by Joe DeRouen
Her mom shook her head, checking the front page of the paper which boasted another scathing article submitted by Minister Stone on the desecration being committed at the site. She frowned.
“I’m done. Gonna go get ready.” Sierra scarfed down the rest of her food, and ran upstairs to get ready. Soon after, she and her mom were off down to the mall for costumes.
As they perused the racks at the shops, Sierra heard a voice coming from the other side. She peered through, muffling a gasp. Elizabeth! Wait, no, that wasn’t her name. Shaking her head, Sierra backed away, only to be stopped.
“My father says he is going to make sure no one continues to profit from the lies told by those women.” Rebecca’s pert voice came through the costumes. “And, he’s going to make sure those people know he won’t stand for it in his city.”
Chloe came around the corner, holding a long, red gown with fur trim. “How is this?”
The voices in the other aisle stopped immediately, and Sierra decided she had better things to do. “It’s perfect!”
“I thought so. Let’s go, and I’ll do some of the alterations.” The pair left the store, Sierra only turning back once. In Rebecca’s place, a woman flashed into her memory. She was like Rebecca in every way, except dress. She is devious, Sierra. Do not trust her.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” Chloe was paying for the dress, and smiled over at her daughter.
“Nothing.” She took the bag and followed her mom back to the car, trying to focus on the evening ahead.
***
“Goodwife Mary Young, you are accused of witchcraft. What say you?”
“I am innocent.” Mary spoke out proudly in the town hall, not afraid to stick to her convictions. She placed a hand possessively on her abdomen.
“We have studied all testimony and find you guilty of the crime of witchcraft. You will be hanged after the birth of your child. Repent now and save your soul.”
“I have done nothing against the teachings of our God.” Mary stared at Minister Stone, her eyes cold.
“I…I would like on the record that the custody of the Young children will go to Sarah Samson, an aunt, who will be collecting them in six months.”
A collective gasp rose up, and Elizabeth glowered at her husband.
Minister Stone stood firm. “May God have mercy on your soul, Goodwife Young.”
Mary was escorted back to her jail cell. She pulled out her journal.
I am judged by superstition and fear. I have six months of life before all I know will come to an end. They will forever be cursed with the fault of their characters, and it will haunt them throughout all their descendants.
***
Derek arrived to pick up Sierra at 7, and they were going to walk to the dance from her house. He looked really handsome as Tristan, and was full of complements for his Isolde. When they got to the gym, it was a typical Halloween theme, with bobbing for apples and silly games. The music was blasting from the DJ, and Sierra soon forgot about all of Rebecca’s boasting earlier in the day.
She and Derek danced most of the night, and he won her a handful of candy at some of the games. Everything was perfect, and they even won the costume contest. It wasn’t until the end of the dance that things swiftly turned sour. Derek came back from the bathroom with a frown on his face. “We need to go, Sierra. I heard some guys talking, and they are going to go break up the site your parents are working at.”
“No! My mom will be crushed. Come on!” She pulled him out the door.
“Do you know where you’re going?” He wrapped an arm around her waist, taking her back in the opposite direction from which she was headed.
Too frazzled to object, Sierra raced with Derek to the site, which was located behind the high school. When they got there, they saw Rebecca and her friends at the edge of the taped off area.
“Stop! You can’t do that!” Sierra ran forward.
“Watch me!” Rebecca sneered, stepping over the rope. She let out an ear-piercing scream and fell to the ground, grasping her head. Her friends backed away, bolting for the woods.
Sierra crossed the rope, and a voice entered her head. I died here. She gasped and collapsed to her knees. Derek quickly joined her, wincing as well, and falling down next to her.
“Mary…” Derek’s eyes flickered a few times.
Help him. Help us. Come on, Sierra. You are our only chance! It’s my Louis.
“I…” Sierra faltered.
Rebecca’s vengeful voice came from the ground. “He was supposed to be mine! I had to settle for Samuel! A minister’s wife, pure and sweet!” She sneered in disgust, spatting the words out.
