring beside you.
“You should be the one to do it.”
“No way!”
“Are we really going to do this? Obviously nothing is gonna happen.”
“Her sister was totally lying, right?”
You don’t remember it happening, but someone must have turned the music off in the chaos.
Mary Tudor’s stepmother, Anne, hated Mary because she never acknowledged herself as a bastard child, making Mary often fear execution at her stepmother’s words. Despite this, even when her father offered to pardon her if she admitted his marriage to her mother was incestuous, she still refused. When encouraged by those around her, Mary gave in and proclaimed herself the illegitimate daughter of the King, a decision she regretted for the rest of her life. She was a princess once more.
Your friend wanders back in with a shoebox and sets it down right in front of you, still standing while everyone’s face turns up towards her like a magnet.
“Pick one,” she says, gesturing to the box on the floor between you. The words were said to the room but her gaze is firmly placed on you. Your friends’ eyes slowly follow hers, landing on your own, as you sit on your socked feet.
Elizabeth Báthory moved to western Slovakia after her husband died, where it was said that she continued to torture and abuse her staff, to the point where the townsfolk began to start rumors. While many young servant girls had gone missing over the years, it wasn’t until other noblewomen started to disappear that the government decided to get involved. Elizabeth Báthory was arrested and jailed for the murder of 80 women, yet never convicted. In her stead, four of her servants were convicted of violence against staff members. Despite the lack of a conviction, Elizabeth Báthory remained in prison until she died at 54.
You lean forward now, arching over the box like a mobile over a crib, and slip the dusty lid off with careful fingers. Inside lay an assortment of candles, all in a variety of colors and states of use. You feel the wax with your fingertips, sliding almost reverently over them, until you reach one in the bottom left corner. It looks more worn than the rest, drips of creamy wax frozen in place about halfway down the candle. The wick is charred black and crumbling at the end. You pick that one.
Mary Worth, when the town’s young women started to go missing, was the first to be suspected. Mary denied knowing the whereabouts of any of the girls, and told the townsfolk to leave her be. One night, one of the girls in town heard sounds that no one else could hear, and wandered into the woods as if in a dream. The townspeople followed her.
Mary Tudor became the Queen of England at the age of 37, only after the people of England ran out the previous Queen, believing Mary to be the rightful heir to the throne. Mary, however, wanted to go back to the Church of Rome, and was determined to marry the son of a Spanish Emperor, Phillip II. An uprising came, but was squashed quickly by Mary’s sway over the people of England. For three years, she hung the bodies of the rebels up from gibbets and persecuted heretics, burning over 300 people at the stake.
Taking the candle into your hand, you look up to see the friend from across the room still staring, but with a small smile now. A nervous one.
“Good pick. The bathroom’s over there,” her says, her voice cracking as she speaks. A few girls look around nervously, but the rest giggle behind their hands, peering at you with eager eyes.
Mary Worth stood outside her cabin, pointing what was suspected to be a wand out towards the forest, right where the young girl appeared. The townsfolk saw Mary and immediately shot her down, claiming a strange light was coming from the end of the wand. They tied her to a stake and burned her alive for witchcraft.
You get up on shaky legs, slipping a little on the blanket that falls from your shoulder. “You don’t have to, you know,” one of the more timid girls says.
“Yeah, she should be the one to do it anyway,” another says, pointing at the friend across from you. You hear them, but you keep moving towards the bathroom.
There are a few theories on the origin of Bloody Mary. Some say that she is named after the bloody queen Mary, the first queen regent of England, some say after one of the most well known female serial killers in all of history, Elizabeth Báthory, or even Mary Worth, a Salem witch that was most probably not a witch, and also probably not real. The truth of where Bloody Mary comes from is still debated today, but it perpetuates even now in bathrooms all over the world. Different names, different words chanted, different theories of who she is, but the same women reaching through the mirror, blood pouring from their eyes.
The lights are already off when the bathroom door closes behind you. You slip into darkness, the only source of light the candle in your hand, warming your nose. The closer you get to the mirror, the further your friends’ laughter is from beyond the door. You stare into your own eyes now, pupils huge and breath warming the mirror like a wet fog. You are the first to break eye contact, eyelids shutting gently as you take a big breath in. And let it out.
Mary Tudor was hated by her people in the end, her husband unrecognized as a true king, and she lost many major battles and lands across Europe in her time as ruler. She bore no children, had many miscarriages, and thanks to her inclination towards executions, was given the nickname Bloody Mary.
“Bloody Mary.”
Elizabeth Báthory is said to have killed young virgin girls to bathe in their blood to keep herself young and pure. The numbers vary in legend from 80 to 600 women, and she has since been named one of (if not the) most prolific female serial killers in history, earning her the title of the Blood Countess.
“Bloody Mary.”
Mary Worth, as she died, shouted, cursing the whole village and vowing to haunt them forever through their reflection. The townspeople went home to find unnamed gravestones, marking the deaths of their daughters that Mary Worth had killed. Allegedly.
“Bloody Mary.”
You open your eyes to see yourself already looking back, small beads of blood forming in the corners of your eyes. You reach a hand up and touch them, pulling away clean fingers, while hers pull away stained with red. She smiles. You don’t.