Happy Halloween, Talebones Readers!
The observance of Allhallowtide—a celebration of ancestry, mystery, folklore, and frights spanning October 31st through November 2nd—is one of my personal favorites of the whole year. In honor of this spooky celebration, I’ve decided to share a little taste of Halloween on Ferris Island with you all!
While the story takes place over the course of one night, I’ve spread it out in bite-sized pieces over the next three evenings for a bit of seasonal fun.
This story stands alone, but the main teenage characters in this tale have been seen in these previous stories (paywalled tales marked with a P):
Ivy and Ixos (P)
The Last Resort (P)
The Uninvited Guest (last year’s Hallowe’en tale!)
I hope you enjoy this little taste of Ferris Island Hallowe’en!
If you like this story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!
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Ivy perched on the arm of the couch, clicking through scary movie options on TV, and watched as her parents fluttered to and fro, putting their last-minute touches on their costumes. Outside, the sun had sank behind the line of the surrounding woods and the gloom was gathering in while the mist rose in the field, a perfect backdrop for Halloween night. The moon was new, and the darkness was absolute.
Tonight felt different.
Ivy’s mom, Erin, fixed her bright red flapper lipstick in the entryway mirror, and Ivy’s dad, Pete, adjusted his tie to complete his zoot suit Gatsby look.
Once she was satisfied with the lipstick, Erin crossed to get her purse from the dining room table and said over her shoulder to her daughter, “We’re just going to be up the hill at Caroline’s. You’ve got the number, right? If you need anything we’re only a phone call away, okay? We’ll come right home.”
Ivy nodded, scrolled through movies. “I know.”
“Chili’s on the stove,” Erin continued, “and there’s pop in the garage fridge.”
“Yep, I know.”
“We’ll be back no later than eleven-thirty, and tomorrow’s a schoolday, so I want you guys to wind down by then if you can and start getting ready for bed.”
Ivy smiled gently. “I know, Mom.”
Erin caught the slightly beleaguered tone in Ivy’s voice. Smiling, she crept up behind her daughter, wrapped her arms around her, and planted a big kiss on the back of her head.
“Stop this growing-up nonsense, will you?”
Ivy, despite herself, leaned into her mom’s arms. “I want you two to have a good time. Don’t worry about us, okay?”
“Impossible,” Pete said, from the kitchen, collecting his wallet and the car keys from the bowl on the counter. “Worry is kind of a parent thing. But thank you. We’ll try.”
Erin gave her daughter one more kiss on the cheek and stepped back to let Pete help her into her coat. Ivy smiled over her shoulder at them.
“Say hi to Caroline and everyone for me,” Ivy said.
Last kisses, last hugs, and within moments Erin and Pete had bustled out the door, leaving a quiet behind. This hush was pregnant with deep responsibility, a new sensation. Ivy felt the thrill from her toes up. Her parents had only recently started letting her be home alone, and this was the first time she would be hosting friends by herself. At fifteen, she felt this was the height of adulthood, the very pinnacle.
Ivy stood up and busied herself with filling big bowls on the counter with chips and popcorn, taking the store-bought Halloween cupcakes with their neon icing out of their plastic clamshell packaging and arranging them on a plate. She made sure that all of the decorations inside the house were to her approval—fake cobwebs draped from the ceiling, big spiders and skeletons hanging from available wallspace—then she stepped out onto the porch to light the tealight in the leering jack-o-lantern she had carved a week or so before.
After closing the pumpkin’s stem-studded lid, Ivy looked up and out at the darkness beyond the porchlight. The house was set away from Seavend Road enough that there would be no trick-or-treaters tonight, and sat on enough acreage that no other homes were visible from here. She thought about all of the suburban neighborhoods around the island filling up with little kids wearing raincoats over their costumes, going door-to-door in the mist and drizzle.
For a moment, but only one moment, the enormity of being alone in the darkness felt like a free-fall, a feeling she couldn’t really put her finger on. As if there were spirits rising to meet the mystery of the night, watchful and impassive to the ways of mortal beings. Close by in ways they weren’t otherwise.
Shivering, Ivy went back inside and locked the door behind her. She gave the chili on the stove a quick stir, checked the time, then ran upstairs to change into her own costume.
*******
The doorbell rang just as Ivy was putting the finishing touches on her makeup, hollowing her eyes and paling her face to look corpse-like. She had made her light brown hair look artificially wet using coconut oil, and had pinned fake flowers all over herself, including the flowing dress she had dirtied and tea-stained in the backyard with her mom’s help.
Barefoot, she launched herself down the stairs, unlocked and yanked open the door to greet her best friends.
“Trick or treat!” said Ethan, laughing, while Bailey rolled her eyes. Bailey was dressed as Cher from the movie Clueless, a recent obsession of hers, with a blonde wig and a yellow plaid blazer and skirt. Ethan, who never went out of his way to dress up for anything, was simply sporting the special effects makeup he had been playing with earlier that day in drama class: a long, wicked-looking bloody gash from his left temple to his chin. Having been applied hours earlier, it was starting to peel up a little on the edges. Both Ethan and Bailey had overnight bags slung over their shoulders.
Ivy waved at the tail lights of Ethan’s mom’s car as they receded into the dark.
“Girl, you look so good!” Bailey said. “Twirl!”
Ivy did so, grinning, letting Bailey ooh and aah over her costume as her dress fluttered.
“I give up,” Ethan said, shrugging. “Who are you?”
“She’s Ophelia, Ethan. From Hamlet. Duh. We literally just read it in class.”
