by Jane Yolen
“I’ll call Mars,” she told herself. Even when her parents ignored her, or got on her case, Mars could be counted on. “He’ll know what to do.”
12 · Tricks or Treats
Callie was still sitting with her eyes closed when Jamsie the janitor came into the room. He wasn’t very quiet about it, setting his mop pail down with a bang.
“Whatcha doin, Carrot Top?” he growled. His tone sounded threatening though the words were not.
Callie looked up and saw him scowling at her. His wild white hair seemed even less combed than usual. She’d never liked him, especially because he always called her Carrot Top.
“Thinking,” she said.
“Well, do yer thinking some’ere else,” he snarled. “I gotta clean up here. “’Sides, school isn’t no place for thinking.” He shook the mop at her.
Suddenly she realized that she and Jamsie were probably the only two people left in the school, and that he could easily murder her, cut her up, and hide the pieces in his broom closet with no one the wiser.
Right, she thought, scare yourself silly over a bad-tempered janitor. Like this is Friday the 13th or some other dumb movie. Clearly, fiction was becoming her new way of thinking.
She grabbed up the beginning of her article and her book bag, then left the school almost at a run. She’d hate to have her parents tell the police, “We told her so.” It didn’t occur to her, until she was two blocks away and pedaling fast, what Jamsie had said.
“School isn’t no place for thinking!” she repeated, and then began laughing so hard, she almost went right past her street.
“Calcephony McCallan, where have you been?” her mother began the moment Callie walked in. “I was about ready to call the police.”
“Doing homework, Mom. At school.”
“School is no place for homework…” her mother said.
Callie laughed. “The janitor just said something like that. He said school was no place for thinking.…”
“Don’t get smart with me, young…” Her finger was pointing at Callie.
“But, Mom, I’m agreeing with you.”
Her mother took a moment, then laughed with her. “You’re right. Must be last night’s excitement and lack of sleep. I was just worried you wouldn’t get back in time.”
“Back in time for dinner? Do I ever miss a meal?” Callie asked.
“Back in time for trick-or-treating.”
Callie mentally thwacked her head with the palm of her hand. How could she have forgotten? She’d promised to take Nick out this year because Mom and Dad were going off to a Halloween party themselves. How surprised and happy she’d been when they proposed it. Finally they were letting her off the leash. Well, at least loosening the leash a little. After all, she and Nick would be out with all the other neighborhood kids.
Plunging her hand into her backpack, Callie pulled out the paper with the two paragraphs and waved it in front of her mother’s eyes. “Two paragraphs! That’s all I’ve got so far, Mom. And it’s due tomorrow.”
Her mother put her head to one side and gave Callie the you-should-have-known-better look. “Then you should have started earlier.”
Callie was ready to cry. “It’s the article about last night’s concert, Mom. I couldn’t have started it any earlier. That’s why I stayed after school. I was trying my hardest to get it done because I’d promised Nicky I’d take him tonight. Only, you see, I can’t. And I wanted to.… I really wanted to.”
Her mother gave her a considering look. “Oh—that article. Well, you tried, Callie, and that’s what’s important.”
Callie knuckled her eyes to get rid of the tears. She hated crying. It made her face splotchy. A redhead with splotches was the worst!
“So finish your paper, and I’ll get the Piatts to take him. But no leaving the house.” This time she put her finger up to emphasize what she was saying. It was like an exclamation point.
Suddenly grinning, Callie gave her mom a hug. “You’re the greatest!”
“Well…”
“Oh—and I need to call Mars.”
“Now?”
“I need his help on the paper.”
Her mother looked at her with a strange expression on her face, part annoyance and part hurt. “Can’t I help?”
“It’s a … thing about magic and mystery, Mom.”
“That’s Mars all right.” Shrugging, her mother went up the stairs. “Dinner in an hour. Right now I have to turn myself into a witch.”
Callie resisted the obvious and went to the phone. Dialing the frat house, she told the boy who answered that she wanted to speak to Mars McCallan.
