Hansel and Gretel

Last Halloween they had been on Meeker Hill in Redding and, the one before that, on Orchard Street in Cos Cob. They had been running up hills screaming with joy in a pack of country kids with a long low car trailing ominously behind, only it was their parents. Now Henry and Gail were city children of eleven and seven and sent out along East 78^th Street alone.

Not that Henry liked this. He was almost too old for the holiday and he wanted nothing to do with Gail but neither of them had made friends yet at their new schools and so they were stuck with each other.

Few in the country carried on like this, the townhouses festooned with cobwebs, ghouls, giant inflatables swayed by hot air pumps—spiders, zombies and gargoyles breathing real smoke and the hanging rats and grim reapers and sequined skeletons among the gravestones. Halloween had been turned into yet another New York competition, every year more and more elaborate, so his parents said. His father had been raised here and disapproved.

It was not a bit scary. Henry and Gail had been looking at the decorations in daylight for a week and now, as Henry saw the empty candy wrappers among the leaves, he realized they had started late. Others were already heading East with bulging sacks and parents in tow, the parents making him feel better.

Gail was Lady Gaga in her meat dress, the meat made of red and white crepe paper over some stupid leotard. Henry, as suited his personality and his current attempt at New York cool, had gone as Tennis Zombie which required only his tennis clothes and his mother’s kohl eye makeup. Unfortunately the effect was ruined because he needed a jacket.

“We should have started when I said. All the good candy is gone. Look at those big bags,” said Gail in her whiney voice.

“Shut up, fartface, and ring the bell.”

“And what are you?” said the woman who was wearing a witch hat and jeans. There was nothing lamer than grownups in costumes Henry thought. The man had stuffed a pillow in his shirt and was playing Pregnant Man or maybe he was just that fat.

They were holding an enormous hollow plastic pumpkin and, instead of letting them reach inside and take what they wanted the way folks did it in the country, these people handed them each a mini snickers and a mini box of raisins.

“Thanks, but she is allergic to peanuts.” They had some Twix after all, the crappy candy fallback.

The trick part of Trick or Treat had disappeared too, no one egged houses like they did in the country, the houses had already put up their own toilet paper strips in defense.

Gail had liked the country roads, running to keep up with the others who were bigger, the angel wings slapping against her sides, her face flushed, cramming the candy in her mouth as she ran. She was scared of the dark stretches of road between the big houses even though her parents were in the car behind.

They were moving west, the Barney’s shopping bags now getting heavier. The next house seemed to think it was Christmas with bright green lights on the ivy curving up to the roof. After that, an inflated mega rat in a trap was going after a lump of cheese pursued by a wheezing black cat. As the air pumps exhaled, they moved back and forth, each of them trapped.

Then they were at Park Avenue where the traffic light gave Henry and Gail 34 seconds to cross, only Gail dropped her bag and was crouching to pick up some of the candy when Henry snatched her away.

“One more block,” he said “I’ve got homework.”

“I can go on, if you tell me how to get back. I’ve never crossed Park Avenue by myself.” In fact she had never been alone on the streets.

“I am going to leave you a trail of candy corn from here on and you just follow the numbers when you return. Going East they get higher.”

He looked at her face.

“No, I’m just kidding. I won’t leave you. But don’t do any more stupid things like picking up stuff in the middle of Park Avenue…we had zero seconds left.”

There were more costumed grownups around them now on their way to parties in their masks and capes, none of them interested in candy, only in showing off how clever they were.

No answer at the first house after Park. There were lights in the basement of the next one and a scattering of small white pumpkins. White pumpkins were all over the place in New York. Nobody had bothered to carve any of the pumpkins here either, even the professional people who put up the decorations. These, small as they were, were carved with “blood” coming out of the tiny gauged eyes.

“Trick or treat!”

The woman, probably the oldest person they had ever seen, had no need of a costume.

“I’m so glad you’ve come. You are the first and I need someone to get Albertine in from the garden.”

“We’re not allowed to go in any house, ma’am.” Their mother was from the South and Henry had been forced to say Ma’am to any adult woman since he could speak.

She was leaning on one of those walker things and, as she reached behind her to get a basket of baby Tootsie Rolls, she staggered a bit. Her nails looked hard and yellowish like claws.

“Are you all alone, Ma’am?”

“I am never alone. The spirits, my friends, are always with me to guide and protect me.”

Whooo-weee, Henry thought, we are out of here. She had almost no skin between her deep wrinkles and her black eyes sunk way into her cheeks. She had wrapped herself in a heavy shawl thing that smelled of the stuff his father put on his back sometimes and his mother put on her temples when she had one of her headaches.

“Please…Albertine won’t come inside and I cannot look for her in the garden, not now in the dark. I will fall.”

In addition to the “Ma’ams”, Henry had been raised with the idea of Southern chivalry and Yankee service. His grandfather had gone to school with Kennedy the President and made Henry believe that doing things for other people was the right way to live.

“Henreeeee,” said his sister in her whiney voice again. She was stepping from foot to foot the way she did when she had to go to the bathroom.

“Can my sister use your bathroom? I will get your dog for you.”

More quickly than he would have expected she wheeled her walker around and let them come in. The little parlor room was filled with raggedy old books everywhere, stacks and towers of them. The woman obviously collected owls because they were all over the tables and shelves. She had two large birdcages, both empty. Henry heard music that he considered spooky, a lot of gloomy singing.

“This way,” said the woman to Gail. She turned on the light in a bathroom that was all green tile. Gail looked over at him and he nodded.

“I’ll just go get the dog.”

He opened the glass door to the garden. It was dark and scarier than anything they had seen on the street. Brambles and tangled vines were everywhere and a tree that looked like it had never had a single leaf bent down over a rusted chair and table. There were plants with blackish leaves in cracked pots and a giant iron pot over by the brick wall at the garden’s end. Henry did not see a dog anywhere. He heard a rustle of wings and saw an actual owl in the bent over tree watching him or so he imagined.

“Albertine! Albertine” the woman was calling out in her croaky voice “Come here!”

Henry stumbled over a stone marker sticking up from the ground.

“I don’t see her. She must have come inside.”

“No! That is not possible. Oh, where is she?”

Now Gail was standing by the door, next to the woman who put a hand on her shoulder. Gail sank down a bit from the weight.

“Is there someone I can call for you, ma’am?”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it” the woman said.

“We have to get home. It’s a school night.”

“Yes. Thank you for the candy,” Gail said. “I want to go home.”

They heard a clatter from the tree and the owl rose up and then swooped down on something behind one of the old pots. They heard rustles and squeaks.

“I want to go home now,” Gail said. “Please Henreeee…”

The owl was tearing something apart, probably a mouse. Then it was silent.

“Albertine! Come here!” said the woman. They backed away leaving her in the doorway with the cold night air coming in. Now it was quite dark.

As they moved to the front door, they heard a crash and a thud. Henry and Gail might have turned around and gone back but they didn’t.