The miniature devil raises its pitchfork. The girls chant in happy unison like a squad of cheerleaders: “We are Legion!”
“I see,” Blaine says. “So you’re little demons tonight.”
The masks nod with enthusiasm.
Blaine rises and gathers the discarded pillowcases from around the room. “Being supernatural and all, I know you’re not tired, but it’s getting pretty late.” She picks up candy and drops it into the bags. “I’m sure all of you know that if demons don’t get back to Hell before midnight they turn back into regular boring girls.”
The masks confer quickly. Blood-beak points her hypnotic spiraling eyes at Blaine. “That’s not true! You’re lying.”
Blaine shrugs off the accusing stare. The eyes make her dizzy if she looks for too long. “Find out for yourself then.” She shovels candy off the floor with both hands and fills up the sacks. The girls try to stop her and pull the candy back out. Blaine is bigger and faster and competitive by nature. She pins a full pillowcase closed with her knee and uses her elbows to block the girls’ assault. Hands slap and bump and grab. Wrappers tear and candy colors smudge under fingernails. Blaine’s breathless as she presents each girl with a full pillowcase in triumph. “Okay. Come on, let’s get up and go.”
Blood-beak says, “Go where?”
“Home,” Blaine says. “Lead the way.”
Devil-nose is the biggest girl. She cocks her head to one side and says, “We are home, dummy.”
Blood-beak concurs, “You’ll get used to it.”
“Nope,” Blaine says. “You’re evicted. Up and out.”
Devil-nose lifts her pillowcase as high in the air as her arms can reach and turns it upside down. Candy bounces across the carpet, rolls under the chairs and coffee table, and lodges between the end tables and couch. Detached wrappers drift and scatter into every corner. The other girls follow her lead and do the same. Then they count to three and toss their empty pillowcases into the air and clap. The sacks parachute over the room like jovial ghosts at play.
“Fine,” Blaine says, taking the smallest girl’s arm, the shy one with the wobbly horns on her faceless head. “You can go without your candy.”
Horn-head’s body goes slack. Her arm is dead weight in Blaine’s grip. She wails, “No, Mommy, no. I don’t like this game.” Blaine tries to hold her so she’ll stand up, but the child collapses in tears and rolls as if she’s in agony, crushing warm candy into the rug.
Devil-nose rushes to comfort little Horn-head, clutching her tight and rolling along with her. “Look what you did. You made her cry!”
Blood-beak flings her feathers at Blaine before she joins. “You’re supposed to be nice!”
Something slick splatters Blaine’s face. The girls wrestle in a confusion of animal parts and totem heads. The smallest one cries: “Mommy, mommy, don’t make me leave you!” The others scream the same words in repeated torment and mocking laughter. The miniature devil on the biggest girl’s nose brays and squeals. Blaine feels dizzy and insane, like she’s watching a pen of cannibal pigs mangle each other on her living room floor.
The cacophony of laughter and piercing wails from the girls stabs Blaine’s temples. She says, “Stop it” uselessly. The roiling mass expands and engulfs her like a migraine. Her head pounds until she realizes that the pounding is outside her skull, on her front door, where a fist demands an answer. Blaine lunges and almost falls into a blinding light. It’s the police.
Two officers stand on the threshold. One shines a flashlight inside and says, “Excuse me, ma’am. Is everything all right here?”
“Oh no, no it’s not,” Blaine says. “Please, come in.”
The officers exchange a look and step inside. Behind them the deserted street has come to life, not with roaming ghosts but with peering neighbors, open storm doors and illuminated porch lights. The black witch effigy dolls are lit from behind, casting shadows. They sway on their brooms, titillating lurid whispers up and down the block.
The girls cling to Blaine’s legs like baby marsupials cowering from a threat. Blaine gestures at the creatures with open palms. “Their mother left them here. Or babysitter. This is so terrible, the poor things. Please, can you get them home?”
“What’s the address, ma’am?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you called their mother?”
“I don’t have a number. Her name’s Amelia.”
“Amelia what?”