“So does everybody,” he said. Then he shouted Mars’ name loud enough to blast Callie’s ears.
When Mars took the phone, Callie plunged in without any explanation. “It’s bizarre and strange, and scary, too,” she said.
“Whoa, little sister, make it fast. I have a Halloween party to run.” Then he laughed. Mars always laughed, a waterfall of sound.
“There’s this rock group—the Brass Rat.…”
“I know them. Rock and reel. ‘Exile’ is a real existential anthem.”
“Define existential?” She hated not knowing what things meant.
“You’ll need to take Philosophy 101 when you get to college.” He laughed again. “The dictionary definition just won’t do.”
She sat on the bottom step of the stairs and wound the long phone cord around her hand. Her parents refused to get a cordless. They said it only encouraged people to lose the phone. “This is not a joke, Mars. I saw dancing rats, and they take souls, and…”
“Happy Halloween, Sis,” he said. “Thanks for the trick. Though it makes no sense. I’ll send you a treat later. Got a couple hundred people about to arrive in costume and me not even dressed yet. I’m going as Oberon. You know—the fairy king.” And he hung up.
Callie stared at the phone for a long moment. The buzz it made was so much like a raspberry, she was surprised the phone didn’t stick out a tongue at her.
How can Mars do that? she wondered. How can he treat me that way? He had always been her champion, her white knight. He was the one who put Band-Aids on her scrapes and kept the bullies away. And now his stupid party was more important than … than …
Than what? Her fictions? Callie shook her head, hung up the phone, and went up the stairs. Once in her room she entered the two paragraphs she’d written in school into her computer.
They didn’t look any better.
Or any worse.
* * *
DINNER WAS A STRANGE AFFAIR. Her father was dressed like Harry Potter, with a wizard’s pointy hat and a lightning bolt over his right eyebrow. But otherwise he was still in a business suit.
“Harry grown-up,” he explained. “Though I’ll also have a robe. And boots.”
“And be stifling,” Callie said.
“Just warm,” he retorted.
Her mother as a witch was even weirder. She’d applied green makeup to her face and hands. Some of it had come off on the macaroni and cheese.
“Vegetable dye, I hope,” Callie muttered, pushing some of the greener pieces to the side of her plate.
Nick was having trouble keeping his wizard sleeves out of his bowl. He was a smaller version of his father, but the sleeves seemed large enough for both of them. Callie left the table, found two rubber bands, and made him cuffs.
“Thanks, Cal,” he said, looking up at her with adoration. Probably, she thought, with a twist of her mouth, the same way I used to look up at Mars. Who dumped me to play the fairy king.
“Sorry I can’t do the big T&T with you, Bugbrain,” she told him. “You sure look … magical.”
He beamed.
“The Piatt kids will be by in fifteen minutes, Nick,” the witch said. “We’ll be gone, but Callie will be here when you get back.”
“And not a minute past eight o’clock,” said the big Harry Potter, adjusting his hat. “Then off to bed.”
&nbs
p; Nick nodded. “Can I have one piece of candy then?”
“Just one,” the witch and the old Potter said together.
“Or you’ll be flying higher than a witch without a broom!” added Mom, and punctuated it with a cackle.
“Remember that, Calcephony,” her father intoned and waved his wand. “Eight o’clock is pumpkin time for this little wizard.”
“Honestly,” Callie said, as she excused herself from the table and headed upstairs, “this has to be the weirdest family in the entire world.”
She was to remember that later. Much later. When she longed for their small strangeness in the midst of a much greater one.
13 · Casting
In a small wooded copse atop a large hill, Gringras had cleared an area to work. Lit candles stood at the five corners and a small brazier sputtered and sparked in the center.
As he skipped and danced, playing his flute, shadows from the flickering lights painted mad caricatures of him in the treetops. Woodland creatures—rabbits and squirrels and brown-eyed does—gathered around the clearing, their eyes glowing in the darkness.
