text: [Themes: horror, supernatural, action]
  
  You're on the way to Grandpa Paul's house, to help him move out because you're a good grandson. And he volunteered to pay you fifty bucks to move around some boxes that probably aren't even heavy. You're actually a little surprised he called you, given how aloof he is about family. He'll chime in every couple years or so to meet back up with everyone, exchange gifts, and give that goofy smile that everyone finds endearing. Otherwise, it's radio silence. Paul is a good person, though, and his ailing health probably has something to do with the spotty record for attendance.
  
  You grab a jacket, lock the door, and leave the apartment. You're not going to turn down a little cash in a world where rent goes up and pay stays flat. Paul won't need it much anyway, since he's going into retirement. You get in the vehicle, start the engine, and drive out of the outskirt suburbs, following rural roads to a turn. The car roves over grass and dirt, coming to a quick stop at an unassuming wood-beam house. There's a ladder propped against it, upon which a lanky figure stands, throwing powder on the roof that thwarts moss. He smiles at you, that same goofy smile, then finishes the chore before climbing down to say hi.
  
  "Is that you, Stanley?" He walks up to take better measure. "It's so good of you to come. I knew you would, for the money if nothing else!" He gives a wry grin and chuckles you through the door. You tell him how you've been, and make small talk about the pumpkins outside. It's hard to think he'll have a lot of kids at the door on Halloween tonight, especially with everything boxed up against windows. Of course, with your insatiable sweet tooth and the candy he waves at you, that's not something you feel like pointing out. He scoots you through the house, past a room brimming with yarn — relics of his late wife — to a hallway claimed by heavy boxes of derelict hobbies. Everything from wood plane kits to soldering tools fills them, and you really wish he didn't have all these fleeting interests, since it would make the move a lot easier.
  
  "Why don't you sell some of this clutter? I know you don't need it."
  
  "I can't find a lot of time", he replies. "I'm cataloging my sponge collection because I've got a pitch from a museum."
  
  [Author's Note: A pretty short story, just in time for Mara's 2020 Halloween Jam. Involves murder, non-graphic violence and mild profanity. This is the first story I've written since grade school, over a decade ago, my only completed story, and my first attempt with CYOA. I found it to be a very useful exercise. There are two main forks here, and the first one is choice-poor, while I was trying to figure out how to spin a story. Both are pretty short in practice. I hope you find this mildly entertaining. Criticisms I can apply to other works are highly appreciated.]
  
  > say "Sounds as interesting as waiting for toast, Paul."
  "Well it's not for everyone," he admonishes. He goes on to describe his collection and the museum offer, which seems like little more than an acquisition by some eccentric. "I'm moving on to other collections," he says, "sponges are really getting too popular now." You don't ask more about it, but you're punished with additional details any time you stop moving.
  
  The boxes in the hallway only serve to make the actual work harder. You've got three rooms overflowing with junk, which needs to be sorted, packed, and hoisted out of the way. Paul hovers around since he suddenly has nothing better to do, inventing all manner of new categories for these nick-knacks you couldn't possible surmise the need to keep. With all of his advice, the process goes well past the couple hours you were hoping for. You ask if you should come back another time, but he waves off the suggestion. He's engrossed in pouring over everything he forgot about, much to your dismay.
  
  He turns the porch light off as the sky dims to night. Paul converts you into a candy funnel, fully exploiting the extent to which you like sugar. Eventually, you tell him you've had enough, and he says something about gaining weight if he were to eat all the candy.
  
  You reach the third and last room, adorned with sets of bowling pins and an enormous collection of camping paraphernalia, among other things. You make some room on a relatively clean patch of letters for the first box when you see a curious pair of statues on a wall-mounted shelf. On the left is a knight in plate armor holding a longsword, tip down. Opposite of it is a hunched, faceless ghoul with balled fists and a flowing robe. They would've already been swept away, but the pewter statues both seem to have purple-tinted shadows. How is that possible? You reach to examine one of them.
  
  > move the knight
  The knight stands prominently, a little larger than the ghoul, and it's closest to your hand. You pick it up; the room suddenly chills. Then, there is a coursing coldness in your body, without origin. It ends as quick as your next inhalation, and the air returns to a stable temperature. Your only guess is that you ate way too much candy. The statues are collected into a pile, along with other baubles, and you finish the job about an hour later.
  
  "Thanks, Stanley. You really saved me a lot of back pain. You've definitely earned the money," he says.
  
  "Sure thing, Paul. I'm going to take off. Let me know how the sponge sale goes."
  
  "In the dark at eleven? You're more than welcome to stay, really!"
  
  "Thanks for the offer, but I have other matters to attend to," you say.
  
