Chapter Pumpkin

Melody was having breakfast, scrolling on her phone while slowly eating cereal from the bowl in front of her. As she was taking another mouthful Calian who was freshly out of the bathroom grabbed a cup and served himself some chocolate milk. Without moving from his chair he motioned for an apple to float to him and once she was hovering above his palm a flash of blue light sliced the apples in small cubes ready to be eaten.

As Calian started to dig in, Melody put down her phone and looked at him for a second before asking, “Say, today is Halloween, did you have anything similar back home ?”

“Well, it’s… different. The Church has a commemoration in honor of the dead, but it’s not a joyous occasion, we don’t go out meeting people or disguising. It’s more of an occasion for everyone to grieve the departed,” explained the mage while throwing a handful of apple cubes in his mouth.

“Hmm, yeah I see what you mean, you’re closer to the historical meaning of Halloween, when people commemorated the end of the summer,” nodded Melody. “Do you want to go trick or treating tonight ?” she asked, voice full of expectation.

Calian was startled, it would be the first time they did something other than work together. And by work he meant toiling to build the greenhouse or practicing. He took a moment to consider before nodding, “Sure ! It’d be a pleasure, I haven’t really relaxed in a while anyway, I could use the distraction,” he beamed.

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Calian and Melody were strolling through the slightly crowded street, looking at the costumed kids and adults around them.

Calian had been disguised as a sorcerer clad in black robes and his face hidden behind an evil looking carved pumpkin. He had cast a simple spell to make the insides of the pumpkin glow an orange light and sometimes change to a green hue. The final touch to his costume was a skull dripping a green liquid that hovered above his hand or on top of his shoulder. To make the skull they had shaped stone into a skull, and the dripping green liquid was a simple illusion spell cast by Calian.

Melody was disguised as a vampire, her long dark cloak was crimson on the inside and pitch black on the outside. Calian had cast a quick alteration spell to grow her teeth into a pair of fangs. Melody had added the finishing touches with a bit of make-up for a pale skin while Calian had made an illusory bat that flew around her and sometimes perched on Melody’s shoulder.

Calian and Melody started going door to door collecting candies into their candy bag, a floating hollowed out pumpkin that followed them. Their costumes were so impressive that most people gave them tons of sweets, and two sympathetic elderly people even gifted them two little bottles of whisky to congratulate them. But as the evening started to approach Calian was getting more and more bored, the repetition of knocking, waiting, and collecting treats was getting old.

The mage, bored of the routine eventually leaned to whisper in Melody’s ear, “Hey, we’ve been treating for some time now, but do you want to see me tricking ?”

When Melody nodded back with a sly grin Calian clasped his hands, things were getting interesting now. As they continued to go from door to door Calian was casting spells after spells on every Halloween decoration he could see. He was casting animation spells that wouldn’t last long but would make everything he cast them on damn lively.

Calian had timed the spells so that every Halloween decoration would start to move at exactly 8 p.m, as if suddenly the legend was true, the veil between the world of the living and the dead was torn and the souls of the deceased had occupied whatever they could.

When 8 was around the corner our duo stood a bit away from the street, intent on watching the chaos ensue. Calian had cast spells on nearly everything he’d met, he’d animated fake spider, skulls, rats, glass eyes, skeletons, pumpkins, sheets in the shape of ghosts, bats and diverse garden ornaments. Some were quick and easy to cast a spell on, but other things were harder. One statue of Jack in a garden had been quite intricate to enchant and Calian had thought he wouldn’t be able to do it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

As the bells rang eight, everything Calian had enchanted came to life. The mage had done his job thoroughly, the objects were supposed to give a good scare but never hurt anyone, the most contact they were allowed was a quick grab on an arm or ankle from a dark place.