“I don’t know. Everyone knows her. Ask one of those people.” Blaine points over the crush of the girls at the peeping faces outside. The officer with the flashlight lowers it, and then turns and shuts the front door. The last thing Blaine sees outside is the neighbor couple in matching bathrobes pulling their witch doll down from the rafters.
The second officer buddies up next to Blaine and the girls while Flashlight scans the scene. The girls press into Blaine. Devil teeth snag holes in Blaine’s sweatpants. Blood drips from the beak and dampens her thighs. Flabby horns writhe on her like hungry worms.
Blaine pushes back at the girls. Her fingers sink into the horns like chewed bubblegum. The bloody beak nips at her wrist. “Jesus,” she says, “Get them off me.”
Flashlight says, “Calm down, ma’am.”
Buddy admonishes, “You shouldn’t talk that way in front of the children.”
Blaine knows she’s got blood from the bird-beak spattered across her forehead and her pony tail has fallen halfway out. Smeared candy sticks to the carpet, Kuan Yin lies prone among used pillowcases and shredded wrappers, and watery dirt from the house plant spreads a black stain on the hardwood floor. Blaine tries to act more reasonable than she appears. “Please,” she says, “Can you take them? Their mother must be worried sick.”
From the mantle, there’s a loud chink as the ice melts in Blaine’s cocktail glass.
Flashlight says, “Have you been drinking?”
“I made punch,” Blaine says. “For my family.”
“Is that a yes, ma’am?”
Blaine says, “It’s not like that. It was mostly children.”
“Where’s your husband?”
“I’m single.”
“Three kids and not married,” Flashlight says to Buddy.
Blaine starts to protest and Buddy comes to her defense. “Things are different now than when we were coming up. You can’t judge girls these days, what with women’s lib and them having to work and all. Be glad it’s not the drugs.”
Flashlight shakes his head at Blaine. “I guess I’m just old-fashioned.”
Blaine struggles against the girls. “Look, you don’t get it. Listen—ouch, stop it!”
Flashlight kneels next to Blaine and speaks to Blood-beak. “Hi, sweetheart. You look really scary tonight. Did your mommy help you with your costume?”
Blood-beak says proudly, “No. I made it all by myself.”
“How about that?” says Flashlight. “What’s all over your mouth?”
“Candy.”
“Is that what you call it? It looks pretty messy. Did you eat too much candy tonight?”
“No, sir.”
“What about mommy? Did mommy have too much fun and get messy?”
Blood-beak says, “She invited us, sir.”
Blaine says, “What does this have to do with—get them off me!”
Flashlight says, “Do you think you can be good for mommy tonight?”
“For Christ’s sake,” Blaine says. “I’m not—”
Flashlight cuts her off sternly. “How much have you had to drink tonight, ma’am?”
“Two glasses of punch. Who cares?”
Buddy explains: “See, honey, if you blow point-oh-eight it’s a mandatory report. We have an obligation.”
“Report what? This is my house.”
“We have to call protective services. It’s mandatory.”
“Are you crazy?”
Flashlight stands and puts his hand near his holster. “Just relax, ma’am. There’s
no need for talk like that. Answer the question. Are you the sole caretaker of these children? Is there anyone else here?”
“No, but—”
“Seems like she lives alone, then,” Flashlight says to Buddy.
Buddy shrugs. “Yeah. Too bad she didn’t drink much. It’s gonna be rough.”
Flashlight checks the scene once more and moves toward the door. He declares: “The only substance I see being abused here is sugar.”
Buddy says, “You got that right.”
“Wait,” Blaine says. “What about them?”
“Mommy, you’re so funny.” The girls laugh and hug Blaine’s legs like a Chinese finger trap. The more she struggles, the tighter they grip.
Buddy tells Blaine, “I’d try to relax more if I were you.”
The girls join their small hands and close the ring tighter around Blaine. They spin Blaine against her will as they circle and begin to sing a nursery rhyme. Blaine cries out, “Wait. Report me. Take them away. Please.”
Buddy’s eyes follow the counter-clockwise motion of the girls spinning Blaine around and around. He frowns at Flashlight. “I hope she can handle them better than the last one. What do we tell the Connors about Riley?”