Derek’s eyes flashed, “I never could love you, Elizabeth. Mary was my soulmate, something you could never understand.”
Sierra trembled, Mary’s voice coming in her head. Hold on, sweet girl. We are almost there.
“I wanted you, and then you died! So, I had to punish her!” Rebecca’s trembling finger pointed at Sierra. She tore at her hair, blonde strands coming away in her grasp. “You were mine! It was arranged! I made it so!”
“What do you mean?” Sierra’s mouth spoke Mary’s words.
Crying, Rebecca fell to her knees, “I went to a woman in the woods. She promised she would give him to me! Louis was mine! She promised!” Tearing at her hair and pounding her fists in the mud, Rebecca succumbed to Elizabeth’s agony. “And then, she tried to steal Samuel! There was no end to her lustful greed!”
Derek ran to Sierra, enveloping her into his arms, no longer threatened by the drop into the archeological pit. “My love, my sweet love.” Louis’s words were meant for Mary, his soul once again united with the one he adored.
“I never once lay with that man. He tried so, but I never could.” Sierra let Mary and Louis have their moment.
Rebecca’s eyes reddened, rising from the muck. “If I cannot have you, Louis Young, neither shall she!” She fumbled for a stone, and hurled it at Derek.
Mary’s voice filled Sierra’s mind, and the warning came in time. The stone met no target. All three crumbled to the ground. Rebecca let out the most horrifying scream as a hooded man appeared above her. Beckoning with a bony claw, he twined his fingers around a red wispy trail, drawing it out in front of him.
“No…no! I won’t! No!” Elizabeth’s cries echoed through the forest, trying to find a way to cling to Rebecca’s body.
“Time was given. It is done.” The disembodied voice of the hooded figure spoke over the screams, wrapping the red mist into his cloak, silencing Elizabeth’s voice forever. The clearing stood silent.
Sierra’s eyes fluttered open, and she crawled to Derek, shaking him. He remained unconscious. At that moment, he gasped for air. Sierra backed away from him as a ghostly mist slipped from his form. Grasping her chest, the air was sucked from her lungs as another joined it, slipping from Sierra’s lips.
She could not scream, because she instantly knew that before her stood the forms of what once walked the world as Louis and Mary Young.
The striking resemblance Mary bore towards Sierra was uncanny, aside from the black dress, starch white apron, and prim cap. Securely around her waist, Louis’s arm rested, unashamed of the open affection he shared with his wife. He beamed at Sierra. “Thank you.” They began to fade into the forest.
“Wait!” Sierra stumbled to her feet, “Who am I?”
Louis smiled dotingly down at her. “You are our many times over great-granddaughter, Sierra. We tried to reach your mother on many occasions, but she was so driven by her factual mind.”
“When my diary fell into your hands, it awakened a long dormant chance that we may be reunited, and watch over our family once more.” Mary clasped her hands around Louis’s arm. Together, they faded into the distance.
“Sierra?” Derek struggled to his feet, and wrapped her into his arms. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca was ghostly pale, her lips moving in incomprehensible sentences.
Sierra nodded, “Yes, it is more than she deserves, but Mary would have wanted it.”
“So it wasn’t a dream, was it?” Derek pulled her to her feet.
“No, but I think we will all be okay now.”
About the Author
Heather Osborne was born and raised in California. She has a Bachelor of Science in Criminology and Victimology, as well as coursework in Early Childhood Education. In 2009, she met her husband and moved to Scotland, very much a dream of hers since she was a small child. Heather has been writing short stories for as long as she can remember. She also has written and directed several plays. In her spare time, Heather enjoys reading, writing (of course!), theatre, as well as caring for her young son. She also reviews for Readers' Favorite.
She is the author of the Rae Hatting Mystery series, as well as the award-winning, The Soldier’s Secret. Look for her on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and on her blog!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HAOsborne
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hosborneauthor
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Blog: https://heatherosborneauthor.wordpress.com/
Roast Pumpkin
Leonie Rogers
Anna smashed the pumpkin violently to the ground, adding to the pile of sticky, orange fragments scattered at her feet. It was wrong. Everything was wrong. No-one in their right mind should ever carve a pumpkin, she thought. Pumpkins were for eating - or at least they were where she’d come from.
