The Angels Of All Hallow's Eve

The Angels Of All Hallow’s Eve -1

“What do angels do at Halloween?”, you may well wonder, “ when spooks are said to wander through the eery moonlit night”.

Well, three angels in particular are very busy indeed for they are the three guardian angels of Halloween; Gondel; Floriel and Jezamel.

It is their duty, you see, and has been for many hundreds of human years, to watch over and guard all the children of our world from spooks and monsters and terrible things that go bump in the night.

It all started,one Halloween night, a long, long time ago; when her Empyreal Highness, the Queen of Heaven, looked down upon the world and saw all the wicked ghosts and goblins, cruel witches and evil spirits roaming about and rampaging through the mortal realm, scaring people and causing mischief.

“Goodness me, no”, said the Queen, shaking her head, that was crowned by glistening stars, and frowning, “This will never do”.

And so the Queen summoned three of her most trusted angels ; Gondel, an angel with Eagle wings, who was very strong; Floriel, an angel with owl wings, who was very wise and Jezamel; a cherub with robin’s wings, who had an enormous heart.

“Sister angels! Something must be done about all the ghosts and evil spirits that are plaguing the poor Earth and causing her great misery”, said the Queen, looking down from her shining golden throne at the three angels who were kneeling before her with their halo’s bowed low, “And so, I am appointing you three to deal with the problem. You must keep away all the bad spooks and spirits wherever you find them; especially on Halloween, when the problem is at its very worst”.

Then the Queen gave the angels three gifts that would, she thought, help them to accomplish their difficult task.

“To Gondel”, said the Queen to the first angel , handing her a long golden broom with brightly glowing bristles, “This magic broom which has the power to sweep away ghosts and demons from a haunted house”.

“To Floriel”, said the Queen to the second angel , handing her a large golden, pumpkin shaped lantern carved with a brightly glowing face, “This magic lantern, that will help guide your way as you fly through the night and whose eyes will seek out wicked ghosts wherever they may hide”.

“And to Jezamel of the great heart”, she said, handing the third angel a golden leaf, “The most powerful gift of all. This magical leaf which makes you mistress of the Autumn wind”.

Gratefully, the angels then took their gifts and, as commanded, they flew down to the Earth.

The Angels Of All Hallows Eve – part 2

The Earth that the angels saw, however, was not like the Earth we know but a world harrowed by darkness; overrun by a plague of ghosts and monsters.

“What a mountain we have to work on”, said Gondel, rolling up the sleeves of her angelic robe, under which were arms with bulging biceps as she looked down at the dark, ghost infested world, “But we will do it, sisters, with a lot of love and a little luck”.

And so, guided by the glowing eyes of Floriel’s lantern, they set about driving out all the ghosts they could find from the beleaguered towns and cities; moving as fast as only winged angels can and, though ghosts are a slippery lot to catch; the angels moved through the world like a whirlwind and wherever they freed people from the phantom pestilence they received happy smiles and cheers of gratitude.

Far away in the dark spirit realm, however, in a haunted palace at the centre of a mist shrouded swamp of glowing ectoplasm and seated upon a glowing ethereal throne, the vile ruler of Ghosts; King Walpurgis; breathed out fire and thunder as he screamed and cursed the three angels, “Those Angels are ruining things for we ghosts! Wherever we have blighted the world, they are brightening it; wherever we have brought fear, they bring good cheer and wherever we do mischief and create confusion, they bring only harmony and order! What a very perverse thing of them to do; what a wicked thing! Something really must be done about them”.

And so the king commanded that Bluttergust be awoken; a giant ghost whose grave lay beneath a mountain etched like a headstone with the words, “Here lies the body of Bluttergust, the most terrible giant there ever was” and, yawning like the thunder, Bluttergust arose and, though none of the living could see the giant ghost, they could hear the deafening rumble of its titanic footsteps and feel the earth shake and see a path of ruin moving across the land as towns and villages were trampled upon by the giants enormous feet.

And then the Angels, that could see all whether made of flesh or spirit, saw the gigantic ghost approaching.

“A mountain makes its way towards us”, said Floriel, anxiously, seeing the hollow eyes of the undead giant and its grinning mouth full of teeth as large as tombstones.

“Not a mountain, Sister Floriel”, said Gondel, seizing her magical broom and preparing to face the gigantic foe, “Just a high midden, that’s all”.

But, though Gondel flew at the giant ghost, striking it several times with the bristled end of her magic broom, the giant felt none of it and merely laughed; seizing Gondel tightly in an enormous right hand; Floriel in his left hand and, growing a third gigantic arm like a vast tree branch from his chest as broad as a spreading plain, seized poor Jezamel in it.

“Three fat angels”, cackled the giant like the shattering sound of lightning, “One for breakfast; one for lunch and one for dinner but, because I am the greedy sort, I think I shall eat them all now”.

But then the littlest of the three angels, Jezamel, spoke up, “You think we’re afraid of you but we’re not!”, she said, angrily.

“Huh?!”, said the giant, suddenly shrinking by a mile and a half, “You’re not?”.