Blaine shouts: “Hey. Arrest me. Get me out of here.”
Flashlight says, “I don’t think we need to make a big deal out of a few extra treats on Halloween. Everyone knows the risks.”
“True,” Buddy says. He turns to Blaine once more. “We’ll let it slide this one time. We know it’s hard being a single mom, especially when you have so many.”
Blaine’s voice succumbs to the sing-song chant of the girls as Buddy and Flashlight lock the door behind them. Blaine mouths the muted words: They’re not mine.
The chant pulsates around her. The song is a nursery rhyme Blaine doesn’t recognize in a language she can’t understand. Her head throbs in cadence with the repetitive melody as she spins. The girls distort and expand, forming a membranous skin. Blaine punches at the elastic mass enclosing her. It absorbs her effort and warps back into place. She tries to aim for their faces and fails. It’s impossible for Blaine to single out the individual masks in the spinning swarm of devil laugh, razor beak and warm flesh. Blaine can see everything clearly, but her mind can’t process what she sees. The girls have sloughed off their street clothes. Their bodies are the same as their faces. Their faces are not masks.
***
At the edge of an empty ballpark, a baby stroller waits outside in the dark. It’s a cumbersome double stroller, the type with side by side seating compartments for twins. An autumn frost coats the bulky shape, highlighting it under the glow of the Hunter’s moon against a backdrop of pines.
If a curious passerby stops, they breathe easy to notice no sound or motion from the abandoned stroller. Coming near, they worry about what they’ll find tucked underneath the blanket. The worn coverlet appears to be decorated with alphabet blocks, but upon closer inspection, the symbols look more like ancient runes. Thinking twice about using their bare hands, the curious observer searches the ground for a fallen branch. They lift the weather-stained blanket, revealing a vacuum of darkness inside the stroller compartments blacker than the surrounding night. A flash of deeper, greater darkness from within startles them. They drop the branch, and it’s sucked away. There’s a crackling sound, as if something unseen is trying to eat the branch.
Another crackling sound resonates across the park. At the crest of a hill, the neighborhood is gathered around a bonfire. It’s the end of October again, the transitional time between fall and winter. Until the New Year begins on the morning after Halloween, the fate of the community hangs in the balance. The veil is thin, and everything can change tonight. With equal reverence and revelry, the neighborhood residents wait for the cutty black sow to show her face and give herself up as an offering.
Blaine doesn’t hear the bonfire or the crackling of the branch from the double stroller compartments. She hears the hungry crying of its passenger. Blaine experiences the crying as a direct bond, as her own insatiable need. The rest of the world is barely audible. As Blaine practices leaving the stroller unattended for longer and more agonizing stretches of time, the sound of crying never stops. When Blaine grasps the handle once again, she’s flooded with a sickening relief. Then she’s compelled to push. The giggling girls encircle her, swarming and weaving in a chaotic orbit. One full year of Blaine’s life has passed this way.
Near the bonfire, Blaine’s neighbors watch with orange faces, lit by flame. The couple in golf clothes gropes one another with weird delight. Flashlight and Buddy stand at attention, solemn in their fire safety gear. Other familiar faces leer, faces Blaine can’t associate with names, joggers and gardeners and pedigreed dog walkers. All grow hideous with grotesque laughter, spitting and popping like logs in the fire, grinning like jack-o’-lanterns sharing an inside joke.
Blaine’s exhausted from a year of service, a year of keeping the girls well fed with scraps and travelers from the hotel, a year of constant need and no rest. Blaine sees an easy answer in the beckoning flames.
Lucky for her, the girls are good at keeping secrets. Blaine’s primed them as much as she can. They’re excited she wants to play dress up and they’ve been rehearsing every day. Tonight is their big chance. The girls leap as the stroller hits the bonfire. Blood-beak jabs her maw deep between Blaine’s thoracic vertebrae and into her spinal column. After a rupture of pain, powerful wings emerge from Blaine’s back. Blaine feels stronger and lighter. She begs her hands to release the stroller. Gravity helps them comply. As Blaine rises, Devil-nose plunges down her throat. Blaine feels like she’s choking until a long, fiery tongue snakes its way over her esophagus and out of her mouth. She sprays fire on the crowd below. The last girl, faceless and soft-horned, clings whining around Blaine’s waist. She’s the youngest of the three and needs a little push. Blaine coaxes her gently and reminds her of the plan. They merge, and a glorious Leviathan unfolds beneath Blaine’s wings.
