Whenever October rolls around and swathes everything in autumnal beauty, I remember these earliest chapters of my life, namely the time I spent terrorizing teachers and children alike in elementary school.

I was a horrid little girl. I refused to do my homework, I never spoke up in class (not even when prompted to), I didn't study for tests and did everything in my power to irritate and gross out anyone around me. I didn't care if I got punished. I wouldn't have cared if they'd have thrown me out altogether. I'm not saying this to make my kid self look like some sort of badass. Deep down, I was a sullen, mirthless child, filled with self-loathing. At home, all I ever received was uncaring disregard. I didn't share these feelings, opting to make others miserable as a coping mechanism instead. I couldn't explain why; I guess in a way, it was simply amusing to me. Whenever my teachers got red in the face or started to raise their voices, unable to conceal their anger any longer, I felt a certain undeniable thrill.

I suppose this was also what moved me to refuse working on Mrs Tucker's fall project. It wasn't too big a loss—nobody ever liked Mrs Tucker's tasks. Or the woman herself, for that matter.

She was a short, stout woman in her late fifties and so bulbous she was almost entirely round. She didn't look her age either—she looked at least eighty—and wherever she went, she exuded an unholy, disgusting stench. Her greasy gray hair hung down her head in matted patches and her upper lip was hairier than my dog's snout. No clothes ever seemed to fit her. Her wide skirts always hung loosely down her form and most of the time, they were far too long and she'd end up tripping over the hems. Blouses, shirts and jackets never closed entirely, buttons often sprang off and seams regularly puckered or tore. She had the meanest, darkest eyes and to top it all off, a big black wart sat atop the tip of her crooked nose.

Christ, I was scared of her. And how!

Then again, nearly all the kids were. Mrs Tucker was never mean to us, always acting like she was some kind of sweet, friendly aunt to the whole lot of us, but it was simply too much. Her saccharine shtick inspired mistrust and unease rather than comfort and affection. She taught arts and crafts, but as far as I was concerned, it could have just as well been demonology.

I still remember sitting in the very back of the classroom, keeping my head low and my eyes half-shut, trying my hardest to fall asleep during her lesson. Despite managing not to look at her, I couldn't block out the rattling sound of her voice. It was high-pitched and overly gentle, and about as pleasant as the noise an unoiled door hinge would make.

"Hannie."

I heard her call my name, but pretended like I hadn't.

"Hannie."

Crap, she was coming over to my desk. Her chunky heels were clunk-clunk-clunking on the linoleum floor. I felt her gnarled hands on my shoulders.

"Don't touch me, you creepy hag," I hissed, not turning around nor raising my head.

"Now, Hannie, that wasn't very nice." Her hands dug deeper into my shoulders, like she was massaging me.

I shuddered. "I said, get your paws off," I grunted.

Mrs Tucker withdrew. "You really ought to follow the lesson, Hannie. Don't you wanna learn what our new project is all about?"

I most certainly did not.

"Hannie?"

"Eat shit, lady."

Mrs Tucker let out a deep sigh. I heard her returning to the front of the classroom and my heartbeat finally slowed down again. There was no use in trying to sleep anymore, though. I'd most certainly have some kind of nightmare about those gross fingers of hers if I did. My eyes shut, I listened to her door-creak-voice explaining the task she intended to send us home with.

"Now, for Halloween we want to make something right special. This holiday is not just about eating candy, it's about celebrating fall and embracing winter. Isn't that exciting, darlings?"

No response came from anywhere in the room.

Mrs Tucker cleared her throat before carrying on. "I want all of you to pick the last flowers you can find around your homes and dry them between the pages of a suitable book. Then, collect enough acorns and chestnuts to each make a neat little doll out of them. You may paint your doll and decorate it with the dried flowers. Make sure to write your name on it. On Halloween, you'll bring all the dolls to school with you and we'll decide on who's got the best one. My, won't that be fun, children?"

Silence.

Mrs Tucker hummed. "Well then, this assignment is due on October thirty-first. And I'm expecting a lot from you, my darlings. You've got all the time in the world, so really put your soul into this artwork. Just this once you'll try hard, won't you?"

I would have never admitted this, but the idea of crafting such a doll actually appealed to me. Therefore, I decided to take a stroll through the woods near the schoolhouse that same day. I kept my eyes peeled for flowers, but try as I might, I found none. Colorful leaves rained from the trees as their branches were shaken by howling gusts of wind. The stinging cold and the eerie sounds may have scared me if it hadn't been for the frosty yet bright sun shining down on me from a cheerfully blue sky peppered with white, fluffy clouds. At least there were plenty of ripe chestnuts. They were gleaming in the tall, wet grass by my feet like deep brown diamonds. I began to pick up a few, but soon got extremely bored with the task. Frustrated, I started hurling the ones I'd collected against a big black rock to see if they'd break.

Once I had thrown all my chestnuts, I went over to the rock for an assessment. Sadly, these poor man's diamonds had exploded the way I'd hoped they would. I did discover something else, though, something a lot more interesting. On the other side of the rock, there was a drawing done in white chalk. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before and the only way I can describe it was that it resembled a much-embellished star with weird, indecipherable letters around it. I knelt there for a little while longer, pondering on the symbol's meaning and origin. Flighty child that I was however, I soon lost interest and went on homewards.

The day of Halloween was a school day, one that promised to be particularly awful at that. Mrs Tucker watched us trickle into her classroom with a wide smile on her face. I showed up late, as per usual, and sat down in the back only to instantly slouch and place my head in my palms. I hadn't slept well the night before so all I wanted at that moment was to take a nap. How was I supposed to egg houses that coming night when I was this tired? To my dismay, Mrs Tucker had apparently intended to have her idiotic chestnut doll competition outside.

