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people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.
She’d always loved Halloween. A magic night. A night when anything could happen. Monsters could be real. Magic could whisper in the air. Cynthia Eden
dropping handfuls of candy into kids’ baskets. Wolfgang thrust a hollow plastic pumpkin bucket into my hand. “Trick-or-treating with us is a tradition you’re never getting out of. Even if you’re, you know, death and master of the underworld or whatever.” “Or whatever?” I giggled, feeling the weight on my shoulders ease for the first time in… well, ever.
When I looked down, they were glowing neon green in the places the paint had touched. I wore a tight-fitted black mini dress to let Ames paint me as a skeleton all over. The dress even had a hood with holes to accommodate my horns, and with the glowing paint covering me from head to toe and my hood raised, I felt very much like what I was. The grim reaper.
We stopped at a familiar empty little house, and the guys proceeded to drape it with toilet paper. I stood at the end of the driveway rolling my eyes. “I’m pretty sure Marcelene is trapped in hell, yet you’re still vandalizing her home?” “It’s tradition,” Wolfgang purred, kissing my cheek as the guys laughed.
And finally, we’d reached the end of the page together. At least the end of this chapter, this book. We had endless more stories to write together for all of time.
“I don’t think anyone’s home… plus it looks creepy here.” “Thought you loved creepy?” Ames asked, his skull paint still neon under the moonlight. “Obviously,” I replied, wrapping my arms around Wolfgang, who eagerly took in the affection and nuzzled into the top of my head. “But they don’t look like they have candy for trick-or-treaters.” Onyx opened the squeaking sharp-pronged iron gate and grinned. “Really? I think they look like the sort of house to hand out full-size candy bars.” “And fill the entire yard with pumpkins,” Ames added, following after him. Wolfgang led me down the path and up
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Ames rubbed the back of his neck. “I know you said you’re not a white picket fence girl. But what about a spiked wrought-iron gate girl?” Onyx reached into his pocket and dangled keys in front of my nose. “I hear it’s haunted.” Ames snickered. “It’s certainly about to be.”
he excitedly gestured to a familiar black vanity. “Donated by Judas, with all your makeup. He organized it the way you like.” I could have died, and cried, and died again at the thought of the devil arranging my makeup in the way I liked.
“Ellie, I have been to hell, I’ve fought ghouls and demons, I’ve even contended with the devil himself… and nothing scares me more than your house of dolls. I’m sorry.”
It was why I enjoyed photography and baking, I supposed. They were each art forms that held something as the same forever. An image would remain locked in time eternally the same way a recipe would ignite the same flavors of hundreds of past years over your tongue and through your mind in an instant. What a commonplace sort of magic.
Beings of myth, they were. Beings of myth who still ordered midnight pizzas to their gothic castle and played games on the television far too loudly for my taste. But she loved them, and they loved her, and I loved them all.
The devil was always watching me. I knew from the way my coffee, no matter how long it sat out, never got cold. I knew it from the red tint of every mirror I gazed into and from the letters left on my black silk pillowcase at night. Hell was not the same without me, he’d say, before appearing in my doorway during my nightly bath.
Death and her four horsemen, the witches whispered around their cauldrons of pumpkin spice.
Though maybe in everyone we love we are simply finding missing pieces of ourselves. Maybe they help us remember who we truly are. Maybe that’s magic.
The personification of death so beautiful and meaningful. Not as something to rage against but as a haunting reminder of what life truly means.
To making peace with the monsters that chase you, to learning that there’s always another door to open to some other world. I hope these books have been a door for you, dear reader. Because sometimes hell is a wicked trail of sorrow tailored just to us…
I hope that The Halloween Boys have helped remind you in some small way that magic is real, that darkness is beautiful, and that everyone we love is a piece of us, a lit pumpkin patch pointing us back toward ourselves on the coldest autumn nights. I hope it reminds you to love the opposing parts of yourself, and to make friends with your monsters, and set free your ghosts.
You threw out half a dozen outlines for your book, continually and gently whispering, make it simple. Magic is easy. For in the kindest way forcing me into the light and making me embrace the gentle and tender within the darkness.
Your strength and beauty— death in lipstick— healed so many broken parts of me. For snuggling stuffed animals and commanding legions of demons, for being a scared little girl and a goddess of darkness, you taught me about duality and death while being unabashedly yourself.
