by Joseph Fink
“Are you ready to go trick-or-treating?” her dad said. He had constructed a makeshift recording studio in the living room. “I’m going to record my song while you’re out. Maybe you can listen after.”
Esther felt a weight in her hand and realized that she was holding a weird gray rock. Don’t put it away, she thought. You have to remember what it is.
“But I was out. I went trick-or-treating. Grandma was there, I think. I was just . . .” Whatever she had been saying was gone. She couldn’t hold on to it. Except one thing. She remembered Agustín. When she remembered him, there was a pang inside her, as if she were a string that had just been plucked. That pang kept the memory from slipping away. She remembered climbing stairs with him. She didn’t remember where they were. She remembered them talking, but not what they had talked about. And then she remembered a kiss. She could feel his lips, and the memory clicked back in place, as solid as it had been before. The memory of kissing Agustín couldn’t be taken from her. It had been perfect. It had been like—
“Like a dream,” she said. The rock grew heavier in her palm.
“What was that?” her mom said.
“Nothing, Mom. I think I’m going to stay in tonight.” She caught a look at herself in the mirror. The costume was even better than before. She was an incomprehensible seething cloud of shape and light, dazzling to the eye. She didn’t even look human. It was amazing. “Yeah, trick-or-treating is fun, but I think maybe I’m too old for that.”
She heard waves crashing onto rocks.
“You? Too old?” Her dad wrinkled his brow. “Never thought I’d hear you say that. Are you feeling okay?”
“Do you have a fever, dear?” her mom said.
“No, I’m fine. I’m more than fine.” She sat down next to her mom on the couch. The moon on the TV was closer and brighter than before. It seemed to go beyond the edges of the screen. The sound of waves was loud, so loud it was difficult to hear herself talk. “I think what I need in this situation is something new. I think I need to do things differently, break the rut I’ve been stuck in. I think it’s time for me to change.”
The rock grew warm in her hand.
“But you love trick-or-treating,” her dad said.
“Yes, no one loves Halloween more than you,” her mom said.
“That’s true,” she said. “But I think I’m done with it. I think I’m ready for whatever happens next.”
The rock in her hand now was so hot it was painful. The windows of the house broke. Black seawater poured in from all directions. In three terrifying seconds, she was completely submerged.
Esther Gold woke up.
ESTHER WAS LYING IN the grass between Agustín and Sasha, holding the moon rock to her chest.
“Hey,” she said, sitting up. She shook Agustín, and then Sasha. “Hey.” But they didn’t wake up. There wasn’t even a flicker to their eyelids. They were still in the Dream.
She got up. Her legs were stiff and cramped under her. She had been out for a while. She didn’t know how long. Hours at least. Maybe even days. She was so thirsty. The moon was still on the horizon, in the exact same place it had been before.
Taking stock of her situation, it didn’t seem great, if she was honest. All of her friends were still asleep, as were her parents and every other adult in town. Her siblings were missing. Time wasn’t moving. And the moon rock they had taken hadn’t been enough to protect them from the power of the queen.
On the other hand, she had managed to wake herself up. And if she could wake herself up, then the queen’s power over them wasn’t absolute. There were weaknesses and loopholes. She had to find them. She just had no idea where to start.
Well, start somewhere. Start with doing anything, and then try to figure out what to do next. So she walked back toward the canyon, leaving the others to slumber under the unchanging moon. The trail led down into the shadows of the canyon, and she was horribly aware of how alone she was. The canyon had been scary in the dark, but now with no one else, it was impossible. She turned, searching for any other option.
And, as if by a miracle, there was light and movement nearby, in a little clearing mostly hidden by trees. She made her way toward it cautiously, in case it was the queen or any of her minions. But it was not the queen. She peered through branches to see her brother surrounded by cheering fellow high schoolers. She pushed through the branches, came out in the clearing. There was a bonfire and empty cans everywhere. Esther studied the cans, her heart beating suddenly cold. Each was pink and had a flattering portrait of the Queen of Halloween. Pure Dream, the label said, and underneath that Live Like a Dream . . . Forever!
There were teenagers, so many of them, chatting and laughing in tight groups on the edges of the party, but Esther only cared about one of them.
“Ben,” she shouted. His eyes went wide.
“Esther? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”
The other teenagers stared at her, faces hovering between confusion and animosity. She knew she was the kid at the party, an unwelcome intrusion.
“Ben, please, you have to help me.”
“Okay,” he said. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Okay, sure. What’s going on, Esther? What’s wrong?”
What was wrong? Where to start? How to even summarize everything that had happened?
Start with what’s important.
“Sharon,” she said. “Sharon is missing.”
“Sharon?” There was something slow in his reaction, clumsy in his facial expressions.
“Right. Sharon has been taken by someone. Mom and Dad can’t help. They’re . . . they can’t help. We need to get Sharon back. I need your help, Ben.”
He nodded earnestly.
“Wait here,” he said. “I know what to do.”
He got up and strode with purpose across the clearing. She felt something loosen in her rib cage. Now it wasn’t all on her. She wasn’t the one in charge anymore. The piece of the moon felt heavy in her hands, but her older brother would take care of her.
