The Halloween Moon

by Joseph Fink

  He and the trick-or-treaters bowed, pressing their foreheads to the asphalt. What were they bowing to? Esther strained her face against the glass, trying to see, but all she managed to do was fog the window. She was afraid to move to another window. Better maybe that she not know. Better maybe that she never find out.

  Ed rose back to his knees. His forehead was red where he had pushed it into the street.

  “Your Highness,” he said. “All is prepared.” He did not sound like he was shouting, but his voice echoed eerily off the sidewalk and the houses, and Esther could easily hear every word.

  The children, also back up on their knees, made a buzzing, clicking sound, like insects.

  “Great,” said a commanding voice from outside Esther’s view. “I’ll tell you what, that is absolutely fantastic. Just great work from all of you.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Ed said.

  “You can go now,” the voice said. “You’re dismissed or whatever.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Stop thanking me, and put your stringy hair back in your truck and drive somewhere I can’t see you.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” He jumped up. He no longer looked grumpy, but terrified. He jogged to the truck, glancing fearfully behind him.

  “My children, with me,” said the voice. “We still have so much to prepare. No rest for the wicked and all that.”

  More buzzing and clicking, and the trick-or-treaters ran out of sight as Ed made a laborious three-point turn and drove in the other direction.

  What in the world had Esther just seen? She lay back down, wide eyes on the ceiling, and did not sleep for hours. She couldn’t tell whether she was excited that this Halloween was turning out truly weird and creepy, or terrified that figures straight out of her horror movies were standing in her street. She went back and forth with herself between the two feelings all night, before finally drifting off as the sun hit her face, never having settled on an answer.

  THE NEXT MORNING, everyone in the family was worried. Esther Gold, who loved Halloween more than anyone else, was not wearing a costume.

  “Are you feeling okay?” her dad said, putting his hand on her forehead.

  “I’m fine,” she said, into her bowl of cereal.

  “Is this because of what we said?” her mom asked, walking through the kitchen with coat and keys in hand, on her way to work. “Because if this is your response, you’re only hurting yourself, you know.”

  “I’m not hurting anyone,” Esther said. “No one is hurt. Everyone is fine.”

  Her little sister, Sharon, didn’t say anything, but looked up at her with wide eyes. Esther winked at her sister, who giggled. Her sister liked winking but didn’t understand what a wink meant.

  “Not to take our parents’ side on anything,” her older brother, Ben, said, eating a breakfast bar while leaning on the counter, “but if you’re not wearing a costume, I’m thinking it’s the end of the world. Or like, time’s about to stand still.”

  “Maybe it is the end of the world,” she said.

  “Ha! Cool,” he said.

  “Ben, knock it off,” her mom said, bustling back in because she had forgotten her wallet.

  “I’m just saying, like, hypothetically it would be cool.”

  “Cool,” Sharon said. “Cool.” She clapped her hands.

  “Oh great,” her dad said. “She’s learned that word. Now she has ninety percent of the vocabulary she’ll use as a teenager.”

  “You’ve never sounded more like a dad,” Esther said.

  “She’s right,” Ben said. “But that’s okay. Dads are cool now.”

  “Knock it off, both of you,” her mom said, then stopped and sat at the table. “I forgot to eat breakfast. I should eat breakfast.”

  “Esther, honey, it’s Halloween,” her dad said. “I’ve never seen you anything but giddy on Halloween. What happened?”

  Had something happened? That depended on what she had seen. But she had no idea what she had seen. She didn’t know if it was real. And if it was real, she didn’t know what it meant. And without knowing what it meant, it was hard to think anything about it at all.

  But certainly it pulled at her. It definitely brought the holiday mood of the morning down.

  “I’ve got to go to school,” she said.

  “I’ll drive you,” her mom said.

  “Mom, you never drive me. I can walk.”

  “I’ll drive you on the way to work. Come on.” Her mom, still having not eaten breakfast, grabbed her things and headed out the door.

  “You sure you don’t want to change into your costume before going?” her dad asked. “It looked pretty cool when you were trying it on last night. Hate to let an idea that cool go to waste.”

  “You just said cool twice in ten seconds. Who has the limited vocabulary now?” Ben said, throwing away the breakfast bar wrapper and grabbing his backpack as his friend Kyle pulled up out front.

  “No, that’s okay, Dad,” Esther said, ignoring her brother. “I’m okay.”

  Her dad watched his older kids scatter out on their way to school, and then he turned back to Sharon.

  “Well, at least you’re not insulting me yet,” he said.

  Sharon threw a slice of apple at him and clapped again.

  Her mom was waiting outside, but the car wasn’t on.

  “Come on,” her mom said. “You’re right. The school’s nearby. We’ll walk.”

  “But you have to get to work.”

  “I’m always so early, I have time to walk you to school before I go.”

  This was the last year Esther would be making this trip by foot. Next year was high school, too far to walk. She would have to be driven, or bike there. The bike ride went along a busy road, not like this peaceful stretch of suburban streets.

