The Gift of All Hallows’ Eve           (3,998 words)

   Halloween night was cold and clear, with a sharpness in the air that turned summer’s heat into a hazy memory. The air had a vibrancy that hinted of apples and shorn wheat fields – and the not-so-distant promise of snow.

   Katie, who had struggled for days with her costume, reckoned she was about as ready as she would ever be. She sat on her doorstep, itching and uncomfortable, holding her mask in her lap as she waited for her friends Eleanor and Brian to arrive. This was her first proper Halloween and she was almost as apprehensive about the evening to come as she was desperately eager.

   The door opened behind her and Katie turned around and looked up at her mother. Dressed as usual in shapeless, thrift store shirt and dowdy skirt, her mother was the epitome of middle-aged drab. So different from Brian’s mother, who wore working-woman’s clothes:  sharp, brightly colored blouses and suits, or Eleanor’s mother, who, while she did favor track suits and running shoes, was still young and pretty enough to pull it off.  

   “So, Katie,” said her mother pleasantly, “you are ready?”

   Katie nodded faintly. She knew her mother didn’t approve of trick-or-treating.

   Her mother now cleared her throat, still with that vague smile on her face.

   “And your friends – ah, but I see them now.”

   Katie nodded, wishing from the bottom of her heart that her mother would quietly disappear.

   “Very well, then, Katie,” said her mother. “Please be back before 10:00 and have someone accompany you home.”

   Katie nodded, overjoyed that her mother had not chosen to remain at the door.

   Eleanor and Brian were breathless. “Sorry it took us so long!” panted Eleanor.

   “What's that white thing?” asked Brian.

   Katie’s cheeks burnt. Brian and Eleanor had brown paper shopping bags illustrated with pumpkins, bats, and arching black cats. “It’s a pillowcase,” she admitted, “My mother – Mom, I mean – we just thought, you know, to carry the candy in –”

   “Here,” said Eleanor, handing her a brown paper bag just like her own. “I brought two just in case. If we get a lot of stuff, you can still use the pillowcase.  But this is what most kids use.”

   Katie nodded. She folded up her pillowcase and put it in her new brown bag.

   “What's that?” cried Eleanor suddenly. “That grey thing there. Is it a rock?”

   Brian saved Katie the trouble of answering this question. “It’s a tortoise. Katie and her Mom have about ten of ‘em and he’s the biggest and the oldest.”

   “His name is Sage,” said Katie. “I used to ride on his back.”

   “So that’s why you decided to be a turtle for Halloween!”

   Katie nodded. “I suppose it is.” She stroked Sage’s back lightly. She knew he couldn’t feel it, but she liked doing it anyway – and as she began to stroke him, Sage craned his long, wrinkly neck and peered up at her, his eyes full of earnest good will. Brian and Eleanor burst out laughing.

   “Put your turtle mask on – go on!” said Eleanor eagerly. Katie picked up her mask and fitted it over her head, breathing in its raw cardboard-and-tempera paint smell. “Cool!  You look just like him!” cried Eleanor.

   Was it her imagination, Katie wondered, or did Sage look offended?

   “Come on,” said Brian, “Let’s get going.”

   From Katie’s neighborhood in the fringes of the town, they walked to the suburban tract housing near the school where, according to Eleanor and Brian, the richest pickings were to be found.

   There were a lot of small children out with their parents. One little girl had on a particularly strange costume.  She was dressed as a fairy princess in sequined gold and silver tulle, but she was completely bald.  In one hand, the little girl clutched a plastic wand; in the other, a brown paper bag just like theirs. Her mother carried a child-sized wig of garish yellow, and her face was fixed in an expression of exasperated endurance.

   Katie felt Eleanor’s hand squeezing her arm. “Don’t stare, Katie,” she hissed under her breath.

   Katie felt herself blushing. “Why not?”.

   “She’s got something wrong with her,” whispered Brian. “I saw kids like her when I was in the hospital. They have to take this really nasty medicine to make them better and it makes all their hair fall out.”