“No”, said Floriel, “We’re not because, though you may have had the body of a giant you always had the soul of a coward, a snivelling, tiny wretched soul which is why you bullied others”.

Again, the giant began to shrink, this time by a hundred and fifty miles and not only was he shrinking, he was also starting to get a little afraid.

“That’s right!”, said Gondel, joining in, “Your nothing but a cowardly little mouse. It’s we who are giants and all those ordinary people who are brave enough to stand against you”.

And suddenly the mighty Bluttergust was not very mighty at all, infact Bluttergust the scurrying midget was what he became; shrinking down so small that, had the Angels not been made of kindness they might have easily trampled upon him with their golden boot heels.

And, in his dark palace, deep in the realm of ether, the King of Ghosts could not believe what he had just witnessed, “Poor Bluttergust, he was a fine monster”, said the king, weeping a flame that burned a hole in his cobweb handkerchief, “What will we do? These angels will be the exorcism of us ghosts!”.

But then the kings advisor who, though he had no head upon his shoulders, was still noted, among ghosts as being rather cunning said, “Your majesty! A trap is what’s needed an angel trap!”.

“A trap for angels?”, thought the king, “But what does one use to bait an angel? Angels, surely, desire nothing for themselves; being without greed or any vice that is the snare of men”.

“Ah, but what Angels crave most is to do good”, replied the kings advisor, “Let me seize control of that lantern which guides them and it will lead them to their deaths”.

And so the king agreed to his advisors plan and his advisor, turning himself into candle flame and flying off, out of the ethereal realm, to Floriel’s lantern, crept into the lantern, through one of its
Jack O’ Lantern eyes and, speaking from the lanterns mouth cried to the angels, “Quick, quick, follow me! There’s a haunted house; an orphanage full of little children in danger”.

Then, the pumpkin lanterns handle tugging upon Floriel’s hand, it lead them to a large building;
an odd shaped building with two semi-circular windows that resembled narrowed eyes and a large round door that looked a little like a mouth, “That’s it”, said the lantern, speaking with the voice of the wicked kings advisor, “In that house, through that door, is where you will find the children at the mercy of a most terrible and cruel phantom”.

What the wicked ghost didn’t tell them however was that the house itself was a ghost, a creature called a Hobscrottle, that looked just like a house but ate up anyone who tried to enter its door like mouth.

The three angels were rather suspicious though, for it didn’t look nearly large enough to be an orphanage full of children; more like a little cottage; however they had little reason to doubt the word of their lantern who had guided them so truthfully up until that moment and the thought of saving children in trouble was hard for their shining, virtuous angel hearts to resist but, high up
above, upon her heavenly golden throne, the queen of the angels looked down and saw that her
sister angels were being led into a trap and so, calling for one of her finest angel archers; a winged cherub named Eros, she ordered him to fire an arrow down from heaven and into the back of the phantom house.

Then, Eros, closing one eye, took aim and fired a golden arrow which struck the house in the back and made it cry out in pain and Floriel, being the wisest among the three angels deduced, “Houses
do not cry out in pain! There’s something very odd about that house”.

But the lantern insisted that the house had not cried out, “That was nothing but the wind you heard and the creak of some hinges which need oiling”.

However, Floriel was suspicious now and it was a hard thing to quell the suspicions of such an inquisitive angel, “Why don’t we throw the lantern in first?”, she suggested, “And if all is well then the rest of us may enter”.

The Ghost kings advisor did not like the sound of this for, if they threw the pumpkin lantern into the Hobscrottles mouth then he, who was inside the pumpkin lantern would be eaten up and so, creeping back out through one of the eyes of the lantern, the kings advisor, still disguised as candle flame, tried to fly away but, unfortunately for him, little Jezamel noticed him flying off and, thinking that he was a firefly, and because she had the soul of a child, caught hold of him gently in her hand.

“Let go of me this instant!”, demanded the flame in her hand, “Don’t you know who I am. I’m
the royal advisor to the great Walpurgis himself, King of all the ghosts”.

“This is a funny kind of firefly!”, thought Jezamel, holding it up to her ear and listening to its angry protestations, “It says that it’s an advisor to the king of the ghosts”.

“Oh?”, asked Floriel as Jezamel held out her hand and made it transparent like crystal, allowing her sister angels to see the flame within, “Well that makes sense! It must have been he who led us here and not our lantern”.

Then Floriel asked the flame within Jesamels hand where the King of the Ghosts lived and the
the kings advisor replied, “Deep within the ethereal realm but I’ll never show you where it is or how to enter and your lantern can’t see it and you, being angels, are too kind to force it out of me so you’d better just let me go”.

“He has a point”, said Gondel, sighing, “For all my strength, I cannot employ brutal methods such as forcing information out of people”.

“Nevertheless”, said Floriel, “If we let him go he will fly back to this ethereal realm and we can follow him to it”.

“Follow me? Ha!”, scoffed the Ghost kings advisor arrogantly, “You may try but you angels are no match for we wily ghosts. I’ll lead you on a merry dance and then give you the slip quicker than any of you can blink”.

