The Cat, the Crow, and the Cauldron: A Halloween Anthology

by Joe DeRouen

  ***

  Water dripped on my face. It’s raining. No, that can’t be. Stop pushing me!

  Evening, November 3rd

  “Leading this evening’s news. The missing hiker from Pawtucket, Rhode Island has been found, alive. In what can only be described as a Halloween prank gone horribly wrong, fifty year old, Ardith DeBlois, was found by a search and rescue team, assisted by canines, late last night, after being missing for more than forty-eight hours.

  Dehydrated and unconscious, Mrs. DeBlois, was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital shortly after being discovered in a remote area of the Everglades.

  Sources tell us that the Rhode Island native was part of an elaborate contest, hosted by local radio station, WCMK. Participants were secretly entered into the “Nothing Scares Me” contest by family members and friends. In what should have been an hour long prank testing her courage, members of the team hired to test Mrs. DeBlois’ bravery have said she outwitted them and ran into the everglades trying to protect herself. Exact details remain unknown.

  Mrs. DeBlois, an astronomy enthusiast and seasoned outdoorswoman, came to Miami under the guise of an astronomy tour of the Everglades. We have learned she went to the location where the tour was scheduled to depart from.

  WCMK has issued a statement to the press, apologizing to Mrs. DeBlois and her family. Stay tuned for further updates on this brave woman and the outcome of this tragic event.”

  ***

  “Turn the TV off.”

  “Sorry, Daddy. I was just curious what they are saying about Mom.” Tears formed in the young girl’s eyes as she turned to her father. They streamed down her cheeks as she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Daddy. This is all my fault.”

  “Grace, it’s not your fault, honey. You and I submitted your mom’s name. No one could have predicted this would happen. There were all kinds of safety measures in place. She just outsmarted all of them… to her detriment. I’m not in the least bit surprised she kicked the shit out of that guy and ran into the woods.” He spoke reassuringly, holding his daughter in his arms, while staring at his sedated wife, hooked up to IV tubes, heart monitors and god knows what. Her bruised and battered body drew a shudder from him. “She’s going to be fine. The doctors told you, and I’m telling you.” He knew he would only believe it when she opened her blue eyes his and spoke to him. Forgave him.

  ***

  The sound of quiet voices whispering in the distance reached her ears, and then she registered the sound of a beeping noise, which sounded angry and insistent. Warm hands rested on her arm, causing her to flinch. They’d found her. “No!” was all she managed to feebly utter. The beeping slowed down, and she slipped back into sleep.

  ***

  Smooth and easy. That’s how it felt when I let my eyes flutter open as I drifted gently out of the deepest sleep I could remember having. So deep that recent events only surged to the forefront of my memory after I surveyed the hospital room and observed the medical equipment attached to me. Tears sprang to my eyes, I was safe. I tried to stifle my sniffles as I gazed at the familiar and much beloved family sound asleep in my room. Joe was slumped in a chair not too far from me, his hand resting next to mine on the bedsheet. Dark stubble and rumpled hair and clothes told me it had been a few days, at least, since he’d showered and shaved. Grace was stretched out on a cot only slightly further away. I couldn’t help but smile at seeing her sleep with such easy abandonment, despite where she was, and the reason she was here.

  The beeping of the heart monitor was steady and slow, reminding me of the last time I had heard the irritating noise. I had been safe when I begged to be left alone.

  My thoughts were interrupted when a nurse wearing scrubs entered my room. Seeing me awake, she smiled and in a quiet but happy voice said, “Good morning. How are you feeling, honey?”

  I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry, and my throat was sore. “Let me get you some water.” The nurse held a plastic glass with a straw sticking out of it up to my mouth. “Just take a few sips. You’ve been through a lot and your body is still recovering.”

  I sipped enough to wet my mouth and laid back in my bed against the pillows. “Fine. I’m fine.” I managed in a hoarse voice, despite my aching throat and fissured tongue.

