by Mark Parker
The words, something about the words…a memory of a writer handing Connor a script, a new draft of the Witch’s words…
Connor knew that some part of this wasn’t real, but which part? Was the Witch nothing but the amazing robot the Merry Mountain technicians had created? Was the cat that watched him even now with a malicious glint in its emerald eyes nothing but gears and metal framework? Or were they not even that real, concocted from his memories?
There was only one way to find out.
Connor took a deep breath and moved forward.
“…a mirror’s shard and a skin scarred, a potion made for dear price paid…” The Witch moved slowly, bent over the cauldron, stirring, muttering, stirring, muttering…
And then she looked up at Connor.
He froze, staring back, nerveless, immobilized. There was nothing mechanical about her eyes—hazel green, flecked with red, moist and set in fleshy folds beneath tufted brows. Her mouth twisted up into a grin, and she said, “You haven’t taken your pills, have you?”
The absurdity of the question jolted Connor. He looked down, confused—
When he looked back up, the Witch had become Jeff, leaning forward over the kitchen table. His partner Patrick sat beside him, chewing a sandwich. The smell of tuna hit Connor, and he saw he held a forgotten half-sandwich in one hand, tuna salad spilling out of the sides onto the plate.
“I…what?”
Jeff glanced back at Patrick, who set his sandwich down, concerned. “Connor,” Patrick said, “you aren’t taking your pills in the morning, are you?” Behind Patrick, Terry stood, arms crossed, frowning.
“Look, the goddamn things make me groggy, okay? Yes, I stopped taking them. What’s the big deal?”
“Dad, you can’t just go cold turkey off some of these medications. That’s why you’ve been so confused lately.”
Connor started to utter a denial, but he couldn’t do it—he had been confused. He felt like a kid busted for underage drinking.
“Look,” Jeff said, his tone conciliatory, “I’ll make a deal with you: if you take the pills today, we’ll get the doctor on the phone on Monday and see if we can’t swap them out for something that’ll make you less groggy, how about that?” Terry stood now with the white and tan and yellow pills in a napkin and a glass of water.
With all of their eyes on him, he felt the weight of obligation. Silently, Connor reached out, took the pills and water, and downed the handful in a single gulp. “There,” he said, rattling the table as he slammed the empty glass down.
Patrick smiled. “Connor, we’re just concerned about you. And you know how much we’d love to see you paint again.”
Connor shook his head. “That won’t happen. Not without Margie.”
Jeff patted his father’s hand. “Maybe…just think about it.” Jeff glanced at Patrick, and they both rose. “We’ve got a little bit more work out front, so why don’t you rest until we’re done.”
“Fine.”
The two younger men rose and headed back out, and Connor let Terry help him to his feet. “I don’t want to go back to the bedroom, Terry. I’ll stay out here.”
“Okay, Mr. Connor.” She led him to his favorite couch, the one surrounded by art he’d done for both George Merry and himself. Once he was comfortable, he found himself staring at an oil painting he’d done for Margie ten years ago, one that showed a group of trick-or-treaters at a door, surrounded by glowing jack-o’-lanterns and holding up their treat bags and buckets. Margie had loved Halloween and she’d loved that painting.
No, no more. Not without her.
He closed his eyes and slept.
***
It was dusk when he awoke. Jeff and Patrick were standing over him, both covered in dust and paint. “Dad,” Jeff was calling softly, “Dad…”
Connor looked up, awakened from a dream that had left him agitated although he couldn’t remember what it had been about. “What?”
“The surprise is finished. Come out front.”
Connor groaned as he rose from the couch, knees protesting. Shuffling with the cane, he followed them out the front door and down the walk. He saw children running on the sidewalks, shrieking and swinging orange plastic pumpkins, and it took him a moment to remember:
Today was Halloween.
“Don’t look back at the garage yet,” Patrick said, trying to walk between Connor and the house. Connor saw tree branches and cables and wires, and he had to admit he was curious. Jeff had vanished, but he called out, “Don’t turn around until I tell you to!”
