Halloween

by Paula Guran

  See this, Tommy? Michael had asked, as his involuntary muscles had quit on him, and his body had shivered. When I die, I’ll haunt you. I’ll give you my disease.

  Tom sighed. “So really, if I want to keep you, I’ve got no choice,” he said.

  “I don’t want it to come off that way.”

  The day Michael stopped breathing, the fall leaves out the window they shared had watched in silence, painting the walls red. No one was home, so it had been Tommy and the body, alone. He’d put his hand over his brother’s mouth, and felt for breath.

  “Please,” she said. “Let’s just see what he wants.”

  He sighed, and joined her inside the circle. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, and he crossed his arms as if to protect from something without, or maybe within. “Okay.”

  She did some more weird chanting. It was hard to look at her now, without being angry. Hard not to blame her, for putting him here.

  She closed her eyes. He was supposed to as well, but he didn’t. She licked her lips, which ten minutes ago, he’d thought was cute. Everything was blurry. He was high as Mackenzie Phillips.

  “Is the spirit here?” she asked.

  Nothing happened. It was still light out, and kids in costumes roamed the streets. He felt her fingers move the planchette to “yes.” Not a ghost, her fingers. There was relief in that. Disappointment, too. His girlfriend was batshit.

  “What is your name?” she asked, eyes still closed. Rocking a little. She moved the chip across the letters that spelled “Michael.” He flinched, because impersonating somebody’s dead brother is pretty low.

  Then the money question. “What is it you want?”

  One of the candles blew out, and she snapped open her eyes. Her fingers weren’t on the planchette anymore. Instead they were on his thighs, holding fast.

  “Murder,” the board spelled. Tommy’s stomach dropped. “Murder,” it spelled again. He wet-heaved in his mouth, and spit to his side. Three times. “M-U-R-D-E-R.”

  Hey Tommy? What’d you do to that cat? And in Tommy’s hands, Whiskers wet and still, because Michael had promised he’d float.

  “The cat,” Tommy mumbled, remembering now, as if for the first time. “I did it. Because he made me. Because I had to sleep in the same room as that monster every night for six years. Because I was angry, and it wouldn’t stop rubbing my leg.”

  “Were you murdered?” Laura asked. The planchette kept moving. He couldn’t look anymore. On the television, Linus was screaming about the Great Pumpkin’s return, next year. Out the window, the sun was just starting to set.

  He looked back down for a second, and saw it spell out: “Want a body.”

  Laura’s face was pale. Tears streamed down either cheek. He kind of noticed, and kind of didn’t. A little part of him turned off, and a different part turned on. “He wants your body. That’s why he stays. He wants to take it over. Because . . . You killed him, didn’t you?”

  Tom wiped his face like he was trying to pull it off.

  Swallow this, Tommy. That way you won’t be able to breathe, either, he’d said toward the end, after crawling down to the basement, and peeling asbestos from the wall.

  Tommy had been high even then, at fifteen. And still dumb enough to consider it, just to make his brother happy, or maybe just to shut him up. Instead, he’d picked up the white pillow. Light as air. Michael fought. Striking at first forcefully, and then weakly. By then he’d lost both legs. Afterward, Tommy climbed in bed, and slept next to his brother’s corpse. If anyone guessed what he’d done when they found the body the next morning, they never said so.

  He looked at Laura. “Now I’ve got to kill you.”

  She jumped up, but by then he had her arm. “What are you doing?” she cried.

  I’ll haunt you until the day you die. And I’ll never let you have anything I can’t have. Because we’re brothers. Because I hate you.

  “You’ll tell. And I can’t have that, you know? I really can’t.” He was crying as he said it.

  “Tom. You love me. I know you do.”

  “Yeah,” He said. “But I’m really good at forgetting.

  He put his hands around her throat. It was satisfying to see the expressions change on her face from bewilderment, to betrayal, to comprehension, as she realized what dark thing over the last few weeks, she’d woken up. So yeah, maybe she was a psychic. And yeah, maybe she really had finally made him whole. He and Michael, together at last.

