This story is based on a true event.
all at once a soft flame
I wasn't planning on doing anything at Halloween last year, but when my friend texted me and said that she had a spare ticket for our local hotel's 'Spells 'n' Daggers' event that night, I agreed to meet her there. I made the best costume that I could in the little amount of time that I had, called a taxi, and within the hour I was at the Cliff Lodge Hotel. My friend had neglected to inform me that she was actually working on the door for the event, so after putting my coat in the cloakroom, I decided to go and get a drink and get a feel for the evening. There was a distinctively delightful and inviting atmosphere, with many guests dressed in all sorts of eye catching costumes, including a handful of ghastly ghouls and decadent Grand Guignol ghosts, and also, a rather striking and confident looking lady, who had a very long red wig, and in her vampyre costume looked as if she was probably only using this party as a starting point for a wondrous night ahead. I decided to have a wander around the hotel but before I got any further than the end of the main corridor my attention was suddenly drawn to the main entrance, where there was obviously something unusual happening as there was a sudden sizzle of electricity in the air, and the clicks and flashes of a hundred camera shots being taken was noticeable above the excitable noise. And then there emerged from the crowded entrance the cause of all this commotion, and my heart leapt as it beheld two creatures who glided into the bar room. I blinked furiously. Were they even real? Downing my gin and tonic in one so as to try and steady myself, I then heard the band start up in the adjacent room. The sultry tones of 'She's a Black Magic Woman' rang through the hotel air and I ventured back into the bar area. From my secluded spot I could observe the two new arrivals to my heart's content. She (I later learned that her name was Lilith) simply radiated mystery and allure in a truly magical costume. Sensually attired in a deep V-necked black dress that perfected the art of seduction in that it concealed even as it revealed and revealed even as it concealed, her quite astonishing beauty left me reeling, and my eyes were drawn to what looked like a necklace, but which was probably a magic pendant from another dimension, and which hung around her alabaster, work of art neck and enchanting décolletage as if it were actually conscious of the immense privilege it was being granted: an intriguing, glimmering Red Right Hand. She had bewitching hair which reached in parts up to the moon and the stars and which shone a lustrous white in glorious, timeless glamour. The gentleman with her, draped in black velvet and with dark, spiked hair that also seemed to be reaching for the stars, had all the qualities of a nineteenth century poet who it is often said had once written a famous story about a vampyre which I'd read many years ago: Lord Byron. As I watched them, trying desperately to pluck up the courage to go and talk to this unusual, captivating couple, I suddenly noticed the woman in the wig watching the lady called Lilith with total fascination in her eyes. Just as with me, it seemed, a spell had been cast over her and she was as intoxicated and indeed, as spellbound, as I was. I saw her walk over to talk to the couple and I couldn't help but notice that there was something eerie, but also sublime about their exchange. It was as if the lady in the long red wig was drinking in the energy that flowed in waves from Lilith, and I became increasingly aware, although this will seem very strange to the reader, that the atmosphere in the hotel had subtly changed. I looked again and saw that an envelope of lighted mist surrounded the three of them. Lilith had the ensnared vampyre woman caught in a trance and to my amazement, I became aware of a sensation suddenly flooding through me which suggested that she could actually read my very thoughts from the other side of the room. And then, all at once, the band broke into another song, and the singer suddenly howled the lines that open that all time Halloween classic, that perfect three minute song which explores and encapsulates infatuation and the dark delights of euphoric desire so succinctly: "I Put a Spell on You!"
The woman in the long red vampyre wig was now so possessed that she was unable to control herself any longer and she grabbed Lilith's laced white gloved hand and whisked her up onto the dance floor. But this was actually a crucial lesson for me in matters of control as to the casual onlooker, it would have appeared that Lilith was doing the other woman's bidding, so let this be a lesson to you as well, dear reader, for as with so many things in life, first impressions can be deceiving, for it was crystal clear to me that she was actually acting upon an impulse that she could simply no longer resist, and it was an impulse that had been planted there by a mischievous Lilith. For when I had first arrived, this very woman had looked like an image of confidence, self-control and self-restraint. But now, following Lilith's arrival, and under her mesmeric spell and wicked witchcraft, she was quite obviously little more than a marionette puppet at the bidding of strings that Lilith was pushing and pulling to her own playful, intoxicating fancy. Dear reader, how little do I realise I now know following this strange yet wonderful night.
The two of them drew every gaze with them onto the dance floor. They whirled and whizzed as they shifted shapes and made a mockery of that thing we humans call time. There was a fire and magic in the air that made seconds seem like long, drawn out minutes, and long, drawn out minutes seem like seconds. They then finished their dance and a haze came over my mind and over the entire room as everything became slow-motion and they embraced one another. What happened in that smoky, dream-filled moment, dear reader? Well, you may well ask. For in that scintillating, haunted atmosphere it could have been one or more of many things. Did they share a crimson kiss? Did Lilith whisper secrets from another world? Did Lilith feel the gentle caress of her capture's yearning eyes and hands? Did she perhaps make promises that she would or could never keep? Did she cast an everlasting spell over her? All I can say is that we will never know. Perhaps none of these things, perhaps all of them. But one thing is certain: something completely otherworldly had overcome the room and whatever transpired at the time between them will remain forever unknown to all except for the two participants.
