Rite of the Crimson Moon
The night of the blood moon always arrives with a hush, as if the town itself holds its breath and pretends not to remember what happened long ago. I came back for answers, drawn by the rumor that the old ritual still walks the fields when the moon wears its darkest shade. The barn behind the church weathered a hundred winters, but the stains on its wooden floor remembered more than the dust ever could. They called it the Rite of the Crimson Moon, and tonight the rite will be spoken aloud again, as if time itself were a string about to snap.
The villagers gathered in a circle that burned with the quiet of a crowded church. Elders wore their memories like cloaks, and the younger ones wore eyes that flickered between fear and reverence. The air smelled of iron and cold rain, of corn husks and copper from a harvest that refused to end. A mother pressed a palm to her child's forehead, whispering a blessing that sounded more like a dare. I stood at the edge, listening for a voice to explain why a story this old should still be true.
“When the moon bleeds, the ground remembers every oath whispered beneath it,” an old woman murmured, her breath fogging in the cold. “Do not ask for mercy; ask for remembrance.”
- Circle of ash and salt: a chalked ring that shivers when the wind shifts, a boundary the night itself refuses to cross.
- Thread of red from the elder oak: a thin line that people claim is a memory grown into fiber, tugging gently toward the heart of the field.
- Three black candles: their flames are patient, waiting for the moment when a voice will answer a question better left unspoken.
- Offerings of silence: what you do not say aloud becomes a weight in the atmosphere, pressing down until it shapes the night itself.
The ritual began with a breath that tasted like rust and iron, as if the earth were swallowing something precious and letting it slip back into the sky. Each participant spoke a syllable that hadn't left their lips in a generation, and with every uttered word the moon's red pallor grew deeper, as if the heavens were hemorrhaging light onto the fields. The ring glowed faintly, and for a moment I believed the ground might rise to meet the sky, as if the planet itself were answering a call it had long since forgotten how to hear.
When the last note of the chant faded, the night broke open with a quiet that felt heavier than thunder. The ritual's promise thickened the air: remembrance would come at a price, and those who listened too closely might find that the night remembers them back. I felt the weight of names I never learned, and a vacancy where my own story had once lived. In the end, I stepped out of the circle with the chill of something unmade trailing behind me, and realized the crimson moon had already chosen its witnesses—and I was one of them, now and forever, bound to watch the ritual rise again with the next blood-red dawn.