  “Mom!” I turned my head to find Grace standing beside me, her eyes puffy and red.

  “It’s sure good to see you, Grace. Give me a hug.” I didn’t have the strength to lift my arms, but I held on to her as best I could as she laid her head on my chest and sobbed. I inhaled the sweet scent of her hair and repeated over and over, “It’s all right, Grace, I’m fine.” Joe had long since put his warm, reassuring hand on my shoulder. While our daughter spent her tears, I looked up at Joe and asked, “Are you all right?”

  His dark brown eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled down at me. “I am a lot better now.” Just before I let myself drift back to sleep, I heard myself mumble, “I love you.”

  About the Author

  Celia Kennedy was born on a military base in Wurzburg, Germany. Her parents’ penchant for traveling stuck with her: she’s lived in and traveled through several countries.

  The imagined world has always fascinated Celia. She has studied art history, interior design, landscape architecture, and architecture. Her thirteen-year career at the University of Washington in Seattle ended in 1996. Not wanting to be homeless, she left the academic world and worked as a landscape architect, married the love of her life, became a mom, and served as PTA president and Girl Scout leader.

  Her love of travel, the designed and natural world, friendship, self-discovery, wine, chocolate, AND love are the foundation of her books.

  Celia Kennedy’s other work includes:

  The Accidental Series: Charlotte’s Restrained, The Accidental Stalker

  The Accidental Series: Kathleen’s Undressed, The Accidental Enigma

  Venus Rising

  Sugar, It’s Cold Outside (Cupid on The Loose Anthology)

  April’s Fool (Fools Rush In, April Fools’ Day Anthology)

  Tears in the Rain (May The Fourth Anthology)

  Meri’s Over A Barrel (Girls of Summer Anthology)

  She is currently working on book three in the Accidental Series: Marian’s Misguided, The Accidental Roadie and Moonbow.

  ***

  To learn more about Celia Kennedy:

  Website: www.celiakennedy.weebly.com

  Blog: www.womanreinventsself.blogspot.com

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennedyCelia

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMKAuthor

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Celia_Kennedy

  Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Celia-Kennedy

  Five Stories Up

  Zeecé Lugo

  Chapter One

  From my lofty perch, I could see the Empire State Building, a bright and majestic spire reaching up to the heavens. To the far left stood the modern, rectangular frame of the United Nations Building, another beacon of light in the night. To the right and closer, the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge stretched gracefully into the distance. Then, the blanket of terrestrial stars that was the New York City nightscape spilled on forever.

  It was October 31st, 1966, and night was falling over the city. Below, I could see the groups of little ghosts and goblins streaming in and out of the front stoops and basement bodegas, running, laughing, white blankets flapping in the wind, their candy treasures tightly held in hand.

  My brothers vibrated with excitement, eager to run downstairs and join the throng of trick-or-treaters. I would be thirteen in two weeks, and already the changes that would make me a woman were evident, but my brothers were still little boys, and Halloween was a great adventure not to be missed for a second.

  I held on to my witch’s hat, the sharp, cold, autumn breeze stronger up in my perch, working to snatch it from my hand. The metal vibrated with the wind, and I inched my way back to the apartment window with trepidation. Heights scared me, bu
t the view from five stories up drew me to the perch like a bird to a wire.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” My youngest brother, Freddie, pulled on an invisible tether with barely contained excitement, eager to rush down the stairs and join the wild abandon the Halloween night inspired.

  “Calm down.” My mother held him by the shoulders to force him to look her in the eye. She zipped his jacket all the way to his chin. “You stay with your sister and brother at all times. You never, ever go into an apartment or knock at a door alone. Remember, evil people never look evil.” She then adjusted his Frankenstein mask and turned to me.

  “Sonia, you’re the eldest. Your brothers are your responsibility. You are to go no more than two streets on either side of our block. You knock on doors as a group. Never enter an apartment or get close enough to be dragged in. Be careful not to go anywhere near the projects. The kids there will beat you up and take your candy.”

