Being a substitute contest judge on writing.com, this year, I had the privilege of picking a story for Halloween. This is the prompt I chose:
Write a supernatural short story centered on the blurring of worlds during Samhain (All Hallows’ Eve)
Since I’m not allowed to write a story for my prompt, I wanted to write one anyway. I call it
The Hallow Between

Fog shrouded the village of Cairndale as twilight crossed the hills. Smoke from hearth fires curled through the mist, the scent of burning peat mingling with damp earth and apples left to rot. To most, it was the last night of October, but to Moira Kellan it was the hinge of the year—the hour when the world turned inside out.

Fastening her wool cloak, and stepping out of her cottage, she clutched a small lantern in her hand. The flame flickered, its light distorted by the fog rolling in from the moor. Her boots sank into the wet ground as she followed the track toward the standing stones crowning the hill. Every All Hallows’ Eve, she made the same pilgrimage. Grandmother taught her to bring milk and bread for wandering spirits, to say the names of the dead, and to avoid things from beyond our world.

Moira kept the old ways long after others had stopped. Younger folk scoffed at talk of the “Otherworld,” but she’d seen too much to laugh. The veil thinned each Samhain—she could feel it even now, a soft pressure in the air, like the pause before thunder.

Behind her, the church bells tolled the hour. The sound rippled through the fog, echoing oddly, as though the hills themselves rang in answer.

She climbed.

The path wound through gorse and heather, plants brittle with the first frost. Moira thought of her brother Ewan, lost last winter to fever. His grave lay in the kirkyard below, marked by a simple stone carved by her hands. She’d spoken to it every day since, but tonight, maybe, he would answer.

A crow flapped past her, black wings slicing the mist. Its cry rasped through the quiet, harsh and human-sounding. Moira shivered and pressed on.

When she reached the summit, the standing stones loomed before her—six gray pillars, ancient and half-sunk, their tops furred with lichen. In the center lay a flat slab, slick with dew. The air here tasted sharp, metallic, like the air after lightning. The fog pooled low, shifting in slow, circular eddies, as though something beneath it breathed.

She knelt and set down her lantern. The milk sloshed softly as she poured it into a wooden bowl. Beside it, she laid a piece of oatcake, still warm from her hearth.

“For the kinfolk lost. And for those who wander.” Her voice barely carried. It felt swallowed by the air.

Then she said his name—“Ewan Kellan”—and the name seemed to tremble in the mist, as though the world itself had heard.

For a long moment, nothing moved. Then the fog thickened, folding in on itself. Her lantern guttered, though there was no wind. She felt a shift, a deep pull, like a tide turning. Her heart thudded once, hard.

A figure stepped from between the stones.

He was pale as moonlight, his hair clinging to his brow as if he’d just come in from the rain. His clothes were the same as when she’d seen him last—wool coat, torn at the elbow; boots caked in dirt. But his eyes were wrong. They gleamed faintly, like light on deep water.

“Ewan,” she whispered, rising. Her breath clouded between them.

He smiled, and for a moment it was him—her brother, whole and warm again. But the smile didn’t reach those strange eyes.

“You called,” he breathed.

Her throat tightened.

“Aye. I wanted—just to see you. To know you’re at peace.”

Ewan tilted his head.

“Peace,” he echoed, as though testing the word. “It’s quiet where I am. Too quiet.”

The fog curled higher, brushing their knees. She thought she saw shapes in it—hands, faces forming and fading again. The lantern’s flame fluttered.

“You shouldn’t be here long,” she said, clutching her cloak. “It’s not good for the living or the dead to linger.”

“You still believe that?” he asked, gaze sharpening. “Even after all you’ve lost?”

She hesitated.

“I believe what’s true.”

“And if truth lies between the worlds?” He asked, stepping closer, his boots making no sound. “You could come with me, Moira. Just for a while. You could see Mother again. Father. They wait.”

The offer hit her like a blow. The longing rose—sharp, childlike, cruel. She imagined her mother’s hand brushing her hair, her father’s laugh. All the warmth she’d buried.

But beneath it came a whisper, her grandmother’s voice, years ago: Not all who wear a loved one’s face are kind.

“You’re not him.” Moira took a step back.

“You called me.” Ewan’s expression didn’t change, but the air thickened, heavy with cold. “You asked me here.”

“I called my brother,” she said. “Not what walks in his shadow.”

The smile that spread across his face was too wide now, the corners stretching wrong.

“Sister,” he said, and his voice deepened, layered, as if two people spoke together. “The veil is thin. You could see what lies beneath, if only you’d open your eyes.”