  As he pressed, the candles went out. The sun tore through the house, like it was on fire, and he wondered, since Michael lingered, if she would, too. And then he thought about how nice it would be to have a collection of them, and how right it was that Laura was his first. He’d read his books, too. The first is always the one you love.

  Before he carried out her body, and dropped it in the sump, he took off his red boots and eye patch, so that he would look like everyone else.

  SUGAR SKULLS

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Our second story connected to el Día de los Muertos highlights sugar skulls (calaveras de azúcar), a candy that is an art form, a memorial to the dead, a sweet treat, and—as in this story—a magical artifact. Colorfully decorated with icing and foil, the skulls often bear the names of the beloved dead. Although Day of the Dead customs differ by locale, in general the skulls are placed along with marigolds, candles, incense, and other special foods on a home altar, the ofrenda, or taken to graves to welcome the spirits. Smaller, less ornate skulls are also given to the living: “eating death” is a reminder that death is merely passing from this life to another.

  The day after tomorrow would be el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, the Feast of All Souls. Today was the Eve of the Feast of All Saints, when children in the big country to the north put on foolish clothing and went to take food from their neighbors, or played tricks on them for refusing their demands—it was one of the many strange customs that prevailed among those people with their big houses and big cars and yellow-haired women.

  Refugio shook her head as she followed her grandmother’s instructions and continued to mix the shining white sugar into the whipped egg whites that would permit them to shape the mixture into the hard-set celebratory skulls. Already most of the candies were made, ranging in size from that of a cup to a few as large as a real skull, with scenes inside them when you looked through the frosting-outlined eyes. Many had names of the loved dead written on the skulls in her grandmother’s square letters made of red or black frosting. Refugio wanted to write some of the names herself, and imbue them with her emotions as she did.

  “Abuela Concepcion,” she said, reaching for another bowl of whipped egg white and starting to measure in the sugar. She had been helping her grandmother since shortly after dawn, knowing that this was the only day on which they could prepare these candies, and wanting to make as many of them as possible.

  “Sí?” her grandmother answered, not taking her eyes from the small molds she was filling; these would be the smallest skulls, hardly larger than a thumb and given minimal decoration. They would be sold five for a peso, and consumed by the handful. So far there were three hundred of the finished skulls sitting out on trays in the dining room, their licorice dots for eyes and missing teeth making them seem unusually stark. By the next morning, there would be at least double that number waiting, like small versions of the stone carvings of racks of skulls that stood at the end of the main street, next to a wide avenue of old, old stones that led to a crumbling mound behind the cemetery, and the first tangle of trees, many perched on hillocks said to be haunted. These sugar skulls seemed pale echoes of the overgrown stone ones.

  “Tell me, how much longer do we have to work before we eat? The mid-day bell sounded a while ago. Can’t we stop for a moment?” She summoned up all her nerve to ask, for Abuela Concepcion took her skull-making very seriously and begrudged every single moment such mundane tasks demanded. “I’m hungry. I’m sorry, but I am.”

/>   Abuela Concepcion sighed. “It is almost time for it, you’re right. But I will have to work through siesta to get all this done. There’s a lot left to do. I must have the skulls ready before first Mass tomorrow, or sin by working on the Feast of All Saints. No. We make skulls today and sell them tomorrow. That is the only day people will buy.” She put her hands on the table and leaned forward.

  “I’ll stay up through siesta if it will help. But I need to eat and have a little chocolate to drink, or I won’t be able to help you the way I should.” She turned her melting dark eyes on her grandmother. “Please, Abuela.” She hoped her grandmother couldn’t read her thoughts, or take notice of her dark intentions.

  It took Concepcion Molero a little while to decide what to do. “All right, chica, but it will be nothing fancy. For all it’s almost a feast-day.”

  Refugio laughed. “That doesn’t bother me,” she said with all the confidence of her eleven years. “I will honor the saints as best I can by helping you sell the skulls tomorrow. That should make it all right.”

