Chapter I
The Witching Hour

          The waning gibbous moon illuminated the path of the little wicked witches away from their cottage in the boglands. A pragmatic midwestern arts and crafts home of middling hospitality, it should have been set on the backdrop of a four way intersection with pavement for the schoolkids, stately oak trees lining the main road. But here the trees towered overhead with their autumn leaves creating a golden dome which hosted families of crow and dangling red crab apples waiting to knock some passerby on the noggin. Not only did their parents send them out with bike helmets, but galoshes as well, the winding yellow path was incomplete and partially damaged due to erosion. The red leaf trees had long, spindly branches which one could use to climb across the muddy puddles and the occasional fallen log. If a kid were truly daring, they’d use the branches to hop across the creek and sneak to Pottersville to cause mischief. 

          It became something of a holiday tradition to jump the fence between their two worlds and roam the other side in vandal hordes. The little children would gather in secret at the old well as the clock struck three, and they would all travel to the town square in one big dark cluster, carrying shovels, lead pipes, bb-guns. They would knock on doors and beg for treats without any parcels in hand, because they knew a Pottersville county native wouldn’t have so much as a piece of toffee in the breadbox.
When this occurred, consequences were incurred. The pumpkins were squashed, the apples were harvested and eaten, the fields of corn all picked clean better than any crow could manage. They’d once taken hacksaws to the scaffolding around the demolished old bank, which had been foreclosed for years, and reduced it to firewood. Parents became suspicious once kids started coming home with soaked galoshes, tattered clothes and pumpkin on their boots. Kids faced punishment, many were grounded from ever participating in the holiday for the rest of their earthly lives, and yet each year the tricks became wilder, the rituals more dangerous and the property destruction incalculable. 

          After years of this enduring tradition, Ragdolland and Pottersville learned to fear the 31st of October, but on one fateful Halloween night, it would all be laid to rest. Upon gobknoll hill stood a small, lilac fairy. The nucleus of her classmates, she made sure no kid got lost during the pilgrimage, and to her it felt as if she were being dragged along by a gang of rogue hounds which she loosely lassoed with a dozen little tethers. The scatterbrained clowns created a clamorous entourage which occasionally overwhelmed the little fay, who was dressed like a wicked bog witch which juxtaposed her statesman demeanor. For many months she had gathered twigs in anticipation for the holiday, often she collected twigs during her evening constitutional, later she would arrange the sticks by size and set aside the smaller ones for a bonfire, and set the larger aside for her broom. It was a bundled bunch of brittle old branches which nearly crumbled to dust while she was hand weaving the stiff interlacing fibers. 

          “They’re all just beyond this hill,” the little scout announced, and so it was. Reaching the top of the hill, the children beheld the town square of Pottersville with their ears first as they could hear the fiddles playing from miles away, and then with their eyes as they saw all the folks gather around in their black latex and frilly masquerade masks. The glasses rang discordantly with the music as the adults downed their drinks to wash away the burning in their throat amongst a billowing cloud of smoke.

          “What are they all doing down there?” a child remarked “isn’t it a little past their bedtime?”

          “Fool, they don’t have a bedtime,” a clown snuck up on the kid and gave him a noogie.

          “Well that may be so but any sensible person wouldn’t be caught dead outside at this hour,” the oracle orated, backing up to stand by the side of the littler kid, “grampoo warned me about the dangers of Halloween night after all.”

          “Yea, we’re the danger, and this is our turf” shouted a nasally voice, and the group concurred with grunts and sneers.

          “Well clearly they don’t know that. Someone’s gotta go down there and tell them off!” the group roared.

          “We are not going to tell them off!” The little witch exclaimed. The group got quiet.

          “And why not,” the eleven year old sneered.

          “We’re kids and they’re adults, and everyone deserves basic respect. You respect others and they respect you” she scoffed. “Sanctimoniousness aside, my research indicates that there’s at least seven major sororities and fraternities, each break down into around 176 distinct units, and amongst those they average 2-4 spouses per household, maybe a roommate, maybe a great aunt, maybe some children if they can afford it.” The kids traded blank glances with one another, but even amongst these ghouls nobody uttered a peep.

