As they were talking, Dave went to fetch dessert and snacks. He had made some different puddings which again matched the people eating. Unlike the earlier dishes where the flavor was overpowering these dishes were quite mild both in texture and flavor but still very enjoyable.

After the dessert Maple bade farewell and started on her evening walk back to the house. She had a lot of things on her mind that would probably take some time to figure out. For now, she just wanted to go home, so she could fall unconscious on her mattress.

On the way home she started feeling like she was being followed or watched but never spotted anything as she turned about. It was probably just her exhausted mind running in circles and making up more stuff to worry about.

She might have seen something yellow but at this point she had started ignoring everything else as she was almost home. When she got in, she quickly squirmed out of my clothes, washed off her makeup and made it under the covers.

-----

Opening her eyes Maple just chose to lay in bed for a while.

"That really happened, right?" she asked out loud, talking to nobody in particular.

So many things had happened yesterday. Somehow Maple had been invited to dinner in a castle that was located in a forest which just happened to be in her backyard but somehow not. She had dined with a family of undead and got to see magic. It really felt quite surreal but at the same time it was also irrefutable. So many things that could be nothing but real unless it had all been some elaborate fever dream.

She had certainly not been dreaming, or she would not be salivating as she thought back to the scrumptious meal. She was also pretty happy that the undead family had not served her raw meat. That would definitely have been too much. On the topic of raw food. Maple could almost imagine Ramsay yelling at an undead, IT'S RAW. Only to be answered with "That is how I like it best" and a horrifying grin.

'What was it again? I had something to do? Shit!' Today was the 31st. of October, in other words, Halloween.

Vincent had given Maple some candy along with the pumpkin, not that she did not also have some candy packed away somewhere. It would still not be enough, so she would have to run an errand, as the owner of the town's haunted house. It would not be noble of her to disappoint the kids.

Not disappointing the kids naturally also meant she would have to get her butt out of bed and start the decorations.

Dressed for a morning in the fall she got to work. The day's first agenda was related to yesterday events. She needed to have a look around her property, just to make sure what she had to deal with. Yesterday the backdoor was found to lead elsewhere, so today Maple was going to check the back of the house.

At the side of the house a small version of the black iron fence ran through the trees. It had a latched gate that had grown shut due to overgrowth, luckily she had long enough legs to get over it. The grass behind the fence was even worse and easily reaching up to Maple's waist. It was not even standing straight, instead it was drooping due to yesterday's rain.

It was really wet but Maple chose to push through it. At the back of the house she found a small shed, not that it would contain anything of worth after all these years. The door like the fence gate would be more troubling to open, at least until Maple cut away some vegetation.

The back of the house was different from what had been expected, but it somewhat made sense. The back of the house was a blank surface. No windows, no doors, no nothing. The door found inside lead elsewhere.

After the discovery Maple sat down with a cup of tea after changing into something drier. She had a box with Halloween decorations somewhere in the living room where most of the miscellaneous items had been placed.

To give the house a haunted vibe, Maple drew a magic circle in the storage room, after replacing the candle of the jack o' lantern. Adding some electric candles here and there she tried to make the room look zealous. Any live candles would stay in the vicinity of Maple just to make sure no accidents would happen. After all she did plan to let the kinds enter her house. Since it was the haunted house of the town she would allow them to enter. It would be kept to the foyer, storage room and the second floor. Nothing had happened to the house so far, so she did not expect it to suddenly get damaged beyond repair overnight.

Maple did not have any outdoor decorations as she had been living in an apartment, but the forest should be scary enough. She even planned to add some atmospheric sounds to set the mood.

Maple did have plenty of indoor decorations, but before she could put up any of them, the technician came knocking. While he worked, Maple made a shopping list of things she needed and found a backpack in one of her boxes.

She had brought some necessities such as soap and toilet paper but had thrown out things such as the dish brush which needed to be replaced anyway.

While Maple was brainstorming she also considered the housewarming party she wanted to throw, and how she would invite over the neighbors and Tanja from work. Tanja had quit a while back, but they kept in touch. The housewarming would require drinks, snacks and food for the guests, so she added it to the shopping list. Furthermore, some more paint would allow her to continue unpacking her stuff.

All of that would require money which was still scarce, thus she would have to delay the housewarming until later. It would also be good if she could finish painting. The local hardware/DIY store occupied the space next to the grocery store, so at least shopping would be a breeze. She just had to take a 10-minute bus ride. It might even be worth it for her to get a bike at some point to stretch the budget.

While there was a lot to stock up on, Maple wanted to avoid burden herself more than necessary. The hardware store had the paint she had been using but just painting the 2 rooms had been 5 liters of paint, and it would need another coat. Maple chose to buy the 10 liter bucket as it was the largest she was able to carry.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The backpack had been filled with veggies, meat, milk, butter, candy and necessities. Maple even wanted to buy a pumpkin to eat since they are in season but would not have been able to carry it with everything else.