The stroller rolls down the hill, unmothered and ablaze. The crowd chases it in frenzy. Blaine lays them to waste. No one remains to save the stroller from burning. No one is left to hold the maw of the portal open and allow the unseen occupant to gape into a world where it doesn’t belong. The passenger is banished. The crying abates. The October sky glows amber and red, and the mythical beast Blaine has become circles the neighborhood and pumps its majestic wings. It rises higher and higher in an ascending orbit above the trees and wraps itself in wisps of cloud. It folds its wings and settles into the sky. Drifting across the moon’s silhouette in a chimera-shaped nest, the beast slips into an unspoiled sleep.
MASKS
Lisa Lepovetsky
As Don Quixote and Sancho Panza emerge from the red Plymouth, Sancho Panza straightens out the goose feather pillows creating a large gut behind the scuffed leather belt. The sun is trying to disappear behind the tops of white pine trees surrounding the small brick house at the edge of town, staining the sidewalk from the curb a deep burnt orange. The two are silent as they stroll the block from the red car to the house, and Sancho Panza pulls a Kleenex from a hidden leather pouch when the wind picks up.
“Damn. I always have trouble with my contacts when the wind tosses the dust like this. Everything’s kind of red and distorted. It’s as though the world were at the bottom of a pool of diluted blood. I’m glad we didn’t have to park farther away, like last year. Remember? We had to duck Halloweeners the whole way up the block.”
Don Quixote says nothing, but they walk faster past the parked cars, and hurry out of the cold, mean evening when the door is answered.
Joan of Arc ushers them in with a flourish, waving the foil-covered sword behind her. “The others haven’t all arrived yet. Michael’s still making the punch in the kitchen.” She gestures though the archway, with its string spiderweb, and they glimpse a short man with large wings hovering over a cauldron. He pours in something green from a bottle.
Saint J
oan grimaces. “Damn. Now it’ll taste like melon.” She turns her attention back to her two guests. “I think I know who you two are, but I won’t make my guess until the unmasking, after everybody’s here.” There’s a knock on the door. “Excuse me,” she says. “More haunts are here. Make yourselves at home.” She hurries off.
Music throbs around the strange figures like an invisible tide, ebbing and flowing around the pier of voices. The soundtrack from the film Halloween. Their hosts have thought of everything, as usual. Orange and black crêpe paper streamers sag from the ceiling like the legs of a huge, desiccated spider. Paper skeletons and witches peer from windows and walls. Candlelight and smoke create a warm fog. There is not enough room in the small den, and the overflow is in the kitchen, around the temporary bar set up by the refrigerator, where the archangel Michael serves drinks.
The music from the stereo is very loud. Sancho Panza nods toward the sofa, but Don Quixote shakes his head. “Let’s find somewhere quieter,” he shouts, “where we can be alone and talk.”
Sancho Panza points toward the ceiling and says, “One of the bedrooms. Come on.” They make their way to the carpeted stairs and decide to open the first door they come to.
***
Halloween. I watch children wandering in frightened packs, disguised with rubber, plastic and painted flesh. Some wear sheets in a vain attempt to emulate spirits. If they only knew. Unsuspecting doorbells are thumbed by sticky digits, hooked protectively around twisted handles of paper bags also masquerading as pumpkins or ghosts. On the Eve of All Hallows, nothing is as it seems.
Cruel lean cats, black as libido, balding in uneven patches, cross my path as I shuffle through ankle-high piles of moldering leaves. More of the dead and dying, the color of blood and sunsets, drip silently from naked branches to rest in my hair or on my hunched shoulders. I hate to be touched and whirl, clutching uselessly at the empty air, my heart thudding against its bony prison.
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