S1/E12 | The Master Suite

it's a whiff of amber oil. The scent would emanate from this room whenever he was busy scrawling and transcribing. I feel this was the sanctum sanctorum. No one was allowed in this place but the architect, not even his own daughter. You see here, the stars became his dreams, the dreams became planned and the plants became this place. This is where the architect slowly and painstakingly conjured Hawthorne Manner. Now I have a feeling that this is where we

will find our door. This is where it will end. You are dreaming, my friend. Are you all right? Always lead you look frail and lead you here. You look like here. Remind Yourself. Dreaming here is not advisable. This is a dream. Take care not to lose yourself. Remember my friend treat. There you are awake, and just in time. I imagine you have some questions the heart. First, when I was young, Halloween was my favorite holiday. I had

these recurring nightmares about a witch. Remind Yourself, said the witch. This is a dream. I was frightened, but Halloween was the only night of the year when children could be out late. Our parents let us Rome as we wished, door to door through the neighborhood, dressed as ghosts and UNICORNS and vampires and princesses and astronauts and wholes. On every other night of the year we had to be home safe across the threshold of the doorway before the

sun left the sky. But Halloween this neighborhood stretched for miles. You could walk an entire summer and never explore every side street, the circles, the dead ends. Some streets existed every day, others only on the day of your first kiss, others only at the hour of your first parent's death. And you can only find them a Chaus at night the Blue Stars show you. I will tell you a secret. When you see this neighborhood from above, the streets loop around.

They form a pattern miles wide, visible only from the sky, and they have always led you here. Like all children, we lived in our own world, full of rituals, ruled by rumors, beset with secrets. Children know the things adults do not, and so we knew the house at the end of Ash Corn Lane, which we called witch house, was haunted. We saw the missing person notices at the end of the local news. We remembered how, once a year,

a desk in the classrooms hat empty. We heard our parents arguing in hushed tones when they thought we were asleep. Children worshiped danger and love mystery most of all. We were eleven years old that Halloween, so we decided we would visit the witch house for ourselves. Remember we, like you, knew the stories. We, like you, were and no matter where we went, every street let us, like you, to this place and the things beneath it. We dared each other.

The older children had all been to witch house, we knew, and while they didn't speak about it, we knew the house gave them some sort of treat. Children who went to witch house on Halloween seemed somehow blessed. The next year, one boy's mother recovered from cancer. One girl took first place in the science fair, the prize that came with a scholarship, ensuring her escape from our cursed, struggling town. The adults called these things miracles and hard work, but

we knew the truth. The witch house was not like other houses. You could make a deal. In return, one of you would be tricked. We did not know more than that. We didn't know how many children this house might have taken. We were learning, in our way, to be adults, and this meant we were learning a certain kind of blindness. We, like our parents, never talked about the missing children. Ash Court Lane was on the far side of our neighborhood, a straight, unlit street limbed by

overgrown lots and vacant houses. We walked under the Moon, which cast blue shadows all around us. The branches swayed in the evening wind like the hands of skeletal prisoners scratching against the sky, and the shadows of these branches swam belowt scuttling across the broken pavement, reaching for our feet. The street felt hungry and a silence fell upon us. The other avenues and lanes full of children and parents laughing house to house. It felt far away, a dream

like the one you're having now. Soon, over the next rise we saw the house. The witch house stood an empty field at the end of a long driveway sloping upward. The house was old, so old that no one remembered when it had been built. It had somehow always been here. The weathered sighting and chipped Miss Match brick. Was it two stories, three? Surely it had a face man, we thought. How deep did it go? There was a tower in the witch house, a tower with a single oval window.

And the story went on. One night a year you could see a blue light in the window, a candle flickering faint. This was the night the light shone, just visible from the edge of the driveway. The wind rose around us, the ghost of an ocean. The Front steps of the witch house seemed solid then, for than whatever weighted in the darkness. The five of US stood there in front of the heavy door the color of old

burnished blood. At the top of the door an iron knocker, blue in the moonlight, rotten what must have once been a face. I touched the door, laid my palm flat against it. It hummed warm. Knock, said a kid. Knock on it. I stretched up on my toes and strained to lift the knocker. It swung along a rusted hinge. I dropped it and stepped away. As it slammed into place.

The wind fell silent. I heard my heart beat, the echo of that knock, the slow rhythmic footsteps from somewhere inside the House and, like you now, on the edge of it all, I heard the song. It was like this dream you're having now. I tried to shout a low croak until the ritual kicked in and church tree. The door swung wide. I remembered how to scream. Wow.