  “Yes, Momma.” She gave the same warnings every time we went outside. Her constant watch for trial and tribulation was annoying. I wanted to fly, to escape, and she wanted to warn, caution, and clip my wings.

  “If someone is handing out candy on a roof, you do not go. You heard me? If I find out you’ve been up on a roof, I will tell your father, and he will take the belt down from the nail.” The thought of the leather belt that hung from a nail on their bedroom wall sent shivers of fear through me. I did not want to dare the belt. It seldom ever came down from the wall, its threat far more effective than anything else I could imagine.

  “Momma,” cried out my middle brother, Jimmy. “All the candy will be gone!”

  “All right, all right, go.” My brothers dashed out the living room and after a moment, I ran out after them. The heavy metal door slammed closed behind us, and we flew down the stairs. We passed the fourth floor where my friend, Cookie, lived in the apartment immediately below ours. In the third floor, my friend, Apache, lived in number ten, and Mini and Robbie lived in eleven. On number twelve, lived a crazy lady who tried to kill herself every Saturday.

  As we got closer to the first floor, the stairwell got darker and shadowy because the second floor landing had no window, and the old light bulb above was broken. We slowed down and peered cautiously for the last few steps. On the first floor, to our left was my uncle’s apartment, but no one would be there now. We ran down the hallway and out into the bracing October night, leaping over the five steps of the front “stoop” as we all called it. Finally, we were free!

  Chapter Two

  Our bags were heavy with treasure and already the trading was starting. My brother came to eagerly peer into my bag of goodies.

  “What’d you get?” Jimmy made a grab for my bag.

  “Mary Janes, caramels, lollipops, lots of candy corn, and some Tootsie Rolls.”

  “I’ll trade you for the Mary Janes.”

  “Later,” I answered. “We still have plenty of places to cover. If we stand here too long, we’ll lose sight of Freddie, and Pop will be furious.” Freddie was the trouble maker. He was only ten, but he had an independent streak a mile wide, and he was curious and feared nothing. Every trouble we ever had, started with Freddie. Our father made us his eternal guardians. Whatever Freddie got into, it was always our fault because we were the older ones, forever responsible for him.

  As scores of trick-or-treaters streaked around us, the already frigid autumn air played on the ghostly sheets, vampire capes, and witches’ skirts. Reaching up with my right hand to keep my witch’s hat from flying off in the wind, I looked up. From where I stood, the view to our window was clear, the light from our living room spilling out into the firescape.

  It was really a “fire escape” metal ladder with landing cages at every floor, bolted to the front of the building. Every one I knew shortened it to “firescape,” and that’s what we called it. The front steps leading out of the building were “the stoop,” and they were always packed with people sitting on them. The water hydrants for the firemen were “Johnny pumps.” In the hot Brooklyn summers, we opened the valves and played in the gushing stream. We had weird names for everything.

  I could see my mother sitting sideways in the window sill to the firescape, keeping an eye on us from above like a guardian angel watching over her charge. Movement above her caught my eye. There, one firescape level above, a shadowy figure climbed the metal structure and headed for the roof. I could see its cape fluttering in the strong breeze, black against the lighter night.

  How strange! Why would anyone go up to the roof? The access door was bolted shut after the accident two years ago. No one but the super was allowed up there, and he was getting nice and drunk down at Uncle Leo’s bodega.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Jimmy urged.

  “Wait. I think I saw someone go up the firescape to our roof.”

  Jimmy looked up for a moment. “Nah, I can’t see anything with this mask on. Who would want to go up there anyway? For what?”

  “Maybe for the view.”

  “More likely for the needle, but the cubby behind the first-floor landing is what they’re using now.” My brother was eleven, but it was an old eleven.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve heard them on my way down. I’ve seen their legs sticking out as they sit in the dark. I’ve even seen a syringe on the floor.”

