The woman stood near the edge of the Chickahominy, her tattered dress soiled with peaty marshland mud. She could hear the soft, trickling sounds of the river as she held her lantern up against the cool night’s breeze. There, in the distance, she heard the sound again…and then again, she saw the flickering light, eerie as it danced around on the other side of the river. She held her lantern high, out in front of her and waited.
 
 

"Yank, you better come out and given your ow’ing self up…don’t tempt the devil on a night like this!" she yelled out in a thick Irish brogue, looking to the last place she had seen the bright, but fleeting light.
 
 

She waited; the snap of a twig was heard, the sound of the parting of water as if someone had forded the river. She backed up, swallowing hard. She should have been back in town. Seven Pines was over five miles from where she had started. But, after the battle, after all the killing and wounding, she was sent out, or forced out to hunt down the dead or dying and take their possessions from them. She would not be welcomed back at Eventyn without a trinket. Indentured as she was, she had not taken to the work as she had envisioned. Ireland seemed so far away and this war was the bloodiest and cruelest test of her faith in all of mankind.
 
 

A deep, guttural moan of pain made her jump as her chest heaved in fear and she swung the lantern around to the sound. A flickering, phosphorescent light suddenly moved rapidly toward her and the hair on the back of her neck rose as the stench of death surrounded her;
 
 

"Will-o’-the-wisp!" she cried out, screaming then as the cold fingers touched her, moving up her body toward her neck.
 
 

Suddenly, the woman looked straight at the demon and frowned;
 
 

"Hey- he’s not suppose to feel me up, just strangle me!"
 
 

"CUT!"
 
 

Lucinda Scott put her hands up in the air; "What?"
 
 

"Damn it, Scott- the scene was perfect and then you had to, you just had to go and complain about this demon’s method acting! Anything else now?" asked Gary Sanderlin, the director as he threw his cap to the ground and glared at her.
 
 

"Well, yes," she replied, stubbornly as she put her hand over her eyes, peering back at the lights from the crew and looking for the person she had fault with as well; "Rollie? You’re flashing that crazy dancing light stuff right in my eyes. I can’t see my mark!"
 
 

Rollie Tyler stood with hands on hips, his eyes rolling slightly as Gary Sanderlin looked back at him as if he was now going to blame him for the botched scene.
 
 

"Luce, the sequence here calls for the lights to flash in your eyes…close up, camera two, angle in on Siobhan’s eyes, catching reflection from lights. It’s right here…" Rollie protested as he came forward, sequence book in hand.
 
 

Lucinda Scott was tired. The marsh they were shooting at, on location near Seven Pines was cold, damp and stunk to high heaven. She wanted nothing more than to be back in her hotel room, wrapped up in the covers of her bed, drinking a nice warm cup of tea.
 
 

"Okay…okay…sorry everyone, look- I just don’t get the groping, you know? Why would a Will-o’-the-wisp be doing this? After all, what’s his motivation?"
 
 

The crew started to laugh as the demon, played by Judd Tolsen, a rather brooding young actor, pulled off his demon headpiece, letting it fall to the ground with a thud.
 
 

"Bloody hell!" Rollie exclaimed, rushing toward them as Lucinda moved quickly out of his way. But Rollie wasn’t the first to get to the hapless actor as he stopped cold in his tracks. Someone had beaten him to the punch.
 
 

"Hey, you think I spend all night working on the programming and putting the hardware inside that thing so that you can slam it to the ground and dislodge my jasper chip!"
 
 

Angie Tyler was already letting him have it as she clenched her jaw and grabbed the headpiece as if it was a baby that had been thrown down to the ground.
 
 

"What? Who the hell are you and what the hell is a jasper chip?" Judd Tolsen replied, staring down at the attractive but very angry woman in front of him. He smiled then but this chick was not even melting to his charm and handsome smile.
 
 

"A jasper chip…if you knew anything about F/X, or what’s going on in industry work with computer micro-interfaced system boards…oh forget it!" Angie replied, already noting that some of intricate boards she had placed so carefully into the headpiece had detached, one lying next to his boot.
 
 

"Don’t move!" she ordered, putting her hand up in the air as she bend down to pick up the miniature board.
 
