A Witch’s Night Out

“The demons there are whirling, and the spirits swirl about.
They sing their songs to Halloween. ‘Come join the fun,” they shout.

But we do not want to go there, so we run with all our might
And oh we will not go inside the haunted house tonight”

-Jack Prelutsky, “The Haunted House”


***

What went on in that town on Halloween night was secret, and the children were never allowed to know.

Parents sent their little ones to neighboring towns for trick or treating, and teens made pilgrimages elsewhere in the county for Halloween parties. No matter how willful or disobedient or downright sneaky a child might be, on Halloween they obeyed their parents’ orders and stayed away.

They knew, instinctively perhaps, that this secret was not for them.

It would have stayed that way if not for the letter. Carol-Anne trembled when she plucked it from the mailbox and read the address. Then she raced upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom, holding her breath as she slid the flap open. A heart-stopping second passed while she read the first few lines, and then she squealed.

Running back downstairs she burst in as her surprised mother and father prepared breakfast and cried, “I got it!” They looked confused, so she held up the letter.

“I got the scholarship,” she said. “I can go to Cal.”

She waited for their cries of joy, but none came. Instead her parents looked as if she’d sworn at them.

Mom was the first to recover, managing a weak smile before a tentative query: “I thought we were going to talk about it first?”

Dad looked away, like he always did when he was upset and trying not to show it. He’d even gone a little pale. Carol-Anne suddenly felt weak in the knees.

Dad realized his mistake and leapt to cover it. “We’re so proud,” he said, hugging her with one arm. “Just surprised. We didn’t even know you’d applied yet.”

“It’s wonderful news,” Mom added, managing a smile with a bit more life in it. They clucked happily for ten more minutes, sliding in veiled references to further “talks” only every third sentence or so. But it was too late.

Carol-Anne went back upstairs one clunking step after another, locked herself in the same bathroom, and cried very quietly. No matter what they said now, there was no mistaking the look on Mom and Dad’s faces: disappointment.

But that’s how it had always been in this town. Of the few kids who left for college every year, almost all drifted back, some within just a few months. It was a small community, and closely knit. Leaving was frowned on.

As far as most parents were concerned, the best thing that could happen to their children was to stay in town, marry someone from the town, and have children who themselves would stay in the town. Anything else was a betrayal. It was their second tradition, after the annual Halloween mystery, and in Carol-Anne’s mind the two things were connected.

She’d always thought that her parents were different, or at least that they would make a special exception for her. Hadn’t they always told her she could be anything she wanted? And now this.

So two nights later, she decided to get revenge.

Standing at the mirror, she smoothed her mask across her face and arranged her hair. The mask was a simple black domino across her eyes and a long, pointed beak for a nose. She wore a trailing black dress, a spidery black shawl, and a peaked black hat, but elected to leave the broom behind, not wanting it to slow her down. It was very much like the trick-or-treat costumes she’d worn as a child (in neighboring towns, of course). But tonight it meant something more.

She turned to the calendar. It was Halloween, and also her birthday. She was 18; the age of independence. And her first act would be to break the town’s one, sacred rule, which she’d abided by all her life. Every other kid was leaving tonight. But come hell or high water, Carol-Anne would stay.

Outside it was a clear, dark night, with a cold wind and a pale yellow moon. Her brother Thomas, two years her junior, tagged along after her, already dragging his feet. She’d used a combination of bribery and blackmail to coerce him into accompanying her. He’d never actually go through with the whole thing, she knew, but talking him into even this much made her revenge better.

Thomas dressed as the approximation of a ghost, blotchy white makeup covering his face underneath a white hooded cloak. He’d wanted to accessorize with some chains, but she’d vetoed them for being too noisy. He looked so dismal and skulking that Carol-Anne thought the next breeze might blow him away entirely.

“Wait for me,” Thomas said, as his cloak snagged on a bush, but Carol-Anne walked on. They took the old wagon road through the woods to ensure that they wouldn’t meet anyone, since they were both supposed to have left town hours ago, with the other kids. Thomas ran to catch up and was panting even from the short sprint, a scrawny, out-of-shape ghost too small for his own shroud.

“Why the hurry?” he said.

“We’re meeting someone. I don’t want to be late.”

In fact, she could see him now: Up ahead at the old crossroads waited a man with horns and a bright red cape. As they approached, he leered like a monstrous clown. Of course, it was only a mask, ill-fitting because its wearer kept his glasses on underneath.

Daniel raised it a few inches and smiled. Carol-Anne didn’t smile back, but she did squeeze his hand in greeting. “You made it,” she said.

“I told my dad I’d be in Summit tonight.”

“Us too.”

And normally they would be. Daniel least of all would want to miss the one night a year when even the most overbearing of parents was mysteriously indisposed, and the very young people were left completely to themselves.

But Daniel and Carol-Anne had grown up together, and the promise of the kiss she’d denied him so many times as kids playing in these same woods was enough to lure him away. (Probably he was planning on trying to get even more than a kiss, but it didn’t matter as long as he’d be there to back her up when Thomas inevitably lost his nerve…)

Hand in hand, they followed the old road. The woods at night used to scare Carol-Anne, with their skeletal trees and eerie calls of night birds, but now she enjoyed it. If she were a real witch she’d build her cabin right here and spend all night creeping through the black woods, looking for children to steal. The thought made her smile.

Daniel was already taking liberties, trying to get her to cuddle up to him as they walked and whispering whenever he talked, so that his mouth could be very close to her ear. He’d probably make a real move before they even got to the house on the hill, but that was all right. Maybe she’d even let him. Why not, at this point?

Dawdling again, Thomas said, “I hear something out there.”

“You’re imaging things,” Carol-Anne said.

“No, I hear it too,” said Daniel, looking over his shoulder. “Someone’s on the road behind us.”

“Into the bushes, quick,” Carol-Anne said.