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Hi.

There, it's Cameron Suey.

Our interim season continues with a little folk core this month.

This story was originally published in Flapperhouse and was written around the same time as The Green Tunnel.

I'm sure my anxieties are on full display.

We're anxious to tell you more about season two, but rest assured the machinery is in motion.

For more updates, We'd love to see you over at Patreon, where even free members get access to behind the scenes information.

And now here's tonight's story.

Last Halloween, on the last morning I will have with my son, I will make him pancakes with fresh blueberries from the community garden mixed in the batter.

When the Patel's from down the street heard the news day, it brought us a flask of fresh maple syrup from the trees in the Western Woods, and I've chilled it over night in the in the fridge.

Butter from the community farm sizzles and and spits on the gridors.

Malcolm drags his feet downstairs outside the kitchen window, perched on the skeletal frame of an old oak.

The crow gazes at me, his head crooks to one side, and beetle shell eyes flash in the October sun fixed online.

I look away morning.

I grunt, trying to keep the desperate quiver out of my voice.

Thought, maybe you'd like to try some coffee with breakfast.

He narrows, sleepy eyes, skeptical of the offer, then shrugs.

Doesn't stunt my growth.

I wins, but he doesn't notice.

I think maybe one cup is okay.

I set the chipped, steaming mug in front of him with the first patch of pancakes.

Just don't tell mum.

He tries to play it cool, like it's no big deal.

I can I can see the excitement in the corners of this smile.

He wraps his small hands around the mug, half covering the not a rum crest, and sniffs at the steam.

I realized that I'm staring at him as I look out of the window again, and the crow catches my eye and nods and takes flight in a burst of sparkling black feathers.

After breakfast, Malcolm lays out his goblin costume, the itemizing and accounting for each peace and prop I watch from the hallway, passing by with the same load of laundry again and again.

I want to make this day any harder than it has to be.

From our bedroom, Annie's tiny cries drift out alongside the sound of Rose singing gentle lullabies.

Rose said her goodbyes to Malcolm as he slept last night.

She doesn't trust herself not to upset the boy, so she's planned to stay with our infant daughter until he's gone.

I told her I would cover for her if Malcolm asked.

When I've run out of reasons to pass by his doorway, I go to the garage.

In a box above the work bench, still packed from our move last January, I'll find what I'm looking for, a cracked plastic bucket molded in orange, like a child's drawing over Jack O'Lantern.

It was mine from childhood and her place far away from here.

I'd hoped both my children would have the chance to use it.

But if I sent that out with Malcolm, ne I know that won't be coming back, and he won't be old enough to carry it for at least another year.

My throat is tight again, and I clear it to chase away the tears what's one more lost tonight in the greater scheme of things.

Malcans should take it.

He's always loved it.

As I turn back towards the house, I hear scraping on the rafters above.

The fox strides across the beams and sits on its haunches.

I have an idiot impulse to fling the pumpkin at the animal, an impotent urge for violence in the muscles of my forearms.

Instead, I sigh and not.

It looks at me from pools of liquid black gray fur, rising and falling with each patient breath.

There is no malice in those eyes, nor the others.

We all know what has to happen night.

Rose and I signed the pact when we came to this town.

We accepted the risk because it seemed worth it.

Maybe it is still.

This is a safe town, safer than anywhere else on earth, and Annie will be exempt in future years.

The fox is gone.

When I look up, I'm surprised to see Rose.

When I come back in the house, Annie bouncing on her hip.

Her eyes are red and raw, but she's smiling as Malcolm shows her the whole costume she sewed.

The shredded burlap tunic together herself last weekend, before we'd known Malcolm had been chosen.

He slides on each piece the mask, the long fingered rubber gloves, the hooded cloak, and then poses with mock threat, straining to make his voice deep as he cackles at Rose and Annie daughter burbles with delight and reaches out to touch his outstretched cours.

Rose looks to me wordless and reads the question on my furrowed brow.

She nods just once, and her smile strains with infinite sadness.

She turns and kisses Malcolm on the forehead of the grotesque mask.

I'll get you some makeup, honey.

We'll black out your eyes a bit so it matches the mask.

She squeezes his shoulder and I see the dark wave wash across her face, eyes dipping beneath the water.

Malcolm behind the mask, he doesn't see it.

She hurries out of the room, and he's still giggling at her side.

I clear my throat to draw Malcolm's attention away from the slam of the door.

Look what I found, I say, holding the pale pumpkin aloft.

Oh, he says, lifting the mask up just high.