  My stomach clenched in fear. The neighborhood was filling up with the young people lost in the haze of heroin addiction. They cluttered the dark tenement hallways, and often we were forced to step over them on our way out the building. They hovered in groups, usually three or four, sharing a needle, huddling together like a secret, shadowy brotherhood performing a sacred rite, privy to wonderful mysteries only they knew.

  The junkies moved differently, with jerky, darting movements. The shadowy figure climbing the metal ladder was agile, fast, and obviously silent since my mom did not look up. Why the roof? He could not come back down the stairs, as the exit door was bolted from the outside. He would have to climb back down the firescape, and coming down was far trickier than going up, especially in the dark and wearing a cape.

  I shook off my worry and followed another group of revelers into the next building, my brother ahead of me. This one also had six stories and the musty smell that all these older places carried. It would take the better part of half an hour to knock on every door. Most of the residents, tired of opening and closing doors, kept them open and sat on chairs in the landings, waiting with a bucket or pan full of goodies to hand out.

  On the third floor landing, we found Freddie coming down. I quickly grabbed him by the hand. “You need to stay with us. I won’t have Pop angry at us because you don’t do as you’re told.”

  “But you’re too slow,” he complained. “And I’m not alone. I’m with my friends.” He pulled hard enough to get loose and bolted down the stairs taking them two steps at a time. There was little I could do; he was too fast for me. I resigned myself to the consequences.

  I feared that Freddie, at ten, was already heading for trouble. Some people were born that way, and all the loving and worrying about them was wasted.

  “Look, I got a nickel from number eight! One more will buy me an ice cream cone.” Jimmy was always thinking about ice cream cones. I wanted my money to buy records. For my next birthday, my mom promised me a small record player. I made a list of vinyl records to buy: The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Beatles, The Association. I was not interested in Salsa. I wanted to belong, to be as American as possible, so the school kids didn’t call me a hick.

  Climbing the stairs was slow going because there was a constant stream of kids coming down. There wasn’t an awful lot of variety in the costumes. In 1966, Halloween was about scary things. There were lots of witches with pointy hats and brooms. Most of the boys were ghosts, skeletons, Frankensteins, werewolves, vampires, mummies and zombies.

  At the top floor, two doors were closed, and hand-written paper signs that said “No Trick or Treats” were taped to them. T
he other two were open for Halloween. On number twenty, an older, skinny, wrinkly woman sat on her chair handing out jaw breakers. The stairs leading up to the roof were lighted up.

  “Is the roof door open? Is anyone handing out candy up there?” I asked her.

  “No, dear. All the doors to the roofs are now kept bolted. There’s no need for anyone to go up there, except maybe the super once in a while. Ever since that boy took a dive off 601 two years ago, all the roofs are off limits.”

  That was my building, 601, one block down on Marcy Avenue. The boy fell to his death on Halloween night, very late, on the near side of morning. Technically, he wasn’t a boy. In 1966, at sixteen, you were a young man. What he was doing on the roof, at that time of night, remained a mystery. Rumor said he wasn’t alone, and beer bottles and cigarette butts were found up there, but they always were.

  I knew that. I don’t know why I asked. I followed Jimmy down, running the last twenty feet out the first-floor hallway into the bracing night air. The lights of the city and the sounds of car horns, laughing children, and the rumble of the underground G train joined the blaring sirens of fire trucks, ever busy in Brooklyn.

  From apartment windows drifted the sounds of radio music: The Four Tops, The Beatles, The Monkees, and the Latin music that Puerto Ricans loved so much. Worn out by the stifling heat of a New York City summer, residents were basking in the cool fall breezes that swept through the open windows as they enjoyed the views from above.

  A tap on my shoulder caused me to turn around. A mummy sporting bandages made from a torn old sheet loomed over me, shuffling in to crowd me, hands grasping out for me. “Robbie, I know it’s you,” I said, smacking his hands away.