You may have seen the news later, a missing person's report running on the lower third of the local news, a notice in the paper below the fold between an op Ed and an advertisement. Life moved on one Halloween to the next. But what they don't tell you, what the children don't know, is what happens after the witch asse takes you. I awoke in here by this fireplace. I dreamed of this. I thought I should remind myself this. It's a dream. There you are, said the witch a

week and just in time. It made me watch in the low light from the fire the witch opened a burlapsack. It pulled pieces of something from the sack and plopped them one by one into the cauldron over the fire. The witch spoke to me, as it did these things, and now I could not understand what it was saying. Its hand was on my mind, palm flat as my own, against the door. It held me there invisible bonds, like

nails through my flesh, holding me to the chair. I felt the witch etched secrets one by one, like ragged, narrow fingernails scratching furrows in my brain. There is a darkness between the stars, the witch said, and all the world exists as a covenant between the darkness and the light. I felt the house, felt it through all time, all ages. I glimpsed its heart in a low cellar by an ancient spring, a blue pulsing stone I saw fallen here

before the continent spilit. I saw the cave that grew around the stone, the blasphemies of the ancient things that worshiped it, exchanging souls for power and accordance with the stone. How it sang to them in the dark. I felt time, the horror of it. I saw the mound built over the cave and the bones buried within the teeth chattering still into the void. I saw a church built upon the Mount, a house built upon the Church and the

House built upon the House. This place, whether cave or church or mansion, has always been the witch house, m guarding the song deep within its depths. Can you hear it? The stone is a song and it's also a door. When I was where you are dreaming now, I looked under the bed and I saw the face of every child taken. The last face I saw was my own. You will free me, the witch said, though it did not release me at first. For many years it made

me watch what it did to the children. A tongue still squirming, cast in the cauldron to alleviate a stutter, brain sliced and Sauteed, eaten one piece at a time while chanting. I remb I remember. I remember. They restore an old woman's mind. Femurs and Shins snacked and charred to ensure the champions soccer player will not compete another secret. Children are the only ones that vanish at a town or searching for adventure, criminals on the lamb, the homeless

man seeking shelter from the rain. They end up here with you in the hum one night, a night just like this one, the witch freed me from its invisible grip. It beckoned me towards the fire. I looked at my hands changed, my knuckles crusted with old blood, my finger nails long rag getting shut. I Walk gone suddenly on Unfamiliar Feet, Shuffling from one foot to the next. Do you remember your wish? said the witch. I stared into the cauldron, watching the bubble strifts slowly to the top

of the stew. I don't remember, I said, my voice like a door knocker rusted from disuse. You are not that you you think you know, said the witch. You were only a story you told yourself in the dark. I know your wish, it said, as it was once my own, to escape, but you have always been here, it said. Each of these my entrails first, said the witch. Free me and I will grant your wish. The witch slid the Knight Cross itself and its bowels sank to

the floor. It grabbed my neck and forced its mouth to mine and said you will always be here, and in this moment, I am free, and now you will know you are to become the witch and now, and now, you are here, as you always have been and always will be. Remind yourself this is a dream. Soon you will awake and, though you will wonder where you are, each moment after will bring you here, and soon I shall be free. Come join me at the fire. Take of these my entrails first, free me, and I will

grant your wish. Take of me, next, my eyes, that you may see the path you walk. Take last of me, my tongue, that I tell you this, you will wake, you will live one moment to the next, and every path will lead you here. Tomorrow, tonight, a year from now or ten you are not that. You you are, and every step brings you closer to recognizing this place where you always were and always are, and in that moment you will realize wake up, friend, wake up. Did you see her? Did you see her this factor? Oh,

you did, lucky you. We are close. Careful now, careful, good, good, good. Have you come around fully? Very few have encountered her and returned. You are still you? Yes, of course you are. I felt her presence here too. I saw her tell tale glow from under the bed. The architect referred to her as his muse, but, as you have seen, she is something else entirely. Now. Steady Yourself, I need your assistance. Movie. The bid a hatch in the floor. Yes, of course

it was, unto the bed. Tomorrow, Tomorrow night, we shall open the hatcher descent. You've done it. I knew you would, and all without a single word. On the morrow, my dear friend, ascension awaits. I do not know what we will face in the depths, but we will face it bravely together, a dual mind, yours, friend, tomorrow, tomorrow we assent. Thirteen days of Halloween was created by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams and executive produced by Aaron Manky, starring Keegan

Michael Key as the caretaker. The Day story was written by Ben Bolan, performed by Marissa grindstaff and directed by Alex Williams, with editing and sound designed by Miranda Hawkins, additional writing and script supervision from Nicholas Dakowski casting by

Jessica loser. Only one day remains, tomorrow. Another story. And after countless sleepless months, oliver found it a forbidden ritual, recorded and lost language, to call forth an ancient entity, one with the power to shape time in space itself. At the appointed hour on the appointed night, the architect and Oliver cast a circle of obscure sitels. Together they read aloud the violent cantations. Together they spooned each other's

blood and together they witnessed the apostile. Yeah. Yeah, thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio, Blumhouse television and Grimm and mild from Aaron Mankey. For more podcasts from my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and learn more about thirteen days of Halloween at Grimm and mild dot com.