Dies to Removal

The raging fire had carved a nearly perfect circle in the snow, but even standing close to it couldn't exactly be called 'warm.' Jenny knew that Liza, and to a lesser extent Henrietta, took their rituals far more seriously than she herself did, but it became abundantly clear as Liza started disrobing for the upcoming dance. Not only did Jenny think she was crazy for removing clothing in the bitter cold, but as her friend, since third grade, started peeling off layers to reveal arcane markings she'd etched into her skin with a ballpoint pen, Jenny seriously started to ponder the other girl's actual mental stability.
“Shouldn't we wait for 'Rietta to get back, at least? It's cold out here,” Jenny said, shaking for emphasis.
“Why?” Asked Liza, striking a pose, seeming to
love the whole debacle. “More, you know, 'dancing' for us, right?”
Jenny blinked at the surprising turn of events, but didn't have time to respond before something unceremoniously flunked into the fire heavily between the two of them with such force that both girls screamed. It was just a log, probably a fallen branch from one of the nearby trees, but what happened next defied such simplistic explanations.
“Ouch!” Screamed Liza. “Something pinched me!”
“What? How?” Said Jenny, perhaps a bit too loudly. “I'm looking right at you.”
“I.. I don't know, but it hurt,” her friend replied. “Pinched me right on the bottom.”
The two girls stared at each other, each of their faces ghost-lit by the fire, when out of nowhere another log came sailing at them, this time not into the fire but within scant inches of Jenny's face. Both girls screamed, and as if by silent command both of them started running in the opposite direction from the hangman's tree
at the same time. As they ran, the could very clearly hear an eerily human moaning behind them, a sound that struck Jenny to her very soul. They ran for what seemed a very long time, and when the finally stopped, deep in the woods and, Jenny figured, now completely lost, they were entirely out of breath.
“What was that!?” Liza panted, her breast heaving against her gossamer Victorian black corset and oddly anachronistic brazier bought from Wal-Mart.
“I don't know, but I'm scared,” Jenny said, wiping the sweat off her forehead that had appeared despite the cold. “Let's find Henrietta and get out of here!”
“I'm with you,” Liza responded. “I'd trade my right arm to be safe at home right now.”

"Okay, everyone heard it that time, right?" Jenny glanced around nervously, but strangely couldn't bring herself to look at the wide boughs of the ancient tree.
"Heard what? I didn't hear anything except your whining," Said Liza as she warmed her hands on the fire, now fully afire and throwing yet more dancing shadows on everything.
"That noise again!" Jenny cried, "Like someone gasping or wheezing. It's skeeving me out!"
"Yeah," said Liza, "it's called 'the wind,' girl. Now are we doing this baccanal or what?"
Find her strength, Jenny nodded and cast another glance at the hangman's tree. For a moment she could see a terrifying vision of the
Dismember Bandit, nothing more than a trunk and a face contorted into a rictus of horrifying rage, leering at her, but then when she blinked he was gone again. Shaking her head, she tried inwardly to dispel her own girlish notions, her own fear, she stepped closer to the warmth of the fire. "I'm ready to begin," she said, removing the ludicrous pointy hat she'd bought on a dare, "Where'd Henrietta go?"
"Pretty sure she's just off somewhere peeing. Even for us witches, sometimes a body's gotta do what a body's gotta do."

Jenny honestly didn't know what had possessed her to get talked into this. Unlike the other two girls, she was perfectly comfortable admitting that their "midnight rituals" were nothing more than a way to hang out, and so this was bordering on ridiculous. First off, it was far too cold to be outside in their costumes; second off, as cool as the idea of hanging around by a tree that had actually serves as a gallows was, it was more than a little creepy. The light of the waning moon kept giving the illusion of things she could only see at a glance, the corner of her eye. The few remaining leaves waving in the wind might look a little too much like bloodstains, or some creature half-imagined.
As the other two were lighting the ceremonial fire, she glanced at the
locally infamous tree, supposedly haunted by the souls of the murderers hung there, especially the legend known as the Dismember Bandit, a highwayman hung more than a hundred years ago known for the way he removed each limb from his victims. In the spark of the first few timid flames of their fire, it was far too easy to imagine the noose, his ghostly head swaying from side to side, bodyless and staring.
She shivered and admitted to herself that she was officially creeped out. "Hurry up with the fire, you guys, it's cold out here!" she said.
"Don't lose your head," Liza said.