Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure (2 page)

“So, uh, how far are they planning to take this
thing?” Howie says. “Are they gonna go full Modest Proposal?”

“What?”

“You know ... eating babies ... that whole jam ...
Jonathan Swift ... kids today call him JSwizzle ... maybe?”

All he gets is a lot of blank staring.

It’s possible his hip references aren’t always as hip
as he thinks they are.

“
An
yway,” one of the ladies says, giving him
some serious
Slow down, weirdo
eye, “the kids love it over
there. One of the employees dressed up as an ugly old witch – like,
ugly
, like, there are warts involved – and she chases the
kids around. They get such a kick out of it.”

“So they’re down with ... being hunted?” Howie
says.

“Kids love a good scare. And Annie Fabray was all
over it on her blog. She gave it five out of five pincushions.”

“Right,” Howie says, pretending to know what that
means. “Awesome.”

“So cool,” Cora says flatly.

“It is
so
cool! But, um, this is cute, too.”
The woman pokes at the wizard raven.

Cora’s face is starting to display a rage that Howie
can only dub Xena-esque in its fearsomeness.

It is up to Howie, then, to dispel the tension.

Charmingly, he asks, “Would a twerking skeleton by
any chance convince you that ours is the superior arts ‘n craftsin’
Halloween display?”

“What?” both women ask blankly.

“Nothing,” mumbles Howie.

+

The next night, they all gather at Kristy’s place for
an Octobery celebration. The theme is basically pumpkins,
Hocus
Pocus
, and simmering resentment.

“But your Halloween decorations were
amazing
!”
says Kristy, who stopped by at lunch to lovingly photograph the
shit out of the whole fine establishment. Cutting back her hours at
the store to be a part-time elementary school aide has, if
anything, only heightened her devotion to everybody’s (or, to be
accurate, almost nobody’s) favorite crafts store. “There’s no way
the ones at Holly’s are better.”

“They’re definitely better,” Cora says flatly. “I
stopped by after work. It was like stepping into a haunted
fairytale forest. They had trees. Motherfucking
trees
. I
wanted to kick everyone out and turn it into my permanent
residence. It was the edible witch lair of my dreams.” She sighs
mournfully.

“They’re glorifying the eating of children,” Arthur
says. “Surely somebody’s going to make a fuss about that sooner or
later.”

Cora reaches into her bag and pulls out the most
amazing lollipop Howie has ever seen. Nay—ever even
imagined
. It’s roughly the diameter of a baseball, and its
red, pink, and yellow swirls are so hypnotic that Howie knows he
would be witch bait for sure if he found that sticking out of some
wall in the woods. Like, no question.

“I pulled this off of the candy house,” Cora
reports.

Howie, Kristy, and even Mr. Candy Rots Your Teeth
Arthur all stare at the lollipop with yearning.

“It’s so beautiful,” Kristy breathes.

Cora looks at the lollipop sadly, then bites right on
into it. Howie flinches. Sometimes he wonders how Cora has any
teeth left at all, let alone all of them.

“Our dinky little display is such shit,” she says,
crunching forlornly.

“It is not!” Kristy protests. “It’s classic!”

“Between that and this play, I swear, I am soundly
bested by the universe. October isn’t supposed to give me this much
pain. It’s not fair.”

“Oh, but you’re going to be great as lady Dr.
Frankenstein, though! And look at it this way – now you don’t have
to flop around almost naked in front of a bunch of strangers.”

“Dude,” Cora says, “you literally just described my
dream.”

“I know,” Kristy says wistfully. “I totally heard it
as soon as I said it.”

Cora hugs her, then announces, “I need to drown my
sorrows in pumpkin ale and Bette Midler.”

+

It’s possible that the combination of pumpkin ale and
Bette Midler is more dangerous than anyone could have
anticipated.

Kristy’s pumpkin spice candles flicker ominously on
the coffee table as they all sit in
Hocus Pocus
-dazzled
silence. The only sound in the room, for a long while, is the end
credits music.

Then:

“Can I just say,” Cora says brazenly, “that
fuck
Holly’s
?”

“Hear, hear!” Arthur clinks his bottle against
hers.

“Huzzah!” contributes Howie. Then he eats a
celebratory handful of candy corn. Why does anyone ever eat
anything that’s not candy corn??

“A pox on Holly’s!” Cora shouts. She starts swaying
back and forth in what is either a super cool dance move or some
kind of mystic trance. “A putrid, stinking pox! An ocean of piss
and vinegar upon them and their reasonably priced crafting
materials!”

“Um,” Arthur says, “well, okay!”

“What is that?” Kristy asks delightedly, giggling.
“Like, a witch dance?”

“Hell yeah!” Cora ups her sway game by like two
hundred percent. She waves her hands over the pumpkin spice candles
witchily. “DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, HOLLY’S IS A BAG OF
DICKS.”

One of the candles flickers and goes out.

“Damn, Maleficent,” Howie says.

Cora shrugs daintily.

+

Later that night, Howie is almost asleep, but he can
tell that Arthur isn’t. And, well, when you are as loving and
devoted as Howie is—when you are the love and devotion
master
—then you don’t just ignore that kinda thing.

“You okay, Artie?”

“I can feel the sugar,” Arthur says, his voice faint
and sleepy. “I can feel it dissolving my insides.”

