Her First Halloween - Part Two

An Allhallowtide Tale in Three Parts

Happy All Hallows’ Day, 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 three evenings for a bit of seasonal fun.

Read Part One Here!

This three-part 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!)

• The New Kid

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!

And for more fiction fun of various shapes and sizes, subscribe for free!

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Photo by Nik on Unsplash

Stunned, Ivy stared at the girl’s outstretched hands for longer than it was comfortable. 

“Oh,” she said, realizing suddenly what the girl had said in her soft voice. “Yeah, candy, hold on…”

She left Jake to keep an eye on the stranger and went back to one of the bowls on the counter, taking a handful of random candy and carrying it back to the girl, whom she half-expected to have disappeared. 

But no, the girl was still there. Ivy carefully placed the candy in the girl’s hands, and all at once the stranger’s face lit up with an unguarded smile. 

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” Ivy said. “Um. Can I ask…where did you…come from?”

The girl gestured vaguely into the gloom with her elbow, as her hands were full. “Back that way.”

“Oh.” Ivy nodded, trying not to sound as suspicious as she felt. “And uh…how did you get here?”

“I walked.” The girl tilted her head slightly. “Is that not good?”

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s just…it’s not the safest thing, wandering around in the dark.” Ivy felt like she was talking to a child and had to remind herself that this girl was clearly around her age. “Are you…okay?”

The girl nodded. “Yes. This is my first Halloween. I’m still learning the rules.”

Jake made a quiet hmm sound behind Ivy. By now, Ethan and Bailey had wandered over and were hovering in the background, curious. 

“How old are you?” Ethan piped up. 

“Sixteen,” the girl said. 

“Do you go to Ferris Island High?” Bailey asked. 

This question seemed to confuse the girl. Her smile dimmed slightly and she shook her head. “I don’t know…what that is.”

“That’s okay,” Ivy was quick to say. For some reason she was concerned about not upsetting the stranger. The whole situation felt delicate as a soap bubble, and she coudn’t quite figure out why. “What’s your name?”

“Lyla.”

The name shivered in Ivy’s ear, and she realized that she was having one of her… instincts. She didn’t know what to call them. Caroline up at the General Store called them Ivy’s “knack”; it was something that seemed to be growing more and more developed the older Ivy got, the longer she lived on this island. Like every nerve in her body had the ability to point with one accord in a single direction. It was unsettling, but it could be useful, sometimes. 

Ivy looked out at the watchful darkness beyond the porch and said, “Well, Lyla, um…do you want to come in for a second and warm up while we…figure out what to do?”

Ivy could almost hear Jake’s muscles tense beside her, and Bailey and Ethan both made quiet sounds of surprise. But no one objected. 

It was Lyla’s turn to look suspicious. She hesitated, holding tightly to her candy. 

“I’m supposed to go to the next house,” she said, quietly. “Isn’t that how it works? Tricker treat?”

“Sure,” Ivy said. “But the next house is kind of far away, and I don’t want you to get lost.” 

Lyla looked over her shoulder once, almost wistful, before she stepped into the warmth of the house and allowed Ivy to close and lock the door behind her. In the clarifying house lights her slim frame and baggy clothes seemed even more incongruous. She was a contradiction. The clothes were clean and modern and good quality, just oversized. Her hands were dirty, but the rest of her was clean enough: clean face, clean hair, brushed teeth. 

There was something about her. Something incorrect in the context of the house. Ivy struggled to put her finger on it. 

Once inside, Lyla was temporarily distracted by Ethan’s macabre makeup and Ivy’s ghoulish face, clearer now in the overhead lights. She stared at Ethan, but he quickly said, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s just a costume. We wear costumes on Halloween,” and proceeded to peel the scar off of his face, which might not have been the comforting gesture he was going for. 

“Here,” said Bailey, smiling, holding out a small bowl to Lyla, “you can put your candy in here so you don’t have to hold onto it.”

Lyla paused, but then she did so, setting the candy in the bowl and letting Bailey put the bowl on the kitchen counter, following it hungrily with her eyes.  

“When may I eat it?” she asked. “I don’t know the rules.”