As the spirit of Halloween awakened every object not much happened at first, they were all taking in their surroundings and assessing what was around them. Similarly not many people noticed anything as nothing moved excepted an eye or a skull to look around. But as things awakened more and more, they started to get more lively. One particular skeleton started to move fast, he got up from his spot and hid behind a hedge, ready to jump on anyone that crossed his path. A flock of bats that were suspended across a house entrance took off and started to roam the streets. A patch of pumpkins started to tell jokes between themselves and hop around. Even the statue of Jack was scratching its head while looking around.

Strangely kids were faster to react than adults, they seemed more perceptive of the changes in their environment, they started to pointing to things that were discreetly moving around. Barely a few minutes in the first scream was heard, the first blood scream had been scored by a skeleton that had grabbed an ankle from under a car. When the scream resounded through the street everyone tensed, even the most oblivious persons started to notice the oddities. Soon, all hell broke loose and screams fused left and right.

Jack had touched the left shoulder of a grown man while on his right, waiting for him to notice. A skull was perched on a woman’s shoulder, eavesdropping on her conversation and waiting for the perfect moment to add a corny joke and scare them all. A skeleton was holding the hand of a distracted kid, waiting for him to notice he wasn’t holding his mother’s hand anymore. A ghost was pretending to be laundry drying on a string, waiting for a poor soul to come by and scare him. A pumpkin was stalking a kid, only moving when he wasn’t directly looking and with a larger grin each time he got closer. Bats were taking turn stealing candy when people weren’t looking. A pair of fake eyes had decided to team up and hide in a bush and look intently at people while making the bush shiver. Finally, a particularly funny spider was writing Halloween related jokes in her webbing.

Calian watched with a toothy smile as the street was slowly plunging more and more into chaos, to his delight children were screaming, parents were panicked, and everyone was jumping from one monster to another. But to Calian’s surprise the screaming and panicking part was shorter than expected, of course sometime a scream pierced the night because of a particularly well timed jumpscare, but most people had calmed and were judging the monster from a respectable distance. As time passed a few courageous children marched closer to the Jack statue, touching and prodding him. Soon, seeing no real danger was present and everyone was unharmed most people went and investigated the curiosity. The pumpkin were particularly popular with the dads, probably because of their large arsenal of jokes while kids were generally more interested in skeletons. Jack had a personal fan club mostly comprised of women. Some people were oddly interested by the spiders and some others were fascinated by the bats. The least popular of all were probably the ghosts, mostly for their lack of distinctive feature and inability ot communicate well.

After a few hours of mingling with the excited crowd Calian and Melody got ready to go home, impatient to enjoy all the treats they had collected. As midnight approached Calian decided he would give everyone one last treat for his first Halloween on Earth. He quickly waved his hand and a music surged out of nowhere, slowly increasing in volume and reaching every corner of the street. (Listen to whatever but I got my inspiration from This is Halloween)

A few minutes before midnight every monster moved to the center of the street and positioned themselves neatly. Jack, as the leader of all monster for this night, positioned himself in front of all the other monsters and started dancing. His long limbs flailing around everywhere and yet in an orderly fashion. As he started moving all the monsters followed, ghosts and bats flying around in acrobatic aerial figures. The pumpkins were chanting along the music while jumping around and on each other. Skeletons were using their bones to play along the music too while others were performing tricks and juggling with their ribs. The skulls were forming a choir, the spiders were giving a lightshow with their reflective silk.

As the dance went on every monster and every human joined, everyone danced and sang in harmony under the silent instructions of jack moving his long limbs at the center of it all as if in a trance. Everybody was feverishly enjoying their precious time with the magic oddities. Eventually, as the music slowed and came to a stop people and monster slowed and stopped, looking at each other. As if on cue a faraway bell rang and the twelve stroke countdown started. The monster all bowed or saluted in one way or another according to their physique. They all went and saluted to the humans present. The pumpkins wailed, the skeletons shook their bones, the bats landed and nodded, the ghosts brushed against everyone, the skulls cackled. Every monster slowly retreated to their original position as the strokes rang for everyone to hear. On the twelfth stroke all of them saluted one last time before becoming inert objects once more.

His show finished, Calian enjoyed the joyous faces of adults and children for a while longer before departing with melody.