   Katie, who knew that Brian had a tendency to exaggerate, remained silent.

   “I’ll bet that’s why she had the wig,” said Eleanor.

   “Then why wasn’t she wearing it?” Katie wanted to know.

   “She probably didn’t want to.” Brian took off his samurai warrior mask. “Maybe it’s as hot and stuffy as this thing.”

   Katie snaked a finger under the front her turtle mask and scratched her chin. Her forehead itched and sweat was beading up on both sides of her face and along her nose. The evening was growing cold, but inside her well-padded costume with its aluminium foil breast plate and papier-mâché shell, she was uncomfortably warm. And itchy.

   Suddenly Eleanor and Brian let out whoops and Katie, trailing behind, peered over their shoulders. They had passed the school and just ahead of them was a dream of a house:  the whole place was lit up with glowing jack-o-lanterns carved from pumpkins, the doorway busy with brightly-coloured trick-or-treaters.

   “Come on!” cried Brian. “Let’s trick or treat!”

---

   Julie, still clutching Kylie’s wig in one hand, half-pulled Kylie along with the other and, for the umpteenth time that day, stifled the urge to scream. She had asked Kylie repeatedly if she wanted to go home, but the answer was always no. No, she didn’t want to go home. No, she didn’t want to wear the fairy princess wig. No, she wouldn’t walk any faster, but no she didn’t want to stop for a rest. And no, she didn’t want to be carried either.

   Actually, this whole trick-or-treating thing had been her idea from the start, not Kylie’s. She'd pushed it because she remembered how much fun it had been when she was a kid. The excitement of it!  The thrill of going up to absolutely any house you cared to, shouting ‘trick or treat!’ and getting handfuls of candy, just like that! Every Halloween, out with her pals, for all those years she was growing up. All those years that Kylie, she knew for a fact, wouldn’t have.

   Last year Kylie had been so ill, there was no question of her going, but this year, after what the doctors had told her… Ah, the whole idea of trick-or-treating with Kylie had been a mistake, she knew that now, but Kylie was, maddeningly enough, determined not to go home and, always a stubborn child, there was no stopping her. She knew how tired Kylie must be, how weak. But she had such a strong will!  And such a will to live! It just didn’t seem possible that in six months’ time – maximum –  according to the doctors –

   “Mommy, you’re hurting!” squealed Kylie, and Julie jumped.

   “I’m sorry honey.” She relaxed her hold on Kylie’s hand. “How about that house over there?” She waved Kylie’s wig at a two-storey house with a huge jack-o-lantern on the doorstep and black cat cut-outs on the front door. Kylie shook her head.

   “Well, okay then, how about that one?” She gestured at another brightly-lit house with a throng of children in front of it. But Kylie stubbornly shook her head, so they walked on.

   “Alright, then, tell you what:  we’ll just walk along and you tell me where you want to go, okay? But I want you to know, you’re missing out on a lot of good stuff. Really, really missing out –”

  Julie suddenly drew in her breath and fought the urge to sob. “And you really ought to put that wig on, you know.”

   “Don’t want to,” muttered Kylie. They walked along in silence for the better part of five minutes, when Kylie suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and pointed.

   “There!  I want to go to that house!”

   Julie, lost in her own thoughts, looked in the direction Kylie was pointing. What in the world was the kid thinking? They had managed to drift from a prosperous- looking neighbourhood into one that could best be described as shabby semi-rural. The house, even in the growing dusk, looked unremarkably plain if not downright neglected. No lights were on in the house at all. There was not a trick-or-treater in sight.

   “Kylie, I don’t think that’s a trick-or-treat house,” ventured Julie. “And there’s no one at home – see? There’s no car in the driveway--” She stopped and considered for a moment; in fact, there was no driveway. “Come on, honey, there are loads of better places than this.”

   But Kylie was not to be dissuaded.  “This house!” she insisted. And before Julie could stop her, she had pushed open the rusty gate and started up the pathway to the door. Oh what the hell, thought Julie. Let her find out for herself.

