The Halloween Moon

by Joseph Fink

  Esther thought through her options. It didn’t take her long to think through them, as she had none at all. So she took the moon rock from her pocket and held it above her head.

  “I’ll smash this,” she said. “I’ll smash this piece of the moon. I’ll destroy it.”

  The queen held up her hand, and Dan stopped. The queen flashed an easy smile. “First off, smash it how? Destroy it with what? It’s a rock. You throw it at the ground, you’ll make more of an impression on the ground than the rock.”

  Esther didn’t know. She kept it overhead, refusing to back down from the only stand she had left to make.

  “Second,” the queen continued, “the moon rock isn’t technically the source of my power. It’s an amplifier. It takes my power and just makes it bigger. I needed it to get things going, but now that time is stopped, I don’t need the rock to keep it that way.”

  The queen held up a small, sharp stone that Esther recognized. “Remember this? A little piece of that same moon rock, broken off when your dentist friend stole it years ago. It seems that having this on his person protected him from the power I harnessed through the moon.” She tossed the stone into the bushes and smiled. “But even that didn’t save him for long, did it?”

  The queen spread her hands in invitation.

  “So if you can figure out how to destroy it, go ahead. As long as I’m here, the spell continues.”

  Esther tried not to believe her, searching around her for anything she could use that would damage the moon rock at all, but she didn’t think the queen was lying. The queen seemed like someone so used to being in control that she didn’t need to lie. And anyway, even if the queen didn’t need the rock anymore, it still was obviously powerful, and ownership of it was currently the only thing Esther had over the queen. So Esther let her arm drop, still holding the rock.

  “Oh that’s too bad,” the queen said. “I was excited to watch you try to hurt a rock for a while. But you have showed enough spark to change my mind. I don’t think you’re a job for Dan after all.”

  She made the slightest movement of her head, and the apple disappeared into Dan’s pocket. He returned, whistling, to his truck. “Lucky break, kid,” he said.

  “Dan, you might think that,” the queen said. “But I’m saving her for something better. I have a special corner of the Dream set aside just for her. A place with no illusions, no other people, only the raw material of the Dream and the Halloween moon to keep you company. I think you’ve seen it before?”

  The queen cocked her head, and Esther felt a pull in her chest, like someone physically tugging at her heart. She saw a cliff of black rock, and an orange moon, and a deep, churning ocean. The queen was pulling her into the Dream. Esther tried to isolate where the tug was coming from, and she realized it was coming from her own hand.

  “That rock can still be useful,” explained the queen. “For instance, I can put a little of my power into it, and poof, it pulls you into a part of the Dream I don’t think you’ll find your way out of ever again.”

  Esther tried to fight the pull, but it wasn’t physical, so she wasn’t sure what to fight against. She tried to let go of the rock that had been turned against her, but her hand wouldn’t unclench.

  The queen sighed. “No, I’m afraid that rock is nothing special on its own. It was only the most convenient bit of the moon available at the moment. Just as you and this neighborhood are nothing special. I needed to do all this somewhere, and your town is . . . somewhere.”

  Okay. If Esther couldn’t get rid of the rock, could she use it the same way that the queen was? Try to channel some part of herself through it. Channel what, though? Esther had no magic power, no special knowledge. She merely had a rock and a strong desire not to be put back into the Dream.

  Alright then, she had a strong desire. Start there. Why did she have a strong desire to not be put in the Dream? Because she wanted her friends and family and life back. And why did she want that? Because she wanted to keep living and growing with them. She wanted to move forward with all of the people in her life, all of them moving forward in life together.

  “None of this happened for a grand reason,” cooed the queen. “You weren’t plucked out by fate for some great purpose. You are merely a child, and this is merely a tedious slice of California suburb, and it was mere random chance that led you to this moment.”

  It wasn’t working. The canyon was dimming. Esther could hear the waves. The pull had become more intense, and she felt like she was being turned inside out. She was almost in the Dream. If she was going to do something, she’d have to do it now.

  She dove deeper into what she wanted, trying to find the core of it. She wanted to keep living. And that meant growing. And that meant changing.

  Change. That was it. That was the heart of what she wanted. She concentrated as hard as she could on the desire for change. Because tonight she had experienced the opposite of change, and it was no way to exist. She took all of her desire to change, and she pushed it as hard as she could into the rock, against the pull of the Dream.

  The world swooned back into focus. The sound of waves became fainter.

  The queen’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you fighting me? Are you actually fighting me? That’s fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone try to match my power.” She leaned forward. “I love it. Keep fighting. It makes this so much more satisfying.”

  Esther did keep fighting. She tried to clear away any fear, any doubt, any distracting thoughts or memories. She let go, for just a bit, of Agustín and Sasha and Mr. Gabler, of Ben and her parents and Grandma Debbie. She even, with difficulty, let go of Sharon. She only concentrated on one simple, pure idea. The desire to grow older. The desire to change. And while the pull on her did not go away, it also did not grow any stronger. She didn’t seem any closer to the Dream.

