Hangman’s Mistletoe [Wraith]
They hung it as a joke, at least that’s what they swore when anyone bothered to ask who brought the cursed thing in from the cold,
A sprig of mistletoe too lush for supermarket plastic, its berries glossy as fresh lies, its stems twisted like green rope grown old,
It went up in the doorway between the living room and the hall at the annual bad-sweater party that no one really wanted but everyone still came to,
Right where drunk friends and cheating spouses and people hiding in punch cups had to pass beneath it, like a toll booth for every almost and half-finished “I love you.”
The house smelled like cinnamon spray and overworked heaters, cheap wine and fear trying hard to pass as cheer,
Garlands sagged, lights blinked on extension cords that should have been retired ten years ago, speakers hissed out carols no one wanted to hear,
Someone burned the pigs in a blanket, someone cried quietly in the bathroom, someone picked at the label on their beer until it shredded in their hand,
Outside the windows, snow fell steady on trash cans and tire tracks while inside we pretended the world didn’t exist past this rented band.
The mistletoe watched it all.
At first it was just decoration, a bad romantic trap, a joke hung crooked on a bent brass hook,
A few people pointed, smirked, dragged friends under it with a theatrical “oooh,” hoping for a selfie, a scandal, or at least a good look,
A couple of brave idiots kissed there early, more show than heat, quick pecks to feed the rumor mill and prove they weren’t shy,
Everyone clapped and whooped and went back to their phones, not noticing how the berries seemed to pulse once with each contact, as if they were learning how to pry.
Mara was the first one the house really wanted.
Her lipstick was a deep wine red that didn’t need a filter, her laugh sharp enough to slice through Mariah Carey and clinking glass,
She spent the night pinballing from circle to circle, dodging her ex, dodging questions about the job she’d just quit before it could finish grinding her down into corporate mulch and gas,
Every year she said she hated this holiday, hated the forced sparkle and the forced forgiveness and the way everyone suddenly remembered Jesus like a gym membership they’d been ignoring since fall,
Every year she showed up anyway, eyeliner perfect, heart patched together with safety pins and sarcasm, shoulders stiff but back straight and tall.
By ten-thirty she’d had enough spiked cider to soften the edges of the room,
Music sweating, bodies grazing, ugly sweaters flashing LED snowmen in cheap neon gloom,
Jake (different party, same Jake, the universe only prints so many) leaned in with that look that says he’d like to make a mistake and blame it on the date,
Pointed up at the doorway, at the dangling green noose over their heads, grinned, and said, “C’mon, Mara, tradition—let’s just let the universe decide our fate.”
She rolled her eyes so hard heaven probably felt it, but she stepped closer anyway, because that’s what people like us do when we see a warning sign,
We square our shoulders, raise our chin, and pretend we own the danger, even when our stomach drops and some old, buried instinct screams this is not fine,
The crowd around them whistled, phones slid out, someone started chanting “kiss, kiss, kiss” like they were summoning something from the floor,
The mistletoe hung motionless, shadow pooling thicker right under it, the air a touch too cold just where their faces tilted more.
Their lips met. Quick. Soft. Almost sweet.
The kind of kiss you give when you’re not sure if you’re starting something or just trying to prove you still can stand contact and heat,
For half a second nothing happened, just the usual rush of awkward electricity and the taste of cinnamon and doubt,
Then the room seemed to tilt, slow and subtle, as if the house exhaled in relief and let some hidden presence step in and look around without a shout.
Mara jerked back first, not with a laugh but with a hand to her mouth, eyes wide like she’d bitten glass not Jake,
Her pupils blown, skin pale, one palm flat against the doorway as if she thought the cheap drywall might quake,“What the hell,” she whispered, voice thin, and everyone laughed because they thought she meant the kiss,
No one saw the faint gray smear on her lips where the color had drained, like someone took an eraser to part of her bliss.
Jake chuckled, shrugged, tried to play it off, but his fingers wouldn’t quite unclench from the frame overhead,
He gave the mistletoe a joking salute, but his eyes didn’t quite match the grin; something behind them flickered, some new, quiet thread,“Guess I’m cursed now,” he joked, because that’s what you say when you feel a shiver you can’t explain crawl up your spine,
Someone yelled “join the club,” another tossed confetti that stuck to his hair like dandruff from an unholy shrine.
After that, the room shifted.
Laughs sounded half a tone too high, then dropped into mutters,
The playlist looped to the same song three times before anyone noticed; the chorus stuttered, skipped, and repeated certain words until teeth clenched and nerves fluttered,
People started avoiding the doorway without meaning to, conversation drifting to other corners,
Those who had already kissed there kept glancing back at the dangling leaves like exiles who’d crossed the wrong border.