   She stood patiently, waiting for Kylie to realize that there was no one at home, nothing here for her, when suddenly she started:  the grey boulder near the door, which she had assumed was an ill-placed garden ornament, had moved. It was an absolutely giant tortoise!  Kylie, however, took no notice of this, but walked past it, straight up to the door, and knocked.

   The door opened immediately. Julie, who had just gotten over the shock of the tortoise, was so taken aback that she almost cried out.

   “Why, hello,” said the frumpy-looking middle-aged woman at the door.

   “Is that a turtle?” demanded Kylie, pointing behind her.

   “He is indeed,” replied the woman, “or as some would say, a tortoise. His name is Sage and –” she smiled conspiratorially – “he told me you were coming this evening!”

   Kylie pondered this for a moment. “I’ve got a wig,” she volunteered, in her clear, piping voice, “in fact I’ve got two, but I don’t like to wear them. Mommy carries them for me. But she can’t make me wear them!”

   “So I see,” replied the woman, smiling pleasantly.

   “Look, I’m sorry,” Julie interjected, “I know we must be bothering you, showing up here like this when your lights were off, but –”

   “Not at all,” replied the woman. “You must be new here – I don’t remember seeing you two in the neighborhood before.”

   “Well yes, actually, we don’t live here,” said Julie, smiling ruefully, marvelling at the difference between living in a big, impersonal city and a small town. Everyone knew they didn’t belong here, it seemed. “We’re from Chicago, but my stepmother lives here, and she offered to let us stay with her until Kylie – well, Kylie’s been ill and –”  

   All of a sudden Kylie interrupted.

   “Trick or treat!” she called out loudly, grinning from ear to ear.

   “Goodness, yes,” the woman answered. “I had almost forgotten. Halloween it is, and you must be here for a treat!”

   “No, really,” interjected Julie, growing desperate. “You don’t have to –”

   But the woman had gone off to find the treat.   Moonlight glinted over the tortoise’s back. Julie, still gripping Kylie’s hand, glanced down at him and was surprised to see that he was looking up at her, his eyes – well, she knew it was silly, but honestly, they were filled with, what – compassion? Empathy? Understanding?

   “Here you are,” said the woman, back at the door. She handed Kylie what looked like a piece of dried-up apricot, which was – for God’s sake! – wrapped up in a thin strip of old cheesecloth. What century was this woman from? Hadn’t she heard about the nutcases who put drugs in wrapped candies; needles and razor blades in apples? She gaped at the woman in disbelief, but what was even more mind-boggling was that Kylie, who normally wouldn’t eat anything green, red or orange that wasn’t largely comprised of preservatives, had removed the nasty-looking, gummy thing from its cheesecloth wrapping and popped it into her mouth. “Kylie!” she managed to blurt out, just before Kylie swallowed, but it was too late.

   The frumpy woman beamed down at her. “Was that good?” she enquired.

   “Yes!” shouted Kylie. Julie felt just as though she was in the middle of a particularly bizarre dream. She smiled weakly at the woman and said, “Well, really, thank you so much, but I think we’d better –” when Kylie interrupted her.       

   “I’m thirsty now,” she said to the woman very matter-of-factly, ignoring her mother’s embarrassed protestations. “Can I please have a drink?”

   “Of course,” the woman answered. She disappeared into the house and for a moment, then came back with a glass of something. She smiled at Kylie.

   “Now Kylie – that is your name, is it not? – this drink is a treat, but I must tell you that it is not a tasty treat.”

   Kylie nodded her head gravely.

   “All the other children you see walking about tonight are looking for treats that make them happy for just a short time, but this drink – while it is not tasty – it will give you a different kind of happiness, a happiness truly worthy of a fairy princess.”

   Again Kylie nodded. She carefully took the drink from the woman and her small hands shook a little, making the contents of the glass shift, leaving viscous green streaks down the inside of the rim.

   Julie, rooted to the spot, suddenly felt her mouth go dry. What in the world was going on here?