Connor waved over his shoulder. “Okay, okay…”
Across the street, other houses were just setting out lit jack-o’-lanterns and turning on lights and fog machines. From somewhere down the block, Connor heard amplified sound effects—shrieks and moans and jangling chains—and he felt the ghost of his Halloween excitement stir. How he’d loved this day as a child—the freedom, the night, the imagined power—and later, as an adult, he’d understood that the holiday spoke to him on some deep, primordial level. It whispered into his ear with a voice as crackling and rough as tree leaves crunched underfoot; the seasons change, and death happens, and you can’t stop it so you might as well celebrate it. He’d answered that voice with his own creativity and George Merry’s urging, and The Enchanted Forest had been the result.
Connor was still gazing out on the street, drinking in the lit pumpkins and costumed revelers, when he heard an electric buzz behind him, and a glow lit the street. “Turn around, Dad,” his son called from behind him.
He turned—and was dumbstruck.
The entrance to The Enchanted Forest now covered his driveway. There was the old iron gate set into the stone pillars; there was the winking black cat perched at one side. Where his front lawn usually was, tombstones circled a reasonably believable fake fire; the interior of the garage had been filled with faux trees and lit artfully from overhead to suggest a full moon lighting a receding path.
Jeff had been bent over an extension cord, having plugged in the lights. He approached his father and Patrick now, smiling tentatively. “What do you think?”
Connor asked, “This is what you were working on all day…?”
“Yep.” Jeff put an arm around Patrick. “We’ve been working on parts of it for the last six months. This is the first time we’ve set it all up. I think it came together pretty well.”
Connor listened, and heard the sounds: crickets, owls hooting, wind in leaves. “You even got the audio…”
Jeff answered, “We called your old friends in the Merry Sound Department, and they got us the original tapes.”
Connor took a few steps forward, drinking it all in. “Is it all here?”
Patrick cried, “Oh, gods, no!”
Jeff added, “We couldn’t afford to do all of it, but…well, follow the path. I think you’ll be surprised by what we did manage to pull off.”
Without another word, Connor moved forward, and fell into The Enchanted Forest.
***
The path moved on past the Witch, and for an instant Connor glimpsed something else behind her—a normal sliding glass door. Some part of his mind recognized his house, realized that the path had actually wound down the side of his house and into his back yard…but this was The Enchanted Forest, his world.
After the Witch came the Pumpkin Village. Sure enough, he turned a corner, and there were dozens of pumpkins all around him, stacked on bales of hay, held under the arms of scarecrows, perched in the crooks of tree branches. He knew this was too small to be the Pumpkin Village from the real Enchanted Forest at Merry Mountain—that had hundreds of jack-o’-lanterns, not dozens—but some of the pumpkins were animated, singing in chorus. Connor remembered writing some of those lyrics, and as he listened he began to sing along:
Pumpkins glare in the midnight dark,
Watch out for the branches or they’ll leave a mark!
The Halloween moon’s full and the trees are stark,
Here in The
Enchanted Forest.
The pumpkin nearest him screwed up its face into a toothy grin and a wink, and Connor didn’t care whether it was real or not, in the past or present. If this was all just some episode of withdrawal-induced dementia, at least it had become a happy one.
Then he remembered what came next, and his happiness snuffed out like a tired candle at the end of Halloween night.
The storm…
The Merry Fantaseers (for such had the designers and engineers of Merry Mountain come to be known) had spent years on the storm. They’d perfected ways to project overhead images of rushing clouds and lightning flashes; they’d figured out how to mimic water in trees, and strong winds, and thunderous sounds. The experience had been so realistic that guests had tried to flee into the trees for shelter, and they’d had to create a waist-high fence to keep them confined to the path. Some laughed when they reached the other side, checked themselves over, and realized they were completely dry.
But tonight, Connor knew something was different; he heard the winds ahead, felt an icy chill rushing down the path, and he knew this storm wouldn’t be so tame. He was seized by an almost irrational fear of facing it. He remembered this wasn’t the real Enchanted Forest, but an elaborate Halloween haunt; he was in his own backyard…wasn’t he?
