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So, long time ago, I began hashing my spirituality together. I don't have much of a label for it, and it's been a real challenge piecing together my beliefs from nothing. Y'all already know about The Babez (Loki, Azazel, Hel, Lucy...and recently Hypnos) but I haven't really talked about the very beginnings of finding my babez.

I have pretty vivid dreams. I've been told the way I dream is unusual. I don't believe that at all, but it is relevant to this story. I used to write down dream notes, if my dream was particularly interesting one night. Nothing big, just snippets of stuff I remember. I have one, still, in my phone, that shook me because of how real it felt.

In the dream there was a man, as I described him he had "Dark hair and bright blue eyes". They were like, shining blue. A very specific tint. In this dream, I knew this guy was named William. Which was a big deal at the time, because William was what I had named this entity that seemed to hang around and look out for me. I named him William myself, which is important because I need you to know that I did not believe that to be his real name, just one that I could use to recognise him personally.

Anyways, he was standing on the public road that runs beside the neighborhood I grew up in. This road...it's significant to me emotionally. One night, when I was so depressed, I felt trapped, and at 3am, I wandered out of my parent's house and down this road. I got to a stoplight at the end of my neighborhood, on this specific road, and realised what I was doing, and turned around. It's one of the most...personal and scary experiences I have ever had with my MDD. So, of course he was standing on this specific road. No other road had such significance to me as someone who was lost.

I remember I pulled a ring out of my chest, because this was The William, and I wanted him to know how important he was to me. He had been talking to me about granting wishes, and I wanted to give him something as payment. It was specifically a banding made of white bone, and copper wire, with a blood red ruby set in it. I knew it was made of me, and I offered it to him. I thought for sure he would take it, it was a gift. But, instead he closed my hand around it and said "Just wait". Which, made me so sad at the time because I had taken this straight out of my own soul, and he was saying eh didn't want it.

He disappeared, and then behind me was this huge fox. Foxes have no significance to me. Spiritually or personally. I like them. Who doesn't like foxes? But like, they aren't as significant as William or the road. To this day, I don't know why this was a fox.

It was gigantic. The size of a three story building. I turned to look at it, and it was so injured. It was just having a fit on this road, and was obviously on the brink of dying. I walked over to try to help it...and it suddenly got better. It stood up, and i remember trying to speak to it. I asked if it was okay. It hadn't looked at me until this point, and when it did it barred it's teeth. Then let out this howl that shook me to my bones. I woke up, not like in a sweat, but my heart...I could still feel the vibrations of that howl.

I've kept that dream in a note app in my phone for like 10 years. William kind of faded away over the years, as hardship and depression piled on. I never figured out his identity in the world. He was this strange...real...fake...being, that just seemed to care about me.

Then, the other day, I was at my job, listening to folklore podcasts. I love Celtic folklore in particular. I've been all up into some pixies and Fae lately; And, this one episode I was listening to was explaining the jack o' lantern. Which comes from Jack of the Lantern, who also has friends like Joan of the Wad, and Kitty of the Lantern. They're names for sources of light, kind of personified. I always found that so endearing. That people named their light sources, like they had little souls. Then, the podcast talked about Will O' The Wisp, and I had to stop what I was working on...because pieces just fell into place. You see, I always thought Will' O' The Wisp stood for "The will of the wisp", with the wisp being like the name of the creatures that lured travelers from paths at night. But, this podcast named it as William of the Wisp. Like Joan the Wad and Jack the Lantern. Wisp is the name of the light source, not the entity that inhabits that light source.

Everytime I have seen these little Will O The Wisps portrayed in media, they have usually been blue. A bright, luminescent shade of this lovely kind of periwinkle blue. Like William's eyes.

Is that who he is?

Have I encountered The Wil' O' The Wisp...on a road...that I was lost on...at night?

I've never had a spiritual experience fall so perfectly in line as this one has. It's....crazy to me that things fit so well. My piecing together of my own spirituality rarely ever falls in line with an established mythos.

But this...

I haven't thought about William in years. Like maybe a decade. And suddenly it seems that dream might have been something more than just a piecing together of random images in my subconscious. I don't really believe in prophetic dreaming, but this....it's just so strange.

Anyways, here's to William. If he is still lingering around. I plan to give him, Joan, and Jack a permanent light on my altar. I've also decided to dedicate my favorite pumpkin light to him, because it is this hazy blue almost ghostly color.

I hope I see him again. Maybe this is why he told me to wait? I dunno.

Happy October, friends! I hope this story gave you a second of spookiness in this lovely spooky season. It's the closest thing I have to a ghost story.