THE HALLOWEEN STORY

Clusters of shiny ornaments and familiar jingles float around me, soft jazz music is playing in the background, and the coldness from outside swirled down to my spine. Now, I'm in the month of December. The locals here would describe it as the highly anticipated and festive end of a year. They say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but for me, it will always be the Halloween.

Slowly I walked to the rocking chair next to my daughter’s bed. I had a really long rough week and my whole body is worn out. My mind takes me back to every October when it was Halloween. Autumn and the smell of leaves that began to fall, excites my daughter every time without failed. I would deck my whole house with a lot of cobwebs with fake spiders, it was such a special time.

“Time for dressing up, mommy!”

We would sit in our safe cozy home, along with our jack-o’ lanterns with a lot of candies, scaring ourselves and run after each other. My daughter loved scary Halloween stories, every year was no different as she would force me to tell a new story. After dinner, we would hollowed out our pumpkins, by carving accordingly to our scary faces drawing. Sometimes, we would sit together in front of the television to watch her favourite spooky cartoon while scooping out all the pumpkin seeds. When all pumpkins were finished, we would carry them to almost every corner of our house and lit candles in them.

Eventually, she would get tired after helping us with the lantern and get bored from watching the same spooky cartoon after her favourite one. Tradition dictated now it was the time for me to tell her stories. She picked up a dusty pack of tarot cards at the cabinet near to where we sat.

“Mommy, tell me my future.”

I sighed. “I don’t do that anymore, sunshine.”

“Then, is it time yet for my stories?”

I smiled at her. “Where should we start? Anyway, let’s tuck you to bed first sleepyhead, you seemed sleepy now. Plus, it’s getting very late.”

It had been a long night. We headed upstairs and settled her comfortably.

“Now, which story that you wanted to hear? Are you sure that you won’t have nightmares?” I teased. “How about the The Queen and Red Candies?” She nodded and grinned.

I began, “Once upon a time, there was Queen who lived in a huge castle far away from here. The Queen always longed for a child, she was very keen on having a young girl on her own. However, the King was an old man who hated his wife. One day, they both got into a fight and he pushed the Queen down the stairs. Due to that incident, the Queen could never give birth to any child. Therefore, she made it a tradition for every Halloween to invite all the children across the village to the castle, which they would carve a lot of pumpkins together and put in the candles. She would ask all the maid to cook feasts for the children to let them have a wonderful time at the castle.”

“The Queen is very nice, mommy.” I smiled and continued.

“Later on the King died and the Queen was left alone. Instead of feeling happy on the passing of her husband, the Queen grew bitter and cold. She regretted her life with the King and children does not excites her anymore.”

“The next Halloween, she shooed all the maids from the kitchen and made a special red candies using the finest ingredients for the children. However, she included a rat poison in her red candies and other Halloween treats. When the children came to the castle for a magnificent time, they were asked by the Queen to eat everything she made. The night turned into a pure horror in the village, when all the children fell sick and died from eating those candies.”

“Is that the reason why I am not allowed for trick or treating, mommy?”

The Halloween story was made up from the memories at the back of my head of what happened five years ago, where a crazy women poisoned kids through her candies. The silent nights amplified from the sirens and parents’ cries as they held their children unconscious from eating those candies. I stood by the porch, in horror unfolding what was happening while my husband was running for a deep searching. Many children died before the ambulance even arrived.

The big clock downstairs struck twelve o’clock, pulled me back to the reality. The witching hour and Halloween’s nostalgia has ended, now it’s all Christmas and presents. I made my way out quietly out of her room, before closing the door I turned and looked back into my daughter’s room. An empty bed.

“She just never stopped living within me.” I smiled and I closed the door.