Trick-or-Treating False Key

Chapter 4

I took it and left the shed--how did it get so late? Clouds scudded past the bright moon, and shadows crossed the vast yard. Cat tails moved through the long ferns, bits of movement at the corners of my vision. Granny started singing the strange melody again, and Bella joined in.

I pulled the tin whistle out of my pocket and matched the notes. The seated and kneeling figures hummed a deep rumble and swayed with the grasses. Opening their pearly eyes, they stood. Like marionettes rising they cast herky-jerky shadows around the yard.

Bella came out to see. "Granny, look!"

By now I had the melody and the magic in my flute. I marched through the yard. Clara, quicker than the others, fell into place behind me, then Jeffrey and the other figures trudged into our Conga line, humming a bass harmony to my piccolo melody. I played, the figures shuffled forward, and our clumsy procession filed around the house.

Outside the front gate, I turned right toward the party--I couldn't wait to see the look on Xander's face. Alas, alas, Clara could not pass. Her pearly eyes implored me.

I remembered Granny's gift and slipped the pearl into Clara's open mouth. A vertical, hairline crack formed between her eyes, which shone with hope as the gap lengthened down her face. When it reached her chest and widened to an inch, Clara's real face, exposed behind the mask, nodded. I jammed my plastic sword into the split. She gasped. Using my sword like a crow bar, and praying it wouldn't snap, I levered the crack wider. It extended the length of her stony torso, splitting her shell in two. I heaved and opened her up like an oyster.

Once the main pieces fell away and crashed to the ground, Clara stepped out of her prison. With her dusty ballerina costume and dazed expression, she looked like an earthquake survivor.

"What did you do?" Bella loomed like a storm. Jeffrey and the others retreated when Granny appeared at her side.

"You can't take her." Bella hissed.

But Granny said, "Back by midnight."

"C'mon," I said to Clara. A pack of zombie kids was lurching down the street to the Roosevelt house, shaving cream cans at the ready. I grabbed Clara's hand and dragged her away.

Behind me I heard, "Trick-or-Treat."

THE END