Her name, they say, was Eve.

She was not particularly wise, or monstrous, or as fearsome as we now make her to be. But she was dangerous, because she listened, and helped those others refused to help, and they in turn made her their champion. She refused to be shamed into silence or inaction. She held much knowledge and taught it freely--but as the years rolled over her bones and made them crooked, and her skin and eyes dry, she knew no student would come to inherit her secrets. And she was bitter, yes, and she was mean, but she wove those traits into a cloak to shield her ailing body and weary soul. Heavy is life's burden for the hag in the house of twigs, she who brews the pennyroyal and puts her parched lips to the snakebites of humanity. Traces of the venom always remain, and they're bitter, bitter and burning upon the heart.

She died because she listened, because she gave strength to those without it. She died for the crime of being a little wretch in the woods that terrified the God of men. Her protective cloak, the cobwebs on her hair, and the ichor in her heart all fueled the pyre. Her dry skin burned like paper, and her blood boiled in her veins. She did not curse. She did not scream. Death came to her the same way as her petitioners; quiet, ashamed, under the cover of the night.

But even the Devil would not have her. Some say it was because her body, so thoroughly burned already, could no longer be tormented. Others believe that he felt pity for her plight, which reminded him of his. Maybe she tricked the Devil into opening the gates to his prison; maybe her soul already belonged to another, and so he held no claim over it.

It does not matter.

She is free.

Some wayward souls seek revenge. Others, solitude. But Eve wishes only to do what she always has done; to listen and to heal. In the dead of night, she listens to the weary sighs of women through their windows, and, with her petrified talons, she severs the ties that bind, be them throat or lifeline, and heals ills of body and soul. Her lips have long burned away, as has her skin. Her husk of a heart rattles alone in her empty ribcage as she walks. She is a thing out of time, crawling out of Hell every year, a wretched thing, wise and mindless, aiding, in her own way, the shackled souls of a world that moved on.

She was not wise or monstrous or fearsome; it was us who made her so, us who cursed her to wander the night of the thirty-first, carrying out her work while seeking, in vain, someone with whom to share her secrets. Perhaps then she could rest. We do not know. It does not matter.

Her name is Eve. Eve, ashen Eve, Eve of the black bones and crooked back, Eve of All Hallows, poor Eve, wretched Eve.

If you’re alone at night, she’ll keep you company.