Ben tapped the shoulders of one of the boys. He talked urgently to him. The others in the group got involved. One of the girls nodded, reached into a cooler, and handed Ben one of the pink cans. He jogged back across the clearing.
“Here,” he said. “Drink this.” The portrait of the queen on the can seemed to sneer at her. Pure Dream, it promised. Forever, it promised.
“What?” Esther said. “No. Sharon’s missing.”
“Come on,” he said. “Have some fun. It’s a party.”
“Yeah, loosen up,” called the girl who had given Ben the can.
“Did you hear what I said? Our little sister is missing.”
“Sharon’s missing?” Ben looked concerned again, but his expression was slow. All of the teenagers had something vacant about their faces.
Ben got up, looked around as though searching for what to do next, and then offered her the can again.
“Not used to seeing you at a party,” he said. “But maybe you’re getting old enough. Let me introduce you around.”
She began to cry. Everyone in this clearing was caught in a different kind of dream, a waking dream. All of the teenagers were in a party that had been going on for hours or days or weeks or however long this night had lasted. A party that had no end. Good times forever.
“Whoooo!” Ben shouted. There was more cheering. Someone tried to turn on a portable speaker.
“Oh man,” the boy said. “Is it out of batteries already? How long has it been?”
The boy patted himself for a phone so he could check the time. But then he was caught up in the cheering too and forgot what he had been looking for.
Esther wanted to lie down, wanted to go back to sleep. Or else to join them in their party, to forget herself in happiness. But she didn’t. She was the only person left who was awake. There was no one else who could stop this.
She got up and looked at her brother one more time. He was dancing now, some other teenagers danc
ing with him. He had forgotten she was there. Above them, the moon sat where it been sitting since nightfall, where it would sit forever until Esther Gold put a stop to it. She watched Ben for one more moment, and then turned from the clearing and from the party, leaving the warm light of the campfires behind.
There was only her now in this bubble of frozen time. She took a breath, and then a step, and then another, and she was walking into the dark of the canyon until it swallowed her completely.
AFTER THE GLOW OF THE CLEARING, the dark of the path was overwhelming. With the hills around her, she couldn’t even see the lights of nearby houses. She was completely isolated in shadow. Even the sound of the party behind her seemed to fade within seconds. Then it was only her footsteps crunching on the dry dirt.
She continued forward, not letting herself hesitate. It was like walking with her eyes closed. There was almost no visual input. And every part of her body screamed at her to stop, to turn around, and, failing that, to curl up on the ground and cry. But she pushed through. She concentrated on each step as it happened, not letting herself slow down. If she slowed down, she would stop. And if she stopped, she would turn back. And if she turned back, then they would never be saved.
From the clearing, the path went along the stream. She knew that, and trusted her memory over the spirals and shapes her eyes made in the darkness.
Her foot almost slipped into nothing, and she had to lean backward to keep from tumbling into the stream. The path had split. One way went to the trail back up to the little park near her school. The other way went to the camp of the queen. Being careful about the drop-off, she shuffled her way to the left, toward the camp.
She heard movement on the hillsides to either side of her. She thought of what Aileen had told them, about the terrible creatures that lived in the Dream of Halloween, and how thin the separation between the two worlds would become the longer the queen held time where it was. This movement sounded like a huge four-legged animal, a wolf, or a lion, or some creature that did not exist in any form in her own world.
Keep walking forward. Concentrate on breathing. Here was a little wooden footbridge, beyond that was the entrance to the tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel was the camp. The orange light from the moon peeked out from behind a tree, and she could see the bridge and the tunnel tinted amber, like a flashback in a movie.
The movement in the hills behind her got louder, and she hurried onto the bridge. The moment her foot hit the first plank, the sounds of movement behind her stopped. She took a breath. It wasn’t dark anymore, and nothing was following her. She was okay. She would be okay.
Click.
That insect sound. She knew what it was. Click. Then a sick buzz from under the bridge. A small hand appeared, gripping at the old wooden planks, and pulled the rest of its body out from under the bridge. It was the trick-or-treater dressed in a ragged pirate costume. Even though it was only a couple feet away, she couldn’t see its face. The moonlight should have shone directly onto it, but somehow the face was in shadow. It clicked and buzzed. She screamed and ran the rest of the way across the bridge.
Once across, she looked back. The trick-or-treater was standing on the bridge, facing away from her, and making a scuttling sound like insect legs moving against each other.
Esther felt some impulse to try to reach whatever this creature was, even if her effort was hopeless. “You were once a child like my sister, right? Do you remember that? Do you remember being a little kid?”
The trick-or-treater turned. And for a moment, she clearly saw the face of a little boy, round faced, smiling, a distant memory of the person it had once been. And then its face was concealed in shadow again. The trick-or-treater clicked aggressively, but it didn’t move toward her. It wasn’t there to get her, but to block her way out.
Now the only way forward was through the tunnel. She had no choice. She couldn’t go back if she wanted.
She had been dreading the tunnel the most. She didn’t even like it when she walked home from school in the full brightness of day, and now it was a dark mouth waiting to swallow her. It might as well have been a portal to another world. She couldn’t go in. She just couldn’t.