“Jeff…Patrick?” He called out, but his voice sounded weak and hoarse, and no one heard. He couldn’t see anything beyond the trees and the pumpkins, only the path leading ahead, into the storm.
Fine, Connor thought. He would swallow back his dread, walk through whatever came, illusion or harsh reality. He would reach the other side and this would all be over.
He set off along the trail, leaving the leering pumpkins behind. The temperature dropped, leaving the old man to shiver. He tried to move faster, but the cane was hard to handle on the dirt. The path grew even smaller, the trees pressing closer, and he saw the faces in the trunks, twisted wooden faces, full of scorn and menace. Were some of the faces moving? He wasn’t sure, but the idea terrified him.
The path widened and he was in the storm.
Winds buffeted him, forcing him to lean into them. Thunder was deafening, lightning blinding. He heard voices around him, carried on the air currents, screeching and howling; there were hints of spirits in the air, barely-glimpsed shapes tearing along with the wind. The rain seemed quite real, causing the ground to slicken. The cane slid and Connor went down; he caught himself, though, and wound up on all fours.
He gave in at that point. He put his hands over his ears, squeezed his eyes shut, and screamed.
When he finally ran out of breath, before he could draw in more air to continue screaming, silence descended. Connor moved his hands from his ears, waiting…but the quiet held. He was no longer shivering, the rain had stopped, and when he opened his eyes, he saw something unexpected before him.
There was a small figure now crouched in the center of the opening a few yards away; a boy, maybe eight years old, bent over something, his back to Connor, his hands moving.
Connor’s breath caught as he searched his memory: what was this? He couldn’t remember it being part of the storm, or any other scene in The Enchanted Forest. At Merry Mountain, the storm had spilled out into the Dance of the Dead, the attraction’s grand finale: an open meadow where glowing blue phantoms waltzed to music played by a skeletal band. But this, this kneeling apparition…was it something his son had added? Or was it some bit he’d forgotten, the memory misplaced along with so many others?
Would it be the most frightening thing he’d ever seen? Would it leave him scarred in some way?
He found his cane, painfully got to his feet and inched forward, cautiously, trying to give the figure as wide a berth as possible, never taking his eyes from it. He heard a small sound—high-pitched, musical—and realized the small figure was humming, something familiar.
It was Monster Mash. It’d been Connor’s favorite song as a child. He’d had a 45 rpm record of it he’d played every Halloween, while he...
Connor suddenly knew.
He no longer walked with fear, but with burgeoning joy. As he rounded the kneeling boy, he saw what he’d realized would be there: a grinning jack-o’-lantern, its face still only half-finished. The boy had a tiny pocket-knife which he used to saw through the thick orange flesh, up and down as he created the toothy smile. If he saw Connor, he didn’t react.
He was Connor. Connor stood over him, watching, recalling…
The joy he’d felt every October, when the plans he’d set up all year long came to fruition. Plans for costumes, for pumpkins, for yard decorations. Plans that had given him his first taste of artistic satisfaction that had paved the way for a life spent pursuing dreams. A successful life, and for the most part a happy life, until…
The boy looked up and he did see Connor. He stopped working on the jack-o’-lantern for a moment, screwed his small face into a squint, and said, “You should never have stopped. She didn’t want you to.”
The boy vanished. Connor saw, clearly now, his house behind the single layer of cardboard trees that Jeff and Patrick had set up, the speakers tucked in among the trunks, the floor fans half-hidden by mossy netting. He pushed past the forest, opened the rear sliding doors, went into the house, and looked at the framed paintings on the walls.
My God, I’ve wasted three years. Margie would’ve kicked me in the pants.
“Did you like it, Dad?”
Connor looked up to see Jeff and Patrick standing in the front entry way, eyeing him uncertainly.
He gave them back a smile. “I can’t believe how much of it I’d forgotten. You did it real justice.”
