Candy and carnage, thick in the air. Danger, sweet on my tongue. My skin tingled with it. The inside of my mask stunk of sweat but I liked it. It must’ve been one of my friends’ masks from the year before. Five years of matching bargain bin werewolves. Five years of mischief and mayhem. Five years of never getting caught. This year felt different, however, and I could see it in all of them. Mint walked in front of us, a swing sway swagger in his body I hadn’t seen before. His eyes, blue as glacier ice, stared at me from the cutouts. An intensity to him that thrilled my belly.
He nodded at us. “You ready.” It wasn’t a question.
“Fuck yes,” said Runt, his popping energy bumping up beside me.
“I dunno…” On my other side, my friend flinched.
I rolled my eyes. “C’mon, Juju. Don’t be a buzzkill,” I said, skipping out next to Mint, who linked arms with me. I looked up at him, our fearless leader.
“Whatever… seems a bit harsh, don’tcha think? More than just tricks.”
“Oh, yeah, real major danger.” Runt rolled their eyes.
“We’ve outgrown trick or treatin’, Juju,” said Laffy.
“So, you’re all okay with this?” asked Juju. “Jelly, even you?” She looked at me.
My breath stuttered in my throat but I nodded. “Hell yeah. Fuck her.”
There was a moment of quiet as a cluster of tweens dressed as superheroes scattered past us. The question, the eager hunger, the craving shared, it passed between us. I knew Juju was in before she said anything. Laffy and Runt hooted and ran up the road ahead of us all, chanting and braying. “Witch, old witch, how do you hide? Within the blooms and misty tide!”
The pair roared at three kids walking by, who briskly crossed the street, heading to the old Videodrone. Inside, it bustled, a sign offering “2 for 1 on all horror!”
Mint looked back at Juju and I, grinning. “After this, we’ll rent Cthulhu Mansion and eat the bowl of candy my mom would’ve left out front .” He grinned and jogged up to Runt and Laffy, putting his arms around their shoulders, and joined the chant. “Witch, old witch, what do you drink? Pussycat tears and midnight ink!”
Juju got closer to me, linking arm in arm. “Are you sure?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer.
“I just mean, everyone knows not to—”
“She’s just an old lady, Juju, and a mean one at that,” I said.
“Witch, old witch what do you eat? Four little children, head to feet!” The three all hollered and howled as they nearly skipped along.
Up ahead, on the decorated street, where the orange of jack-o-lanterns glowed and the press of children gathered, there was a darkness. A blank patch where trees reached into the street and trick-or-treaters crossed to the other side.
We stood in the dark, under the reaching twisted bows of ancient apple trees and fragrant overgrown roses. I gripped the wrought iron of the gate and stared in. There was a path which wound serpentine through the brambles, violets and moss patchwork across the path’s cracked surface. A fog seemed to hang on the ground there but nowhere else. Out of the mist and growth rose a house, behemothic. A single light at its top story. The curtain moved and she looked out, shaking her head.
Mint waved.
Thunk clunk went the window. As she leant out, the wind whipped her wolf-grey hair and dress about, sending the rose print of her skirts fluttering. “Stay out of the garden!” came her shrill call. We backed away. We weren’t that silly. We’d never go in the front door.
I heard the window shut again as we walked down the street. The first right, then first right again and we were there. Mint’s house backed onto the old witch’s backyard.
“This is for every lost ball,” Mint said, as he used a clawhammer to pry away the fence.
“For every mean word,” said Laffy.
“For every poisoned cat,” said Juju.
I grimaced, Runt made the sign of the cross. We’d all lost pets to this place. None of the adults would admit but we all knew what was going on.
With enough of the posts removed, we each began to squeeze through. I looked up to the back window, not sure if I’d seen movement or if it was a trick of the fog shifting through the yard.
“Keep your cat out of this yard!” Memory echoes of the witch’s words munching through my brain, loud. I ignored the goosebumps which spread under my costume. We walked through the garden, up a winding overgrown path. All sound from the street had dropped away leaving only the rustling of leaf and twig and vine. The back of my neck tingled and I looked around, Juju doing the same. The trees seemed to press in towards us. I caught Juju’s eye and she silently pled for me to go home.
“Hey,” whispered Mint harshly from the front of the group. “We’ll split up. You guys…” he pointed at me, Laffy, and Runt, “go in through the back. Juju and I are gonna go in the side.” He said, wrapping a hand around her shoulders, pulling her in. The pleading of her eyes did not let up. If she gets a chance, she’s bolting. I thought as Mint grabbed me with his arm and pulled me in too. “Let’s give the old witch the scare she's had coming to her.”
We split up. Laffy and Runt walked ahead of me. I watched my feet disappear in the fog above the path, moss-softened stone firm beneath my shoes. Runt made quick work of the door, only one old lock. I took a final look at the backyard, apple tree branches hanging low with fruit. As my eyes shifted slowly to each grasping shadow, the scent of roses came to me on a breeze.
“C’mon, Jelly,” Laffy whispered.
The house was dark and vast. It smelled of earth, of decay. The floor was soft underfoot and I was glad for it. Floorboards would squeak, tiles too if you wore the wrong shoes. We couldn’t see where the side door emptied in, and, with no sign of Mint or Juju, Laffy motioned for the stairwell. We’d head to where we’d seen her last. The stairs didn’t make a sound as we walked up them. Along the walls stretched ivy and thorns. Old wallpaper, curling in little leaves from the damp. Up close, I could almost smell the roses outside.
