Read by Sophie Morris-Sheppard
“Trix,” I repeat, eyeing the potion I’ve just mixed up from the nameless dregs of our drinks cabinet, “do you really think this is a good idea?”
She rolls her eyes and waves her green nails whatever. She’s wearing yellow cat contact lenses and her eye makeup is more panda than Wanda (her sexy witch character) but the effect’s actually quite creepy, like she’s possessed. She never does anything by halves, my housemate. Other accessories include besom broomstick, gnarled ebony wand, and a velvet corset so tight she’s in constant danger of disappearing behind her own boobs.
“Jeez, Dr Buzzkill,” says Trixie, “just down it will you? It can’t actually kill us.”
“No,” I say doubtfully, “I mean, probably not …”
Trix eyes my hesitation. “God, must I do everything?” She grabs her shot, necks it, then succumbs to a prolonged bout of coughing. A touch too much chilli tequila, perhaps. “What’s it called?” she croaks.
I consult my notebook, scribbled with impressive-looking equations I made up while we were on the vodka.
“Coffin Liquor,” I say, pretty pleased with myself.
“Ugh.” She rinses with Red Bull, then grabs my shot and downs that too. “In for a penny …”
I peer over my plain-glass Lennon specs. “Did you know there’s really such a thing? It’s the ooze and fluids that collect in the bottom of a sealed coffin as the body liquefies. Lead-lined ones are the worst, apparently. They don’t leak. Open them after a few hundred years, and you’ve got Corpse Soup.”
Now she really looks a bit queasy. “Beth … honestly, where do you get this horrible stuff?”
“Back of the booze cupboard, I told you … Oh. The internet, where else?”
“Well some poor guy is in for the small talk of his life tonight.” She shudders.
I deploy my Evil Laugh. “No need to talk, I’ll just slip him a dose of Love Potion #7.” I pull a plastic test-tube of Ribena out of my breast pocket and waggle it.
“Ha! Cute. Well, something’s got to work, I suppose. We could both do with some action for a change.”
This is true. It’s been enough months that I’ve stopped counting in months, and as for Trix – well, she’s only got eyes for Party Pete, who can’t even see straight most the time. We sit in a brief, deep silence, pondering our … desperation isn’t quite the word. Eagerness? Enthusiasm, shall we say, to pull tonight. Trix is looking pretty smoking, if the likes for her #HotHalloween selfie are anything to go by, and as for me … well. The lab coat has a lot of pockets and so at least if I get bored I can grab my phone and order an Uber. Costume pockets are important: the last time I left my coat on the bed at Party Pete’s it ended up pounded flat by the couple who were screwing on it when I went to leave. God knows what happened to my old phone, but I never want to see the photos. Honestly, I’ll just be pleased if nobody cries or throws up on me this time. Halloween parties, in my experience, have all the drunkenness and promiscuity of masked balls without the mystery or sophistication. Not that I’ve ever been to a masked ball.
The doorbell rings, shattering the glum, sex-starved silence. Trix switched the electronic chime to the classic Nokia ringtone as an ironic “gift” for my birthday then forgot how to change it back. That was in January. I think I’ll ask for a new doorbell next year.
Trix sits bolt upright. “Who’s that?”
“Trick-or-treaters, idiot. We’ve got a glow-in-the-dark skeleton in the window. Obviously we’re fair game.”
And half of Poundland’s Seasonal Aisle decorating the steps down to our already dilapidated basement flat. I seize a pumpkin which still has a few jelly eyeballs rolling around the bottom.
Trix grabs her broom and adjusts her costume. “Scary enough?”
“If anyone has a morbid terror of cleavage, definitely.”
She grins. “Ah, fuck off.” Party Pete definitely doesn’t, hence the corset.
“Nice wand,” I say, to soften the blow. “Hermione Granger’s?”
She makes a face. “Nah, they were sold out. £4.50 on ebay.”
“Naturally.”
“I thought the bidding would go higher, but nobody else seemed to want it.” She draws a quick pentacle in the air. “Maybe it’s cursed? Ooooo …” She examines it briefly, then shoves it in her piled-up curls like one of those Geisha-style hair sticks.
“For £4.50?” I say. “You wish.”
“Well,” she says, snatching a tub of fizzy ghosts as the doorbell doodle-oos again, “let’s not keep our visitors waiting.”
It’s a varied cross-section of local childlife that greets us: the effort applied to the costumes ranges from full-on National Theatre wardrobe, via off-the-peg supermarket pirate/vampire/wizard, to a fitted cot-sheet turned inside out to hide the 101 Dalmations print. I feel sorry for the little ghost, who doesn’t even have any eyeholes, presumably because the sheet has to go back on her bed tonight. The kids (although seriously, that kitchen-roll mummy is at least six foot) shuffle excitedly as Wanda slams open the door with a flourish of her besom.
“Trick or treat!” they scream, all except the toddler ghost who jumps on the spot yelping “Tree! Tree!” until an undersized werewolf (werepuppy?) restrains her.
“Right!” Trix slurs. I suppose we should have eaten more than sugar and e-numbers before moving from vodka to mystery cocktails. Oh well, too late now. “I am Wanda the Witch Wench and I want to know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice!”
There’s a confused silence, then a blood-spattered clown says quietly. “That’s Christmas.”
