Back in Red River we’d never celebrated Halloween. Pastor had told us it was the devil’s holiday with kids dressed up as ghosts and witches, running from door to door and begging strangers for candy. Never mind that everybody in town knew each other and would gladly give a sweet to a child that asked nice.
Each year in my memory Pastor Ezra Anderson had devoted a whole sermon to the evils of Halloween.
“Witchcraft and demon possession,” he’d screamed. “That’s all that’ll come from such pagan holidays.”
Meemaw would sit in the pew, rocking back and forth the way she did when the Spirit grabbed hold of her, calling out amens as Pastor ranted.
So when Aunt Carrie asked if we’d come to a Halloween party on the farm, I was surprised when Daddy told her we wouldn’t miss it for all the world.
Had Mama been around she’d have made sure we didn’t go.
It was just one more thing on a long list that made life without Mama different.
If I could have, I would’ve traded that party to have Mama back even if just for one day. I wouldn’t care if I missed out on the treats or the costumes. None of that would matter if I had Mama. I’d gladly sit beside her on the davenport, content to be quiet along with her.
Instead, I made myself pretend that I couldn’t wait for Halloween to come along.
The party was the talk of Bliss for a whole week. Miss De Weese had to disallow all discussion of it during school on account none of us could keep our focus on our work. All anybody wanted to think on was what they’d wear for a costume or who they might sit with on the hayride. A couple boys even tried guessing who might win the pumpkin-carving contest.
Opal told me she’d help me with my costume just so long as I didn’t go as anything scary. She said she could help me make an angel costume if I thought I’d like that. Far as I remembered from reading the angel stories in the Bible, they’d been scary enough to the folks that’d seen them. If they hadn’t been I didn’t know why they’d had to say “fear not” so much.
When I told her that she just smiled and told me I was something else. I asked if I could go as Sacagawea.
“I don’t even know who that is,” she told me.
I showed her in the book Mrs. Trask had let me borrow from the library how Sacagawea was an Indian woman who helped the explorers Lewis and Clark. Opal just looked at me like I was speaking German or some such strange tongue.
“You want to be an Indian?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered with a smile.
When she told me I could, I about fell over with surprise.
I added that costume to the list of things Mama would have said no to if she’d still been at home.
I thought when she came back someday she’d be real surprised by all that’d changed.
Of all the things to do at that Halloween party—bobbing for apples and square dancing and jack-o’-lantern carving—the very best fun I had that night was sitting on a bale of hay on the wagon pulled around by Uncle Gus’s pack mules.
The hay prickled my skin through the brown-colored fabric of my Indian squaw costume, but I did not care even a little. The cool breeze blew through my still-short hair making me wish I’d brought along a warm sweater like Opal’d told me to. But the full-of-stars sky twinkled down at me making me forget the goose pimples on my arms and the way my teeth chattered. An almost full moon lit up the trees and the stubble of harvested cornstalks and the smile that had been on Ray’s face all night long. Anything that could’ve haunted me that night was pushed far from my mind.
Uncle Gus took us over fields and along the edge of the woods. He wove us between rows of apple trees that had been picked clean of their sweet apples to make pies and cider. Oh, how I wished I’d had a cup of warm cider just then.
The sounds of the party—the bouncing music and hooting laughter—seemed far gone from us as we rode along. All I wanted to hear were the clip-clopping of mule hooves along the ground and the light clicking of their harnesses.
If he’d offered, I would have let Uncle Gus drive me around like that all the rest of the night. Cold as I was, I didn’t want the free and easy feeling of the bumping ride to end. I imagined a warm arm wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me to her soft side. She’d hum a happy tune, stopping every now and again to wonder over all we saw.
“Did you see that shooting star?” she’d ask. “Make a wish, darlin’.”
Or she’d plant a kiss on the top of my head, healing every hurt part of my soul.
But when I imagined her sighing before sounding out the words of a poem, I realized it wasn’t Mama I was imagining but Aunt Carrie.
Mama never would’ve done something so unladylike as ride around on a bale of hay.
The ride was over, I could tell by how Uncle Gus slowed the mules, pulling up on the reins as we neared the barn and clucking his tongue at them. One of them let out a ghostly sound. It wasn’t a whinny and it wasn’t a bray. It sounded more like a witch’s cackle and I tried not to let it spook me too much.
Ray and Bert climbed over the side railings and took off running toward the table piled high with doughnuts. Uncle Gus swung his legs down from his seat and set to freeing the mules from the wagon, leading them one at a time back to the stables where I knew he’d have fresh feed for them to nibble. Once he finished that, he came around by where I had stayed on the old wagon. He rested his arm on the side of the wood right behind me.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I told him. “Thanks for the ride. It was real nice.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” He nudged me with his elbow. “We’ll go again this winter sometime. It’s real pretty out here after it snows.”
“I’d like that.”
“Tell you what, I’d even let you sit up front if you’d like,” he said. “You could steer the mules wherever you wanted to wander. You think you’d like that?”
“Yes, sir,” I told him.
A thought passed through my mind. Just a flicker of imagining. I pictured Beanie riding along beside me on that wagon, not daring to so much as touch the reins, a shy and happy smile stretched across her face.
The spark set a slow burn of longing deep in my gut. I sure missed my sister.
“Well, I think you’ll wanna come along.” Uncle Gus patted me on the back. “It’s just about time for the ghost story.”
“Is it real scary?” I let him take my hand and help me off the trailer, hay still clinging to my Indian squaw clothes, thoughts of my sister still in the center of my mind. “Will it give me nightmares?”
“Nah. You’ll see.” He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Don’t tell nobody else, but I got a funny one this year.”
Uncle Gus didn’t let go of my hand as we walked to where Daddy was busy building up a big campfire. Other men carried over logs and stumps for all the kids to sit on.
Ray had saved a spot for me right beside him and I took it, glad for the warmth of the fire but even more glad to be near him. The flames were hot, almost too hot, but I wasn’t about to move away from them. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d gotten on the hayride.
Uncle Gus sat on the tallest stump so we could all see his face, yellow and orange in the flickering firelight. Nobody said so much as a word, or moved or cleared their throats, even. We all leaned in, our eyes on the man, waiting for him to begin.
“Y’all ready for a scary story?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper. We nodded our heads, still silent.
“Well, then, I’ll tell ya one.” He rested his hands on his knees, elbows pointed outward, and looked at all of us sitting there, his face not showing one hint of a smile. “There was once a man here in Bliss …”
Uncle Gus went on a long time telling his story and all the kids laughed and shrieked and listened close as they could. Seemed it was a powerful good story. When I looked around I saw the adults standing by to hear it, too.
As for me, I couldn’t keep my mind still to follow along. All I could think of was Mama. Hard as I tried to push the idea of her away, I couldn’t. I just wasn’t strong enough.
The story ended and all the folks clapped. The kids around me clamored for another story and Uncle Gus said he had just one more. He started in on one about a dark and foggy night that wasn’t scary at all. I was real glad for that.
Once the fire started to die down, mothers gathered their children, wiping their faces of sticky-sweet and putting an arm around their shoulders to guide them to their cars. They followed, sleepy children full of doughnuts and apple cider and memories that might last them a good many years.
I rode in the back of Daddy’s truck alongside Ray, not saying a word. We were too tired, I thought, for talking. Arms folded on the side of the truck bed, I rested my head on my hands, watching the dark farmland rush past me.
In my heart was a longing I’d grown tired of. A wanting I wished so hard I could shake off myself.
Even when we got to the house on Magnolia Street and Daddy half carried me up to my room, putting me to bed, costume and all, the feeling stayed.
I wanted Mama.