A car drove up the driveway, and I heard Stephanie give a brief, courteous honk. Kate, like a stately sleepwalker, stepped to the door and waited regally for me to open it. Her face was remote, and she was casting spells under her breath.
I took her out into the driveway and stood, shivering, while I admired Amanda’s ballerina costume.
“Oh, beautiful,” I said to her.
“And slippers,” Amanda replied, pointing her toe in the air. “Ballet,” she added severely.
The back seat was filled with the rustle and flounce of little girls in crowns and crinolines, their black-rimmed glances charged with mystery. Another mother was in the front with Stephanie. I went around to the driver’s side and Stephanie opened the window.
“Have fun,” I said to Stephanie, and she smiled.
“Don’t worry,” she said.
“Be careful,” I added.
Stephanie smiled again. “Don’t worry.”
There are dangers peculiar to Halloween. There are grown-ups who use this night to play their own sinister tricks; there are horror stories about drug-injected candy, razors inside apples. But we can’t avoid risks, can’t keep our children safe at home forever. We send our children—spangled with excitement, alight with hope—out into this dark, unknown world, where strangers wait. We must.
I waved good-bye to Kate, where she was deep among crowns and wands in the back seat, but she had already left me. She looked directly at me, but her gaze was cool and enigmatic. She would not wave or smile, or even nod. She would not acknowledge that I was there waving good-bye. Majestic in her ornate robes, head held high beneath her glittering silver crown, Kate spurned me as an empress would a beggar. Usually Kate is shy and dutiful, and I liked seeing her like this, so powerful, so splendid.
As Stephanie drove off, I stood in the dining-room window of the silent house. I watched the car slide slowly down the driveway; I watched its red taillights move away up our dirt road and vanish around the next corner. Without those lights the landscape was entirely dark. We are in the country, half a mile from another house, and when there is no moon there is nothing to relieve the blackness of our nights.
On that night, of course, there was an extra light outside. Kate and I had spent a chilly brilliant afternoon with our pumpkin, sitting on the wide stone back step. We scooped from its inside messy handfuls of pale slimy seeds; we dragged out wet clinging tresses, like orange seaweed. Then we took a paring knife to the grooved outer surface, jerkily carving out damp, angular morsels, the jagged negatives of eyes, mouth, nose. That night our jack-o’-lantern sat outside the front door, its fierce and fiery smile vivid in the October dark.
In the front hall, I had set out a bowl of candy corn and one of apples. I was pleased with the look of them, the rich complicated white-and-orange pattern of the triangular kernels, the deep shining scarlet of the apples. I always have something ready to give them, but we get few trick-or-treaters. Our house is too solitary, set back from our empty road. The children prefer the developments, where the houses are companionably close together, and where each little drive ends in a hospitable ring of rooftops.
A few neighbors’ children came by early in the evening, but after that I was alone, the house quiet and unvisited. My husband was away, and I had nothing to do but wait for Kate. Stephanie had promised to have her back at nine-thirty. Nine-thirty is late for a school night, but Halloween is the greatest day in the year for an eight-year-old, better, even, than Christmas. Fantasy is where they live, these children, and on Halloween the grown-ups’ rules fall away. On that night the rest of the year—the rest of the world—falls away. That night the children’s souls darken and enlarge. They take on their real identities, chanting magic spells, revealing royal bloodlines, and laying claim to their true, immense, arcane, unknowable powers.
I was reading in the library, at the back of the house, when I heard the front doorbell. I was surprised: I’d heard no car. Whoever was there had come on foot, up the dark dirt road through the woods for half a mile before our house appeared. It was past nine o’clock. I walked through the silent rooms, and looked out at the driveway on my way: it was empty. There were no headlights outlining our garage, no patient parent sitting in a car.