  “You are better at this than I expected,” the queen said. “How amusing.” But she did not sound amused. She sounded angry, and the human part of her voice was slipping away, revealing the voice underneath that sounded like metal striking metal. The queen stood, standing much taller than she had looked while sitting down, and she braced her body as though lifting a large and heavy object.

  The pull in Esther intensified. It started to hurt, like she was being torn apart, but she kept focus on her desire to change, and directed that thought into the rock. As her options narrowed, she found that her thinking became clearer. The more desperate her situation, somehow the easier it was to focus in on this one idea. Maybe it was because there were no other ideas left that could be of any use to her.

  “This is laughable,” the queen said. She wasn’t laughing. She was turning red, and her voice sounded like sparks and static. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to fully send Esther into the Dream. Abruptly, the queen sat back down on her ruined throne, and the pull within Esther stopped.

  “We’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” the queen said. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

  Esther couldn’t speak. She was so exhausted by the struggle and weary of what the queen would do next.

  What the queen did next was clap. One single clap, sharp but not loud. Every one of the faceless trick-or-treaters collapsed at once. Ed looked about in alarm, and even Dan frowned.

  “Oh relax, you two,” the queen said. “I’ve just borrowed back all the power I put into them. They’re safe in the Dream for now. I’ll retrieve them once I’ve dealt with this little problem.”

  She rubbed her hands together. The sound was like the crash of thunder.

  “I don’t want to start a precedent that a mere human can resist me and get away with it.”

  She held out her hands and closed her eyes. Esther felt something change. Some difference in her heartbeat or in the air. A soft wind against her face. She realized with a lurch of her stomach that time had started up again. The queen had dropped the spell for just a moment to concentrate all of her power on Esther.

 
; The queen gave a small sigh. “I’ll have to start everything up again once you’re gone. You’re officially very annoying. But that will only make this next part even more satisfying for me.”

  The pull returned with a jolt. This time it was violent and measureless. Esther’s insides seethed. She tried to concentrate her thoughts on change again, to fight back the way she had before, but it was hopeless. Every thought was drowned out by the sound of violent waves and the eternal orange light of the moon. The gravity of the Dream as it drew her in became unbearable.

  Then came a different sound, underneath the waves and the pounding of her own heart. It was a soft sound, but one that managed to cut through all of the noise. A meow. The tiny black cat came running across the camp, bounded up the arm of the throne, and landed claws first on the queen’s face. For one last night, the Black Cats had returned. Aileen, despite herself, had joined the fight again.

  The queen screamed. The little cat was a whirl of claws, drawing bloody scratch marks across the queen’s cheek and tangling itself into her hair. Dan and Ed came running over but didn’t know how to rescue the flailing queen without accidentally striking her. They hovered, waiting for some opportunity, too frightened of the queen’s wrath to save her.

  Esther felt the pull weaken as the queen was distracted. Esther couldn’t waste the chance that Aileen was giving her. In that moment, Esther put all of her focus onto the rock. As she did, she felt the pull stop altogether, and then reverse. Now she was the one pulling. She was still falling into the Dream, it was too late to escape that fate, but she was pulling the queen in with her.

  By the time the queen extracted the cat from her face and flung it into the bushes with a furious shout, Esther had fully entwined the queen with her focus. I want to grow older, Esther thought. I want to change.

  The queen’s eyes went wide.

  “How dare you, you arrogant little

  BRAT!”

  She and the queen stood on the cliff, over the deep, churning ocean. The moon took up the whole sky. There was the dead tree next to them, skeletal branches flung up to the starless night.

  “Well, great, look what you did,” the queen said. “I hate black cats.”

  Esther found that the moon rock was still in her hands. The rock glowed a faint orange.

  “I’ve escaped from the Dream before,” Esther said.

  The queen smirked. Here, in this strange and lonely place, the queen’s regal dress seemed perfectly suited. Here was the context in which she made sense.

  “You didn’t escape anything,” the queen said. “That rock let you out of the Dream.”

  “No. I stopped playing along. I decided to change. And the Dream let me go.”

  “Ha,” the queen said. She didn’t laugh, merely said the word. She tucked her dress under her and flopped cross-legged onto the ground. “You think force of will can break a dream? You think you just thought your way out of there, that you have some special brain no one else in town has? You’re more stuck-up than I am, and, Esther, darling, I’m very stuck-up.”

  Esther looked about. There was nowhere to go. On one side, the black rock continued for as far as she could see, an endless plain with no sign of life, no landmarks at all. On the other side was the dizzying drop of the cliff and the horrible depth of the water. So she sat down on the ground across from the queen.

  “I got you here, didn’t I?” Esther said. “Trapped you in your own dream.”

  “Yes, you did. But again, Esther, I hate to tell you this. There’s nothing special about you. It wasn’t your power. It was the leftover bits of my power I had put into the rock. You used my own scraps against me.”

  The queen picked up a black pebble and tossed it idly off the cliff.

  “You couldn’t have forced your way out of the Dream no matter how hard you tried,” the queen continued. “Every one of your successes has merely been because you were holding a magic rock, which is the silliest and saddest way to succeed. It’s like a bad fairy tale. Even that rock wouldn’t have worked if the cat hadn’t jumped on my head at the worst time. Dreadful creatures.”