          “So?”

          “So we lost the town square, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still beg for candy. There’s plenty of homes around that have their porch lights on, we don’t have to spoil anyone’s festivities.”

          “Oh yea? Looks like you’re ready then. Why don’t you take the first house yourself? I see old man Julie still has his porch light on,” the taller kid piped up and the little kids shuttered in recognition of the old man’s name. The name Julie struck fear into the hearts of young children across the county who heard the ghost stories about the old barnyard just beyond Hill County, that place where young cowhands used to disappear every winter when the harvest was too meager. They sold meat pies in the off season. That name too, Julie, did it stand for Julius or Julia? “Unless anyone else has it out for the old man?” Not a sound but the rustling of the leaves against the cool wind which feather dusted their sinuses. 

          “Achoo!” exclaimed another, littler witch. The children parted around this little girl who was wiping her nose with her elegant lace sleeve. She was wearing her mother’s blouse which blew in the wind like a long silk skirt, and she donned a knit caftan which dragged along the muddy cobblestone path. She didn’t have so much of a witch’s hat as it was a stetson hat, presumably from her old man or an older brother perhaps. Her magic wand? A fan favorite, a classic old twig from the backyard with a little feather wrapped around the end.

          “Let’s make Dessie do it.” One kid grunted out in the back, and the rest agreed very cordially with hoops and hollers.

          “Me? But I-” 

          “What? You’re scared?” The kid cast a shadow over her.

          “No! I mean maybe a little, isn’t that reasonable?”

          “Huh? Look kid,” said the eleven year old, “I don’t want to put you down but this here is the scary kids club, and them out there, they’re scaredy cats. Every Halloween night we come out and wreck the place, and they can’t do nothing about it! Why?”

          “Why?” she looked up with wide eyes.

          “Because they’re scared of us. The evil spirit acts through us! That is our power on this night, wrong is right!” His speech was roaring, and the children seemed to follow his thread of logic, but the lilac witch couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

          “But what if I don’t have the evil spirit in me” she blinked eleven times in one second.

          “Then you have no place with us, or any sweet tooth vagabonds in the whole darn state! These are the big leagues, kid. Consider this your initiation.”

          “I’m not so sure about that” she spoke up, and the children turned their heads quietly “she’s still little, and they’re big. Evil spirit or not, everyone needs backup. I’ll go.”

          And so it was. The two little witches trotted down the winding cobblestone path and traversed the merciless waters of the creek, which the fairy witch chose to navigate around, not wanting to risk a stain on her new friend’s robes. She knew of a place where a large log rested, creating a bridge between their two villages, but as Desiree slid along the rough bark she partially muddied her blouse to her friend’s disappointment. She asked the little lady her name and she replied “Desiree, my friends call me Dessie. What’s your name?”

          The fairy paused for a moment, before she decided to say, “I’m a witch named Maude. But I guess my friends call me the glass fairy.”

          “Why?”

          “Probably because I’m emotionally fragile and have a lot of anger I’ve deeply repressed over the years, I’m sure I got that from my old man.”

          “How old are you?”

          “Nine.”

          The two approached the black iron gates, jutting into the pine trees up above. The entrance was decorated with gourds painted with faces of clowns and newspaper cartoons, their faces illuminated by fairy lights and little dancing tea candles. The wagons lined the gravel pavement where the teenagers were smoking pot on top of the haystacks, and Maude was nearly lulled by the familiar smell of home before she emerged on the other side. They were followed by a swarm of mice which roamed the pavement, picking up every little scrap of food, of which there was a feast. Then the children arrived, to that fabled green sycamore square where the ghouls roamed on Halloween eve. The witches swallowed their fear and stepped into the crowd of zombies who were too preoccupied to notice the little vermin at their feet, until Desiree, walked right into a woman’s ankle boot.

          “Hey what the,” she looked down “oh! Hey guys, what’s up! What are you doing here?”

          “We’re doing good!” Desiree yelled over the thunderous dancing.

