Holidays in August Grove

Randy lowered his head, and for almost a minute, he stayed that way, unspeaking. Just as the group began to mutter, he raised his head and said in a voice no one recognized…

“Welcome to the August Grove township. It is October 31, 1930, and the weather has assumed a decidedly pre-winter chill. In fact, the town has seen the coldest temperatures on record for two consecutive mornings, bringing much concern for the area’s cotton crop. As the day bears on, the temperature rises, but there is still a deep cold riding the breeze, and clouds darkening the horizon. The wind is whispering in the narrow places, and candles and lamps are being lit against the dark.”

“But despite the cold and gloom of the evening, a few of August Grove’s hardiest and fun-loving children are taking to the streets in search of treats and scary good times. And pranks. Always jokes and pranks.”

All while he spoke, Randy spun slowly, catching everyone in his gaze, his lowered voice making a few of them grin nervously.

“This is the night—Halloween, with fun and treats for all. But there’s at least one person who is not in the mood for any of it.”

***

The full moon played hide-and-seek behind the billowing black clouds rushing across the night sky. Its pale beams lent a drizzle of light to the dozing lawn as the moon rose above the yard’s shivering oak. As Emily Breakfield slammed closed the shutters and extinguished the porch lantern, the whispering wind tugged at her skirts and tossed leaves from the yard about her feet. This was the type of night she expected. Hooligans all. Even the wind. She stepped inside and shut the door firmly behind her.

“That will be enough of that.”

She was in August Grove to visit her uncle, Luther Bradford Killgore, the owner and publisher of the August Grove Herald newspaper. August Grove Herald. She allowed the name to rest on the tip of her mind for a moment. Her uncle had some kind of inspiration… or stroke… last year and changed the paper’s name from the August Grove Tribune. She found neither name more inspirational than the other, but Uncle Luther had been odd of late. He’d taken to feuding with an old black woman over the oddest things, including the name of his newspaper, and the ownership of his house.

So bizarre.

Tonight, he insisted the house stay alight all evening for any children who might come seeking candy. “Trick or treating” is what he’d called it. She’d never heard the like. And with that, he had retired for the night, leaving her with the duty of doling out treats.

“Utter foolishness. In my opinion, the law should punish any parent who allows their child out tonight.” Emily crossed her arms, mimicking her mother’s favorite stance. She had no children of her own, but she was certain all—adults and their little ones—ought to be home in a warm bed on a night like this, just as she was going to be. She had extinguished all the lights because she had no intention of entertaining rapscallions all evening. “Halloween and… what is it again? Trick or Treat?” She snorted. “Absolute rubbish.”

She crossed to the desk in the alcove beyond the foyer. She picked up her uncle’s photograph and considered his face. In the years of her childhood, she had found her uncle dashing with his firm jaw and deep-set eyes. But he had changed so much. Most of his altered appearance had to do with age, of course, but the odd and furtive ways his eyes moved, the sour set of his mouth… she felt certain there was some sort of emotional malady he was coping with, and the family had sent her to… well, to keep watch over him.

“Such a shame.” She replaced the photograph and reached for a book from the shelf above. The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie. 

She dearly loved a good mystery, and she’d been wanting to read this novel. With a smile, she pulled the book down, but her smile waned as she glanced at the door. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to check the locks one more time.

“Look at yourself, Emily Louise Breakfield. Uncle’s oddness is beginning to affect you.” She clutched the novel to her chest and shivered.

Luther had told the entire family about the ghosts who supposedly changed his life. Her mother had laughed and told him we had all read Mr. Dicken’s Christmas Carol. But he shook his head adamantly. “This is no Christmas story,” he said. “And who would want you to believe such an occurrence happened at Christmas? There might have been a shred of credibility to that story if Scrooge’s encounter with the sheeted dead had happened on Halloween.”

Her uncle had slapped his palms on the dining room table, startling even the maid. “No. She did it. That so-called herald. She sent those things… ghosts… to tell me of the wrongdoings of our grandfather, and to warn me I was on the path toward much the same. They were civil war soldiers and—”

“Brad!” Mother was the only person on earth who could call her brother by his childhood name. “Please control yourself. No one is questioning your veracity, but you must admit, ghosts… in your…” Mother raised an eyebrow. “Where did this… event… occur?”

He sat back and straightened his tie, but the harsh, haunted look in his eyes remained. “The event, as you call it, happened in my home, of course. This past October, on Halloween. All Hallows Eve, as some refer to it, the—”

“Luther,” father said, “is this some sort of joke?”

“Sam, you’ve known me over thirty years,” my uncle said. “Have you ever known me to joke?”

Daddy frowned. “No. No, I can’t say I have. Not even at university.”

“I’m not a joking man. That woman… that witch… she sent them because I changed the name of the paper to Herald. I had found a note in father’s papers, one written by Grandpa Earnest. Grandpa had intended to change the name of the paper, but he died that very night. So, to honor him…”

“That’s a wonderful reason to change the name,” mother said. “What is this woman’s objection?”