I opened the front door. A boy was standing outside, against the night. He was unexpectedly tall: his eyes were level with mine, and for some reason this was unnerving. He wore jeans and a sweater—no costume, no mask—but he was completely disguised. His face was divided straight down the middle. One half was painted densely and entirely white, gleaming and opaque. The other side was shining, oily black. Every inch was meticulously covered, even his eyelids. His eyes, surrounded by the artificial gloss of the paint, looked strange, unnaturally mobile and liquid. His lips, and the inside of his mouth, were a shocking rubber-pink. His features were visible but completely unrecognizable. I kept trying to read his face, to know it, but it resisted.
“Trick or treat,” said the boy, but he spoke flatly, without excitement. His voice suggested adolescence: it had changed, but was not yet deep. I looked behind him into the night, expecting friends, a boisterous group of them out together, but there was nothing there but the big sugar maples on the sloping lawn, and far below them the murmuring black wall of rhododendrons.
Still I smiled at him: we were acting out a ritual. I would furnish enthusiasm if he did not. “Happy Halloween,” I said. I held out my two bowls. “Here you are.”
The boy did not answer and stood looking down at the bowls.
Holding them out, looking down with him, in silence, at the apples and candy corn, I felt dismay. I had meant to offer something healthy and simple. Now, in our shared silence, as both of us looked down from our adult height, the contents of the bowls looked suddenly mean-spirited and uninteresting.
“No, thanks,” the boy said calmly.
This was wrong. I had never seen a trick-or-treater refuse the treats. It was not part of the ritual. Looking down, I saw that the boy carried nothing in his hands. There was no sack to put anything into, even if he had wanted something.
The boy looked back at me. “Actually,” he said, “I’d like to make a phone call.”
I hesitated: this too was not part of the ritual. And there were things that had happened that year, near us, out in the country. These were truly terrible events, things that everyone, the whole community, had kept from all the children. The things began with strangers who came to the door at night, claiming car trouble and asking to make a phone call. After we had heard the stories and knew what had then happened, it was hard for us to believe that these women had let these strangers into their houses, alone, at night.
I stood in the hall, hesitating.
“I need to call my mother,” the boy said.
The magic word, the password. I was a mother, and he was a child. He had reminded me of my role, my responsibility, my duty to children.
“I’ll show you the phone,” I said, and stepped back into the hall, letting him in. He did not smile or say thank you, just followed me. We walked through the unlit dining room, through the pantry and into the kitchen. We passed by the mudroom, and the boy noticed our tennis racquets.
“Oh, do you play tennis?” he asked easily. He sounded relaxed and offhand, as though he and I were good friends, as though this kind of social inquiry were appropriate. It was unsettling.
“Yes,” I said shortly, then wished I had said no. For some reason I wanted to give away nothing to him; I wanted him to have no knowledge of me.
“So do I,” said the boy. “Where do you play?”
“At a club,” I said forbiddingly, then asked, “Where do you?” I was proud of my craftiness; this would give me a clue to his identity.
“Nowhere,” said the boy. I felt chilled.
In the kitchen, at the telephone table, the boy stopped. Instead of picking up the telephone, he stood looking around the room: my kitchen, the heart of my house. He surveyed it coolly, appraisingly, as though he we
re planning to take it over. In the light I could see him more clearly, though his face was still unreadable. He was about five feet eight, slight, with narrow shoulders. He had not yet filled out into manhood, had not taken on adult bulk. I found myself wondering how strong he was, and if I was as strong as he.
“Here’s the phone,” I said loudly and accusingly, to remind him why he was here.
He looked at me for a second and then picked up the phone. He dialed a number and waited.
“Mother?” he said, and my heart froze.
No sixteen-year-old boy calls his mother Mother to her face. He calls her Mom, or Mum, or Ma, or something else, but not Mother. Especially not a boy with his face painted in this eerie, threatening way. Hearing him say that word, I admitted to myself that I was frightened. I moved away from him, over to the kitchen island, near the drawers that held my paring knives. My heart was pounding.
