Rings Around the Moon

[binidj]

In response to Caddyman's Christmas Ghost Story Challenge, I offer my entry ... 500 words exactly according to OpenOffice:

"It'll be a cold one tonight," the farmer pronounced as he showed David to the guest cottage, "there'll be rings around the moon and no mistake. You'll be whisked away to the fairies if you get caught under the rings they say." Quite who the mysterious 'they' might be was left unspoken but David suspected that 'they' could be found propping up the bar at the local pub.

After a cup of tea and a bite to eat, David decided to take his cases up to the cottage's tiny bedroom. The little kitchen had a wood-burning Aga which was something of a challenge to use but fun in its way and gave a welcome warmth to the tiny house, which was just as well because frost had already been starting to form on the ground when David had arrived. The bedroom was cosy, much like the rest of the property, and had a splendid view over the moors. That is, the view during the day was splendid, the night time view was less interesting. Except, David glanced at the moon shining full and pale over the barren fields, that there! There were the rings the farmer had spoken of! Around the face of the moon, radiating in the blackness, David could see the palest ghost of a ring. As he watched, he saw another form, slightly further out from the first, and then, he thought he could make out another still further from the moon! Thinking that this must be some illusion caused by frost and breath on the window, David stepped outside and into the moonlit field the better to observe the strange phenomenon.

His new vantage point did indeed give a better view yet what he saw as he stood there, shivering in the cold night air, puzzled him still further. For the rings were not concentric as he had, at first, thought them to be. Rather these ghostly halos were slightly offset, closer to the shining lunar disk on one side than the other. Puzzled, David continued staring at the rings pondering as he did why they might be skewed so. He stood for a few moments staring up at the cloudless night sky, and gradually he fancied he saw the rings moving, slow as the minute hand on a watch, surely they had been more offset than that a moment ago? With a shake of his head he looked away from the coldly radiant disk, thinking that perhaps he was seeing things. But as he glanced away from the spectacle above, he was struck by another curiosity in the field before him. Advancing toward him David saw a shimmering veil of mist, thin as cobweb and sparkling in the moonlight. As the mist front drew nearer to him, David fancied that he saw tiny motes of frost drifting upward, dancing and twinkling their way up through the night sky to the moon and its rings.

Its concentric rings.

God but it had suddenly turned co...

Comments

[ingenue-the.livejournal.com]

That's ace! Thank you, and what a cool challenge.