Gringras reflected on how he had come to this predicament, this earthly place. How he, a minstrel prince of Faerie, could be reduced to a wandering busker, singing for his supper. How he, a magician of some skill, had ended up in this magic-less land, trying to cast any spell of note. How he, once a powerful prince, had become lower then the meanest bogie, who at least has the good taste to leave a changeling in place of the children it steals.
Gringras danced and played.
And remembered.
* * *
HE REMEMBERED THE WARM SPRING day—like most of the days in Faerie—when he decided to kill his older brother.
Gringras had two brothers: Tormalas was older, and Wynn was younger, putting Gringras in the middle. He had neither the power of the older brother nor the freedom of the younger. The middle billy goat gruff, he thought. He followed humbly in their footsteps, a dutiful sibling, until he would finally fade into obscurity, munching on the good green grass on the other side of the bridge.
Gringras had no wish to fade into obscurity.
But, in Faerie, stories have real power. It is, after all, the birthplace of faerie tales. He knew the form: Oldest sons stay home to inherit kingdoms from wise kings and go on to become wise kings themselves. Youngest sons have grand adventures where they outwit dragons and demons and save princesses to marry so they, too, can eventually inherit kingdoms and become wise old kings.
Middle sons, Gringas thought crankily, middle sons chew grass.
He sat cross-legged on a small rise overlooking a field of purple and red flowers, chewing on a wheat stalk like a human farm boy. Tiny feylings hovered above the colorful blossoms, their miniature wings buzzing furiously.
“What say you, Gringras?”
Gringras jumped. He had been so deep in thought he had not noticed Alabas coming up behind him. Gringras spit the wheat stalk out and stood up with what dignity he could muster.
“What say I?” Gringras replied, “I say we change our destiny.” He spoke firmly and frowned when Alabas laughed.
“Big thoughts for such a warm, lazy day, my prince. I thought we were destined to eat lunch. I would not want to change that!”
Gringras’ mood broke and he laughed, clapping his friend on the back.
“We will not change that part of it, Alabas. But let me tell you of my thoughts while we eat.”
A short time later, their appetites sated, Gringras laid out his murderous plan.
“If we get caught,” Alabas mused, “I cannot imagine the punishment we will receive.”
“We will not get caught, my friend. And besides,” Gringras winked, “my brother will only be dead for a short time.”
“Just long enough?” asked Alabas.
“And no longer.” Gringras was now as sunny as the day.
14 · Eight O’Clock Warning
Once the Piatt kids had come to pick up Nick—with many loud promises of getting him back by eight—the house quieted somewhat. Every once in a while, though, her mother’s high, witchy cackle or her father’s shout of “Where did I leave that wand?” broke through Callie’s concentration.
Since her parents promised to leave a big tub of candy at the door with a sign saying HERE’S THE TREAT! Callie didn’t have to go down to feed the princesses and wizards and elves who visited their front porch. The tub had been her mother’s idea.
Sometimes, Callie thought, parents can be cool. Though when she thought about it some more, she realized it was less cool than meant to keep her from the door and possible danger.
Danger! she thought. Nothing dangerous or even anything slightly weird ever happened at her house; her parents wouldn’t allow it. Except … She shuddered, then remembered that the dancing rats and Alabas’ strange poem and the teind had all happened at the concert, not at her house. Shrugging, she sat down at her desk, content that she wouldn’t be bothered by anything else. Then she put on her earphones and grooved to an Eric Clapton CD she’d taken from her father’s collection.
She stared at the computer screen and the paragraphs she’d put there.
And stared.
And stared.
And stared some more.
Nothing came to her. Not an idea. Not another sentence. Not a noun or verb or dependent clause.
Not a reason.
Nothing.
Twice her hand strayed toward the phone, ready to call her older brother. Twice she stopped. No magic explanations there, not even from the fairy king.
