“No fair, you got more candy than me!”
“Trade you two Kit Kats for a peanut butter cup.”
“No way.”
Shouts and laughter drifted on the night air under a full, bright moon. A Vampire ran past holding their fangs in their hand; a Werewolf rooted around in a pillowcase full of candy; a Mummy adjusted its wrappings with a groan.
Juliette Feng held her mother’s hand tightly as she toddled behind the large group of her siblings and their friends. She was dressed up as Tigger. The bright orange, fuzzy costume kept off the evening chill, though the hood kept dropping over her eyes. She wasn’t sure she liked Halloween.
A scatter of lollipops flew through the air as her older brother, Ollie, tackled one of his friends to the ground. The two wrestled on the lawn, nearly tripping a group of ghosts nearby, and Juliette’s mom dropped Juliette’s hand to break up the fight.
Juliette’s attention wandered. A bright green glow from the corner house caught her eye. The house was tall, black, and turreted, like a castle in one of her fairytale books. The front light wasn’t on, but green light spilled through the windows and cascaded onto the sidewalk.
Juliette thought she saw the motion of a cat’s tail waving on the front porch. No one was watching her. As fast as she could, Juliette walked over to the house, up the walkway, and to the front door. She couldn’t reach the bat-shaped knocker, but she pounded
her tiny fist on the door.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
Cree-aak. Craa-eck.
The door opened, and an old woman peered outside. She was wearing a long dress, tattered at the hem, underneath which heeled boots were visible. A dark cloak fell from her shoulders to brush the ground. Her face was wrinkled, and her long nose twisted to one side. Atop her head sat a pointed hat. Juliette could see a dusty broom leaning against the porch wall.
She was a Witch, of course.
“Hello, there, little one,” the Witch said in a croaky voice.
“Hi,” Juliette said in a small voice. All of a sudden, she felt quite shy and scared and desperately wished she hadn’t left her mother.
The Witch gave her an appraising look. “Would you like a cup of cocoa?”
Juliette’s stomach grumbled away her timidity. She stepped inside, and the Witch closed the door.
As it turned out, the cup of cocoa came with a plate of cookies. Juliette selected one decorated like a skeleton and ate it — first the head, then the legs, then the arms, then the torso — swinging her legs in her chair all the while. A black cat jumped onto the seat beside her, and she patted his head. He purred. “That’s Shadow,” the Witch told her. “He’s a nice old thing. Lazy, though. I’ll have to
replace him soon.”
On the other side of the table stood a small goblet surrounded by candles. Short as she was, Juliette couldn’t see inside. “What’s in the pretty cup?” she asked, chomping through a second cookie shaped like a pumpkin.
The Witch smiled and winked. “That’s my special potion. Not for children like you.”
Absently, Juliette wondered if the Witch was a Witch every Halloween, or if she was something different each year. She had just opened her mouth to ask when someone knocked on the distant front door. The Witch rose from where she had been sitting — though, Juliette saw now, there was no chair, so perhaps she had been standing — and answered it. An exchange of muttering and mystifying exclamations occurred, and then a familiar voice was calling, “Juliette!”
Walking away from the corner house, her left hand firmly back in her mother’s and her right clutching a third cookie, this one the shape of a crystal ball, Juliette started planning her costume for next year as her siblings chattered.
“That house is never open on Halloween.”
“Duh. It’s because she doesn’t like kids.”
“No, it’s because she’s a witch.”
“That was just a costume, dummy.”
“No, it wasn’t. She’s a real witch and she casts spells and everything.”
“How do you know that?”
“Lizzie saw her last year. She was flying on her broom with her cat.”
“Mom!”
Juliette wasn’t paying attention. She had decided next year she would be a Witch. She stared up at the full moon. Yes, she thought. Halloween had been wonderful after all.