The boy spoke bending over. His face was lowered, his gaze fixed on the telephone. “I’m ready to be picked up,” he said neutrally. “I’ll tell you where I am.” Without looking at me, he gave directions to the person on the other end of the line. I listened as he did this, I waited, passive, polite, as he told someone how to reach my driveway, my house.
This is how it happens, I thought, by steps, in stages, through courtesy. This is how we are tied up and murdered: We are too polite to mention what is about to happen. When they ask us for a rope, we go off and rummage for one in the cellar.
When the boy hung up I stared at him accusingly, trying to let him know I understood his plan. I kept the kitchen island between us, and my hand close to the knife drawer. I hoped that whatever was going to happen would be over by the time Stephanie got back with Kate. I hoped Stephanie wouldn’t stay out in the car. I hoped she wouldn’t just let Kate run inside, alone, and find me.
The boy looked curiously around the kitchen again, his glance casual, assured. I held him angrily in my gaze as he watched. There was nothing worth stealing in here, and I would not let him go into another room.
“How long will she take to get here?” I asked.
“Who?” the boy said.
“Your ‘mother,’” I said coldly.
“Oh, not long,” he said easily, and again I was frightened. It was his ease.
I kept my gaze on him, trying to memorize his features, trying to penetrate his disguise, to see his face. But the black and white division, central, dislocating, masked him altogether. He was perfectly disguised as his own halved and doubled self, his identity concealed by its division. I would never know him if I saw him again, undisguised. This too was frightening. The knife drawer, for some reason, now seemed little help.
“I think I’ll wait outside,” the boy said. He seemed to make decisions easily, he seemed to be in charge.
“All right,” I said. I wondered what this meant as he walked coolly past me. In the shadowy dining room he turned suddenly black, becoming his own negative. I followed his silent silhouette around the table and out to the front hall. I opened the door for him and stepped back. He glanced at me sideways as he stepped past me, and I felt myself shivering at his nearness.
“Thanks,” he said, his courtesy chilling. He smiled, his open mouth a strange rubber-pink crevice in his black-and-white cheeks.
He stepped out into the dark. Beside him the jack-o’-lantern flared evilly, and beyond him the lawn sloped down to the silent, invisible road. There was no moon.
Impulsively, I leaned out after him. “You’re sure you’ll be all right out here?” I asked suddenly.
Why did I ask? Hearing myself ask such a question frightened me even more: it was a fool’s question, a victim’s.
But I had to ask it. I was desperate. I was trying to transform us, to make us parent and child. I was asking the boy if he was not someone’s son. I was reminding him that I was someone’s mother. My question was a plea, a reminder of who we were.
“Yeah,” the boy said, his voice indifferent. He did not bother to look at me again. He stepped onto the lawn and was taken at once by the shadows.
He had turned me down, as easily as turning out a light. Every murderer is some mother’s child, he had replied.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, looking out after the boy. There was a night wind high up in the sugar maples, and small bare branches brushed confidentially against each other. I couldn’t hear the boy’s footsteps on the lawn. My heart was still pounding, loud, and I closed the door.
I went into the dark dining room and stood in the window. I was invisible now myself. I stood looking out onto the lawn, watching for him to leave. As he walked toward the driveway, the boy would have to pass in front of the dining-room windows. In the light from the front door, in the flare of the jack-o’-lantern, I would see his outline, I would see his silhouette pass me by.
There was nothing. No movement, no shape. I stood in the dark window, staring out into the night, straining to see him. I wondered if he had slipped along the side of the house, hugging it. I wondered if he was now crouching soundlessly beneath me against the wall, where he would wait, without moving, until the car that he had summoned arrived.
I stood waiting, seeing nothing moving on the lawn, knowing the boy was there. Terror took over, then. My heart clamored, hurtling, out of control, like a runaway horse. I didn’t know what to do. Without moving I waited for the next thing to happen.
I stayed by the window for a long time, but I didn’t see the boy again. I didn’t hear his footsteps on the flagstone path, or see his silhouette pass on the way to the driveway, didn’t see the headlights of a car, coming to pick him up.
