Rites of Spring

41 Walpurgis Night 1986

The boy ran. He’d already pulled off the mask and dropped it when he left the glade. Sharp branches whipped his face, brambles tore at his legs, but he hardly noticed.

The scream echoed inside his head, lingered on his lips, in his throat. His three friends were running too – terrified, panic-stricken. They were running away from the stone circle, away from the Green Man and his phantom steed.

The nausea he’d been fighting for so long suddenly gained the upper hand, forcing him to stop. He doubled over, hands resting on his knees, and vomited into the darkness.

He could hear the other three up ahead of him, running towards the place where they’d hidden their bikes. He was desperate to follow them, but his body refused to co-operate.

He threw up over and over again until his stomach stopped contracting. The fear loosened its grip a fraction, enabling him to think a little more clearly.

What had just happened? What had they actually seen?

The boy straightened up and took a couple of deep breaths. His friends were gone, cycling towards safety. But what safety? If the ghosts really existed, they would never be safe again. Not anywhere.

He turned and began to creep back to the stone circle. He had to know. However scared he was, he had to find out if the ghosts really existed.

And what had happened to Elita.