Enough to speak.

I thought maybe I'm a little too old for that.

It's a kid's pumpkin, right, I was gonna ask you if I could use a pillowcase.

I hate myself for the flood of relief.

I feel the pumpkin will stay.

Malcolm, we'll go.

Yeah.

No, that's a good idea, buddy.

You can carry more in a pillow case.

He grins, white, his lips splitting beneath the goblin's face like a slip throat.

I turn away and busy myself with scouring the iron griddle in the sink.

The sobs feel like punches to my soul, the plexus.

But I choke on the sound, and he doesn't notice.

The sun dips, fat and orange to touch the skeletal arms the trees in the western forest.

It's almost time.

My head is swirling masses of dead leaves as I sit on the porch chair, staring into the solid wall of trees on the far side of the street.

Malcolm has to tug on my sleeve before I realize he's standing next to me.

Dad, he says, his voice quiet and tremulous.

I don't feels so good.

I think it was Mum's hot coco.

Maybe the milk was bad.

I've spent his lifetime feeling a flood of anxiety whenever there he tells me this.

He's always been such an easy child, never tells me something is wrong unless it's really very wrong.

But I don't feel the anxiety now.

Maybe I do, but it's a familiar rain drop in an alien swirling storm.

What burns in my chest all the brighter for the contrast between the gloom's hope.

Maybe he doesn't have to go tonight.

I put my hand on his forehead, then kiss the skin to confirm.

But he is cool, no fever.

His hands still in the goblin gloves, presses up against his belly, and his face creases.

The raccoon eye mask of black eyes.

Shadow has started to run as his skin beads with sweat.

Not too fast, too excited at the possibilities to stay calm.

But let's go inside, Bud.

We'll see what we can do.

I take him by his gloved hand and lead him too the bedroom.

He lays down on his back and I leave him, their heart pounding as I go to the medicine cabinet.

This is a sign.

It has to be that they're telling me this okay, we can keep him, this was just a test.

And passing through our bedrooms, I race towards the bathroom.

I see Rose holding Annie close.

The moment I see her eyes, I know what's happened.

She's pleading at me not to be mad with the crook and angle of her head, and I know the bottle of expired antibiotics is still open on the counter, a needless confirmation.

My skin flushes hot, and I don't trust myself to stay quiet or still.

I turn away from Rose, refusing to meet her pleading gaze.

She's talking now, but the roar of my heart in my ears blots it out.

I have to leave before I act, without thinking.

I need to clear my head.

I don't know what comes next.

I stumbled back down the stairs, past Malcolm's room into the living room, and y smell hits me first, a great galloping blast of wet, green air, the smell of mud and rotting leaves and tender shoots from the forest floor.

I've never seen the stag before, but I know it instantly stands in the corner of our heart, leg splayed broad and challenging, Its great head is dipped low as if smelling something in the freshly shampooed carpet.

Beneath the shining nut brown pellet, muscles like iron cables contract and release a coiled spring of implied thread.

The curling mass of its antlers gleam like polished oak.

At the edge of my perception, they seem to twist and writhe in the last of the autumn sun, a mirrored, squirming, rawshack blot of bone and light.

It raises its head to me, Oi, your black eyes, rising far above my own, and snorts.

The blast of wet air stings my eyes and my knees.

Buckle limbs cold and distant.

As I slide low, prostrating myself before the stag, the thunder of its hoofs rattle my teeth as it steps closer, I see myself reflected in the eyes, mouth open in mute horror.

They're not eyes, I think in some distant corner, they are poored windows in a vessel, were something from from far beyond looks back out.

It sniffs at me, taste in my primal terror.

It doesn't speak, it doesn't have to.

I know, I'm sorry, I say my voice, just a distant scratch of insects on bark from somewhere deep inside me.

I'm sorry.

I just didn't want to let him go.

It cocks its head to the right, the weaving tangle of antlers, creaking like the forest at night, and waits.

I'll do it, I say, I give my word, and I will do it.

For a long moment, the only sound is the great bellows of its breath as it looks straight through me.

And it turns satisfied and walks through the wall, passing through a plaster and paint as if it were a waterfall.

I watch from the window as it strides across the road, away from the houses on the eastern side of the street, into the dark thicket of westernwards.

I'm too tired to cry.

Children are just coming out of doors a parade of home made ghost costumes, which is hat and bright primary color.

There are no parents with them, even with the youngest groups.

They have nothing to fear tonight or any other night in this town.

The pact keeps them safe.