          “‘Scuse us m’am, we’re on a mission from the evil spirit.” Maude looked up at the woman with stoic, drooping eyelids. The woman looked back with squinted eyes.

          “Oh my goodness. I love you guys, that’s really,” she stopped herself,  “where are your parents? Can I take you to them?”

          “No thank you m’am, our mummies and daddies are far from here, for we are in search of a cad by the name of Julie,” Maude relayed.

          “Um. Do you have his address?” The woman started to come down to Gaia.

          “No, I don’t know what that is. Do you Desiree?” Maude asked, and Desiree shook her head.

          “Okay guys, don’t worry I got you.” The woman buckled each of the individual buckles on her leather boots and signaled to a couple people before the three departed into town.

          It wasn’t long thereafter when they recognized the characteristic house upon the hill with its long pointed rooftop, the dark cherry wood and the single glowing orange eye below the billowing smog of the chimney pipe. Children drew it in the margins of their homework, and it’s said that glow emanates from the oven where he bakes his meat pies. It wasn’t until now that the two witches reconsidered anything, but now as they approached the house, they were glad to have a guardian with them to pin the blame on. Maude felt a little guilty about that thought, oops.

          The woman rang the doorbell and as if the wind had blown it, the door slowly creaked open before it was caught by a chain.

          “What are you doing here. Go away.” The man had a terribly raspy voice.

          “Hey guy are these your kids? They were wandering around downtown looking for you,” she adopted a more serious tone than before. The door had a grid of nine iron bars which the man peeped through before unlatching the chain from his door and opening. Maude looked at Desiree and the little witches gave each other a confident nod before they geared into action. 

          “Trick or treat.” They half heartedly proclaimed. The old man looked at them, and then slowly twirled the end of the black and white beard around his finger. Then he donned a wicked smile of shark teeth, rows and rows of razor toothed fangs. The little witches looked at each other, and seeing as though he did not engage in candy protocol, they had no other option. From out of her crushed velvet purse, Maude unveiled a can of silly spray.

          “Give up the candy or you’re gonna get it mister!” She blurted out without a second thought, aiming the spray can at his head. Desiree did a double take and pulled out her own ammo, five eggs that she stole from her mother’s coop, except three of them had broken in her pocket along the journey and so she just collected the goop and didn’t acknowledge the slime running through her fingers. 

          “I’m too high for this,” the adult stepped back. The old man’s eye scanned the three of them and slammed the door in their faces. The woman looked down at the little witches in abject horror as they defaced the old man’s door, decorating it with silly string, egg yolks, super glue, melted crayons, acrylic solvents, bundles of yarn soaked in kerosene. “What are you doing? Hey stop!” The woman raved incessantly.

          The two wouldn’t stop, not until they had made quick work of this stingy cad and put him in his rightful place. Once they had completed their work, they created a color on the door which they could never have conjured up in their imagination. It was a swirling pinkish, reddish blueish portal which sunk to the ground and got absorbed into the lawn. To their dismay, the portal opened. The two little kids darted for the streets, leaving the woman behind for the old man to greet her on her own with his hound unleashed beside him.

          They could hear howling from halfway up the road and this only quickened this pace as they avoided the oncoming cars parting the downtown assembly. Quickly the two of them headed towards the Pottersville gate and climbed back over the black iron bars. In their haste, Maude threw herself over first before realizing the littler witch needed a boost, but rather than wait for anyone else, Desiree heaved herself over and straddled the fence in between two irregular black spikes. As she tried to throw herself to the other side, the spikes caught her caftan and tore it apart, the chicken wire scraped her ankles as she attempted to escape their clutches. Once she entered friendly territory with a hard thud, Maude quickly came to her senses and tore off pieces of fabric from her dangling sleeves, wrapping the cloth around the other girl’s wound.
“Stop, that’s not gonna work,” the littlest witch protested, drawing her arm back “let’s just wait til our parents treat us.”
“You have no shoes and we have another mile to walk, it’s going to get infected,” Maude insisted.
The two paused to look at each other, and Desiree quickly snatched the cloth out of her hand, wrapping it around her wound herself. “You ruined your costume,” the little girl sniffled.

