Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre by Paula Guran

Author:Paula Guran [Guran, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magic & Wizards, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror, Anthologies & Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction
Amazon: B00EJJ2MIG
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2013-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

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Before he switches off the electric, Jack carefully snaps the antique clip into the even more antique crank box and then presses the ON

switch. The sound that leaks from the speakers isn’t exactly music.

There might be music hidden somewhere in it, but it was recorded—

decades ago—to mimic the wild voices of the goddesses, the wail of the global perihelion dust storms, the shudder of the dome against the gales. Once the lights are out, there’s only the flickering, dim glow from the peanut oil lantern. The darkness is heavy and warm and musty.

Of course, he’s not alone in the attic. There must always be three and ideally no more than three. Miranda and Dope already sit crosslegged on the plastic floor, waiting for him. In their way, these three twelve-year-olds are enacting a ceremony as sacred and crucial to

the community’s safe passage through Phantom Eve as the coming

procession. Here, on the night before the March, all the children

below the dome must gather in thrices to do their part, a duty that must be performed precisely and in all seriousness. Each of the three has already sliced the tip ends of their index fingers and squeezed blood into the lantern.

Jack takes his place with Miranda on his left, Dope on his right,

and he’s wishing two things: that he hadn’t drawn short this year,

[204] WHILST THE NIGHT REJOICES PROFOUND AND STILL

and that there was another boy in the attic with him. Isn’t having to assume the role of teller bad enough without also being the only XY?

Miranda takes a deep breath and begins reciting the invocation

to the Seven and the Seven, and when she’s finished, Dope murmurs

the ward against the Four. Dope hardly ever raises her voice above a whisper, because she stutters sometimes. Jack waits patiently, his eyes on the lamp’s wick, his mind running over all the details of the tale he’s chosen.

“Your turn,” Dope murmurs when she does, and Jack glares at

her.

“Don’t you think I know? Think I’m simple?”

“Nuh-nuh-no,” she whispers.

“Shit. Think I don’t know my part?”

“I’m suh-suh-suh-”

“Stop it, Jack,” Miranda scowls. “She didn’t mean nothing by it.

She’s just nervous is all. Tell me you ain’t.”

Jack shakes his head. “Might be nervous, but I know my part.”

In the lantern light, Dope’s face is still pale as cheese, and

Miranda’s is nearly the same red-brown as the desert. He wants to

get up and shut off the crank. Not because he’s scared, but who wants to hear those noises? Who in his right mind? They’ve already worked their way beneath his skin and are coiling, cold and dense, down in his gut.

“Sorry, Dope,” he says, even if he isn’t, and then he begins the

tale.

The crank sings its wordless, disharmonious song.

“Was back at the start of the Seven Sol War, see, and it isn’t a

coincidence that the Seven and the Seven took offense when Sagan

turned on its sister. The Seven knew to the final hour how long the fighting would go on, see. They knew, and that pissed them off just about as

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