Ethan laughed. “Rules? It’s Halloween. You can eat the candy whenever you want.”

Lyla’s already-wide eyes widened even more, and she looked into the bowl, suddenly wary. “Are any of them…caramel?”

“Hmm.” Ethan picked through the bowl and pulled out a fun-sized Milky Way. “This one has caramel in it. Does that count?”

Lyla took it carefully from his fingers, unwrapped it with some fumbling difficulty, and then took a small nibble. Ivy had never seen naked delight spread so quickly and thoroughly across someone’s face as Lyla devoured the candy in two bites, licking her fingers, and laughed out loud. 

“I love Halloween!” she said. 

Ivy felt Jake touch her on the shoulder and she turned into his whisper.

“Ivy, this seems like a good time to call someone,” he said.

“What do you think is up with her?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. But it feels weird. This isn’t normal.”

Ivy paused, thoughtful. Then she asked, “Is she, uh…do you think she’s a ghost?”

Jake’s brow furrowed for a moment, and then the penny dropped and he clearly realized what she was asking. It was the reason he and his mom had left California. It was the one thing he figured would make sure he never made friends again, and the one thing that drew him initially to Ivy and her group. “Why are you asking me?”

“What’s the point of being able to see and hear ghosts if you don’t use the ability once in a while?” Ivy asked. “I’m just asking for your opinion.”

“Ivy. Geez.” He sighed, but then he looked at Lyla with an appraising stare. Ethan and Bailey had handed her one of the neon-frosted cupcakes as they explained to her in rhapsodic detail about what was in various candies, and she listened to them with rapt attention, taking in every word. 

“No,” Jake said, finally. “No, I don’t think she’s a ghost. I don’t know what she is, but I think she’s, like…here. Physically here.”

“Okay,” Ivy said. She should have been relieved, but instead she felt only a deepening sense of mystery. “Well, that rules that out.” 

Ivy joined Lyla and the others in the kitchen, trying nonchalant on for size. “So, Lyla…how come you’ve never celebrated Halloween before?”

The girl had purple frosting on her lips and half of a chocolate cupcake in her mouth, which she chewed and swallowed quickly to reply, “My family doesn’t know it. We don’t have it.”

“Are you guys like…super religious or something?” Ethan asked. 

Lyla didn’t seem to understand the question, but she shook her head anyway. “We just don’t…know it.”

“Where is your family?” Bailey asked. 

Lyla gestured vaguely again. “At home.”

With that, Ivy realized suddenly that the vagueness was purposeful. She had worried that Lyla was lost, or didn’t know who or where she was. But it wasn’t that Lyla didn’t know. It was that she didn’t want them to know. 

So she’s able to keep secrets, Ivy thought. Interesting.

“Why do you wear costumes?” Lyla asked, reaching out to touch the edge of Ivy’s dress but stopping just short, as if she didn’t want to be disrespectful. “Is it so you can hide?”

“It’s just for fun,” Jake replied, gently. “For one night we get to pretend to be someone else.”

Something complicated happened behind Lyla’s eyes with this explanation, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. “I love Halloween,” she said, so soft. 

Ivy had a sudden brainwave. “Lyla, do you want to pick a costume? I have a few upstairs that I decided not to wear. You can try them on, if you want?”

The girl looked up with such hope that Ivy’s heart nearly broke. 

“Let’s go,” Ivy said, taking Lyla by the hand. She and Bailey led the girl upstairs while the boys stayed in the kitchen. Ivy knew that Jake was trying to catch her eye, to convince her to change her mind, but she ignored him.  

Instinct or knack, whatever it was…she was determined to see it through.

*******

For once Ivy was glad that she had left her room a mess. Her discarded costume ideas were still lying all over her bed, and as soon as Lyla saw them, she was awed. 

Ivy had cycled through a few different Shakespeare-themed costume ideas. She had Renaissance-style dresses and different pieces of jewelry, and more off-kilter pieces for more obscure roles. She had thought about Juliet, or Ariel, or Viola...

But Lyla zeroed in immediately on a set of glittery tulle fairy wings and a tiara, the accessories Ivy had planned for a Titania, Queen of the Fairies costume. The wings were flimsy and the tiara was just cheap costume jewelry, but Lyla didn’t seem to mind at all. 

