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| Happy Halloween by Yaichino |
The delivery boy heaved a deep sigh. He hated delivering to this house. Having to pick his way through a patch of pumpkins all snapping and biting and hungry for a taste of ankle. Then there’d be that long climb up the tree, with scratching bark and roving limbs and those fleshless squirrels with flat black eyes and scissory teeth that liked to jump out of the dark and take little nips from his skin. Not to mention all the birds and bats and cats and every other manner of familiar, cawing and mocking and tripping him into falling right off the tree and landing in the marshy ground flat on his back. He couldn’t afford to fall tonight. He had too big of a load with him. His pack was full to bursting with all manner of things: eye of newt, toe of frog, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf. Herbs and oils, incense and charcoal. Party streamers, everburning candles, and a special centerpiece: a tall black pointed hat made of rich velvet and trimmed with satin and lace, inside which waited a troupe of ghost orchid pixies set to provide part of the evening’s entertainment. Yes, the sisters were going all out for their New Year’s revels this year. Well, really, they did every year. And every year, the task of delivering their specialty items fell to him. He heaved the pack on his back and gave another sigh, looking wearily at the full silver moon above and the leering pumpkins below, eyes and mouths lit with the bright orange light of their hunger. Oh, he hated to walk through that patch and climb up that tree. But they tipped well, and they’d be sure to give him a bottle of their moonlight wine as a New Year’s gift. That stuff always guaranteed a happy New Year. So he steeled himself for it, and stepped into the pumpkin patch.
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Have a happy Halloween and a blessed Samhain!
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