Perspiration beaded on my uncle’s face, and he wiped it away with his dinner napkin. “She says she is the only herald in August Grove, and as long as the paper bears that name, I can expect to have… trouble. Troubles. That’s what she said. And I have. From broken gears in the press, to my employees coming down with strange maladies, to—”

“But those are just normal inconveniences,” father said.

Luther cast his eyes around the table as if searching for help. “Yes, and I treated them as such. That’s why she sent the ghosts.”

“That’s quite enough,” mother said. “We… we believe you, Luther. All right? Let’s just finish dinner before we discuss this further.”

But they didn’t.

That was three years ago.

There were plenty of stories her uncle might have told that night. “But ghosts?” She loved the old man, but balderdash. All of it. Yet he persisted with the tale every time one of them asked.

She took her dripping candle from the desk and, as she passed, grabbed her shawl from the nearby settee. Uncle Luther was every bit as stubborn and cheap as that character, Scrooge. To her mind, he could do with a dose of generosity, wherever it came from. Emily drew the shawl around her shoulders and shivered as she muttered, “This house is like a tomb.”

But two bowls of fresh apples and treats sat on the console table beside the door. Real candies! She couldn’t imagine what he paid for those. “He should have spent that money on coal.”

The pendants on the table’s astral lamp tinkled at the rapping on the door. Emily snorted and moved off toward the sitting room, where she had a warm fire by which to read her book.

However, the rapping persisted. Unable to settle into her novel with all the noise, she returned to the door. “Go away!” she shouted through the wooden panels.

“Trick or treat!” came the cheerful replies.

Emily cracked the door. Three tiny children, less than waist high and draped in white sheets, stood with their pillowcases held high.

“We have nothing for you. Go away!” She started to close the door.

“Mr. Killgore always has treats for us,” one of them said.

“It’s a bargain he made with our brothers,” said the second.

“If you don’t give us our treat, our brothers will come next with a trick,” said the third.

“Balderdash and malarky! Get off my porch.” Emily slammed the door.

By 10pm, Emily was deep in her book. No children had called after the ghosts, and she’d enjoyed the evening. Only embers glowed in the grate when, again, there came a sharp rapping at the door. “Why aren’t the little monsters in bed?”

She flung open the door to find three full-sized ghosts, white sheets drifting, with baleful red eyes peering at her. “Trick or treat,” they said.

She glared at them. “You three are too old to be out begging. Begone.”

“We came for our bargain,” one ghost said.

“You treat or we trick,” said the second.

Said the third in a grumbling tone, “Treats and good fun or our fathers will come.”

“And they’ll face my gun!” Emily slammed the door. “Face my gun.” She laughed all the way up to her bedroom.

 The chiming of the old clock woke her at midnight. That clock hadn’t worked since she was a child. She sat up in bed, a shiver scurrying down her spine. Sounds… No, words… booming like claps of thunder. 

“Trick or Treat!”

Three creatures of horrible countenance, perhaps ghosts since they were translucent, hovered at the foot of her bed, accompanied by the near-deafening clank of chains and howling wind. Curtains swung out and away from windows, and the bed’s heavy drapes billowed and flew. Emily cowered beneath her quilts, too terrified to move or scream. Where was her uncle?

“The bargain was broken,” said the shortest.

“You provided no treat,” said the one in the middle, his head speaking from beneath his arm.

“’Tis the trick, then,” boomed the tallest.

***

Emily awoke to the sound of her uncle calling her name. Squinting, confused by the bright sunlight streaming into her eyes, she blinked several times, trying to orient herself to the view… of the garden… because it was upside down.

Upside down.

She first tried to speak, then to scream. Emily could do neither. The slippery hull… the sweet taste when her teeth punctured it… an apple? There’s an apple in my mouth?

“Emily, please nod if you’re able,” her uncle said.

She tried to oblige… obey… but she couldn’t. A picture formed in her terrified mind, an image of her hanging, trussed up like a suckling pig with a ruby red apple forced into her mouth. “Uncle” was unintelligible from her stuffed mouth, and tears flowed back across her forehead and off the side of her face. The words she wanted to say, the plea for help, lay strangled in the back of her throat.

In due course, though it seemed a lifetime, someone arrived with a ladder, and the men gently untied her and lowered her onto a blanket at her uncle’s feet. There was concern etched deep in his face, but there was also tittering from the people who had gathered beyond the gate. She would have loved to have told them off, but all she could do in the moment was cry as her uncle worked to remove the apple jammed between her teeth.

“Please, dear, just be still,” her uncle said. But she noted the quirk of his lips. He wanted to laugh as well.

It wasn’t until she was free of the twine or whatever bound her that her senses acknowledged the other… the other…

She screamed.

If the neighbors didn’t know something was awry, they knew after that. Emily imagined the sound might have shattered glass. But the sound wasn’t such a noise because the night’s cold air had parched her throat. The scream reverberated inside her head so loudly because her ears were plugged. Stuffed. With candy.