“Knock yourself out,” Nita said. “But even the Lone One’s had a run at that and didn’t get far…”
Kit sighed and leaned over the living room candy table, picking up one of the newly filled orange and black paper trick-or-treat packages and peering into it. “The problem is that if you use wizardry to get your beard growing, you’re stuck with it…”
“And you don’t want to start shaving yet. Fair play to you there,” Ronan said, rubbing his own face, which was adorned under the makeup-grime with what looked like about three days’ worth of stubble. “Believe me, I don’t mind having a little holiday from the face scraping every now and then…”
“How did you get here, though?” Nita said, taking the bag away from Kit and putting it back on the candy table. “I thought you’ve still got trouble with doing single teleports out of Ireland, because of all the old spell residue built up in the ground. Did you hitch over with somebody who had an authorized transit?”
“Nope. No problems at all with single transits today,” Ronan said. “Because in the enlightened land in which I dwell, Hallowe’en is an official government holiday… and this being the case, the local senior wizards always open some ‘safe transport’ spots so people celebrating The Day That’s In It can spelljump in and out of the place without too much trouble.” He glanced around. “But speaking of my usual ride, where’s wee Darryl? Thought he’d be here.”
“He had a change of plans,” Kit said. “Decided to stay over in Baldwin this year. It’s not that long really since he finished up his Ordeal, and his folks are still a little freaked out by it all. He doesn’t want to push them too hard on the letting-him-be-out-by-himself issue, so he’s letting them ride herd on him at Halloween this time.”
“Pity,” Ronan said. “And he didn’t want to do one of his be-two-places-at-once tricks?”
Kit shook his head. “Tom and Carl told him to cut back on the colocation stuff for a while till his power levels settle down. I think they’re afraid he’ll strain something.”
“Or find out something about himself he shouldn’t know?” Ronan said. “Oh well. Too bad: always like having his smiling face around. So what’s on the agenda?” He looked over the table and picked up the trick-or-treat bag Kit had just put down. “We doing the same drill he coached me on? Go door to door, say the magic words, get people to give us sweets for nothing?”
“That’s it,” Nita said, deftly reaching in as he was starting to open the bag, taking it away from him, and putting it back on the table. “And then over to Tom and Carl’s to see what their ‘haunted house’ looks like: it’s their turn to do one for the town this year. We’re just finishing up some last details here.”
“Meaning stuff that should have been done two or three nights ago,” Kit said.
Nita sighed: Kit had been teasing her about this for a couple of days. “Come on, it’s all in the dining room…” Nita said, and led the way through.
The dining room table was covered with newspapers, and the newspapers were covered with the remains of prep for the night’s trick or treaters. There were about sixty or seventy more of the little paper bags decorated in orange and black, all now stuffed with candy and twisted closed: and there, still untouched, was the pumpkin.
Ronan looked it over. “Not as big as some I’ve seen around here,” he said, sitting down at the table and picking up one of the bags. “Some of your neighbors have ones the size of beach balls.”
Nita considered taking this bag too away from Ronan, and then shrugged. “Yeah, well,” she said, and leaned on the table, gazing at the pumpkin. “We’re kind of working our way back in gradually.”
“Back in?” Ronan said, opening the bag and peering into it curiously.
“Yeah. The way school around here used to be, when you were twelve or so everybody started thinking that that was too old to be trick or treating any more, so I stopped. And then the year after that, Kit and I had our Ordeal, and I got kind of distracted. Hallowe’en didn’t seem like such a big deal all of a sudden, and except for Dairine, the family kind of went off it for a while. And then after Mom…” Nita sighed and shrugged. “That year no one felt much like it anyway. But this year, Dad was saying, ‘Why don’t we revive the tradition. Mom always liked it…’ And it seemed like a good idea. Dairine even got into it.”
“Goodness,” Ronan said. “Will she be honoring us with her presence eventually, do you think?”
“Don’t get snotty, Nolan!” said the voice from the back bathroom. “Unlike some people, who just throw themselves together with hair product and any old spare cowhide they have lying around, I like to make sure I look right before I go out.”
Nita snickered very softly, but then turned her attention back to the pumpkin. Better get on with this… she thought. She picked up the knife, and then hesitated yet again.
“What’s with you?” Ronan said as he emptied the trick-or-treat bag out on the table and began going through the contents. “You look like the reluctant axe murderer.”
Nita groaned under her breath and sat down in the chair at the end of the table. “I just don’t know if this is … strictly ethical.”
Kit pulled out a chair too and fiddled with his frock coat for a moment so that he could avoid sitting on it and messing it up. “You know,” he said, “you could always ask the pumpkin how it feels.”
She had in fact been avoiding this, nervous about what answer she might get. But there’s no avoiding it, I guess; pretty soon we’re going to have to get moving… Nita put out a hand and ran it once more over the scratchy veiny skin around the pumpkin’s stem. “Excuse me,” she said in the Speech, “but… exactly how are you about this?”
There was a brief pause while the pumpkin got its vegetable consciousness wrapped around the idea that someone was speaking to it, let alone someone who would be able to understand the response. This what? the pumpkin said.
Nita hesitated. “I’m about to stick a knife in you,” Nita she said after a moment, “cut off your top, and scoop out your insides with a spoon.”
There was another pause. Your point being? said the pumpkin.
Nita blinked, as she was generally used to more energetic responses from plant life. But then, those are mostly still growing in the ground… “Well, isn’t there some chance this might hurt you?”
Haven’t felt a thing since I got pulled off the vine, said the pumpkin. Just been taking it easy since then. It paused, for a bit longer this time. Besides, it saidafter a few moments more, it’s autumn, isn’t it? I’m supposed to die now. It’s all about the seeds, after all. I rot… but the seeds don’t. Some of them will come up. Then I’ll wake up in one of them, maybe more.
“So you really don’t mind if I cut off your top and pull your insides out and carve a face in you,” Nita said, still just slightly incredulous.
Well, what’s it all for?
“Celebrating the time of year,” Nita said. “The autumn. The year’s end … and the new beginning, I guess.”
Ronan nodded. “That’s what it meant when we invented it,” he said.
If a pumpkin could have shrugged, this one would have. Then do it. I don’t mind being part of a celebration, and maybe it’ll be fun to have a face.
The permission could hardly have been more clear-cut. Nita got up, picked up the knife again, and said, “Okay, here we go…”
She braced herself and made the first cut, half expecting to hear a scream: but there wasn’t any response at all. “Are you okay?” she said.
Sure. When are you going to start?
Considering that she was standing there with the cut-off top of the pumpkin in her hand, this was reassuring. “Uh, okay,” Nita said, and got to work in earnest, scooping out the seeds and the webby bits in the middle.