“Ah, we angels are quicker than you think though”, replied Floriel smiling and then, at her sisters command, Jezamel let the the little flame go and it whizzed off as fast as a firework in the direction of its home, laughing as it went and saying, “Ha! You never should have let me go, you fools, now you’ll never catch me”.

But the moment that he looked behind him, to his shock and surprise, there were the angels who had transformed themselves into three tiny stars.

And so, the ghost, transforming himself into a fish, leapt into a nearby pond and, gurgling underwater, again laughed and said, “Ha! You think your smart but I’m smarter than you all. You’ll never catch me”.

And yet, when the ghost fish looked over its shoulder it once again saw the three angels, this time in the form of three goldfish swimming close behind.

And so, turning himself into an eagle, the ghost burst up from the water, spreading its wings and flying through the air once more squawking, “Ha! I’ve given you the slip again, you’ll never catch me!”.

But, looking back over its left wing, the ghost eagle gasped as it saw three little bluebirds with halos fluttering close to its tail feathers.

Exasperated, the ghost then turned itself into a fly and buzzed off into the middle of a dark forest, hoping that his pursuers that had now transformed themselves into three honeybees wouldn’t catch him and, to his relief, when he looked over his fly shoulder this time he didn’t see any angels, unfortunately, because he was so busy looking over his shoulder he didn’t see what was infront of him and crashed, smack bang into a spiders web.

“Help!”, cried the Ghost fly, unable to free itself from the sticky web and terrified of the horrid spider that was slowly crawling closer to it, “Somebody help me please!”.

“Oh, that poor ghost”, said Jezamel, looking down at the ghost kings advisor upon the spider web, “We should help it. It’s the angel code”.

“That’s right!”, buzzed the fly ghost, looking up from the web, “It’s the angel code! You have to help me!”.

“I don’t know about that?”, said Floriel, “There’s the rights of the spider to be taken into consideration. Is it right for us to rob that poor little spider of its food. Is that what an angel ought to do?”.

“That’s a very good point”, said Gondel, scratching her halo, “What should we do?”.

“Alright! Alright!”, said the Ghost fly, desperately, “I’ll tell you how to get to the ethereal realm and how to get inside but just save me please”.

And so, the Ghost kings advisor told the angels what they wished to know (well, actually, he tried lying to them a few times, but being angels they saw immediately through his lies) and then, with her thumb and forefinger, Jezamel plucked the ghost free from the sticky web, much to the consternation of a hungry spider that, angrily, then shook all six of its fists at the angels.

The Angels Of All Hallow’s Eve – Part 3

It was only after walking a little further into the forest that they found the entrance to the world of the spirits; what looked at first glance like the shadow of an oak tree but which, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be a deep crack in the earth that was only the shape of an oak tree’s shadow and then, descending into it, they followed the guidance of Floriel’s lantern along a winding warren of tunnels until they came to the misty swamp, at the heart of which was the haunted palace of the Ghost king.

“You’ve made a serious mistake coming here”, said the king as the Angels flew across the swamp of bubbling, green ectoplasm and into his throne room, “Your Angel powers won’t work in my palace”.

And sure enough, when Jezamel looked at her magic autumn leaf she saw that it was not golden anymore but just an ordinary brown leaf and when Gondel looked at her broom she saw that it was nothing more than an ordinary broom and Floriels pumpkin lantern too was no longer golden or magical but just a regular ordinary, orange pumpkin. Even their wings and their Halo’s were gone.
Within the Ghost kings palace they were as powerless as mortals.

The Ghost king grinned now and so too did the two heads that he held under each arm; heads which had once sat on either side of the one upon his shoulders before he had hacked them off for disagreeing with him, leaving only two short stumpy necks, “And so, if you thought to come here and destroy us", he continued, "You were very wrong indeed. It’s you who will be devoured by us”.

But then Gondel shook her head, “Oh no”, she said, “You are very wrong about why we came here. Angels are not interested in destruction; we only come to offer salvation. To bring all living souls into the light”.

Round about them, monsterous laughter echoed.

“What would we. Creatures born of darkness want with the light”, said the Ghost king, “The darkness is our home”.

“Oh, but those who are darkness are also blind”, said Floriel, “For what do you really know of the light; of its beauty and spleandour and its eternal depths that go far further than even death itself.The reason why you choose to live in darkness is because you have no idea what you are missing”.

Again they heard laughter all about them but then, within the gloom of that unearthly place, there opened up a small crack of gold, about the size of a spark and then out of that spark grew glittering branches and twigs of golden light until, looking at it more closely, all realized that it was infact a glowing golden portal into a realm of light and though the king and all his dark subjects tried not to look into it, they could not help but look for the light was mesmerizing; it was the light of heaven and salvation and even those who had no eyes but merely empty eye sockets exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!”

“It is where all souls belong, not in darkness but within the light of heaven”, said Floriel as all of the ghosts and even the king of ghosts himself flew towards salvation.