The fog surged. For an instant she saw through it—a glimpse of another place layered over this one, dark and luminous all at once. The standing stones glowed from within. Around them, figures moved: tall, half-seen shapes draped in light that flickered like fire through glass. Moira couldn’t see their faces, but their attention burned toward her, curious and ancient.

She stumbled, tearing her gaze away.

“No,” she gasped. “Not tonight.”

But the tide between worlds had turned. The air hummed, a low vibration thrumming in her bones. Around her, the mist thickened into form: a procession of the dead and not-dead, moving through the stones as if through a doorway. Some she recognized—old neighbors, lost children—others were older still, their eyes hollow with the cold of centuries.

They brushed past her, murmuring, their touch icy and electric. Her lantern failed.

Darkness bloomed, vast and living.

“Come, Moira.” Ewan—or what wore his shape—reached out his hand. “You don’t have to fear the dark. It remembers you.”

She could almost feel the pull, the sweetness of release. But then she saw her brother’s grave in her mind—the stone, the carved words she’d made herself—and she remembered how heavy the chisel had felt in her palm. The dead belong to peace. The living to light.

Reaching into her pocket, she drew out a small iron charm—a horseshoe nail bent into a circle. Her grandmother’s ward.

“In the name of the living,” she said, voice shaking but steady, “I close the gate.” She flung the charm into the center of the stones.

A sharp crack split the air, bright as thunder. The fog recoiled, shrieking in a sound that was not sound but pressure, like the sky tearing. The world seemed to twist inside out—and then the silence broke.

Moira fell to her knees. When she looked up, the mist was thinning. The stones stood bare beneath a waning moon. The air smelled of rain and iron.

Ewan was gone.

Her breath came ragged. She pressed her hand to the damp earth, grounding herself in its solidity, its ordinary weight. But the stillness felt brittle, like one wrong breath would crack it again.

She gathered her things—her empty bowl, the untouched oatcake—and started back down the hill. Behind her, the stones whispered faintly, like distant surf.

The next morning dawned clear, frost bright on the grass. Cairndale woke to the smell of wood smoke and the sounds of bleating sheep. Nothing seemed changed—but the air held an aftertaste, a shimmer at the edge of sight.

Moira moved through her chores in silence. When she passed the mirror, she thought she saw another face beside hers, watching from behind the glass—but when she turned, saw no one.

By afternoon, children ran laughing through the lanes, gathering the last of the fallen apples. The world had returned to its living rhythms. Only Moira still felt the echo—a soft throb in her chest, a half-remembered song.

That night, as she sat by the fire, she heard a knock at the door. Just one, gentle and deliberate.

Her heart stopped. No one called after dark, not in Cairndale. The villagers kept to their homes when night fell, especially in the days following Samhain.

She set aside her knitting, stood, and went to the door. The latch felt cold beneath her fingers.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

She almost left it—but something compelled her. She opened the door a crack.

Mist pooled on her threshold. The night beyond was still, the moon low and yellow. At her feet lay the iron charm she had thrown the night before, twisted now, its edges blackened. Beside it sat the wooden bowl, empty but clean, as if freshly washed.

“Moira” A faint whisper drifted through the air; her name carried like breath.

She froze. The voice was soft, human. Not her brother’s. A woman’s.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The mist rippled, and for an instant, she saw a face—her grandmother’s, eyes bright with pride and sorrow. Then, it was gone.

Tears stung her eyes. She knelt, picked up the charm, and held it to her chest.

“Rest well,” she said.

The wind stirred once, warm and brief, and the mist unraveled into the dark.

Winter deepened. Weeks passed. Life continued in Cairndale—the market, the harvest, the endless gray sky. Yet now and again, Moira saw signs: a candle flickering when she hadn’t lit one, a child speaking to an unseen friend near the kirkyard, the faint sound of bells in the fog though no church was near.

The veil had thinned once; it would again.

She kept her ward by the hearth and her offerings ready. Not out of fear, but respect. The boundary between worlds was fragile, she knew—never gone, only sleeping.

On the next All Hallows’ Eve, she climbed the hill again, the lantern bright in her hand. The stones stood waiting, patient and eternal.

This time when she poured the milk, she smiled.

“For the kinfolk lost,” she said. “And for those who wander—but not too near.”

The fog stirred, gentle as breath. Somewhere, faintly, a voice laughed—warm, human, and far away.

Moira stood in the heart of the stones, the light steady around her, and felt both worlds breathe as one.