by Paula Guran
“Buck up, Muriel,” she told her middle-aged self silently, just as she had once told her much younger self, about to walk down the aisle in her white dress to become the bride of an almost unrecognizably younger Mr. Padgett. And just look what that had led to!
And now all she had to do was to give her family their last-minute instructions, check her handbag (compact? door key? purse?) and walk out the front door.
Everyone has an evening out alone sometimes.
She said “Buck up, Muriel,” again, aloud this time, and went into the sitting room.
Mr. Padgett was watching the news. Timothy, her youngest (he had been quite a surprise, almost an embarrassment at first, although it was quite funny now to remember how shy she had been at those ante-natal classes with girls young enough, some of them, to be her own daughters), was doing his homework. Neither of them looked up when she came in. Her middle child, Sara, soon to walk down the aisle on her own account, was out doing some necessary shopping, but she would be back in time for dinner. Mrs. Padgett waited until the weather forecast came on.
Then she said, “I’m off now. You know about the casserole, don’t you? Don’t burn yourself when you get it out of the oven, you’ll find the oven gloves hanging right next to the stove . . . ” They always hung right next to the stove, but last time Mr. Padgett had searched through all the kitchen drawers and found a lace tablecloth to muffle his hands, ruining it, and very nearly his fingers, in the process. She suppressed that memory firmly.
“There are some jacket potatoes as well, and I don’t expect Sara will want one . . . ”
No, she certainly would not. She intended to wear a wedding dress that was a mere slip of white satin (Mrs. Padgett’s mother had said she’d worn a bigger nightie than that on her wedding night, never mind what she’d worn to church) and it would contour itself to every mouthful of potato. It seemed so unfair. Timothy, who was never likely to wish to appear in public in a white satin slip, seemed to eat twice his own weight in starch every day, and never put on an ounce.
Remembering Timothy’s appetite she said, “There’s heaps of bread as well. Don’t leave anything for me, you know we get a lovely meal. Oh, and if any children should knock . . . ”
Mr. Padgett, withdrawing his gaze from the television screen for the first time since she had come into the room, stared blankly at her and she hastened to explain, “It’s Hallowe’en, dear. They may come round asking for sweets. Trick or treat, you know. Well, there are some bags of sweets and things all ready on the hall table.”
Mr. Padgett thought about this for a moment, and came to a suitably managerial decision. “I’ll leave all that to young Sara,” he said firmly.
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Padgett. “Now, you will be all right, won’t you?”
“We’ll be fine,” said Mr. Padgett, who had never cooked a meal in his life. “We’re used to fending for ourselves, aren’t we, Tim? You go off and enjoy yourself. You don’t often get out on your own.”
Four times a year, Mrs. Padgett thought, with uncharacteristic sharpness. I must manage it about four times a year. And I’m not surprised when I have to plan everything like a military campaign. Three times as much work beforehand and heaven only knows what my kitchen will look like when I get back. For a moment she wondered if it was all worth it. She was tired, and no wonder, and she had a slight, but nagging, headache.
Perhaps it would be better just to go upstairs and lie down.
Timothy looked up at last. “Are you going out, Mum?” he asked.
Mrs. Padgett was saved from anything she might have said by her husband saying: “She’s having a night out with the girls. Aren’t you, Mu? At least that’s what she tells us. I bet we’d be surprised at what she really gets up to.”
Mrs. Padgett smiled nervously. “Are you sure there’s nothing you need, before I go?”
She hovered, fighting with those awful guilt feelings, waiting to see if her husband and son had any last requests, but Mr. Padgett had gone back to the television and Timothy to his book. If she was going, and it seemed as if she must be, there was no sense in being late.
She went up to her bedroom. Now—coat, gloves, handbag. A quick glance in the mirror to check her neat but timid bob and that pink lipstick she could never quite get used to. Her elder daughter, Melanie, living a life of married bliss in Pinner, who could drive, and went out alone in the evenings two or three times a month, had persuaded her to abandon her old-fashioned red lipstick, but she was still not sure about it. After all, if red lipstick was so completely out of fashion, why were they still making it? For a moment she hesitated in front of the mirror, thinking, not of her lipstick but of Melanie. No sign of ante-natal classes for her, and yet she seemed happy enough . . .