 

"What?" Tolsen asked, shaking his head and stepping forward. There was the sound of a slight crunch as his boot crushed the board.
 
 

Angie’s cry was unintelligible as Rollie ran over and tried to stop what he thought might happen next. He knew she had stayed up all night finishing the work. She had been so proud. It had taken some time, but Angie was back in form, her work never better as they had started stacking up the jobs again. Since returning from Spain, she had found a renewed sense of center. Tyler F/X was strong and profitable again.
 
 

Angie stopped in mid-curse, realizing that it wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Rollie was looking at her, the Tolsen creep, and Lucinda who had just had her own fit, stopping the scene.
 
 

"Fine…I’ll just pop this baby back into the dung heap I created it from and start all over…" she said, her voice pressured but not loud. She picked up the headpiece, smiled at Rollie who opened his mouth in surprise and then walked off the set.
 
 

"Oh Mama, does she have some cajones on her!" remarked Judd Tolsen as he whistled and smiled.
 
 

"No cajones, Tolsen, I should know, she’s my wife…but I will say, she has set a few bastards straight who buggared her work. My advice is a quick apology…else, you never know when she might give you a zap when you’re wearing that pumpkin’s head."
 
 

Lucinda smiled at Rollie, then back to her co-star who was looking a bit sheepish at the moment.
 
 

"Okay folks, we aren’t going to do this scene again tonight. It’s a wrap. See everyone here tomorrow, 4 A.M. We can still shoot this scene with a night drop," Gary Sanderlin shouted.
 
 

"But Gary! It IS tomorrow!" Lucinda retorted, looking at the camera clock and seeing that it was 12:30 A.M.
 
 

"Get some sleep, Scott and stop worrying about the demon’s motivations, okay?" the director ordered her as he slammed his clipboard down and walked away.
 
 

"Um, tell me again why I came back to New York?" Lucinda asked Rollie, putting her arm in his as he walked her back over to the F/X van.
 
 

"To be with us…oh, and Marvin…" he replied, smiling then as they both heard the sound of something crashing inside the van.
 
 

"Hmmm, Angie must be accepting Judd’s apology, eh?" Rollie commented, winking at her.
 
 

Judd Tolsen was angry. He stormed into his R/V and tried to relax but that Angie Tyler had really set him off. He had done just as her husband had advised him to do…he went over to the F/X van and knocked on the door.
 
 

Seeing her face, reddened still and the obvious turned down of her mouth, still did not stop him from stepping inside and telling her he was sorry about the headpiece. She seemed to calm down somewhat but her arms were crossed over her chest still as she glared at him.
 
 

"So, again, I’m sorry and well, your husband really is a great F/X artist and must be proud to have you as his assistant. I mean, ah, married and all. It’s nice he took you into the business and showed you a few things…" he had continued to tell her and therein, was his downfall.
 
 

Something, he didn’t know exactly what flew past him with amazing speed, barely missing his face. He backed away, staggering backward down the stairs of the van, realizing that this woman really wasn’t someone to mess around with. He muttered a curse under his breath and walked off to his R/V, hoping that the special effects portion of his work would be limited to Rollie Tyler.
 
 

And now, he paced…trying to calm down and get himself centered. Grabbing an aromatherapy candle, he lit it and tried sitting and taking deep breaths.
 
 

"Hussy!" he hissed as he took in his last deep breath before blowing it out.
 
 

Angie looked down at the flathead screwdriver that had landed near the front windshield. She was shaking slightly as she picked it up. The hair on her head was standing up as pins and needles ran along the back of her neck up into her hairline.
 
 

What happened? she asked herself, with bizarre implications as she stared at the red and yellow handle. There were several wide cracks in the hard plastic of the handle and as she ran her fingers into them, she pulled back in shock and pain. They were icy cold! She looked out the window, seeing Rollie and Luce walking toward the van and contemplated the situation.
 
 

Okay, it’s been a long day….maybe I just need some sleep, she thought, but her hand began to shake as she could no longer hold onto the screwdriver letting it fall on the floor again. The thing was…she had never thrown the screwdriver to begin with….and as she looked down at her fingertips, there were growing a mottled purplish blue.