It was evident from the age of four that she wasn’t like the other children.
Other children believed in things like fairies and unicorns and Santa Claus.
Other children’s favorite holiday was Christmas. At one point, in school, someone had decided to take a ‘favorite holidays’ survey to make a pie chart. It backfired in the poor child’s face; everyone chose Christmas. She did, too, not wanting to be the 1%. But it was a lie.
It was always a lie.
From the first time she trick-or-treated, she felt something. At first she wrote it off as the atmosphere of the evening. That was how you were supposed to feel on Halloween, was it not? Some kind of strange magic in the air? As if someone, or something, or some combination of the two, was watching you?
Oddly enough, it didn’t scare her. She was afraid of many things, which is why it always baffled people as to why her favorite holiday was Halloween, if she chose to tell them so. But this presence that she felt, every Halloween night, was perhaps the greatest comfort to ever exist in her young life.
Perhaps that was why she treated Halloween like a friend that she desperately missed once the night was over. It always felt like more than a special occasion ending. It felt like a painful goodbye.
But a goodbye to whom?
Every Halloween, she felt him. She knew he was there. Every so often she would catch a glimpse of orange and brown pass by her as she tended to a jack-o-lantern in danger of blowing out, or examined a treat she’d received from the house whose stoop she’d just stepped down from. As she spun around in happiness, holding out the beloved treat pail given to her by her grandfather, she could almost feel him dancing with her. Whoever he was, he approved of the way she felt about Halloween. He urged her on, his presence in everything that she did, as her life became a countdown to that one special night of the year.
She began to wonder if she had been chosen somehow. She didn’t know anyone else exactly like her. Even others bold enough to state that their favorite holiday was Halloween, didn’t seem to feel it in the same way that she did. If she mentioned counting down, in the winter or the spring, she’d usually get an eye roll and a reminder of what month it actually was, even from those most enthusiastic when October rolled around. But she took comfort in knowing that, whoever he was, he was there for her. Sometimes she swore he came around even when it was nowhere near Halloween, just to remind her that there was something to hold onto. A sudden chill in the air, a foggy day, a rickety abandoned house on the road, a dead leaf in summer...they all felt like signs he sent her to remind her that Halloween was never too far away.
Her enthusiasm was unmatched, and he appreciated that, even if no one else did.
It got to the point that she didn’t have to wonder who he was anymore. She was clearly always in the company of the Spirit of Halloween.
But who was this Spirit? Halloween didn’t have its own ‘Santa Claus’. Or perhaps it did, but there were so few people who truly felt him, that he simply wasn’t as prominent. In regards to Santa Claus, her mother had always told her ‘Blessed are those who have not seen, but yet believe’. Perhaps that applied here as well. And she’d never believed in something so much. She’d have her doubts about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and about the intentions of many of the real people she encountered, but the Spirit of Halloween was something she never doubted.
It wasn’t until many years later, into her adult life, that she finally noticed what looked like a normal trick-or-treater. Just over four feet tall, in a ‘costume’ that made him look like the kind of scarecrow she’d display in her bedroom all year round. She watched him curiously, as he seemed to be observing the entire night’s events from his own little patch of the sidewalk.
He nodded to her and she silently asked, ‘Who are you?’, though she had a feeling she already knew.
His response floated into her mind, though she wasn’t sure if it was telepathy or if she was just answering her own question.
‘I am Halloween’.
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