Perhaps she should phone her . . . No, not tonight.
“Buck up, Muriel!” she said, quite loudly and fiercely to her reflection. “You know you’ll enjoy it once you get going.”
She picked up her handbag and, calling a cheerful goodbye to her son and her husband she went out, closing the front door carefully behind her.
The garden was dark and smelt of wet leaves. If Mr. Padgett, or Timothy, had looked out of the window and seen her walking, not down the drive, but across the lawn to the tool shed they would have been surprised. They might even have been a little disturbed. But the sitting room windows were tightly curtained. Still, Mrs. Padgett moved quietly. She had oiled the hinges on the door earlier that day, and it opened with barely a whisper. The cat, who had been waiting in the shrubbery, hurled himself forward with a squeak of excitement but Mrs. Padgett hushed him firmly.
Very, very quietly she took the garden besom from its rack and carried it outside.
Decorously she sat herself astride the handle while the cat leaped up behind her. Guilt was forgotten in a flood of glorious excitement. She recited her spell and the broom rose smoothly into the air. She pointed its head in the direction of their meeting place and set off for the greatest witches’ festival of the year.
The broom banked high over the house, skittish after its long confinement. Mrs. Padgett, feeling the wet wind rush through her hair, took a firm grip on her handbag and shrieked aloud her delight and anticipation.
Far below Mr. Padgett roused himself momentarily from his television programme, catching the echo of that eldritch cry. He turned to his son.
“Do you know, I could have sworn I heard someone shriek “Buck up, Muriel,” he said.
But Timothy was reading.
The stereotypical Halloween witch is old and ugly, wears a black pointed hat, rides a broomstick, has a black cat, and is probably in league with the Devil. She usually has a cauldron nearby bubbling with . . . something. Lately, however, this portrayal of witches is being at least supplemented with an attractive younger, often sexy version—a new cliché. The character of Muriel falls somewhere between the two extremes: a mundane matron who secretly practices a (probably) benign form of witchcraft
ONE THIN DIME
Stewart Moore
Stewart Moore’s “William Wildhawk” indulges in old memories and inquires about the past in “One Thin Dime.” On Halloween we can transcend time. As supernatural as that may seem, consider your own Halloweens. Keeping traditions, adding new ones, passing them on to the next generation—this might be considered a way of extending yourself into the future. Each Halloween also connects to those of your past—you may dig out decorations that are decades old, think back on holidays past, perhaps revisit your childhood, rediscover seasonal memories—all for better or worse. Does visiting the past necessarily involve magic or just a willingness to make the journey?
It had to be a great house for candy. Anyone who decorated their house that much for Halloween must have great candy, and lots of it. Old-style carnival posters filled the yard, proclaiming the wonders of Doug the Dinosaur Boy, The Real Jack Pumpkinhead, The Mysterious Blackwidow, and Kate the Lion-Tailed Girl. Each poster was carefully framed, its yellowing paper sealed be
hind glass. Each one hung from a stake driven deep into the dew-damp grass. They stood, arrayed like a band of goblins, guarding the house. That house itself—so white and plain by daylight—was draped in shadows that dripped from the branched fingers of old oak trees. A simple, single-toothed jack o’ lantern grinned its candlelit grin from the porch, and right at the top of the steps, a real, honest-to-goodness, enormous witch’s cauldron smoked and steamed. There had to be great candy in there.
The problem was that there were no lights on in the house, no lights at all, and so the little pirate stood on the sidewalk, shifting from foot to foot, trying to decide whether to go up and knock. In the glass frame of every poster, his reflection danced nervously.
The little pirate’s mother had warned him not to go up to any house that didn’t have its lights on—and especially not to go up to this house. This house had been empty for years and years, but just last month someone had moved in. Grown-ups never talked about the new owner except in whispers. The little pirate watched the cauldron steam. He was sure he had heard his mother whisper the word, “Witch.”
