Either side of the large double doors stood the Twins. Fergal cursed and grabbed a nearby ax.
“Very funny!” He screamed into the night. “I know it is you two idiots! I don not know where you got the wood from, but I am gonna chop your fake Twins down into fuel for the forge!”
As he stepped towards the trees Lilly grabbed his arm.
“Don’t!” She pleaded. “It is them! It is the Twins!”
“Do not be so bloody stupid.” Fergal raged. “It is a prank! But mark my words,” He raised the ax above his head, “those foolish sons of mine are going to regret trying to make a monkey out of me.”
As the ax swung through the air one of the trees swiped it out of his hands with a supple branch. Fergal cried in terror as a root shot out of the ground, binding him tightly around the arms. Lilly screamed as it reached a branch down, securing her husband’s head and twisting it off like the lid of a sauce bottle. The tree lifted the headless cadaver and poured steaming, hot blood down its trunk. Lilly fainted and collapsed to the ground.
‘Is it done?’ Its brother asked.
The tree stretched and strained against its invisible bonds.
‘No!’ It bellowed angrily. ‘There is one more, a woman.’
The tree jabbed a thin root into the milky neck of Mrs. Green.
‘Is it her? Is it done?’ The other asked.
The first tree snarled in fury. This wasn’t the blood they needed. It scooped up the prostrate woman and hurled her through the double doors. The force of the throw sent her spinning across the yard and into the smoldering embers of the forge. It was she who was to be fuel, not the Twins.
They fumed and lashed their roots around in the air, desperately searching for that last source of Druidic blood; the final piece of the key that could free them from their prisons. Soon they would be free once again, free to rule and to destroy. They had endured centuries of static life, dreaming of the terrors they would unleash when they were finally freed. Now, freedom was so close they could taste it in every metallic spot of spilled blood.
Ding! Ding!
The sound of a bell snapped the Twins out of their fury, turning their attention towards the darkened street beyond. An elderly lady on a bicycle waved and called out, “Coo’ee!”
‘Her!’ One of the trees yelled.
The little old lady, Mrs. Fowles, peddled off as quickly as her legs could manage. She steered the bike down the hill, back towards the orchard. The Twins shimmered and became shadow once more, riding the wind in hot pursuit of the fleeing woman.
* * *
Mrs. Fowles parked her bicycle against the stone wall of the graveyard and leaned against the gate. She had positioned herself directly between the spots that the trees had, until earlier, been rooted upon. She pulled her heavy coat around her as the wind grew into a fierce gale. A thin smile crossed her cracked lips as the Twins materialized and settled back into their spots.
‘Give us your blood!’ One of the Twins demanded.
‘Free us!’ pleaded the other.
Mrs. Fowles pulled back her sleeves, revealing her wrists, and held them out in a cruciform for the Twins to feed upon. As a single root from each tree shot towards her throbbing arteries she started once again to sing her soft lullaby.
‘You are wise not to struggle’ Said one of the Twins as root violated flesh.
Mrs. Fowles gasped as the blood began to be drawn from her frail body. Her lullaby rose in pitch and urgency. It wasn’t a mystery that poor Daniel and Jonah didn’t understand what she was singing, it was in a long-dead tongue. The trees cackled and roared in triumph as the blood of the old Druid flowed. They laughed and laughed and then...Stopped.
It was now Mrs. Fowles’ turn to laugh.
‘What trickery is this?’ Demanded one of the Twins. The blood was turning to ice in their roots. A heady, toxic mist started to dull their senses. Their movements became sluggish; wooden once more.
“I have got you now.” Mrs. Fowles gloated. She hadn’t been idle since she left the orchard. She had rushed home and consulted the books that had been passed down for generations. “In taking my life you have doomed yourselves to an eternity of imprisonment.” Using herbs, and an elixir contained within an old family heirloom, she had brewed up a potent concoction.
“I drank the elixir of the Elders. Now you have tasted it too.” Her breathing was getting shallow. She was doomed the minute she drank it, so all she had to do was stay alive long enough to take the Twins down with her. “Can you feel it? Petrifying your roots, drying your sap?”
‘Nooooo!!’ The Twins bellowed in unison. They spasmed once, twice, then went as still as stone.
Mrs. Fowles was nothing more than a papery husk by the time the Twins had been imprisoned once more; for good this time, as there was no more blood to set them free. The cold wind blew and scattered the savior of humanity’s remains across the frozen orchard.
* * *
The mysterious disappearance of half of the village was never explained. Eventually the distant relatives of the missing founders moved into the properties, and the village returned to normality.
That year was the last time that the ancient tradition of wassailing was performed in High Bend. The old traditions died away, and were forgotten. The Twins were eventually cut down and incinerated, due to being infected with an unknown blight.
Despite the horrors of that fateful Twelfth Night, the ceremony reaped dividends. That year’s harvest was lush and plentiful, and even the