"Alright kids, pack your things, we're taking a little walk into the woods. This weather we're having is just grand, isn't it? Oh, we'll have such a jolly time…"

I didn't bother to stifle my sigh of disappointment. I contemplated simply staying in my seat as an act of protest, but I didn't have the energy to start that big an argument, so I ended up obediently trodding along with the others. Mrs Tucker led us away from the schoolhouse and into the adjacent forest. Shuffling through the underbrush, her hunchbacked form resembled a big, moving tree stump. The clear, breezy open air had an invigorating effect on me, helping me ignore my listlessness. Trudging through the weeds and the mud, twigs snapping beneath our feet, we followed her until she came to a halt in the exact same spot I'd been to after she'd announced the project. I instantly recognized the rock that had the chalk symbol on its backside. I quickly rounded the large stone to check and sure enough, the drawing was still there. It even appeared to have been freshened up not too long ago.

Something about this seemed fishy to me. Sure, it could have been a coincidence, but I simply had this feeling that Mrs Tucker was up to something here.

"Alright, children, place your bags in a neat little row right over there by the mount. We don't want them getting dirty, now. Please grab your dolls and line them up around this rock here. Don't dawdle."

I could tell my classmates were just as confused as I was. Some whispered among one another, others exchanged doubtful glances. Nevertheless, they each started producing their contributions to the project and placed them around the rock at random. Mrs Tucker seemed all too pleased.

"Lovely," she proclaimed. "Now, please turn around and close your eyes while I take a look at these."

I recognized my own bewilderment in the faces of my fellow students. This was getting absurd. A mere few did as they were told, the others just stared at the teacher in confusion.

"Turn around!" Mrs Tucker suddenly barked, causing all of us, even myself, to obey.

My heart was racing. I couldn't believe how afraid I was all of a sudden. I was in some way deeply aware that something was going terribly awry. The wind picked up, growing colder and fiercer as it blew our hair into our faces and raised dead leaves from the forest floor, making them twirl and dance as it carried them along.

"Lord and Master, hear my call!" Mrs Tucker cried out, her voice warping and lowering in pitch until it sounded like something straight from hell, "Lord and Master, know my heart!"

I froze. I literally froze. I couldn't move anymore. I could blink and breathe but I couldn't lift a single finger; I couldn't even open my mouth. Fear gripped me as I struggled against whatever force was holding me in place. I soon realized it was futile, though. The wind turned into a howling storm. Through its whistling, I almost couldn't make out what our teacher was saying.

"I offer you these nineteen souls, small and pure and ripe for your taking! By the dolls they have fashioned in their likeness, and by their names that they've carved into the fruits of your trees, their souls are yours for the taking!"

My heart was drumming, my blood singing in my ears. I was starting to get a grasp of the situation I was in, beginning to understand what this wretched old hag was trying to do to us. One thing I knew for sure—I did not want to see what it was she was talking to.

Eighteen.

The voice of the creature didn't sound like it came from one single mouth. It was all around me, booming through the woods as though it was being blasted at us through a dozen hidden speakers.

"Eighteen?" Mrs Tucker repeated in an alarmed tone. "What… what do you mean?"

Eighteen dolls for eighteen souls. You've promised me more than you're able to give, my priestess.

"What? No. No, no, no, it can't be, all of them were—"

That's when I realized it. A wave of energy surged through my body and, suddenly overcome with bravery, I whirled around. I only dared to look at Mrs Tucker. Her sight alone was enough to reintroduce a sense of dread into my steeled heart. Her hair was standing on end, hovering around her head like a dirty, drizzly halo; the whites of her eyes had swallowed her irises and pupils and her mouth hung wide open, like that of a snake with its jaw unhinged. There was something hovering above her, something big that was casting a long shadow onto the ground, but I couldn't find the strength to look up. Somewhere deep down, I knew I needed to protect my young mind from what I would see if I did.

Instead, I firmly held my teacher's hateful glare. She had apparently put two and two together at the same time as me, spun around and was now facing me, her twisted grimace expressing both anger and panic. She could tell that her plan had gone wrong, that I had come between her and whatever she'd been meaning to get out of all this.

"You disgusting, rotten little brat!" she bellowed, squatting like a beast of prey about to pounce. "Do you have any idea what you've cost me?"

She jumped, and I staggered back, but to my utter shock and disbelief, she began to dissolve. Her face began melting, bubbles forming under her skin that grew and grew and then popped, leaving liquidated pink flesh running down her bare skull. She was still in mid-air when her body crumbled entirely. What was left of her hit the forest floor with a splat. My mouth agape, I stared in horror at the decomposed heap of organic matter that had once been Mrs Tucker.

This was her last chance, you see. Her efforts were never fully successful, never calculated nor thought-out. I have no use for a priestess with lacking devotion.

I still didn't look up. In fact, I might as well have remained frozen from the start for I didn't dare to move a muscle until the shadow had disappeared and I heard the other kids gasp and stumble around as they returned to their senses.

It took us a long time to convince our parents of what had truly happened that day. But when you've got nineteen kids all saying the same thing and a weird rock in the woods, it's hard to brush stuff like that off, even if it sounds tad outlandish. So they did away with the big stone; I don't know where to but I never saw it again. We got a new art teacher, too. She was a similarly boring but definitely less creepy lady. And that's the whole story.

Of course, it encouraged me to live the way I do nowadays. I don't work, mooching off friends and family at every possible opportunity. Don't judge; I'm being lazy out of the goodness of my heart! Who knows, I might save the world some day if I keep at it.

X