  And high school itself was a blank, a mystery. No matter what Ben or her parents said to her about it, she couldn’t picture what it would be like for her. She felt the mystery in her gut. It felt like seeing whatever ritual had happened out on the street last night. That feeling of witnessing something that she should never have seen, of entering a dark world she had no interest in entering.

  “I wanted to have some time with you this morning,” her mom said, “because you’ve definitely been acting strangely since our talk yesterday. But instead of you shouting and me grounding you, I thought we could try to just talk about it. Understand each other.”

  “That’s very adult of you,” Esther said.

  “Funny, kid.”

  “Funny kid,” she agreed, indicating herself.

  Aware of how few times she had left to do this walk before she changed to the high school across town, she really tried to hold on to every detail of it. The prickly juniper bushes along the sidewalk. The dry eastern wind, blowing the clouds the wrong way across the sky. The orange groves on the hill above the housing development. In season, the trees burst orange with ripening fruit, a Southern California version of autumn.

  “Someday they’ll probably cut those orchards down,” Esther’s mom said. “Build houses over them. They’ve done it everywhere else.”

  “I choose to believe those trees will never go,” Esther said. “The hills will be orange and green forever.”

  “Forever is quite a word.”

  “I used to think this walk took forever,” Esther said. “Like it never seemed to end. Now it feels like it’s going so fast. I want this walk to be so much longer.”

  “Time keeps happening for all of us,” her mom said. “I know you love Halloween, but I don’t think this is about trick-or-treating. You knew you’d have to stop doing that eventually. We had talked about it. I think this might just be about . . . I don’t know. You’re growing up, Esther.”

  “I’m only thirteen,” she said.

  “And I’m only forty-three.” Her mom smiled. “I know that sounds ancient, it did to me once, but not anymore. We’re all only the age we are until we’re the next age after that. If we
’re lucky.”

  “This is quite a pep talk.”

  “I’m not here to cheer you up, Esther. Your dad can do that. Play some saxophone for you or something. I’m here to say that you turn fourteen soon, and you’ll be going to high school, and you’ll be a teenager, and I imagine that’s scary. It’s scary for me.”

  Esther thought about how much of the truth to reveal. The sky was so blue that it seemed translucent, like she could see the dark of space through the thin edges of it. Already, even at this hour of the morning, it was warm. Every time the wind blew, there was the smell of dust and plants and herbs, a smell that for the rest of her life would belong to her childhood.

  “Yeah, it’s really scary,” she admitted finally.

  “Yeah,” her mom agreed.

  “Well, what should I do about it? You’re the parent. You’re supposed to have advice.”

  “Oh man, I am the parent, aren’t I?” Her mom laughed. “I don’t know, baby. It’s scary. I guess that’s my first advice. Growing up never stops being scary. But it’ll happen either way.”

  “Just toughen up and live with it?” Esther said. “That’s what you’ve got for me?”

  “It can be exciting, growing up. The future can be scary, but it can be thrilling too. Change can be good. I guess that’s my parental advice. That’s the best I’ve got.”

  “Thanks, Mom. It was very wise and all that.”

  “Smart mouth.” They both laughed.

  A black cat darted out of the bushes and tore across the sidewalk. Esther screamed a little in surprise.

  “Ew, bad luck on Halloween,” Esther said, recoiling.

  “You know,” her mom said, “that’s a dangerous myth. Black cats are just cats. Living creatures like you. But they get hurt and killed by ignorant people because of a stupid story that they’re bad luck. We should work to be better than that. Treat living creatures as worth our respect, no matter what silly stories we’ve been told about them.”

  Esther watched the cat run down the street.

  “Huh. Sorry, little kitten,” she called after it.

  The cat disappeared back into the shadows of someone’s front yard.

  “I won’t make you walk with me all the way to the school gate,” her mom said. “Don’t want to embarrass you. Just wanted some time together.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” They hugged, and her mom kissed her cheek.

  “So can I go trick-or-treating one last time this year?”

  “No.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “Goodbye, Esther Gold.”

  Esther walked the last few blocks to school, really trying to experience and remember each step. Up on the hills, leaves rustled in the orange trees, soaking up a sun so warm and gentle it felt like it would never stop shining.

  THE CROWD GOING INTO school was packed with aliens and superheroes and video game characters. Every grade higher had fewer costumes than the one below. Among the eighth graders, only about half dressed up. But still, there would be a parade for them too, and a best costume would be picked.

  Esther had won her grade’s contest every year, except the year that Brad Winters had dressed up as the hero from the big movie of that summer using an actual prop from the movie that his dad had bought at an auction. Everyone had been so impressed that part of his costume had touched a famous person, and so the title had been stolen from her. She had never quite forgiven Brad for that.

  Brad had tried the same trick the next year, but his dad could only afford a prop from a movie that hadn’t done well at the box office and that no one in school had seen. No one was impressed with his leftovers from a flop, and Esther had easily beaten him by dressing up as New York City, different neighborhoods all over her arms and torso and legs, and a little yellow cab on tracks that actually moved between them. It had been almost impossible to sit down, and kids kept breaking parts of the city off by accident and on purpose, but it had totally been worth it. Brad hadn’t tried to match her again.