The mistletoe changed.
Not visibly, not in ways that would show up in a photo,
But its berries seemed brighter when no one looked, its leaves casting shadows that didn’t match their own angles, bending low,
Whispers collected underneath it, conversations that never quite left, replaying in a low murmur even after the speakers cut to static and the last guests draped themselves over couches or coats,
Anyone pausing under that arch alone would feel breath on the back of their neck, hear their own worst doubts repeated in a dozen familiar throats.
Some couples fled early, fights erupting over nothing at all—burned appetizers, forgotten gifts, a text answered too slowly,
Words flew sharp as icicles, accusations about trust and attention and who loved who more or less, thrown carelessly and lowly,
Each time they passed beneath the mistletoe, the argument twisted, deepened, dug claws into secrets they hadn’t planned to share,
Like some invisible hand reached down through the leaves and sifted through their worst thoughts, throwing up whatever hurt the most into the air.
Kisses turned rare. Then stopped.
Even the drunkest among them found themselves skirting the threshold, taking the longer path through the kitchen, bumping into cupboards and ovens instead,
No one spoke about it, but all at once the classic game of tugging people under the green had died like a joke that suddenly felt tired and misread,
Someone tried to yank the sprig down—tiny, furious Aunt Elaine with three gins in her—She reached up, fingers grazing the stem, then froze with a hiss, jerking her hand back, muttering she’d felt a thorn where there shouldn’t have been one there.
By midnight, the house felt like a lung held half-empty,
Music low, bodies slumped, the distant grind of snowplows and sirens outside blending into a tired, industrial symphony,
Mara sat on the stairs with a blanket around her shoulders, staring at nothing,
Jake nursed a drink in the corner, eyes locked on the doorway as if it might twitch or jump or start humming.
If you looked closely, you would’ve seen it:For every kiss stolen earlier under those leaves—every peck, every dare, every lingering stolen taste—The mistletoe had grown another tiny berry, white at the core, ringed in faint red like veins traced into paste,
Each one holding a small, perfect scene: a shared secret, a bedroom confession, a promise whispered too quietly to take back,
The plant was not only cursed; it was collecting, hoarding, knitting together a wreath of all the ways love goes off track.
It liked this.
The more the party sagged, the more the decorations dimmed, the more the jokes fell flat and the toasts tasted hollow,
The healthier the leaves looked, evergreen in a room full of fading, flushed faces and slurred promises none of them would see fit to follow,
The air under it swapped oxygen for something else—a heady mix of regret, hunger, and heat that never reached the skin,
Stand there too long and you’d feel your heart lean forward, ready to leap at the next disaster disguised as a grin.
Around two in the morning, when only the stubborn, the lonely, and the too-wired remained,
When half-finished cups of punch lined every flat surface and text messages piled up unsent and un-explained,
The devil came to check his handiwork.
Not as a red monster with horns, not as a shadow slinking down the hall,
Just as a draft that smelled faintly of smoke and pine sap mixed with hospital disinfectant, sliding along the wall,
The frost on the inside of the windows shifted into a smirk for a heartbeat, sharp edges in the ice tracing a curve that knew exactly what it had done,
Then faded, leaving only streaks where someone’s warm hand had brushed away the pattern to see if morning had begun.
He didn’t need to show up in person; the plant was enough.
A wreath of woe, dressed up as romance,
Hung where lonely people and messy love stories came to dance,
It didn’t kill with poison or blood or sudden disease; it worked slower,
Binding hearts with invisible wire so that every future kiss anywhere felt a little colder,
Making sure every time they thought of that night, they tasted not sugar but ash,
Not cinnamon but the metallic tang of a promise burning out fast.
The story spread later, the way these things do—Not as “demonic horticulture ruined our holiday,” but as “don’t hang mistletoe in that house, you know what happened last year, boo,”Friends rolled their eyes, called it superstition, then quietly moved the plant a few feet, or didn’t hang it at all,
Yet every December, when someone mentions getting a sprig for a party, their hand hovers an extra second over the display at the mall.
Some nights, if you pass that street late,
You can see a faint shape under the porch light—leaves and berries with no branch to support their weight,
Just hanging in the middle of the doorway, swaying in a wind that never touches the trees,
You’ll feel your chest tighten, remember someone you should not text, taste a kiss you should not repeat, knees weak with old pleas,
And you’ll step off the curb, cross to the other side, laugh too loudly at your own jumpy mind,
Because you know better now: not every tradition is kind,
And some green things in winter only stay alive by feeding on what we give up when we’re trying too hard not to be alone,
Every plastic bow and glossy berry just another skull on a wreath built from hearts gnawed down to the bone.