After getting home to a working stove Maple made herself some stir-fry for lunch, so she had the energy to keep on working. By making a larger portion Maple would have leftovers for later, since she would not have the time to cook.

The veranda was not that big and thus the decorations were also kept simple to avoid oversaturation. With 2/3 of her decorations left, Maple ventured up the stairs equipped with a dust mask. The second floor had not been cleaned so the amount of dust was immense. It would have been terrible to have all the dust here as the kids arrived, so Maple opened up some windows while decorating.

While Maple could have vacuumed all over, it would be more authentic to let the dusty corners be, so instead she just made sure there was a dust-free trail to walk on. All the dust she collected was put in a plastic bag for later use. Spread dust downstairs would keep it consistent, and the small details could mean a lot. Other decorations such as fake spiderweb and spiders gave it more character along with blood stains in the dust, bloody hand prints on the walls and drag marks on the floor. The last step was adding some haunted house noises such as creaking doors, steps, moaning, grunting, crying and screaming. To do that Maple put the speaker into a bag and up the fireplace, hoping that the echo and muffled sounds would make it more realistic.

The sound effects were barely audible, but it was loud enough to hear when keeping quiet though mostly from one specific room upstairs.

Locking the doors downstairs and shutting off the lights was the last of preparations after Maple got herself dressed up. Covered up in a thick dark blanket Maple sat down on the porch to wait for her first victim.

The house was completely dark, the door was open and the path up to the house was lit by four dim hanging lanterns that would shed just enough light for people to brave the journey. Maple kept to one side of the veranda which was covered in shadow due to a looming tree on the edge of the veranda.

There were still another two hours till sundown, so it was not impossible to notice her. After sundown, you would have to know where to look to spot her. Hopefully she would be able to surprise the ones leaving and give them some candy.

Maple had put out two doormats the first was placed out by the street and said "do you believe in ghost?" and was supposed to lure in pray. The second was by the front door and said "Watch your back inside" with a ghost motif.

While waiting for guests she tried to rehearse a scary voice to create some jump scares. Maple almost wanted to tape everything to see people react.

It did not take long before the first guests arrived. They were smaller kids, probably first timers and were therefore escorted by their parents.

The kid had been very interested but clung onto their parent the whole way. Since it was still daylight, and they were taking their time Maple expected them to notice her. So when they finally got onto the porch, she screeched "trespassers" in her most hoarse and shrill voice.

Happy, that it had gotten a reaction from both the parents and the kids jumped Maple continued "Here for my candy are ye'?" in a hoarse voice while raising her overgrown eyebrows.

The parent seemed intrigued at Maple's involvement and slowly encouraged the kid to step forward. "Trick or treat" the small princess said timidly as she extended her arms holding a small plastic jack o' lantern bucket.

The talk with Vincent the day before had included the number of children Maple could expect and how much candy would be fair. Since the princess was her first trespasser of the day, Maple gave the small princess a little more. "A brave princess indeed, a treat you are guaranteed" she rattled.

The parent and child said their thanks and left. If the kids were too small or were in small groups without supervision, Maple would screech before they entered. The older kids and larger groups she let pass as long as she remained unseen.

Whenever they came downstairs again she would screech at them and hand out candy. Maple even came up with a couple of riddles for them to solve. Solving the riddles would grant them the right to leave untouched and avoid the curse of the dead haunting them.

All in all it was a rather satisfying evening. By the end Maple even had to chase out a couple that had started to make out upstairs. They left in a hurry and even missed the candy.

As the kids stopped coming, Maple went to warm up the leftover stir-fry. A warm meal under the stars while covered in a hot blanket was quite nice. It had been a fun evening as the screeching witch and being the source of great surprise. Luckily the bad weather had not continued making the day perfect for trick and treating.

Maple still had some candy leftover to enjoy after the hot meal. Shortly after she went down to blow out the candles, replaced the candle of the jack o' lantern and headed inside for another hot bath.

She had grown stiff from the cold weather and was sorely lacking the heat supplied by the warm water. She almost ended up dosing off in the tub but managed to get out before the water got cool.

Lying in her bed she could not help herself thinking of all the cute kids from earlier. Most of them came in different outfits be it princesses, fairies, mages, the grim reaper, monsters, ninja turtles, devils, superheroes or homemade costumes depicting different movie characters.

The kids were between 5 and 20, though they were usually accompanied by one or two parents when younger than 12. The older kids usually stopped trick or treating when they turned 16. This was mostly because they grew interested in other activities such as parties or playing games. Back at that age Maple had been allowed to buy alcohol by her parent, so she could party with the other kids.

When Maple was about to fall asleep she heard screaming and almost went into full panic mode as her heart started pounding. Then she remembered the speaker she had forgotten to pack away. Now embarrassed, she was quick to retrieve it, and go back to bed.