Ivy and Bailey helped Lyla out of her oversized sweatshirt so she could slip the fairy wings on over her t-shirt, then settled the tiara on her head and arranged her hair nicely. Ivy offered a bit of blush on her cheeks, and found a tinted chapstick still in its packaging that she didn’t mind donating to the cause, giving Lyla a little color on her lips, just a dash. 

By the time the girls were done fussing over her, Lyla couldn’t stop staring at herself in Ivy’s bedroom mirror, lightly touching the plastic tiara and turning to see the stretched tulle wings. 

“For one night, we get to pretend to be someone else,” she said, breathless. “I love…I love Halloween.”

Ivy and Bailey glanced at each other. Ivy didn’t have a sister, and Bailey’s sister was significantly older, so she felt a strange electric sense of connection pass between them, then. A coming-of-age inherent in dressing up, in playing pretend, and in helping each other feel beautiful. Ivy’s heart tugged, thinking of her mom adjusting her lipstick in the entryway mirror, thinking of herself wanting to look good for Jake. She had no way to put any of these feelings in proper order. She didn’t even know what to call them. But they settled in the room like benevolent ghosts, perched on the mirror, hung from the ceiling like fake cobweb decorations.

Coalesced, they seemed to whisper, sadly, You’re growing up.

Suddenly, the girls heard a shout from downstairs. It was Ethan. 

“What was that?” he hollered. “Did you see that?”

Ivy took off down the stairs, leaving Bailey to lead Lyla down after her. Ethan was staring out the living room window, pointing with a shaking hand. 

“Ivy, there’s something outside. There’s something big outside.”

“Shut up, Ethan,” Bailey said, rolling her eyes, her arm around Lyla’s shoulders. “It’s Halloweeen. No one’s falling for that.”

“I’m not kidding. I saw something. Right there.”

Ivy stood next to Ethan and looked out. He was pointing at the barn, which was a fair distance from the house and had an exterior mercury light illuminating the front in a pale orange glow. 

“It was probably a deer,” Ivy said. “They wander past the barn because they can smell the chicken feed and get curious.”

“It wasn’t a deer.” Ethan shook his head. “Deer don’t slink. I’ve seen deer, they don’t slink.”

Ivy didn’t like the word slink. It made her anxious. “What do you think it was? A bear, or something?” This was a joke. They all knew there were no bears on the island. Not enough biomass to keep them fed long-term. “A coyote?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not crazy, and I’m not joking. There was something there.”

Ivy didn’t want to believe him, but it was hard to avoid. Ethan did love a joke but he wasn’t prone to serious pranks. 

“Ivy, I really think it’s time to call someone,” Jake murmured, beside her. 

Before she could respond, the exterior light on the barn suddenly and unceremoniously blinked out, plunging that side of the yard into utter darkness. The skin on the back of Ivy’s neck prickled. The light switch for that lamp was inside the locked barn.

“Oh.” Ethan’s eyes went wide. “Oh crap.”

Ivy fumbled her phone out of her pocket with shaking hands, trying to scroll her contacts for her parents’ numbers. She had no idea how she was going to explain any of this. “Um. Yeah, okay, let’s see…”

She tapped her dad’s number since it was the first one to come up, and hissed when she saw that her phone had a low signal, something that happened out here sometimes. The call attempted, then dropped.

“Not now…” she moaned, turning to head for the landline in her mom’s home office.

Then came a shuffling in the bushes outside the living room window, as if something was traveling through them slowly, carefully, toward the front door.

Ivy crossed quickly to the entryway and made sure that the door was locked. It was. She peered through the peephole and saw nothing but the illuminated front yard in distorted fish-eye, a pair of glow-drunk moths dancing around the porchlights. 

But then…Ivy stared harder…

What is that? 

A shape, a shadow, passed the boundary into the peephole’s line of sight for a flash before the sound of glass shattering testified to the breaking of the porchlights.

Nothing but inky blackness surrounded the house.  

All that was visible in the light blaring through the front window was the reflected ghoulish glow of a pair of round, unblinking, wide-set eyes.

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Read on for Part Three!