Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron mankey headphones recommended.
Listener discretion advised. A welcome, my friend. Please come in.
(00:34):
I Apologize For not guiding you here myself. I felt
the need to prepare the space, as no one has
entered this room for many, many years. Strange it was
entirely devoid of dust, everything tidy and in the air
it's a whiff of amber oil. The scent would emanate
(00:57):
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,
(01:18):
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.
(01:43):
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.
(02:31):
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.
(02:52):
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
(03:12):
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
(03:34):
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.
(03:58):
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
(04:19):
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.
(04:40):
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
(05:02):
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
(05:24):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:07):
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
(06:29):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:12):
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.
(07:35):
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
(07:57):
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
(08:22):
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.
(08:46):
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
(09:06):
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
(09:28):
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.
(09:55):
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
(10:15):
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,
(10:40):
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
(11:03):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:44):
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?
(12:07):
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.
(12:30):
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
(12:56):
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.
(13:16):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:00):
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
(14:26):
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,
(14:51):
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
(15:15):
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
(15:35):
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
(16:00):
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,
(16:22):
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
(16:47):
moment you will realize wake up, friend, wake up. Did
(17:21):
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.
(17:48):
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
(18:18):
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
(18:40):
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
(19:02):
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
(19:27):
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
(19:47):
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
(20:11):
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.
Thirteen days of Halloween is a production of I heart radio,
Blumhouse television and grim and mild from Aaron mankey headphones recommended.
Listener discretion advised. A welcome, my friend. Please come in.
(00:34):
I Apologize For not guiding you here myself. I felt
the need to prepare the space, as no one has
entered this room for many, many years. Strange it was
entirely devoid of dust, everything tidy and in the air
it's a whiff of amber oil. The scent would emanate
(00:57):
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,
(01:18):
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.
(01:43):
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.
(02:31):
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.
(02:52):
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
(03:12):
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
(03:34):
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.
(03:58):
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
(04:19):
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.
(04:40):
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
(05:02):
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
(05:24):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:07):
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
(06:29):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:12):
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.
(07:35):
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
(07:57):
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
(08:22):
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.
(08:46):
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
(09:06):
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
(09:28):
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.
(09:55):
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
(10:15):
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,
(10:40):
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
(11:03):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:44):
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?
(12:07):
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.
(12:30):
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
(12:56):
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.
(13:16):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:00):
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
(14:26):
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,
(14:51):
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
(15:15):
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
(15:35):
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
(16:00):
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,
(16:22):
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
(16:47):
moment you will realize wake up, friend, wake up. Did
(17:21):
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.
(17:48):
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
(18:18):
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
(18:40):
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
(19:02):
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
(19:27):
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
(19:47):
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
(20:11):
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.
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