Baked, with roast potatoes, roast lamb and peas, and all smothered with thick, brown gravy - smelling like a slice of heaven on a plate. She scrubbed her sticky, orange-stained hands on her jeans, adding smears of pumpkin pulp to the old stains from the red dirt of home, and propped her chin on her hands.
Home. She felt tears prick her eyes as she let herself drift, lost in the memories of the redness and aridity of her home town. It had been three months since she’d arrived. Three months since she’d been dragged from her friends and her schoolmates by her mother’s new job, and she still hated her new home with a vengeance. It was all wrong - chilly when it should have been hot, green when it should have been red, and worst of all, her parents were forcing her to take part in Halloween, with its focus on merchandising and orange kitsch.
“Anna! Have you finished yet?”
Anna grimaced. “No, not yet, Mum.” She rubbed her hands down her jeans again, and surreptitiously kicked some of the larger fragments into the vegetable garden, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice the pumpkin carnage.
Jennifer Warren’s footsteps were unmistakable, solid in their steel capped boots, as she strode down the path to the bottom of the garden, where Anna sat perched on a wooden stump. “You need to get dressed, Anna. I’ve popped your costume on your bed, and Mrs. Andrews just rang - Haley’ll be here about six to collect you.”
Anna sighed. Her mother’s voice had that ‘no nonsense, don’t tangle with me tone’ she’d leant to dread. Even so, she tried once more. “But Mum, do I really have to go with Haley? Surely she’d have a better time without me tagging along?” And as far as she was concerned, Haley was an over made-up fake. Heavens knew how her mother had talked her into taking Anna with her - it wasn’t as if she’d made any effort to get to know Anna at school. Although to be fair, she hadn’t been unfriendly, just distant.
Her mother’s trim figure stopped in front of her, clad in its hi-vis mining gear. “Nonsense. Mrs. Andrews assured me Haley insisted on taking you with her. Go on, you’ll have some fun.”
“I suppose.”
“And I see you’re wreaking havoc on the pumpkins.” Her mother’s leather boot probed a piece of shattered pumpkin sticking out from the vegetable garden. “Surely it can’t be that hard.”
“I’ll give it one more try, and then I’ll go and get ready,” said Anna resignedly.
“And we’ll have a hot dinner waiting for you when you get home - assuming you still have room for it after the trick-or-treating. Look, just see if you can make some kind of jack-o-lantern, please - it doesn’t have to be fancy, but I’d like to have something out the front tonight. This is our new home, and we need to try and fit in.”
Anna nodded, stifling another sigh, and picked up another pumpkin. “OK, Mum, I’ll try one more time. But really, pumpkins should be eaten, not carved!”
Her mother laughed, “Well, I’ll agree with you there.” She poked her daughter on the shoulder. “One more try, and whatever you manage will be fine.” Anna saw her mother’s smile slip slightly, as her eyes tracked over some more of the pumpkin pieces. It was evident there had been little carving and much angst involved in the disaster. Jennifer didn’t comment, but just patted Anna on the head and walked back towards the house.
Slightly ashamed, Anna picked up yet another template and tacked it to the pumpkin. The grinning face on the paper stared back at her, adding to the irritation she felt. Resolutely, she gritted her teeth, finished the outlining and picked up a pumpkin saw.
***
At least my costume’s not totally stupid, thought Anna as she swung her cloak around her shoulders and fastened it with the frill-necked lizard brooch. Her friends had provided the cloak and brooch as a farewell gift when she’d left her Pilbara town - a memory of the books they’d all loved and shared. She added a hip quiver, and her cased bow - legacy of the archery club she’d loved - and checked to make sure that the arrows in the quiver were only the mock ups her father had made, not the real ones inside the bow case.