“No,” she cried out urgently, “Kylie, no!”

 She reached out and took the glass from Kylie, sloshing the liquid again. It looked like so much algae, served up in a glass. Pond scum. Slime.

   “Mommy, I want it!” wailed Kylie plaintively. “I’m thirsty!”  Julie looked down at her, then up at the woman. The woman looked back at her levelly. Gently she put out her hand and took the glass from Julie, setting it carefully on the edge of a window. Then – still with great gentleness – she took Julie’s hands in both of hers. Julie stared back at her in awe. Her hands – always cold from autumn through spring – were suddenly suffused with warmth. She found herself, of her own accord, reaching for the glass and handing it to Kylie.

  “Go on,” she murmured, stroking Kylie’s head. “Go ahead and drink it.”

    Kylie held the glass to her lips and drained it dry.

   “Yuck!” she exclaimed, screwing up her face and sticking out her tongue.

   “Kylie!” her mother exclaimed, but the woman merely smiled and shook her head.

   “It is nasty stuff, yes. But are you still thirsty?” she inquired, smiling down at Kylie.

   “Nope. I’m not.” Kylie handed the glass back to the woman and turned back to Julie. “I want to go now,” she chirped.

   “Kylie!” cried Julie, “don’t be rude!”

   But the woman laughed and patted Julie’s hand. “You mustn’t worry about that! She has had her treat, now, and after all, she is a princess! Now, Kylie, you are free to go, but first I must have a hug. A nice, big hug for that nasty treat!” 

   Julie groaned inwardly, remembering Kylie’s responses to similar requests for hugs and kisses from sweet old aunties, but – would wonders never cease? – Kylie had turned to the woman and was hugging her fiercely – indeed as if her life depended on it. The woman laughed again and patted Kylie on the head.

   From a distance, Julie could hear someone saying, almost pleadingly, “Can I have a hug too?” And then suddenly the woman was hugging her too: a great, warm, comforting hug that filled her with a sense of enormous well-being. I will never be the same she found herself thinking. I will never, ever forget this.

   “Mommy!” Kylie called out, “can we go home?”

   The woman smiled at them. “Go now,” she said, “and get some good sleep tonight. Both of you. And Kylie, when your hair grows in again, do hold still when your mother brushes it for you!”

---

   Katie, Brian and Eleanor had almost filled their bags by this time, having collected candy bars, toffee, chewing gum, candy corn, M&Ms, and – from the health-conscious mothers of friends – apples, peanuts and raisins.      

   “Why don’t we go to my place and get more bags?” offered Eleanor. 

   But Brian had another idea. “My place is closer. And my Mom’s made caramel-covered apples this time.”

   That settled it:  Eleanor’s apartment building was quite a distance and Brian’s mother was famous for her caramel-covered apples.  For a few minutes they walked along in silence, then Katie spoke.  “My Mom never gives out stuff on Halloween.”

   Eleanor and Brian remained silent.

   “And she never makes desserts or stuff like that. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

   Brian and Eleanor shrugged. They did, but they hardly wanted to say so.

   Katie sighed. “My Mom’s so weird. Do you know what she did tonight, just before she gave me the pillowcase? She sprinkled salt in my hair!”

   Brian suddenly interrupted her. “Wanna cut through the park? I know we’re not supposed to, but since there’s three of us and all….”

   “Okay,” replied Eleanor and Katie simultaneously. The night air had grown chill as they entered the park, which was spookier than usual with its towering trees. Park benches loomed up at them out of the darkness, as did rubbish bins and swing sets.

   Katie continued. “My Mom doesn’t believe in doing anything fun.We never go places, we never eat out, and we never buy candy.”

   Eleanor shrugged and said with careful nonchalance, “My Mom always says there’s more than one way to be a Mom. Your Mom’s just – different.”

   “Yeah,” said Brian, “and your tortoises are cool, Katie. My Mom won’t even let me have a goldfish. You’d never take care of it, she’s always saying.”