A curious calm seemed to settle over the hotel at this point and a sense of normality appeared to have been restored. Lilith and her spellbound captive were joined on the dance floor as the band started to play another wonderful Halloween classic, 'Sympathy For the Devil.' Seeing that the very image of Lord Byron was currently sitting by himself, sipping what appeared to be a quite splendid Espresso Martini whilst he scanned the room and drank in the atmosphere, I quickly downed another gin and strode over to him. But strangely, when I got to the place he had been sitting he was no longer there. I turned around and saw he was on the dance floor with Lilith. I shook my head at this strange happening and put it all down to the gins that I had drunk, rather quickly, since the evening had began. But I knew, deep down in my soul, that I simply couldn't let the evening end without talking to this unusual, captivating couple. And then, all at once, I realised I had to take the next opportunity as, distressingly, it looked as if they were making to leave. I quickly positioned myself in the hall so I could catch them before they got to the main door, and so I wouldn't look too conspicuous. But, just as they approached where I was standing, I clumsily dropped my drink and in that split-second, they passed by. I raced after them so as to be able to talk to them in the graveled car park outside and when they went out of the hotel door, they were only a couple of yards in front of me. I'd had a few gins, the atmosphere of the evening had got under my skin, I knew I had the courage to do it... it was now or never. And so, after a deep breath, I quickly stepped outside to hail them but, to my utter surprise, the hotel car park was completely empty. There wasn't a soul in sight. It was impossible. Where had they gone? Had they vanished into the air, as breath into the wind? And then, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My mind was, once again, in a whirl. I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see that the the woman in the long red wig who had danced with Lilith had herself ventured outside behind me to get some fresh air. Her eyes were strangely lost but also ablaze, and it was clear that she was in a state of an intoxicated but exhausted enchantment, her previously self-assured soul as it were caught between this world and some other realm.
"You seemed to enjoy your dance," I said to her. "Was that lady you were with a friend of yours?"
"Oh, my beautiful witch?" she answered, dreamily. "Oh, no, I've never seen her before in my life until tonight. Her name is Lilith, you know, and she knows all... all the thoughts and experiences of the world. She has been a diver in the deepest seas, and trafficked for strange pearls with Eastern merchants. She knows all the secrets of the moon, the stars, the sea, the secrets of love... of life itself, and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes."
And ever since then, this new found friend and myself meet up every evening at the Cliff Lodge Hotel, hoping beyond hope to get another glimpse of the woman who stole our very hearts and souls that night. We reminisce and share memories and our wishes and desires. And when, finally, we manage to fall asleep, we see in our intoxicated night visions Lilith's generous snake-like dancing, her captivating gaze and mesmerising grace, which has allowed us to dream richer dreams than we could have before imagined, and our questing eyes are often drawn to the Red Right Hand charm that had hung around her divine neck, and we hear her voice ringing out to us, repeating, over and over again, from Beyond the Sea and for all eternity, that haunting refrain which we shall never be able to shake: "I Put a Spell on You, Because You're Mine... And it is Heartache, Because You're Mine!"
Epilogue
News of this strange and eerie evening and of the extraordinary couple who had visited the Cliff Lodge Hotel that night soon became the talk of the town, and the mystery increased mightily when it was revealed that despite the hotel owners, the publicists for this unique 'Spells 'n' Daggers' Halloween event, and the many bewitched guests who had taken, quite literally, hundreds if not thousands of photographs of the couple as they had arrived, all awoke next morning to discover that no images of the previous night remained on their devices. It was as if they'd all been erased by some kind of magic.
But, a few weeks later, my friend who worked at the hotel and who had invited me to the Halloween party and who was, by now, well aware of the fact that I'd been completely altered and spellbound by the mystery that was the lady known as Lilith, allowed me to have a few pictures that did somehow manage to survive that night. For although the CCTV had also been completely erased, the hotel manager had, a couple of months before Halloween, had to install a couple of secret, hidden cameras because of an insurance claim. These cameras were top secret and only my friend and the manager of the hotel had any knowledge of them. It transpired that these special cameras had managed to secure a few precious images of that enchanting evening, and I hereby share them with you, dear reader, in the hope that they, along with my words, can convey to you just an inkling of the haunting atmosphere, and the bewitching enigmatic beauty of Lilith, from that spine-tingling, life-changing evening, under a full moon at the Cliff Lodge Hotel, one glorious Halloween.
Sleep Well, Everyone.