  “Don’t you want to join the celebration in the evening?” her grandmother asked. “There is going to be a fine gathering in the square.”

  “No particularly,” she lied heroically; she loved the excitement of town festivities, for it was the only time she could feel herself expand beyond her limited world and embrace everything that lay beyond the town market of Santa Luz, which was what tempted her more than anything else she could imagine. “I know you need my help to finish.”

  Abuela Concepcion moved to the ancient stove on the far side of her kitchen. “Soup and tortillas with a little cheese and a cup of chocolate, then,” she said, using a match to start the stove.

  “This was easier when Mama was alive to help you, wasn’t it? You miss her being here?” Refugio asked in a small voice as she went to wash her hands in the old zinc basin immediately below the pump. She worked the worn handle vigorously and made sure she used soap as well as water, as her mother had taught her.

  When Abuela Concepcion answered her voice was muffled. “Yes. This is the hardest year, since it is the first we have had to make the skulls without her, and you miss her as much as I do. It is difficult for both of us.”

  “If Papa weren’t in prison, he’d help,” said Refugio, although she doubted it.

  “If your Papa weren’t in prison, he’d be off in the forest with his friends, pretending to be soldiers fighting the government, and we should have to leave this town,” Abuela Concepcion said bitterly. She plunked the lid on her soup-pot with more force than usual.

  “Well, I’ll help you as much as I can,” Refugio said, and meant it in more ways than her grandmother guessed.

  “I know you will. And you’re a good girl for it,” said her grandmother, going to pump water into her kettle, then returning to the stove to set it heating. She had made tortillas the night before and there were still a few left for their lunch. She wrapped them in a damp cloth and put the in the warming oven in the pipe above the stove. The gas was working well today, and the soup warmed quickly, its fragrance filling the kitchen with a heady mix of herbs, onions, peppers, garlic, and goat. Concepcion went to find the wedges of cheese in the cooler, and brought them out, one pale as milk, the other a light golden shade and slightly firmer than the first; she cut a portion from each and reached for the grater. “Here, Refugio. You do this. I have to finish these skulls.” She offered a shallow dish to her granddaughter. “Use them both.”

  “All right,” said Refugio, and set her bowl of sugared egg whites aside and covered them with a swath of fine cotton. Grating cheese was a pleasant change, so long as she was careful not to scrape her knuckles on the sharpened holes in the grater. As soon as she was done she wiped her hands carefully and turned to Abuela Concepcion. “There.”

  “Very good. I’ll make chocolate for you, but you have to get back to your mixing.” She sighed as she looked at her tray of molds. “I have to get more of these. They always sell better than the rest.”

  “Because they are small,” said Refugio, “and you sell them for so little.”

  “Because they are the cheapest of all I make.” Abuela Concepcion shrugged, accepting the iron rule of poverty.

  Refugio went back to stirring the skull-making mixture. “Will we need more eggs?”

  “I hope not,” said her grandmother, busy with making chocolate. “I don’t think Jorje or Ysidro have any to spare, and Lupe charges too much.”

  “I could ask, if you like. They might let me have one or two more they can spare for us,” said Refugio. She had begun to notice that she was able to persuade her neighbors to help her on the strength of her youth and misfortune. It was a beginning, she thought, a first step to her freedom. “Let me go ask.”

  “I don’t want you trading on tragedy, chica. You should have more pride than that.” Abuela Concepcion was sternly disapproving. Her busy hands kept at her work, independent of her speaking.

  “Padre Cazdor says pride is a sin,” Refugio reminded her with a hint of mischief in her smile. “A very bad sin.”

  “And so it is, when it flies in the face of God. But pride that is born of dignity is entirely different. You want the respect of your neighbors, not their pity,” said Abuela Concepcion, stirring the chocolate in the small saucepan.

  Refugio thought about this as she continued to stir the contents of her bowl. “What if I offered to work in exchange for the eggs? I could tend their chickens.”