“Post-drowning,” Ivy added.
Ethan shrugged again. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet. Is that a spoiler? She drowns?”
Bailey sighed. Ivy laughed and led them both inside, closing and locking the door once more.
Ethan and Bailey made themselves at home as usual, setting their bags down in a corner, but Ivy felt it again. She could sense the difference in the air. Tonight was different. Usually when her friends were over her parents were elsewhere in the house, or at least were just gone nearby to the store to run errands. But tonight, Ivy was responsible for the whole night until her parents got home. A little over four hours. It felt like an eternity of possibilities.
“Is Jake not here yet?” Bailey asked, flopping down on the couch while Ethan headed straight for the bowls of snacks.
“Not yet,” Ivy said, checking her phone. No texts.
“I bet he’ll really dig your costume.”
Bailey said it quietly, a glimmer of mischief in her eye, taking up the mantle of flipping through movie options with the remote. Ivy glanced at her but said nothing.
Ethan piled a plate with chips and was already helping himself to chili. “Bailey, you better pick a good movie. Like, actually scary.”
The three of them fell to bickering over the right movie to kick off the evening when the doorbell rang, again.
Ivy—without thinking—checked herself in the entryway mirror like her mom had done, before answering the door. The moment she saw Jake standing there, her stomach did something complicated and tingly. He was dressed in a red leather jacket and black pants, with fake sharp teeth and sunglasses. He made quite a striking figure, being rather tall and with a football player’s build. His mom was standing at the foot of the porch stairs, amused.
“Hey, what’s up?” Jake said, struggling around the fake teeth.
Ivy laughed. “What are you?”
“You serious?” Jake struck a pose, made his hands into claws, swaying them back and forth. “Thriller! Come on!”
Jake’s mom laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow after school, Jacob. Be good. Goodnight, Ivy.”
“Love you, Ma,” Jake said over his shoulder.
“Bye, Mrs. Masoe,” said Ivy with a wave.
Jake’s mom got into her car, and with that, the final adult was gone. It was just them, four kids in a house in a field of darkness.
As Ivy led Jake into the house, he said, “You look really nice.”
“Oh, yeah?” she grinned up at him, ignoring the look from Bailey on the couch. “What do you think I am?”
“Ophelia, right? Hamlet?”
Ivy, triumphant, gave Ethan a pointed glare. “Yes, Jake, thank you. I am Ophelia.”
And with that, the four of them got comfortable, feeling the excitement of having hours to themselves to talk and laugh without any adults around. It was a tangible thing, this excitement. It haunted the room, filled even the silences with a cozy familiarity unique to true friendship. They chattered about school while they snacked and nibbled and served out bowl after bowl of chili. They argued anew over which movie to watch, getting caught up in the details of what makes a truly iconic and satisfying Halloween film.
In the end, knowing they would have enough time to watch two movies if they picked one quickly, they settled on Scream. Ivy and Bailey took the couch, Ethan flopped on a nearby armchair, and Jake arranged some pillows on the floor so he could sit in front of the couch. In front of Ivy.
Despite the thrilling opening moments of the movie, Ivy found herself distracted by his proximity. He had removed his leather jacket along with the sunglasses and fake teeth, and his broad shoulders and black t-shirt smelled faintly of his cologne. She didn’t know enough about the feeling to know why, but she was both uncomfortable and deeply comfortable at the same time.
It was new, this feeling. Scarier than any Halloween film could hope to be.
Jake was the newest member of their friend group. He had joined their school in the spring, just before school let out, and the four of them had spent the summer inseparable. At first, she thought Jake was just a cool person to get to know. A transplant from California, he had a lot of stories to tell about growing up in a place Ivy had never been to. But lately…something within her had shifted when she looked at Jake, and she wasn’t sure what to name it.
All she knew was that it was difficult to focus on the movie.
They were only about twenty minutes or so into the runtime when there was a soft sound of footsteps on the porch outside.
Then, the doorbell rang.
Ethan, Bailey, and Jake all looked at Ivy. Ivy looked at the door.
“Are you…expecting someone else?” Bailey asked.
Ivy shook her head. She could feel her pulse quickening. “No. Just us.”
“Maybe it’s your parents back early and they locked themselves out?” Ethan offered.
But Ivy knew it wasn’t. She stood up, crossed to the door, and peered through the peephole. One thing was for sure: it wasn’t her parents. In fact, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking at.
She looked over her shoulder at her friends, and Jake—as if she had invited him to do so—stood up and came to stand next to her, right at her side like a bodyguard.
“Who is it?” Jake called out, deepening his voice for emphasis.
But there was no response. Just a waiting silence. Expectant.
With Jake hovering at her shoulder, unsure if it was the right decision or not, Ivy unlocked and opened the door.
There, standing on the porch, was a girl. While she appeared to be the same age as Ivy and her friends, there was something distinctly childlike about her features, the way she carried herself. It could have been the wide dark eyes, the long dark hair, the way she looked furtively over her shoulder at the surrounding night. The clothes she wore were too big for her by a few sizes, but other than that she seemed healthy and whole, if a little lost.
When the door opened the girl stared at Ivy and Jake for a minute, wide eyes sort of shocked in the bright light from within the house, like a deer crossing a dark highway.
Then, a spell broke. She smiled shyly, held out her dirty hands—cupped, hopeful—and said in the quietest voice, so soft a breeze could muffle it:
“Tricker treat?”
Cuh-reeeepy. 👀
"Tricker Treat." Why does that sound ominous?
No, Ivy, don't do it, don't invite her in.