They only take one each autumn, and the rest of the year the children are protected.

The kelper's eyes, heavy with sympathy, assured us it's almost never the new family in their first year.

We're just got unlucky it happens.

Malcolm is still bent forward in discomfort, but since he vomited in the bathroom, seeing his spirits have lifted.

He holds the pillowcase in one hand as we step out onto the porch.

The crisp night air, heavy with the scent of approaching winter walkt off.

I told him, think of all that candy you'll miss out on, I said, hating myself with every word.

I'm doing it for Annie, I think, But I know I'm doing it for me, so I don't ever have to kneel before those atlas again.

Rose watches from a window, eyes fixed on me, not our sun.

Malcolm's already gone for her, and I wonder if we'll ever recover from this.

I meet her eyes and try to say a thousand things With one small nod.

Malcolm adjusts the mask, obliterating my son's face forever.

His black eyes peer out like coins drop down or well, vanishing as they go.

He starts to walk down the sidewalk towards the next house.

No bad, I say, you should, you should cross the street.

He looks at me, the goblin face cocking to the side with confusion.

On the western side of the street, there are no houses, only the great wood.

He's about to ask a question.

When I say my last words to my son, the words that will haunt me till I die, the words I loathe myself for saying, trust me.

He looks both ways, big silly instincts never lost, and crosses the street.

The woods sway, the hissing sound rising as a thousand branches shed dead leaves to the wind.

On the far side, there is no sidewalk.

The road just gives way to a thicket wall of trees.

He stands before the woods, the place he's played in a hundred times since we move to town, a place that holds no danger for the other children.

He sees them in the dark before I do, thousands of them, a churning mass of silent life watching him, waiting.

He turns back.

He turns back, and I think a stag that he's too far away from me to see the rising panic in his eyes.

I wave, try to smile.

He doesn't deserve to be afraid.

In the end, hey swallow him a tide of fur and antlers and feathers and little needle teeth.

He's swept along like a cork on water, carried with quiet reverence into the gloom between the trees.

My sun, he's gone.

The great hissing noise of the watchers in the wood, a thousand bodies sliding in the undergrowth, drifts away from the October wind.

After that, they only hear the children laughing.

Halloween's sound effect records being played from a half dozen houses in our block, sounds of joy and celebration.

Why shouldn't they celebrate?

They're safe.

I turn away and back into the dark and silent house.

The bowl of candy sits on the floor stoop for any one who will come by.

No one will question our lack of festivity this year.

They'll know, they'll understand.

Rose and I sleep on opposite sides of our bed, the gulf between us, silent and impatient.

It comes late that night.

I hear the door open, and I know, with an oily dread, exactly what it means.

Still, I go to the front door.

It stands in the door frame, looking into our home, still wearing the coblin costume.

Behind the mask, the dark pits of its eyes yawn.

One of our good pillow cases bulging in strange and queasy ways hands in its gloved hand.

Hey dad, it says a voice that is so like Malcolm's, and fills me with a flash of rage.

Sorry, I was out late.

It was a good night.

I can only nod, my breath catching as I try to inhale.

Rose emerges from our bedroom, putting a trembling hand on my shoulder.

I take her hand in mind and squeeze so hard I can feel the bones grind.

She breathed deep before speaking to the thing in the doorway.

Hey, no sweat, honey, Why don't you hop into bed?

It shuffles forward across the threshold, The movements almost exactly like Malcolm's gate.

I resist an atavistic urge to strike for thee, to force it back out of my house, but we sign the fact.

There's no going back now.

It walks straight up to me and reaches out for a hug.

I take it in my trembling arms.

It is warm like Malcolm.

It smells so much like him.

It hugs me back a coblin mask, nuzzling into my neck, just like Malcolm.

We will make do for the good of the town.

We will endieu.

You have been listening to observable Radio.

Tonight's episode Last Halloween was performed by the Ensemble featuring Liam Gregory, written by Cameron Suey, Produced by Cameron Suey, Phil Van hest Perperina and Wendy Hector.

Edited by Cameron Suey.

Our psychology consultant is Doctor Elisa Leal, art by Krinn Fletcher.

Our theme is The back Rooms performed by Mew.

Additional music from this episode provided by John Barzetti, Ana Dodger and Hannah Exstrom, Luella Grenn, Luba Hillman, Tim Koulik, Sondra Martaloure and Moreland Songs.

Observable Radio is listener supported thanks to all of our patrons and listeners, including Kathleen, John Tidd, Russ, Rick Callison, Brianna Zach and jessp.

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