It didn’t help that the moon was full, that the last dry leaves on the trees rattled like tiny bones in the cold wind, and that somewhere, in the darkness, an owl was hooting. These things didn’t help at all.
Finally, the little pirate decided not to try it. As he turned to go to the next, friendly, well-lit house, a shadow moved among the deeper shadows of the porch, and a smooth, clear voice spoke: “And what are you tonight, my dear little monster?”
The trick or treater froze. It was a woman’s voice, a young woman’s voice: younger than his mother, older than his babysitter. The voice spoke quietly, but still he could hear it clearly over the soft bubbling of the cauldron: “Well?”
The trick or treater began his shuffling dance again. He looked down at his costume as if to be sure: at his oversized white shirt, his black pants, his buckled shoes; at the shiny plastic hook that hid his left hand. He felt the eye patch and the bandanna he wore on his head. Finally, uncertainly, he croaked an answer. “ . . . I’m a pirate?”
The woman in the shadows laughed. It was a friendly laugh, not the sort of gurgling chuckle you might expect to hear from a darkened porch on Halloween night.
“That I can see,” the voice said. “But which one? Are you that Blackbeard Edward Teach, who died with twenty-six bullets in his body and his beard full of other men’s blood? Or perhaps you’re Jean LaFitte, the voodoo master of New Orleans, who used his own, dead sailors to guard his treasures? Or even . . . no, you couldn’t be . . . so bloody a man as Captain William Davey, a man so evil he named his ship ‘The Devil’? They say that before he was caught and dangled, he made his crew swallow his gold and jump overboard, so that they could bring his treasure back to him in Hell, ten thousand doubloons clinking in their bellies. Are you such a man as that?”
The trick or treater’s ideas concerning pirates came mostly from Scooby-Doo. The names the shadowy woman had rolled out to him spoke of blood, and he didn’t like them. He tried, quickly, to think of a name for himself, a good piratical name, but now all the names he could think of sounded like they belonged to very, very bad men. At a loss, he looked down at his feet and mumbled, “I’m a pirate.”
“And a fine one you are, too. But you weren’t going to pass me by, were you?”
“You’re light’s a-pposed to be on.” The little pirate felt that on this point, the Halloween rules, as they had been explained to him by his mother, were quite clear, and he felt confident enough to assume a reproachful tone.
“I know,” said the voice, unfazed even by this clear admission of rule breaking. “It burned out. Don’t you want a trick or treat?”
The little pirate’s father was fond of this exact same trick question, and so he knew the proper follow-up: “Which one?”
The voice laughed again. “A treat. For you—most certainly a treat. All you have to do . . . ” The voice paused for a very long time, as if waiting for an owl to hoot eerily in the silence—which, at last, one did. “All you have to do is reach into the pot.”
The cauldron still bubbled and steamed, but did not choose this moment to do anything threatening, like spitting out a shower of parti-colored sparks, or allowing a greasy gray tentacle to slither briefly over its lip. Uncertain, but drawn on by the promise of treats, the little pirate began inching his way up the walkway. “What’s your name?” he asked. With a name, he would at least be on firmer ground.
“Oh, no,” the voice purred. “You’re not supposed to tell names on Halloween. It’s dangerous. You don’t know what might be listening. Do you?”
The shadow that spoke from the shadows finally stirred, and stepped forward into the light. A young woman appeared, with long golden hair and tawny skin, wearing a red lion-tamer’s jacket and a black top hat. She also had a long, golden-furred tail that swished idly back and forth behind her.
“But Long John Silver,” she said, “where’s your parrot?”
The little pirate looked at the poster nearest the house: Kate the Lion-Tailed Girl looked exactly like the coolly smiling woman standing over the cauldron.
“You’re in the poster,” he said.
“Yes . . . ” Kate winked. “Well, don’t you have something to say?”
The pirate only looked down at his hook.