  He offers a meek shrug and a hearty wave goodbye. You get back in your car, happy to breathe in some dust-free air. It's an hour-long drive home, but it's Halloween, and you want to go somewhere. A headache starts at your temple. You decide you can figure it out on the way. You turn the key, shift the car into gear and merge onto the freeway. A half hour goes by; the headache stops. Despite the time and the hypnotically-spaced street lamps, you're wide awake. In fact, you've decided exactly where you want to go.
  
  > Drive
  You ride another ten minutes on the highway before taking an exit to a forest service road. Gravel kicks up from beneath the tires, rapping against the metal underside. Fifteen minutes in, you silence the motor and step out of the vehicle. A small picket at the head of the trail reads "Sorry Falls 5.4 mi" under the moonlight. The trail is a jagged path of dirt cutting through the dying underbrush, and carpeted in leaves. You begin trudging along, passing by barren trees. The air is frosty under the pellucid sky. Animal trails weave across both sides of the path — the wildlife still has a presence. You stop at a point where tree roots knot across the surface, around four miles in. You're getting closer, but you won't find her here.
  
  You feel the pressure of a headache as Stanley's mind kicks with the realization of what's going on; that you have taken ahold of his body. It's a harmless protest. You look at the moon, the timeless observer, who watches from its remote perch in the sky. It saw the old men kill the witches. It witnessed the fading of magic from the world, long ago. But, here in this time, the soil yearns for the return of magic. You have tonight alone to find the crypt.
  
  Animal paths run like scars through the brush. Moonlight dances across groups of withered leaves, highlighting a particular patch on a hill to the right. Perhaps it's an omen.
  
  > continue on the designated trail
  You continue up the path, and the dull echoes of Sorry Falls fade into earshot. The path turns, winding up to a lookout halfway down the falls. Water slips over the rim of the rock, separating into shallow rivulets, which divide further into beads before they hit the pool at the bottom. It looks vaguely like one of the waterfalls in your old memories. You jump blatantly off trail, running up the hill to your left that will take you around the falls. You should be able to ford them further upstream; it's not a deep river by any means. Half an hour later, you reach the other side. Your pants are soaked and your legs are stiff with the water's chill. You stop and dry yourself, pondering where you should be going from here. You're a little off course, so you'll need to run in the direction of the water for quite a while. That should take you down to the river, perpendicular to the falls, that it channels into.
  
  With dry pants, you follow the stream downhill. The thickets pick up as you go, and you find yourself beating you way through them from time to time. Still, you push faithfully onwards through the undergrowth, reaching the river you recall. Something pushes at your mind. It's Stanley, inquiring about what's going on. He's given up on fighting, so there's no reason not to let him know what you're trying to accomplish.
  
  There was a lady named Farra. She was one of the last true mystics that you know lived; she was one of the seers, fortune-makers and earth-brewers fatally punished for the crimes of witches. All practitioners were persecuted in the old days, undifferentiated. It's the cruel ones that are celebrated and remembered in the caricatures of Halloween decor tonight. The world is ready to see the light of the true mystics again, for the role of mankind in the play of worldly events is a lonely role indeed. Their heavy industrialization in the last few centuries marked a permanent departure from the old ways, and the seed must be resown before it's lost forever. These are not the instructions of a prophecy, you relay. They fall from a deep understanding of The Forms — the ways of nature itself.
  
  He quiets down to consider the potency of those thoughts. You glance up and downstream, trying to recollect where you're supposed to go. Upstream seems the most likely. You walk along the stream for another hour, listening to the water playing at the edges of the bank, gurgling in eddies and slipping past itself in a muted rush. There is something eternally relaxing about such things. This is why the world must see the return of the mystics, and perhaps with them, the return of magic.
  
  Stanley notices you've let your guard down.
  
  > fight for control over the body
  A headache sharply forms as Stanley strains to repossess the body. Caught entirely by surprise, you can't pin his conscience in time...you're extracted, materializing as an ethereal wisp, circling madly. His mind is steeled to you, now. There will be no way in, so you rush off in the hopes of finding another vessel.
  
  You're free of it, back in control of your own body. You test out your legs, blink and steal a few lungfuls of air. Your legs are throbbing with the shallow pain of oncoming soreness. You walk downstream for hours until you hear the dull roar of a highway, and continue onwards to it. You're close, but far too tired to make it all the way, so you pick a particularly comfy ditch and take a long nap. Still entirely yourself, you wake up, and spend the next half of the day navigating back to your car. You don't know exactly what to make of all this. The ghost certainly wanted full control over you for its incomprehensible quest; at the same time, you had an undeniable supernatural experience. How much of its rambling could be true? As you slot the key into the driver's side door, you can only imagine you'll be wearing a tin foil hat next year.