Year 1218...
An ominous silence obscured the usual peaceful night that the inhabitants of the Moonlyte Village were accustomed to. No hoot of an owl, bark of a dog, tune of a cricket, or cluck of a chicken was heard. The Arylwood trees that surrounded the village stood in unusual stillness, as the breeze that usually blew through their leaves was absent. Perhaps all of nature that surrounded the Moonlyte Village was holding its breath in anticipation for the event that was to happen this unsettling night.
Each cottage was dark and empty, and that was because the villagers who would normally be snoring away inside of them, were all gathered at the village chapel. Strewn together by various types of wood gathered from the Arylwood forest, the Moonlyte Chapel seemed ready to fall apart at the howl of a wolf. But the old chapel stood sturdier then ever, even after nearly one hundred and fifty years after its construction. It served as a place of mindful and spiritual sanctuary in a time of grief, uncertainty and general unrest. It was common practice to visit the chapel only when the moon hung bright and unobscured in the night sky as the moonlight was long ago recognized to exert mysterious powers of healing to both physical illness or injury, or emotional heartache and other mental stresses and dejections.
But the villagers were not gathered at the chapel to heal or to pray this night. That has long been proven ineffective of ridding their hearts of the grief that the untimely, gruesome deaths of their children had caused. Crowded near the Lunar Effigy that stood just outside the chapel, the villagers had only murderous desires in their minds and hearts. An altar filled with oil and that burned with fire as hot as their rage stood before them.
Jacob Moonata de' Avilla, hovered the end of an unlit torch packed with stones over the fire, engulfing it in flame as he spoke.
"Tonight, we will heal what the light of the moon could not...", Jacob did not need to raise his voice too loud, just loud enough to be over the crackle of the fire was enough for all to hear, "...the pain and grief brought upon us by a purely evil and vile monster that has lived alongside us right under our noses, shall be dealt with tonight. And those that we loved who were taken from us will be avenged and they will find peace as they rest..."
Some villagers, who carried torches, lit theirs over the fire while others who were armed with rusted axes, pitchforks and short swords drew their weapons, more than eager to begin marching down the hill as Jacob continued with his final words that he spoke in a quieter but much graver voice.
"...we will surround the home on Zalar Lane, make sure there is no opportunity for the bitch to escape, and we will burn it down."
As they marched down the road to Zalar Lane, no one said a word.
The cottage loomed with an uncanny presence as they neared. The windows, like peering into the eyes of a monsters soul, showed nothing behind them but darkness. The one who lived in the cottage was rarely ever seen, and the image of what the person looked like was vague to anyones memory. The crowd disbanded into small groups and surrounded the cottage. A group made their way to the rear, blocking the back door as planned. Chickens and turkeys who wandered freely in the small, grassy garden behind the cottage, scurried around, having been rudely awoken by the villagers. They clucked and gobbled in agitation.
"Set it ablaze!", Jacob shouts, and every torch held by every man, woman and child without a weapon was thrown at the dwelling, while those who carried axes and their swords stood in wait at each door. As the flames tore through the cottage of both floors, the villagers waited in anticipation to hear the screams of pain, terror and doom from the evil doer inside as it burned to death. But as the flames grew larger and more ferocious, still no screams were heard. Perhaps the killer inside had since abandoned the cottage but that didn't stop the villagers from celebrating the destruction of the reminder of the vileness that the cottage homed. Jacob stood in disappointment and the man standing beside him noticed.
"Maybe we got her while she slept", he says, "so she had no time to scream."
Jacob wanted to believe him, but still couldn't shake the feeling that his infant son and the children of the many families of the village have not yet received proper justice for their early deaths.
The chickens and turkeys now scurried around wide-eyed and frantic, some dashing into Arylwood Forest and others running down the road to get away from the burning of evil that was taking place. Except for one rather large turkey who remained plopped down in a patch of grass as if it were too fat to move and seemingly assured that no danger would reach where it sat. It watched the villagers chant and cheer with about as much understanding that a wild turkey would have as the cottage burned in a massive flame, and a thick, black cloud of smoke plumed into the night sky.