  When people saw her wearing ordinary clothes on Halloween, they stared. Everyone knew what this day meant to Esther Gold. And even though they didn’t care nearly as much about the holiday as she did, they all looked forward to what she would come up with. The idea that she wouldn’t come up with anything had never occurred to them, and even the teachers felt a pang of disappointment.

  “What’s the matter, Esther Gold?” Sasha Min said, blocking her way. “Too cheap to spend money on a costume this year?”

  This was about Esther being Jewish. It wasn’t a big deal, but also it was. It was both at once.

  The thing of it was that no one in school actively hated Jews, not that she knew of. But there was a blindness there, an erasure. She was the only one, and so there was this sense that perhaps she was only pretending, that no one else in the world was Jewish and Esther had invented it all just to inconvenience them.

  She especially hated the money jokes. There was a time in Europe in which Jews had been banned from almost every job, among other indignities and violence. The few jobs available to them were peddling and moneylending. These were not occupations they sought out, but the ones that were left for them, like scraps. And then, when they did those jobs, because they were human beings who needed to survive, the world punished them for it. Branding them as cheap because peddlers need to haggle, branding them as greedy because moneylenders work with debts. Like many stories of a minority group, it is the story of people being forced into a corner and then stereotyped for the corner they had been forced into.

  All of this went through her head very quickly. Other things were probably going through Sasha’s head. Esther supposed that we all go through life with a whole lot of ourselves between us and the world.

  “That’s not funny, Sasha,” she said.

  “I think it’s funny. I think it’s funny that you’re too cheap to buy a costume even though that’s the only thing you care about. I think that’s the funniest thing in the world.”

  No one knew why Sasha and Esther hated each other. Even they didn’t know. Sure, it hadn’t started well in third grade, when Sasha had earnestly explained to Esther that she had learned about Jewish people at church and the Jews were the ones who had murdered Jesus. It wasn’t meant as an insult, just a child helpfully sharing a fact she had been taught.

  “You guys murdered Jesus,” she’d said to Esther. “Why did you do that?”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Well, you did.”

  What had started as a child’s misunderstanding turned into an argument and then into a feud, and then Sasha had started seeking her out, bullying her at every opportunity.

  Sasha no longer believed that the Jews killed Jesus. She didn’t even dislike Jewish people. At this point, she just disliked Esther Gold, and she used whatever tools she could find at hand to hurt her. Sometimes, at home, she would think about what she had said and feel guilty, and the guilt would hollow a sharp pain inside her chest. But the next day she would say something again. As the skinny daughter of Korean immigrants, she had learned early that bullying was a fact of school, and that it would always be better to be the bully than the bullied. It was the same reason she was the most aggressive player on her soccer team, sweeping people off their feet with her long legs.

  No matter how much she bullied Esther, it didn’t keep the other kids from making jokes about Sasha’s family, and the way that Sasha looked. Esther felt bad for her in those moments when Sasha would blush and tremble with an anger that Esther recognized in herself. There was so much anger about what they were each experiencing, and so little that was useful to do with that anger. The two of them were caught in something heavy and tangled and vast, and neither of them could see a way out.

  This Halloween morning, Sasha got right in Esther’s face. Kids gathered around the two of them. Teachers came hurrying over to stop whatever was happening before it got too far.

  Esther smiled at Sasha. She pressed a button in her palm. There was a hiss from the
air compressor in her backpack, and that’s when the two other heads inflated from her shoulders with a loud pop. Hideous faces, leering and sudden. Sasha screamed and fell over backward.

  “Oh, I am wearing a costume, actually,” Esther said. “But thanks for your concern.”

  “Esther Gold, leave Sasha alone,” Mr. Reynolds, the sixth-grade math teacher, said absently, never looking up from his phone.

  Agustín came up next to her.

  “That’s maybe the best one yet,” he said.

  “Right?” she said. She pressed the button again, and the heads started to deflate back into their hiding places. The noise was, well, a little farty. People laughed. Even Mr. Reynolds smirked. Plus the heads didn’t quite go back in neatly and she had to awkwardly shove them into their pouches on her shoulder blades.

  “Alright, they still have a few issues I’m working out,” she said.

  Sasha was helped up by her friends and glared at Esther, but seemed to be done saying anything.

  “Did you tell your mom?” Esther asked Agustín.

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she pretended to be annoyed, but I think secretly she was glad. She’ll be in her workshop all night, won’t even notice I’m not there.”

  “I’m sure she wanted to go with you,” Esther tried.

  “Come on,” Agustín said. “We’ll be late.”

  SCHOOL WENT ON normally from there. Throughout the day, kids (and a few teachers) would come to her asking to see the trick with the heads. And, with a pop, two new heads would sprout from her shoulders. She learned to accept their amazement and then quietly maneuver herself somewhere private for the less dignified act of resetting the whole contraption.

  Sasha Min watched her from across the outdoor lunch tables, whispering darkly to her friends. This being Southern California, there was no cafeteria, nor were there really hallways. Anything that could be outside, was outside. On the few days a year it rained, they would have lunch in the classrooms as the miserable teachers missed their breaks to monitor them. But mostly they ate outside, played outside, and went between classes outside.