Finally I turned away from the cold black glass. I went through the darkened downstairs rooms, locking up. I turned on no lights, and I moved quietly, quietly, as though there were someone in the house with me, listening. I hardly breathed: fear had entered into me, like a disease into my system.
I thought of calling the police, but what would I tell them? Nothing had happened. And even if they came—loud, ponderous, reassuring—they would leave again, their taillights would vanish into the dark. Kate and I would be alone afterward, that night, and others: my husband travels often.
I went back to the kitchen to wait. My heart had slowed, but the silent house seemed surrounded still by danger. Watching the driveway for Stephanie’s car, I remembered asking her, earlier, to be careful, setting off. I had talked as though I were a safe place, and the only dangers lay elsewhere. I had thought the layer of safety that surrounded us was dense, impenetrable, hard as horn. Now I could see that here was as dangerous as anywhere, that safety was a fragile membrane, trembling and permeable.
I watched from the kitchen window, but I saw nothing of the boy, no shadow, no car. When headlights finally flared onto the garage and a car pulled into the driveway, it was Stephanie, returning. Kate climbed out at once, and shouted good-bye. Swinging her big shopping bag of booty, she ran across the driveway. She burst into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.
“I’m back,” she announced.
The real Kate was back. She still wore her cape and crown, her eyes were still rimmed with black, but she had cast off her Halloween persona. She was no longer a queen, but a child, and she began eagerly to talk about her evening.
Listening, I thought of her as she’d been earlier—the chill imperial power she had assumed with her costume. I thought of the cool unknowable boy, with his painted face. I wondered if he was now at home, standing before the bathroom mirror, taking off the concealing grease with wads of Kleenex, shouting to his mother that he would not make a mess. Maybe. Maybe he was still out, in the countryside, or in someone else’s house, doing things I did not want to contemplate.
Kate slept in my bed that night. Her Halloween was over, and she sank easily into sleep. Her head was thrown back among the pillows, her arms flung out on either side; her whole body declared that she was safe.
My Halloween was not over, and I did not sink easily into sleep. I lay listening
to the noises of the house around me, staring into the darkness. I watched the bedroom door, which stood open onto the lighted hall. I watched it for movement, and sometimes, staring at it, I thought I saw the door shift slightly. I watched the steady red eye of the alarm system: sometimes it seemed to wink, falter. I listened to the subtle shiftings of the old house; sometimes I thought I heard a human step, the thud of a shoulder against clapboard.
I lay there through the black silent part of the night, motionless. My eyes grew dry and strained from staring, but I hardly dared blink. It was as though some mysterious law of physics held that the more intently I waited for an intruder, the less there would be one. It was as though I thought my wakeful consciousness would spread a protective glow, like lamplight.
In the morning, early gray light revealed empty lawns, un-invaded territory, the absence of intruders. My fear, as fear does in daylight, faded, leaving only a shadowy essence.
The boy never came back. I never saw him again, and I never forgot him. I never forgot what he had taught me: that here is as dangerous as anywhere, that safety is a fragile membrane, easily pierced. Maybe I was wrong, that night, maybe I misread that masked, divided face. Maybe I was wrong to be alarmed. Maybe the boy was merely a boy, feeling, like Kate, daring, in his Halloween disguise, out in the wild black night.
Or maybe I was lucky.
The Reign of Arlette
When I pulled into the driveway on Friday afternoon I was relieved, as always, to see that our house was still standing. There it was: a gray-shingled, weather-beaten farmhouse, its chimneys still upright. What I worry about each week, while I’m in the city, is not arson or hurricanes but the fact that my two children are spending the summer here, parentless.
I parked the car and walked up the uneven flagstone path, across the scrubby lawn. Huge old lilac bushes crowded in shifting green masses beside the doorways, and the ancient sugar maples stood around the house like peaceful giants. I went in the back door and into the big sunny kitchen. It was empty and silent.
Asking for Love Page 15