Before she could do or think anything else, she walked into the tunnel.
Instantly she was cold, the air dropping in temperature from the already cool night air outside. Her feet scuffled against the leaves and trash that had collected on the tunnel floor. From where she was, she should have been able to see the other side, but she couldn’t. It was like the other side was missing. She tried to walk faster. Her footsteps echoed unusually loud. The sound bounced back and forth, her footsteps repeating in front of and behind her, as if there were a whole line of Esthers marching forward together.
She stopped, and the echo in front of her stopped. But the echo behind her went a couple more steps before stopping. She held her breath, didn’t move. In her ear, click. Click. Click. Insect noises. She shuddered, wanting to escape but unsure how. And then, on her hand, a tiny hand, human but cold. It brushed her palm.
She started running in the dark. Immediately she slipped and fell. Then she was up again, her knees aching from the fall, hoping she had her bearings right and wasn’t about to slam into the metal wall of the tunnel. Behind her she heard four legs moving, an enormous predator on a hunt. There was a roar, like a tiger, but somehow metallic. Some dream animal, unlike any animal she knew, that had crossed between worlds to hunt her. And where was the ending of this tunnel? It had never been a very long tunnel, but she had been running for minutes.
Then the end of the tunnel came. She was back out into the night air, into the bright orange light of the moon. She whirled around to see what was chasing her, prepare for its attack. Behind her was just the tunnel, as it had always been. The entrance on the other side was completely visible, not far away. No otherworldly animals or faceless trick-or-treaters. Merely leaves and dirt and, barely visible in the dark, graffiti, scrawled and overlapping, years of bored teenage afternoons.
She was nearly at the camp. Turning away from the tunnel, she could see it clearly now. The tents and the banners and the burned throne. She still had no plan. She had come here because it didn’t seem there was any other place for her to go. But what was here for her? A power she was no match for. A return to the Dream, or worse. She hadn’t thought this out.
The stubborn instinct that had taken her through the darkness abandoned her, and she faltered, on the dim edge of the camp, one hand on the moon rock in her pocket. Perhaps she would have turned and run away, and let time stay frozen, let everyone sleep, given up. But before she could do anything else, a grease-smudged hand, big and calloused, grabbed her upper arm and yanked her toward the camp. From that point on, she had no choice but to face whatever would happen next.
ED PUMKEN DRAGGED HER into the light of the camp.
“Found her sneaking,” he said. “Little rat sneaking around.” He didn’t look at her as he pulled her, focusing only on the queen.
The trick-or-treaters, faces lost in shadow, clustered protectively around their queen just in case this was another distraction. Dan Apel sat sideways in the driver’s seat of his truck, which was parked by the remains of the throne, watching intently but not making any moves yet.
“Very good, Ed,” the queen said. “You’ve done well. Remind me that I should yell at you less.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Ed said, diving into a kneel and pulling Esther over as he did it. She landed awkwardly on her side.
“Oh, Ed, look how clumsily you’ve handled our guest.” The queen laughed. “You can let her go now. Where could she run to?” She caught Esther’s eyes and made sure the girl was paying attention, and repeated it, all humor gone from her voice. “Where could she run to?”
Ed released her and went to stand next to Dan. He looked proud of having caught her, and he kept glancing at his brother as if waiting for some acknowledgment of the work he had done, but Dan was focused on the queen and Esth
er.
“So . . . uh, hmm . . . I’m sorry, what was your name?” the queen said.
“Esther.”
“Right! Yes. Esther. I won’t remember that. Seems unimportant. Anyway, girl, you’ve escaped the Dream. That’s impressive. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that. Dan, has anyone ever done that?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“No. See? You’ve pulled off something that no one else has ever done, and you should be proud of yourself. I think it’d be good for your self-esteem. Take this time to really pat yourself on the back.”
She winked at Esther.
“I mean, you don’t have to physically pat yourself on the back if you don’t want to. Whatever works for you. Stand there and glare at me like your mom told you to clean your room if you want. However it feels most natural to you to celebrate.”
She leaned lazily sideways in the remains of her throne.
“But here’s what I don’t understand: Why didn’t you just run? Did you want to achieve the world record for number of times escaping from me? Because it’s good that you have goals, but I’ll be honest, they’re not realistic. Oh, I’m not just having fun, I’m actually curious about the answer. Tell me, girl, why didn’t you run when you had the chance? Why come back into this canyon?”
“Where’s my sister?” Esther said.
“Ah!” the queen said. “Of course. The sister. You want to rescue your sister. What a dull and human reason. I hope you brought an army that I haven’t noticed yet, or have somehow gained a great deal of magic power, because otherwise this rescue isn’t going well. Dan, show her how well her rescue is going.”
Dan reached into his pocket. He pulled out a perfect red apple, the kind of perfect only possible through wax and pesticides, and rubbed it clean on his shirt. He tossed it into the air once, twice, and on the third throw it sprouted its razor blades. He approached Esther with the razor-studded apple. The blades looked deathly sharp, glinting an angry orange in the moonlight.
“Have an apple,” he said, with a salesmen’s false friendliness. “It’ll be good for you.”