  “I doubt they’d let you do that,” said Abuela Concepcion, continuing to fill the molds. “Not their chickens; they’d worry you’d filch eggs or take one of the chicks or some such prank. If you’d be willing to milk their goats for two or three mornings, they might accept a trade.” She looked aside, suddenly ashamed. “No. You should not have to get eggs for me that way.”

  “Well, we must have them, and you cannot spare any time. It makes sense that I should do it,” said Refugio, feeling suddenly very grown up. “Everyone knows you make the best skulls in the town. If you have a few more to sell, you will make a little more money. And I will only be doing what Mamacita would do, if she were here.”

  “But I don’t want you to bear this burden, chica, nor did your mother. It shouldn’t be yours. There are so many things you can do—you’re smart, you think about things. Your mother wanted you to have a chance to continue in school and to make something of yourself. Of all of us, you are the one with the ability to do it, your Mama told me. She knew you aren’t like most of the children in Santa Luz; you’re clever, not like most of the others. You ask questions no one, not even Padre Cazador can answer. Everyone knows you’re smart, that you could go a long way in the world if you were taught properly. You could have a life very different than the one your Mama had. I pray it will be longer and much better than hers.” Abuela Concepcion stopped her labor for a moment. “I promised your mother to give you that chance.”

  “The bruja has said she’ll teach me her skills,” said Refugio.

  “No!” Abuela Concepcion held up her hand almost as if to strike Refugio. “You should have nothing to do with her—nothing!”

  “But she’ll teach me for nothing. She wants to teach me. She said so,” Refugio felt her confidence slipping away. She knew her grandmother disliked the old witch-woman who lived near the ruins beyond the graveyard and was said to commune with ghosts there.

  “You won’t learn anything worthwhile from her, chica,” Abuela Concepcion threatened. “She is a superstitious old fool.”

  “But everyone is afraid of her, aren’t they?” Refugio asked.

  “That means nothing! You must not let the foolishness of others—” She crossed herself. “That old woman preys on those who are not wise enough to realize that—I’ll hear nothing more about her!”

  Refugio knew it was useless to argue; they had been over this very question many times in the last six months. “But I want to study something, Abuelita. Yes, I like school. It is good to learn. But most girls m
y age leave school and learn to manage a household. There isn’t much more I can study here in Santa Luz if I can’t learn from Viuda Estrella.”

  “Yes, most girls end their schooling at your age. But you must not, and you must not become a student of Viuda Estrella, for that would be worse than sending you to be a housemaid in the city,” said Abuela Concepcion. “Your mother would have done anything to see you be properly educated, with a degree and good employment before you. She said if you were not educated, smart as you are, it would be a great injustice. It could lead to trouble for you, as well. Padre Cazador says you are the brightest pupil the school has had in years. Not that you should boast of it, for it is a gift from God, not anything of your doing, but as God’s gift, you must not disdain it. It would be a sign of ingratitude for what God has done if you were to turn away from learning, which Viuda Estrella would be the epitome of insult for your gifts. Padre Cazador says that you deserve a good education, not the superstition and sorcery Viuda Estrella professes.”

  “If he says so, then he should help me get one,” Refugio exclaimed with more emphasis than she had intended.

  “Refugio!” Abuela Concepcion admonished her. “This isn’t a wealthy town. The parish cannot afford to give money to children who will not devote themselves to the Church. Everyone knows that.” She finished with the skull molds and stepped back. “If you had a vocation, it would be otherwise, but you haven’t one, have you?”

  “No, Abuela. I couldn’t be a nun, with those hours and hours of praying,” said Refugio apologetically. “I can’t live as they do, all my time set out, order in everything, and accusing myself of sins I can only imagine.” She angled her head upward in defiance. “You can tell Padre Cazador if you think he has to know.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Abuela Concepcion. “He wouldn’t be surprised in any case.”

  Without warning Refugio grinned. “No. I ask too many questions in class—he’s told me so. He says some of the questions aren’t proper at all, but I can’t help it.”