Jeff’s face lit up, while Patrick hugged him with one arm.
“Tomorrow,” Connor said, “I’m going to have Terry drive me down to the art store. But tonight…”
Connor marched past them, his gait so strong he barely needed the cane. He picked up a bowl of candy ready for trick or treaters, and marched out the front door. He wasn’t sure why he felt so good; maybe his medications had kicked back in, or maybe it was seeing even this reduced version of The Enchanted Forest.
As he made his way down to the beginning of The Enchanted Forest, a black cat ran past his feet. On any other day, Connor might have made a joke about it being bad luck, but tonight it felt like magic, good magic.
“Happy Halloween,” he called after the cat.
SUGAR SKULLS
Sean Patrick Traver
The neighbors didn’t call him the Necromancer, el Necromantico. They called him the Catman. But el Necromantico he was, and Dulcé knew it. She’d spent the better part of a year tracking him down.
His modest parcel of land north of Los Angeles was labeled ‘Rancho Delgado’ in the city records, but the people she’d spoken to all pronounced it del Gato. The Cat Ranch. It was no longer a working ranch (not as of today, early in the summer of the year 1900), but merely a sliver of property carved off from one of the massive cattle concerns that had gone belly-up decades earlier, during the drought of 1862, and nostalgically named in honor of that bygone way of life. It lay nestled into the foothills south-east of the Santa Monica Mountains, near an area misspelled on Dulcé’s map as ‘Los Felis,’ which seemed in keeping with the general feline theme. No sign marked the dirt track she found leading off the dusty wagon route between downtown and the strawberry fields up near Tropico, when she coasted to a stop on her fat-wheeled bicycle, but several cats eyed her with calm disinterest from where they lounged in the tall grasses. Dulcé figured that was as clear an indicator as she needed. She gulped the last warm, leathery-tasting water from a Spanish-style wineskin she’d brought along and pushed off across the open field, pedaling toward the copse of trees the track led up to, bouncing over stones and gopher holes and perspiring freely under the famous California sun.
The half-dozen cats who’d been enjoying their midday loll by the side of the road got up, one by one, and silently trotted after her.
***
Th
e Catman knew she was coming. He knew what the cats knew, even across the half-mile of chaparral prairie between his house and the nearest road. That was their bond, revealed by ritual when he was a boy, developed and strengthened in the decades since. Other operators had affinities with other animals, but Tomás Delgado’s nagual, the beast with the same shape as his soul, was unmistakably the cat. Tigers or tabbies, mousers or mountain lions—it didn’t matter. They knew him for a brother, and were always prepared to lend him their ears, or their eyes, or their claws.
He could’ve dissuaded the woman on wheels, but didn’t see a reason to. People came, now and then, with questions they thought he could answer. Sometimes he could, and sometimes he did, especially when the querent agreed to owe him a favor in return. Tom had most of what he needed out here, miles away from the city, but when the real world had to be met on its own terms, influence could be a valuable commodity.
Still, he always made them work for it, like a Zen abbot turning the same supplicant away from the temple gate day after day, until persistence proved the seeker’s merit. Though Tom was no monk, and his brand of enlightenment rarely helped anyone. The dead were easier to stir up than they were to quiet down again, so he liked to know the people who sought him out were firm in their resolve.
He dunked the mouth of an earthenware jug under the spring that burbled from a cleft between two rocks out behind his house until it was full and then carried the cold, heavy vessel back, with his cane tucked under one arm. His hip didn’t twinge much in warm weather, but his old habit of carrying the stick ran too deep for him to set it aside.
He’d just settled back into the chair on his porch where he liked to sit and watch the clouds scud across the sky and poured himself a glass of fresh water when the wheelwoman rolled into view.
She stopped dead at the edge of the clearing, some yards away from the house, and the way she gaped in open astonishment reminded Tom of how overwhelming the presence of Los Gatos could be. He forgot how it looked, he supposed, when it was just him and them out here. A couple dozen animals turning their bright, baleful eyes in a new arrival’s direction could be an unnerving sight.