Vivian Vande Velde - All Hallows Eve: 13 stories

Don't be shy. Don't be afraid. Come on in. Granny doesn't bite. See, Granny has hardly any teeth left. I couldn't bite if I wanted to.

Are you nervous because it's All Hallows' Eve? This is a spooky night. The dead walk, witches convene, a door opens between the world of the seen and the world of the unseen.

And sometimes that door lets all sorts of evil onto the earth.

No, no, don't leave. I'm just telling stories. Silly old granny that I am. The night is cold and dark, and you've walked so far to get here, and I just want to help you.

Eye of newt
Mandrake root
Tear of pity from a heartless soul...

Granny is good at helping people. No one has ever complained.

Let me guess what you need.

You're such a pretty young thing, with skin so soft and smooth, and your hair thick and dark, and your eyes clear, and your limbs firm and strong, and you even have all your teeth. Lucky, lucky you.

Granny misses her teeth.

What could a girl like you possibly need? What keeps you from being happy?

Is there sickness in your family? No, no, don't answer: Granny is guessing. And Granny would have guessed, even before you shook your head, that you don't have the look of someone dealing with that particular sorrow.

Are you needing money to survive? No, you're too beautiful to have done without meals or to be having no place to lay your head at night.

Is there someone who has crossed you, someone you want to put a curse on? Maybe ... but Granny thinks you probably know how to get back at people, so you wouldn't need magic for that.

Granny guesses she sees a light in your eyesnot fever, or hunger, or the thought of revenge.

Granny guesses it's love. Granny guesses you're in love with a boy who doesn't love you back.

See! Granny's good at this.

Granny can help.

Wing of bat
Tooth of rat
Water that someone has drowned in...

Is he handsome? Is he rich?

Oh, yes, Granny knows the young man you mean. Granny thinks he's a fine choice. If Granny were younger, she'd want him for herself.

Granny has just the spell to bind him to you.

Granny must mix this, and this, and a little bit of this.

Yes, yes, it smells bad, but it's just what you need.

Drink it all.

All.

Yes, every last bit.

He will love your face, and your form, and your voice, and the way you move.

To be happy, he will need to see your eyes, to hear your laugh, to smell your scent, to touch your skin, to taste your lips. To be happy, he will need your happiness.

He will find completeness only in you.

Stain of blood
Graveyard mud
Dying breath of a murdered man...

You may feel light-headed.

Oops, Granny warned you. Here, take my hands. Granny will hold you steady while the spell works its way through you.

Yes, you're perfectly right: He needs to drink down the potion that will tie him to you.

Or should I say: to your beautiful, healthy, young body.

I'll make sure he drinks that.

The spell I just did? That lets us trade, you and Granny.

Don't struggle. It's no use, and you'll only bruise our beautiful skin.

Do you feel your limbs growing sore and weak? Do you recognize your features forming on me?

It's no use screaming; Granny is the only one who can hear.

Fine, then. Be that way: Let go of my hands. Too late now, anyway.

Oh, Granny sees. You're not so much recoiling from me as convulsing from the poison.

Did I forget to mention the poison?

I can't very well have you complaining about me. Granny has never had any complaints.

You just go ahead and lie there on the floor. It won't be too much longer, and the pain won't get much worse.

I'll go see to your young man.

He and I will be very happy together.

And if we're notI have a spell for that, too.

Justin saw the sign that said SPEED LIMIT : 8 MPH, and he saw the sign that said SPEED BUMP . But he wasn't a wimp, so he didn't slow down.

He didn't know why they even bothered putting numbers lower than twenty on the speedometer, anyway. There was driving, and there was parking, and as far as Justin was concerned, thirty miles per hour was the cutoff between the two. Even in an apartment complex, there was no need for such exaggerated care. They should give people credit: Anyone backing out of a parking space would know enough to look before pulling into the lane; and yeah, yeah, sure there were kidsthere were enough signs warning KIDS AT PLAY but any kid who lived in an apartment complex grew up knowing you play on the grass, not the pavement.

Besides, it was past eleven o'clock at night. Even on Halloween, that was later than the time kids should be out roaming and looking for opportunities to dart in front of cars.

Besides all that, Justin figured he was a better-than-average driver, andas opposed to, for example, his parents' generationhis reflexes were honed by years of playing computer games.

And on top of everything else, adding bumps to a driving surface seemed not only counterintuitive but an affront to a civilized society.

So when he saw the SPEED BUMP sign, he figured he could slow down to a crawl and ease his car over itthump, thump, front wheels; thump, thump, back wheelsor he could hit it fast enough that his car would momentarily become airborne and sail right over the obstruction in one smooth move.

He'd perfected this technique at his own apartment complex. But this night he'd been visiting Andreawhose party had turned out to be as lame as kindergarten once her parents had come home earlier than expected from helping Grandma hand out Halloween goodies in her building. The speed bumps in this complex were taller, or wider, or steeper, or something different from what he was used to.

His car went up, then bottomed out with a force that he felt all the way up his spine and into his teeth.

The car was secondhandor more likely third- or fourth- or fifth-handand had lousy springs.

One of the warning lights flickered CHECK ENGINE, DOOR AJAR, FASTEN SEATBELTS it was gone too fast to know which it had been. And something seemed to have rattled loose in the dashboard. There was a noise like static, as though the radio were coming on between stations.

This didn't seem likely, as the radio hadn't worked since Septembersince about five minutes after Justin gave the guy the money for the car. You knew you were pathetic when you bought a car a college kid was dumping. But Justin turned the volume dial up, anyway.

A sexy female voice said, "This is MARIAN: Mobile And Regional Interactive Assisted Navigation. How may I help you?"

Justin took his hand away from the radio dial so he could turn the steering wheel as he pulled out of Andrea's apartment complex and onto the street. He expected that whatever radio program he'd happened uponthe law of probability indicated it would be a commercialwould continue.

But it didn't.

The face of the radio wasn't lit up, and he wondered if two wires had made momentary contact during the jostling, only to disconnect again.

Still, Justin was an optimist, and he turned the volume knob up a bit higher, then he changed the station to see if anything came in.

Slightly louder, the voice repeated, "This is MARIAN: Mobile And Regional Interactive Assisted Navigation. How may I help you?"

The most logical explanation was still a commercial. Just his luck to get the same commercial on two different stations. But Justin repeatedsoftly, even though there was no one to hear him making a fool of himself"MARIAN?"

The voice asked, "What is your destination?"