“Trick . . . ” Kate prompted.
“ . . . or treat?”
“And which would you prefer?”
“Treat, please,” said the pirate quickly.
“Of course!” Kate opened her arms in a wide gesture of welcome. “Go ahead. I’ve got very good candy. Reach in. I won’t move a muscle.”
The little pirate climbed the steps to the porch, much more slowly than many a real pirate had climbed the stairs to the gallows. He stopped on the last step, refusing actually to stand on the same porch as the lion-tailed girl. Her tail, he saw, was twitching much faster now. He tried to look into the cauldron, but all he could see was white smoke bubbling inside it.
“You said . . . good candy?”
“Very good, I said.” Kate grinned.
The white cloud inside the cauldron spat out a tendril of mist, and the pirate shrank back. The candy he’d already collected rattled inside his plastic pumpkin: not very much so far. And the cauldron was very, very big. There was a lot of room for a lot of candy. Finally, he screwed his courage to the sticking-place and, squinting his eyes tightly, reached into the pot. His hand sank beneath the surface of a cold liquid. He’d expected heat, and snatched his hand back. It was covered in strawberry syrup, but it wasn’t strawberry syrup. He knew what it was. He knew what it was, it was—
“Oh, how silly!” Kate laughed. “You said treat, didn’t you?” Cat-quick, she reached into the cauldron herself, and her hand came out, not scarlet, but clutching a crinkling mass of candy bars. She held it out, patiently waiting for the little pirate to hold up his pumpkin. Trembling, he did. But before she dropped the treasure, she tilted her head and asked, “But are you sure you wouldn’t like to see what the real trick is?”
He shook his head so violently his eye patch slid down to his cheek. Kate laughed and dropped the candy into his pumpkin. On the instant, the pirate ran off like a cannon shot for saner quarters. She called after him: “I hope you find your parrot!”
A little ways down the road, under a streetlight, an old, old man was watching, his hands buried deep in the pockets of a coat that might have fought at Verdun. As the boy ran off, the old man walked nearer, stopping at the same spot the little pirate had stood for so long before his fateful decision to go up the walkway. The old man tipped his hat. “You set to bothering the young ones there?” he asked.
“Can I help you?” Kate asked, stepping back slightly towards her shadows.
The old man took off his hat. His wisps of white hair shivered in the wind. He held his hat like a bowl. “Trick or treat?”
“Where’s your costume?” Kate took a half-step back toward
s the light.
“Right on my face!” the old man said. “I’m a genuine Egyptian mummy, ten thousand years old and falling to pieces right before your eyes. You got any magic tanis root in that pot there?”
Kate regarded him sidelong, her arms crossed. “Reach in and see.”
“Oh, no. Not after what I just saw. My heart couldn’t take the strain, I’m afraid.”
“That is a pity,” Kate said, and tossed him a candy bar. He caught it in his hat and slipped it in his pocket.
“Much obliged, Miss Kate,” he said, as he put his hat back on.
“That’s trouble,” she said. “How do you know my name?”
“Well, there’s the convenience of putting it on that poster there.”
“That poster,” she said, “is older than you are.”
“And besides that, you’re about the only thing this town has talked about since you moved in last month. It’s behavior like this—plus having a tail, I suppose—that’s done it all, you know.”
Kate half-smiled. “So it’s Halloween night, and you know my name. That gives you quite an advantage. But who are you?”
The old man tipped his hat once more, and said, “Name’s William Wildhawk.”
Kate laughed, surprised, delighted. “No, it isn’t!”
“Of course not. But it sounds like the sort of name a fellow ought to have when the woman he’s talking to has a tail, doesn’t it?”
“It does indeed,” she said, and her tail arched upward with pleasure. “But what brings a man named William Wildhawk to my doorstep on such a night as this? Surely not free candy bars. With a name like that, you need dragons to slay.”
The old man looked around, as if Kate might have a dragon waiting in the shadows on a leash. “No, not me,” he said. “I doubt I have anything that would slay a dragon. Why, do you know where one might be found?”