   They were suddenly interrupted by a group of teenagers who came from behind a clump of bushes and moved threateningly close to them. One of them loomed in front of Eleanor, who was in the lead, flapping bat-like wings of black tulle and opening her mouth to reveal shockingly realistic-looking yellow fangs dripping in red. “Ahhhhh!” she hissed, making to grab Eleanor by the shoulders. “Fresh child! Tasty, delectable, fresh chiiiiiild!”

    Eleanor jumped back. “Beat it!” she yelled. “Get lost!”

   The bat began to cackle menacingly and dance around them in circles, mimicking Eleanor, while yet another black-garbed teenager threw herself at them, chortling and gibbering, her face painted into a terrible mask covered with warts and spider webs. Her lower lip, sporting several rings, was turned down in a menacing leer.

   “Eye of newt!  Tail of cockroach!  Skin of fresh-killed lizard!” she shrieked, waving her arms at Katie. “Give us your candy – all of it! – or we shall turn you into mice, boil you into a paste and spread you on dried snake-skin and eat you up!”

   “Put a sock in it why don’t you?” Eleanor muttered. “Buzz off, you weirdoes.” Brian, who had contrived to hide behind Eleanor during most of this, now grabbed her and Katie when a third teenager, this one very tall and thin with a shockingly white face and red mouth, quietly put his arms around Brian’s waist and said, in a low, menacing voice, “Not so fast, young gentleman.”

   They were surrounded. One of the girls had Katie by the shoulders, the other only just managed to hold onto Eleanor by the elbows, and the boy had trapped Brian. Never had Katie known such pure terror.

   “Anything wrong here?” enquired a voice. Katie jerked free of the bat’s arms and looked. It was the woman and the little bald girl they had seen earlier. The bat-girl released her hold on Katie and laughed. “Naa,” she said, in pure Midwestern twang, “we’re just kidding around.”

   The vampire and the witch quickly released Brian and Eleanor as another group of children approached them, followed by their mothers. “Hi, Brian, hi Eleanor,” called a chubby girl dressed all in green, her hair in a long braid down her back. The three teenage Goths silently slunk back into the park.

   The woman and her little girl were still standing there, Katie realized. And the woman, who earlier had looked so ill-tempered and stressed-out, was wearing a dazzling smile that Katie actually had to look away for a moment. Was this the same woman? The little girl, too, looked different. “I just saw a turtle!” she proudly announced.

   “No kidding?” said Brian. “Was it a really big one?”

   “Yeah,” replied the little girl. She put down the wand she was carrying and assumed a serious expression as she stretched her short arms into the biggest circle she could make with them. “It was thiiiiis big!!”

   “Hey, Katie, I’ll bet she went to your house,” laughed Eleanor.

   “Was the tortoise in front of the house?” asked Brian.

   “Yeah, and the lady was nice. She said his name was Sage.”

   Brian and Eleanor burst out laughing. Katie remained in stony silence for a moment, then asked rather tersely, “Did she give you anything?”

   “No,” said the little girl, serious again. “Mommy said it wasn’t a trick-or-treat house.”

   “But she was nice, the lady, wasn’t she, Kylie?” smiled Kylie's mother.

   “Yes. And she showed me her turtle. And now I want to run all the way home.” The little girl flung her arms up and began hopping about maniacally on one leg.

   Her mother laughed. ‘Come on, then. You can run tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that!” She laughed again.

    Katie, Brian and Eleanor stared after them for a moment.

   “That was weird,” said Brian softly.

  “Yeah, it sure was,” mused Eleanor. “She reminded me of one of those ladies who comes to the door asking if you’ve accepted Jesus. Come on, we’d better follow them out of the park in case those Goths are still there. God, that was scary.” She shuddered.

   Katie sighed and followed them. She was glad that the little girl had been so enthusiastic about Sage. Having tortoises for pets was, she supposed, something special. But once – just once – how nice it would be if her mother could be like other mothers and give out sweets for Halloween.