In the hallway, all the doors were closed and the lights were off. The darkness was deep and old. The hall stood empty except for those doors, no paintings, no furnishings. The end of the hall held a final door, where the witch must have been when she yelled from her window. I felt a rush as if someone were swiftly and suddenly behind us and I had to fight the urge to look or run.
A solitary window interrupted the pattern of wallpaper and doors, providing the only light. Looking out it, it was strange to see the front yard from this angle. The front gate stood open, as if inviting me to flee, despite being closed when we’d been out front. Fog now spilled into the empty street, lapping at the walls of the other houses, soaking up the light.
A nudge from Laffy brought my attention to the hallway and its last door which now sat open. A vague, low shadow loomed, a trick of the light, a predator in your peripheries but it was right there, inside the room. My sneakers sunk tracks into the floor. Runt slowed, all eagerness draining away. I looked at him, pale eyes in the dark. He shook his head and took a step backwards. Laffy grabbed his arm and dragged him on.
We stood in the open doorway and she sat facing the window. The house was quiet in a way that hurt, a silence which felt like watching.
We crept closer.
From the window’s light, her dress nearly glowed of gossamer and twisted roses. I tried my best to control my breathing, but the scent of those blooms seemed to fill my lungs.
I felt as if with every step I had to pull my feet forward. I looked to the others, both behind me now, the chickens. I readied my hand behind the witch, sitting in her chair. I looked down at the floor at my feet. No carpet was there, only bare floorboards. The soft wood startled me, now reminding me more of grass and moss underfoot. It seemed to shift, creep up my sneakers.
Cold flooded me.
Her arm twitched, her flesh knitted with the chair, meshed with the floor which was traveling up my shoes. I looked up and saw her face close to mine. Stinking rot breath on my face. “You shouldn’t be here!” she screamed, like the voice of foxes at night, like knives on bone china.
I heard another scream from within the house. Juju’s scream.
The old witch howled, staring at me with dark pitted eyes. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“Fuckin’ run!” cried Laffy, and I did. I tore my feet free as all the doors in the hallway slammed open. I tumbled down the hall and in each room stood the witch. All screaming, pointing, fused to the spot.
As I passed the window I saw Juju leave through the front gate and disappear into the fog which covered the street and surrounding houses as far as I could see, only distant tree tops peaking through the sea. The way the fog consumed her… I knew in my guts, I would never see her again.
Laffy and Runt ran ahead of me and I could see how the floorboards grabbed at them like slime, like tar, liquid thick. The multitudinous witch and her screams filled my head, pressing against me. My eyes prickled and I thought of my mom. My dog Rusty, who’d be on the porch waiting for me ‘till I got home.
Just run, I thought as I jumped down two steps at a time.
Laffy went for the open front door, only fog and branches beyond. “No, the way we came,” I said, grabbing both him and Runt. I sprinted for the backdoor. My right shoe whipped off my foot, sock coming off next. The floor felt like skin, I felt it moving, gripping my sole. The fog hit me like cold water in sleep and I jumped down the steps, loving the hardness of stone and comfort of moss, the bite of rocks, and scent of roses. I heard Laffy and Runt’s footfalls behind me, their breathing ragged like wet sheets on a windy day.
I remembered, “Mint!” I stopped, “We have to go,” I turned, “back…” There was a rustle of leaves. The mist stirred, but Laffy and Runt were nowhere to be seen. I looked around. Tears stuck to the inside of the mask and I tore it off. “Laffy! Runt!” I looked around. “Mint?” Nothing. “Minty!” I yelled louder.
The door still hung open, waiting.
Was that a cry? Did I hear a voice from inside? Was that Mint calling my name? I looked from the break in the fence to the back door.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said as I walked back to the house. Get in, get out. I ignored the door which stood like a Venus fly trap, poised. I rounded the corner and headed for the door Mint had used. The distant cries from the witch upstairs still rang, a bell’s echo, reverberating through the walls. I ran frantically through halls which deteriorated with each step. Yet more vines, not wallpaper at all.
I rounded a corner and there stood someone, facing away. As they turned to me I saw the skin on their face crawling, shifting over bone, mouth a line with no opening. Their scalp came together, merging over dark hair that was not their own. New spidery thin grey hair sprouted from the writhing flesh. They held their hands out to me. Skin on their arms moving like disturbed water. Across their torso thorns, vine, and rose blooms burst out, the scent crawling down my throat as a scream slipped out of my mouth. They pawed at their sealed mouth, tearing at the skin which parted like frosting, flesh soft. “Jelly,” he said before the frosting skin filled his mouth, pouring into his throat choking out any sound. I stared into his eyes, blue like ice, cold and terrified.
I turned from him and the next I remembered, my feet hit the front porch, the door open behind me. The fog was gone, the smell of roses faint, and the iron gate closed. I ran down the winding path, feeling the branches scratching my face, my arms, pulling my hair. I threw open the gate and fell down onto the sidewalk. I was back on the busy street, the pumpkin glow all around, the sounds of kids and laughter in my ears. Stars and clear air. My lungs burnt and throat stung. I held my arms around my body. Kids and parents looked at me with concern. I tried to brush my hair back, picking out apple leaves and twigs. The house loomed behind me, it beckoning me to look over my shoulder.
I stared up at its windows, past the darkness and branches. In the window stood the witch, glacier-blue eyes watching me. I saw the other windows shift, their curtains moved enough for me to see the shadows of all of them. I swear I could hear the earth itself beyond that fence call softly, “Jelly…”