           “It’s fine, I have a dozen of these at home in my mother’s closet,” Maude wrapped them up nicely with a bow, “besides it was all worth it.”

           “I want to go home.” Desiree looked at her, struggling to find how this was worth it.

          Maude and her saw eye to eye. Following the trail of fireflies back to the village, Maude used her broom to beat back the feral cats and squirrels. When they arrived at Desiree’s home, they could see from a distance a taller figure illuminated by porch light as the neighborhood children played around a roaring bonfire. The little girl ran to her father who she recognized smoking in his rocking chair, but when he saw her approach he stood up and dropped the cigar, embracing his daughter.

           “Where in the world were you? We were so worried,” he asked with her in his arms.

           “I’m sorry,” she said with wide eyes. “We went on a walk through the cemetery and I got lost.”

           “The jig is up, your little friends came here looking for you and they said you’ve been harassing the neighbors in Pottersville. What were you even doing in a ghastly place like that?” Maude could hear the interrogation from up the hill, but she had her own hovel to retire to.

           “Don’t worry, I had a powerful witch with me” Desiree pointed at the hill where her and the fairy had arrived, but nobody could be seen. She looked around for her but couldn’t find a soul in sight besides her friends who finally noticed her presence and ran towards her father’s ankles.

❖❖❖

          In the dead of night, the glass fairy walked back towards that old man’s home on the other side of town. The lanterns on the front entrance had all been extinguished, and the gourdes were being feasted upon by hungry red squirrels. Approaching the old, petrified wood porch, she knocked on the door which was still viscous to the touch, but just that gentle pressure opened the front door with a loud creak. All the candles had burnt out and at the end of the hallway stood a bloodhound twice her height with dangling jowls, one side floppier than the other. He approached her with heavy, cloven claws, bumping the walls on either side of him. He approached her face with that grimacing maw and gave her whole face a lick with one stroke of his big, slobbery tongue.

           “Rex? Is that you boy?” the old man shouted, shaking the foundation of the house. Rex barked and lifted his paw to Maude.

           “Good to meet you mister,” she shook the old boy’s paw.

          “Who’s there Rex? What do you want!” the old man’s voice got louder as the dog escorted her around the corner. There, sitting at his desk in the other room, she saw the old man lording over a colossal book with a magnifying glass.

           “Um. Hello sir,” Maude piped up. The old man darted his eye at her.

           “Oh. Hello there little one.” He spoke softly, “did your parents send you for medicine?”

          “No sir, I was just here with my friend Dessie” she admittedly solemnly. “I came here to apologize.”

           “You!” His eye widened, catching an orange glimmer of fire from the adjacent furnace room, “do you have any idea what kind of trouble you caused me?” He stood up from his desk and his chair made the awful sound of nails on chalkboard as it scraped across the granite floor. He stormed towards her with his two mighty boots, walking past into the adjacent room. Her and the dog looked at each other before he followed his master to the furnace. From the office she could hear the awful rattling of pots and pans and knew it was a mistake to come back to this place. With a boiling pot in hand, the old man emerged from the furnace room and poured the molten liquid onto the little wax paper he set out atop an iron tray in the office.

           “What is that stuff?” The glass fairy trembled.

           “Toffee! You little brat, I made a batch for Halloween and I was knocking on every door trying to find you two,” he placed the pot aside to cool, “you know what, I haven’t gotten a single trick-or-treater in all my years, and there’s hardly any parents in this hippie college town.”

           “Are you going to eat me for my trespasses?” Maude looked at him with wide eyes.

           “No! What? You want candy right?” He sounded furiously amused.

           “Yea but,” she began to speak, but she hadn’t thought about candy til now, “that’s kind of the pretext for vandalism man. I just wanted to apologize for beautifying the door.” the old man chuckled at her funny words. “Y’know, kids say nasty stuff about you,” she said bluntly.

           “Oh yes, you kids. You think I gobble up young cowhands and orphan babies?” He said, waggling his fingers.

           “Well I don’t know about orphans. Is that true?” She anticipated a dreadful answer.