Before they left, her mother barged into her room, now entirely in witch black which made the green face and hand paint even stranger. She pulled the earphones off Callie’s head. “Well, we’re off now. The candy’s in the big tub at the door. We’ll be at the Turners’ house. I’ve put their number next to the phone.”
Callie nodded, reaching for the earphones which her mother had tucked under one green arm.
“Now listen, Callie, if Nick is more than a minute or two late, I want you to call the Piatt house. Mrs. Piatt has never met a deadline in her life. And the kids are just like her. Honestly, I wish you didn’t have this paper. I have a funny feeling…”
Her mother often had funny feelings. They never amounted to much.
Callie nodded again. “Deadline, phone number, funny feeling. I’ve got it! Let me get back to my article, Mom.”
“How are you doing on it, sweetie?”
“It’s a tough one.”
“Well, journalism shouldn’t be so tough. It’s pretty straightforward, I thought. Just who-what-when-where-how.”
“It’s also why. At least the best journalism is,” Callie said, quoting her teacher. “And it’s the why I’m stuck on.”
“Oh,” her mother said, waving a dismissing and very green hand, “the why is easy, of course. Brass Rat just wants to make beautiful music.” She handed the earphones back.
“Right.” Callie took the earphones, which now sported green paint. She took a tissue and cleaned them. “The whole point of this stupid story is that Gringras and Brass Rat just want to make beautiful music. So they came to Noho the night before Halloween. How could I have been so dense as to miss that?”
“Now, now…” her mother said, “watch your tone. Remember I’m the witch. Not you!”
“Grab your broom, sweetie, time to rock and roll!” Her father’s voice floated up the stairs.
Cackling loudly, her mother left.
Callie slammed the earphones back on, changed the CD, relieved to listen to the music of “Dante’s Prayer” by Loreena McKennitt, relieved to be alone at last.
She wrote her story four separate times, and printed them out in different fonts, just for something to do. Each version sounded nuttier than the last: Rats. Pipers. Souls.
She tried to make connections between them. One was very science-fictional. One was straight Tolkien fantasy. One was clearly a fairy tale. The fourth was just plain nuts.
>
“I’ll flunk journalism with this,” she said aloud. “And I’ll deserve to. Maybe I should just become a fiction writer. Maybe I should tell folk tales like Granny Kirkpatrick.” She balled the stories up one after another until she had the four sitting by the side of her computer. “All they’re good for is basketball.” She quickly sank two in the wastebasket across the room.
Taking the headphones off, she ran her fingers through her hair to unflatten it. The house was quiet. Too quiet. She listened carefully, expecting to hear something from outside—cars pulling up to disgorge their costumed passengers, the shriek of kids trick-or-treating, doorbells ringing.
“Probably already gone by our street,” she told herself, before putting the headphones on again.
Then she went on to AOL and tried to send instant messages to Josee and Alison, to tell them how awful the article was, and how sorry she was for acting so stupid to them in school, and what a hard time she was having. But neither of them was online.
“Of course, dummy,” she told herself, smacking her forehead with the flat of her hand for real this time. “They’re out trick-or-treating. Getting muchos chocolates. Having fun. Not thinking about me.” Suddenly she was furious with herself for having volunteered to write the story.
Volunteered? She’d begged to do it. She’d shouldered the other students aside, practically trampled on them, to get the chance to write the stupid thing. And now …
Who cares about the dumb old band, anyway, she thought. Or their exit-ential anthem. Or whatever Mars had called it. Who cares if they lost all their money or had to pay a teind or a blood guilt payment or whatever. And who flipping cares if rats dance all over them.
She felt sorry for herself for about five minutes. And did a really good job of it, computing her midterm grade with a possible F and then a D and liking neither of the results. Changed back to the Clapton CD. The song about his dead kid helped her bad mood along.
Finally, she tore the earphones off and flung them across the room.
Enough! She was going to crack this story if it killed her. And it just might! she thought. I’ll just write what happened and leave the “why” of it to someone else.