Strictly speaking, she shouldn’t be carrying the real ones, but she couldn’t bring herself to take them out and leave them on her tall boy. It seemed wrong somehow, and it wasn’t as if she was going to be opening the bow case anyway.
“Anna!” She straightened her arm guard slightly, and then ducked out of her bedroom and down the stairs to where her parents waited.
“You look great!” said her father.
“And the pumpkin wasn’t that bad either,” said her mother, smiling. “Haley should be here in about ten minutes - how about we all wait outside?”
“It’s OK, I’ll wait by myself,” said Anna hurriedly. It was bad enough her mother had organised someone to take her out, but it’d be worse if anyone from school saw her waiting outside with her parents. She resisted rolling her eyes.
Her parents looked at each other doubtfully, and her father opened his mouth to speak. “No, really, I’ll be fine. I want to go and see how the pumpkin looks anyway,” said Anna, “and I’m sure Haley won’t be long.”
“Got your phone?” asked her mother.
“Yep.” Anna waved it at them and then returned it to the pocket of her jerkin.
“Are you sure?” asked her father.
“I’m positive.”
“Alright then, and be sure to ask Haley if she’d like to have dinner with us when you get back - I’m cooking lamb roast,” he replied.
“Really?”
“Really!”
“Thank you!” She hugged her parents, knowing how expensive lamb was here in the US. Her parents were trying very hard tonight. “With pumpkin?”
Her father smiled. “Of course!”
She opened the door with a slightly lighter heart, waved to her parents, and went out into the cool night air. Perhaps the evening wouldn’t be too bad - even if she did have to wander around with a bare acquaintance and her friends.
She stepped out onto the porch, glad of the warmth of her cloak in the night’s chill. Orange jack-o’-lanterns glowed from many houses, and Anna was momentarily stunned by the effort some of her neighbours had gone to. Witches and broomsticks adorned the house across the road, and old Mr. Jackson’s house next door was liberally festooned with elaborately carved pumpkins, each one glowing with the warm light of a candle.
Anna stood-stock still for a moment, completely amazed. She jogged down her own front steps, turning to look at her one measly pumpkin, perched on the t
able next to the front door. It looked a little lonely, and a little lopsided, but her parents had added lights that illuminated the black cut-outs on the front windows, and the house looked like it was at least trying to blend in.
“Anna!” She spun in place, startled, as Haley’s voice sounded behind her.
“Hi, Haley,” she replied, and then took a second look, blinking in the sudden brilliance. Haley’s costume was astounding. The snow princess style dress glowed vividly in a multitude of blues and whites, and culminated in an elaborate headdress, dangling with diamantes that reflected the LED lights strung around them. “Wow, that’s amazing!”
“Thanks,” replied Haley. “I thought I’d take it up a level this year.”
“Take it up a level? What were you last year?” asked Anna, curiously.
“Maleficent.”
“Wow.”
“And you are?” asked Haley.
“I’m Sarai - you know, from the Mulga Scouts series?”
“The what?” Anna’s heart shrank. Apparently Haley had never heard of her favourite series. She’d not thought to ask if anyone here had read the books. They were super popular at home.
“The Mulga Scouts - by Eileen Johnson. You haven’t read them?”
“Never heard of them, but I don’t read much - not my thing.” Haley dismissed the concept with a gesture. “Come on. We’re meeting the others two houses down, then we’ll head off to the Ackersley house - they always have the best decorations, and heaps of candy.” She swept herself around, carefully swinging her wide skirt clear of the path’s ornamental border, and Anna followed, slightly dazzled by the light show in front of her.
Five minutes later, they joined a group of costumed figures. “Hi Haley, Anna,” said a knight, waving a sword. Anna squinted, and realised it was Haley’s boyfriend under the armour - Aiden. Slowly, she identified the others - all from Haley’s ‘group’ at school. The black-hatted pirate was revealed as Mason, holding hands with Laura, the gypsy wench, while the skeleton, Jake, stood next to Ella who was dressed as a bright yellow minion.