           “Well maybe I’ve roughed up a few cowhands, but they had it coming.” He paused, “but they’re alive and well and opioid-free for all I know or care. But I respect your guts coming here, unfortunately you’ll have to wait for the next batch to cool if you want anything to take home.”

           “Alright I’ll wait, strange man.” She looked around the room, the dark room was lined with dusty bookshelves carrying cob webs and gilded totems, crystal balls, heavy metal swords. He had a set of dull ceramic teacups, she stood up and looked inside one which contained a spawn of baby spiders in their mama’s web. He owned a stack of puzzles, but they were lazily piled in the corner with the pieces spilling out the sides, and she could see the ones that fell into the floorboards. He had a lava lamp, it didn’t have any outlet to plug into, yet it was animated, and hot to the touch. “Got anything to read?” She asked.

           “I’m not much of a reader,” he said, sitting in front of a book that was taller than the little lady herself.

           “What about that one?” She pointed straight behind him.

           “Oh this old text? All that’s in this ancient tome of magic is a lot of history, alchemical sciences, and secrets of the universe. You wouldn’t be interested in my boring studies anyways…” Maude heard this tone of voice from her mother before.

           “Are you a wizard?”

           “Something of the sort.”

           “Did you make that batch because you knew I would be back here?” She looked up with wide eyes

           “Well, no. Maybe. What’s it to you? Maybe I just like toffee, okay?” The old man’s nose turned red as the little lady scanned his figure up and down.

           “I think you like it a little too much sir.”

           “Alright fine, go home. None for you then.” He stormed off into the hallway with tray in hand.

           “No wait! Tell me about your crusty book old man! Oh please old man! Old man!” She felt like an award winning actress smothering his ego.

           “That will do!” He laughed heartily and Rex jumped up on his leg barking at him. “Sit!” He shouted, and the three of them sat. He grabbed his book which was bookmarked on a page regarding the alchemical technique for turning sugar and butter into candy. The dust wafted up into the lamp light as he sifted through the book’s stiff, brittle pages. “We’ll start from the beginning, as almost all things do,” he cleared his throat putting the monocle to his eye.

           “Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a small small town named Sakura Point. The valley was self-contained, protected by the mountains, and sheltered under the shadows of Sakura trees. In the center of the valley, at the beginning of the end of her life, lived the little glass fairy. She was not inside her arts and crafts home, she rested wearily in a swinging hammock inside her glasswork studio, where the furnace kept her warm. Together with her best friend, a culinary wiz and a powerful witch, It seemed the two would live in perfect cohabitation with the valley happily forever after. But of course, nothing lasts forever…”

Author’s Notes

Hello folks and welcome to Sakura Point. For those who weren’t players in Sakura Point, The Orb SMP (OSMP) was a roleplay based Minecraft SMP that we started back in December of 2024 which ended around the summer of 2025. Throughout that time we built a whole town with its own economy, political factions, religions, history, magic system, community events, and lots and lots of lore. This book is going to be a record of all the events which unfolded in just the first few months of the SMP, along with some creative liberties I’ve taken to make the story a bit more cohesive. Along the way I’m going to showcase the buildings featured in each chapter and give you some context for what was happening behind the scenes. 

Feel free to share your critique, I’m always checking this inbox. I’m not much of a writer but I love our characters and I’ve enjoyed telling their story so any advise or corrections to help improve the quality of my writing is greatly appreciated. Think of this newsletter as a work in progress, once I’ve shared every chapter I’m going to do one final round of revisions and compile it into a finished book.

Thank you for reading and take care of yourself.

Building(s) of the Week

1. Appearing in Old man Julie’s prophecy, this is the house that Maude hardly ever visits, using it as storage for all the junk she’s collected over the decades. Inside it’s like a hoarder’s den, but it doesn’t affect her because it’s all tucked away out of sight.

2. Maude’s true home sweet home, her glassworks studio where she spends much of her time working on orders and practicing her specialty glass-based magic. Up above the studio is a cute little shop and down below the studio is a quiet little basement retreat with a swinging hammock and a bountiful “garden,” when she’s burnt out she often closes herself in here to escape from visiting clients.