A Night at the Castle.

It's much too late to be writing an entry. Why am I doing this in the middle of the night? It's 3:20AM (taking into account the bonus daylight savings hour). This evening I went right from telling creepy stories at Digging Pitt to driving north for a Halloween party. As we approached our destination, we saw a series of orange flares along the roadside, but there were no cars disabled by the side of the road. I couldn't figure out why there were flares.

When we got to the party, the mystery was solved. A storm had come through immediately before us, and knocked down a power line. We were at the Castle, but there was no electricity. I quickly devised some fictional scenarios. Our host had gone around the bend from living in isolation too long. She intended to lure us one-by-one into the woods, where she would dispatch us and throw us into a shallow pit. Or maybe someone had cut the line intending to do us harm. I imagined fleeting shadows through the trees.

The atmosphere could not have been more appropriate for the weekend before Halloween. The bright colors of the Castle were obscured by shadows and candlelight. Our imaginations ran wild, but we kept quiet... so as not to scare the children. No music and no distraction. We relied on conversation around the fireplace. And beer.

No one really disappeared. The electricity eventually came back on. It took us by surprise. We marvelled at the efficiency of the local utility maintenance services. And then we went around and turned the lights back off. Wouldn't you?