  “You’re the one who started all those awful rumors about them.”

  The queen looked thoughtful. “Did I? Oh, you know, I might have. I’ve lived a long time. Done a lot of things. Anyway, to sum up, you’re just a dumb girl lucky enough to be holding a dumb rock that I happened to put some of my power into.”

  Esther glumly examined the rock in her hands. She was trying to believe it wasn’t true, but it made sense. Why else would she have been able to escape when Mr. Gabler and Agustín and Sasha were still stuck? What made her special? Nothing. The rock was special, even the black cat had been special, but Esther had just happened to be, as the saying goes, in the right place at the right time holding a magic rock.

  “So what next?” she said.

  “That’s a good question,” the queen said. “Ordinarily you’d be able to use that rock to leave again. But I’m currently using all of my power to keep you from doing so. Which puts us in an interesting situation. You need me to leave. I need you to leave. It’s so annoying to need people. I hate it.”

  She pouted.

  “But it isn’t all bad for you, Esther Gold. Because it turns out we want the same thing. You love Halloween, I love Halloween. You and I both want life to be good forever.”

  Esther shifted the rock from hand to hand. The queen leaned back, looking up at the starless sky.

  “It really makes no sense for us to fight, you know?”

  “You kidnapped my sister. You put my parents and my friends into a dream.”

  “Esther, honey, details. I’ll give you back your sister, how’s that? I’ll wake up your family and friends. I wouldn’t want to deny you company in this forever Halloween. But think about it. You won’t have to grow any older. You won’t have to stop trick-or-treating. It will always be your favorite time of year, and you will always be the right age for the holiday.”

  Esther thought about it. She really did. She thought about Halloween, and about her family, and about time. She thought about her mother and father looking older every year, and what that meant. She thought about high school and then college and then whatever mystery lay beyond college. A wave crashed so hard onto the cliff that the spray floated up around them, hundreds of feet above. She tasted seawater in the air.

  “There doesn’t have to be a downside here.” The queen spoke quietly and gently. “You get to have the people you love. Even that boy you like so much. And we both get to have Halloween forever.”

  In these words, Esther recognized herself. She had wanted to go trick-or-treating against the wishes of her parents and of Agustín, and so she had. Like the queen, she simply hadn’t considered not getting what she wanted. Her love of Halloween, that had seemed so pure, felt tainted by the selfishness that she and the queen shared.

  “Change is important. Change is good.”

  “Oh, Esther, you say those words like a child forcing down vegetables, but do you really believe them? Or are you just repeating what you’ve been taught, because that seems like what a good person is supposed to do?”

  Esther didn’t know the answer. She had been told that growing older and changing was good. But to her it still seemed terrifying. She shook her head.

  “See?” the queen said. “You don’t want to change any more than I do. And we don’t have to. Together we can use the piece of the moon to leave this Dream, and then we simply stop fighting each other. Because we didn’t have to, we never had to.”

  “This rock,” Esther said, to the glowing piece of the moon in her hands. “It can take us back?”

  “It’s the only thing that can,” the queen said. “You’re lucky you have it with you. We’d be in a real rough situation without it.”

  Esther stood and stretched her legs and arms. She felt good. Or she felt okay. In any case, she felt ready. She held up the rock, and the queen smiled, getting up as well and brushing her hands briskly toget
her.

  “Great,” the queen said. “You’re making the right choice here.”

  Esther pivoted and threw the moon rock off the cliff as hard as she could. For a moment she could see it, a tiny orange dot against the dim gray glow of the sky, and then it was gone forever. The queen screamed, and as she screamed, her face transformed. There was a jittery and blurred shape behind the human face. Her scream sounded like hundreds of people screaming at once.

  “You fool. You brat. You fool.” The queen ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down, her hands on her cheeks. She whirled on Esther. “You terrible child. You have trapped us here. Do you understand that? Neither of us will ever be able to escape this place now.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?” Esther said. “For nothing to ever change?”

  “Not like this! Obviously not like this! Ugh, you take everything so literally. I hate talking to children.” The queen had a red aura around her. She buzzed with raw power, and, without changing height, she somehow seemed to have become a giant. “I just wanted everything to stay nice. To live the good times forever. Not to be trapped in some dismal corner of this dismal Dream. But at least, little girl, at least I am trapped in here with you.”

  She moved toward Esther. Esther realized that the queen’s feet were no longer resting on the ground, but dragged by her toes, as the rest of her floated. She seemed to no longer have full control over her body, the rage making her twitch. One of her arms went limp. Her forehead bulged and sagged. She didn’t look like a human woman anymore, but like what she was—a hastily constructed imitation of one.

  “Because, Esther—” Her voice was splitting, sometimes low, sometimes high, sometimes like a chorus, and sometimes like a child’s whisper. It was falling apart into many voices. “Because, Esther, I will use every minute of every hour of every year of this eternity that I am trapped here on this nameless rock by a nameless ocean, making your life an endless, unchanging torment. I will introduce you to such pain that you will forget your name. You will forget everything but this present moment. And you will live forever in that present, wishing anything, anything could change, and nothing ever will.”