Trixie – sorry, Wanda – squints. “All right, who’s been evil, and who’s been … wicked?”
They all shoot their arms up eagerly, except too-cool-for-school mummy, who crosses his and pulls out a vape stick. I assume his dickish air of indifference is due to being there under duress, probably to guard a younger sibling from poison apples and slavering paedophiles. I have an amusing vision of his paper costume catching fire until I remember it’s not a real cigarette.
“Fantastic!” cries Wanda. “Treats for everybody! Keep up the bad behaviour!” She starts haphazardly distributing handfuls of candy into waiting buckets, then glances at the mummy lounging halfway up the steps.
“How about you, sonny?” she calls, raising her arm against the streetlight glare, and nearly knocking me sideways with her suddenly uplifted bosom. “Trick or treat?” The mummy leans forward with sudden interest, a glint of braces in his grin. What is he, a beanpole fourteen?
“Show us your magic tits, Wanda,” he says, “that’d be a treat.”
Trixie freezes. The older ones giggle. Into the sudden stillness, the little ghost asks “what’s a magic tits?”
I wonder about telling the boy’s parents, but that’s the problem with Hallowe’en – everyone’s got a mask on, you don’t know who’s who. The mummy’s just a pair of glowering brown eyes and narrow, bitten lips, and he knows we’d have to pull off his bandages to identify him. Smug little git.
“OK sweetheart,” says Trix, the drunken hilarity dropping off her like a sheet. “There’s children present so I’m not going to swear, but that’s out of order.”
The kids shuffle uneasily, aware that some boundary has been crossed but unsure what or how.
Trix slides the wand from her witch’s bun with the silent precision of a Samurai unsheathing his sword. She directs it at the sulking mummy.
“Fancy apologising?”
The children hold their breath: this level of drama CBBC cannot provide. I’m just hoping nobody reports Trix for intimidating a minor or something. The horny mummy is silent as a sarcophagus.
“All right,” says Trix cheerfully, “Trick it is. Had to give you a chance though.” She lifts her wand fractionally; a conductor beginning the concerto. Then she intones:
“By the power vested in me … by the Deities of Darkness … and the Elder Gods of … (she hesitates) … the Place that Must Not be Named (nice save) … for the crime of insulting a witch … and violating the spirit of Hallowe’en Itself – I call down a curse!”
For a second I actually think I hear thunder, till I realise it’s a bin-lorry down the road. Still, Trix is impressive as Wanda: backlit by our security light she presents the classic witch’s silhouette, and the bathroom vent behind wreathes her in a cloak of smoky steam. She raises her wand high and aims it at the mummy.
“Treat thou a witch with reverent grace,” she chants, “Lest this night’s mask become the face!”
The moment is magnificent – and terrifying. Unfortunately right then a stone sails out of the darkness, knocking Trix’s wand from her fingers. It flies upwards, spinning like a majorette’s baton, then lands on the concrete path with a fearsome crack, and explodes, covering everyone, including the stone-throwing mummy, in a shower of sparks. Then the security light blows.
I step forward blindly. “All right, everybody, show’s over. Off you go, careful up the steps. Have a happy Hallowe’en, except you, you know who you are.”
Disappointed but still pleasurably awed, the kids leave: the mummy, I’m satisfied to see, can’t get away quick enough. Trix tries to retrieve her wand, but in the dark it’s nowhere to be found – anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s matchsticks by now. She didn’t tell me it was an electronic one, but I’m glad it’s gone if I’m honest – if it had exploded at Pete’s party it might have actually hurt someone. We go back inside and after a bit of rummaging I find a forgotten bottle of Merlot in the cupboard under the sink, and that keeps us going till it’s time to head for Pete’s.
There’s not much more to say except that the curse seemed to work. It was only an overnight thing – but from reports in the local paper, and my experience at Pete’s, it affected everyone the sparks hit. So the little ghost spent the night sliding through the bars of her cot, then the wall, into her brother’s room, where a diminutive werewolf was tearing up the sheepskin rug and howling at the moon. The pirate raided his mum’s rum bottle then jewellery box – and the less said about the killer clown, the better. As for our silver-tongued mummy … he spent the night in A&E with his long-suffering parents, shrieking for someone to take off the bandages. They couldn’t, of course, not without peeling bits of him off too – but the next morning, after a night of sedation, they turned back to kitchen paper. I hear the kid can barely even look at a roll of Plenty now without wetting himself.
As for me and Trix – she cast a Spell of Slavery on Pete at the party for a laugh, and it seemed to work – he hasn’t stopped calling her since. And when the night was winding down and there was nothing left to drink, I shared my test-tube of Love Potion #7 with the hot Severus Snape I’d been chatting to all night, and … well. Let’s just say there was chemistry.
(c) Diane Payne, 2018
Diane Payne writes serious journalism and curious fiction. She lives in Manchester and has worked in the media for far too long. Her fiction has appeared in several US and UK magazines, including Triangulation, Creeping Horror, and Dead Good. She loves a good punning pseudonym.
Sophie Morris-Sheppard played Rebecca Locke in a series called The Paradox, a project which she helped devise as a short film in 2011. She is involved in several new writing initiatives in London. Her professional credits span the full spectrum of theatre, TV, commercials, film, voice over, rehearsed readings and most recently role play www.sophiemorrissheppard.com
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