“You had like three Starbursts and a chocolate
bar.”

“It was still too much.”

Howie kisses his shoulder. “Aw, you rookie.”

After a few minutes, sleepy Arthur asks, “Did we do
witchcraft?”

“There might have been a spot o’ witchcraft.”

“Hmm,” Arthur murmurs. “How garish.”

Then he finally drifts off to sleep.

What a doof,
Howie thinks with, oh, oodles of
affection.

+

And then on Monday, everything changes.

Howie, Cora, and Kristy are hanging out in the
kitchen, chatting. Totally normal workday morning behavior. Kristy
isn’t even on the schedule; she just dropped by with pumpkin spice
lattes because that’s the kind of marvelous human being she is.

It is an inevitable truth that nobody shows up in the
first hour after the store opens, so they are all pretty
comfortable just kicking back and chillin’. They haven’t even put
on their work aprons yet.

But then—

“Did you guys hear something?” Kristy says.

“There’s no way that was the bell,” Cora replies, but
she pulls her feet off the table all the same.

(It’s best that Arthur doesn’t know. Dude is such a
hygienic weirdo about tables.)

Then the noise comes again: a jolly little ringing
that sounds eerily like the bell tied to the store’s front
door.

“Or
was
it???” sneers Howie.

“That was super dramatic, dude,” Cora says.

“I’ve been bored in this building for a year,” Howie
answers. “I have learned to make my own fun.”

The bell jingles again.

And again.

And again.

By the time the three of them have aproned up and
made it out front, the store is packed. The air is full of the
pleasant buzz of multiple voices talking over each other. The
aisles are actually full of people instead of emptiness!

“Are they lost?” Howie says, gaping.

Cora puts on a bright smile.

“Hey there, customer,” she calls to the nearest
invader, a middle aged woman. “What’s the haps?”

The woman very graciously does not get stuck on the
use of the word ‘haps.’ Instead, she comes closer to the counter
and says, in hushed and scandalized tones, “Part of the candy
cottage collapsed at Holly’s yesterday! Right on top of a little
girl.”

A POX UPON HOLLY’S,
thunders Cora’s voice in
Howie’s head.

Well, that’s freaky.

“Oh my God!” Kristy gasps. “Is she okay?”

“Broken arm,” the woman says. “I’m definitely not
taking
my
kids into that death trap again anytime soon.
Those chain stores—they’re so cold and unconcerned about anything
besides making a profit. At least a little store like this
cares
about its customers. Even if this,” she adds, “is the
most expensive crochet hook I’ve ever seen.”

“But it’s also the
best
crochet hook you’ve
ever seen,” Howie says jauntily.

“Really?”

Howie fights the urge to shrug a shrug of pure
cluelessness. “You bet,” he says instead.

“Well, then I’ll take twelve,” the woman says. “For
me and my crocheting group.”

“Holy shitballs,” whispers Cora.

“What was that, dear?”

Louder, Cora chirps, “Coming right up, ma’am!”

And that’s how they sell twelve overpriced crochet
hooks before they’ve even been open for twenty minutes. And that’s
just the first lady in line.

There’s a
line
.

“Friends,” Cora announces, awed, “we’ve made it to
the big leagues.”

“But at what cost??” Howie intones. The moment feels
right.

“Okay, Drama King, shut up,” Cora says through a
bright, gleaming smile.

“
Nevah,
” says Howie.

+

At least Howie’s not the only one remembering the
whole, you know. Pox-upon-Holly’s thing.

“I’m not going to say that we cursed Holly’s,” Arthur
begins at the next staff meeting. “Because that would be
ridiculous.”

Everyone carefully doesn’t look at each other.

“All right, yes,” Arthur continues, more flustered.
“The fact remains that part of the Holly’s candy cottage did
collapse on a poor, unfortunate child. And that it has caused such
a public outcry that we’ve made double the usual amount in sales
this week. But just because we—”

“Put a motherfucking hex on Holly’s!” contributes
Cora.

“—comedically expressed ill-will toward that
establishment while hovering over pumpkin-scented candles,” Arthur
finishes, “does
not
mean that we had anything to do with
this. It’s simply not possible. And I know that at least two of you
are reasonable enough to acknowledge that.”

He looks at Howie imploringly. His eyelashes are, as
always, all but impossible to resist.

And Howie technically gets that magic isn’t real.

But at the same time, who is he to deny the infinite
mysteries of the universe?

Howie gives him an
I dunno, man
kinda
shrug.

Arthur sighs wearily and looks at Kristy instead.
“One of you.
One
of you is reasonable enough to—”

“It is kind of eerie,” Kristy interrupts.

“I’m not denying that it’s an odd coincidence. But
we’re all in agreement that magic isn’t actually real. Even in
October. And—”

“We are witches, bitches,” Cora interrupts
triumphantly. “Admit it.”

“We are not witches,” Arthur says, desperate.

“The dark and unholy powers are alight within us!!!”
Cora booms, swept up in what can only be described as a witchgasm
of gladness. “All rival merchants of craft-related goods, bow down
before our magnificence, lest we let a thousand thousand spools of
cursed yarn rain down on you in our fury!
A ha ha ha
ha
—”

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much,” Arthur
informs her. “A child was hurt.”

“Oh, please. She broke her arm. I broke both of my
arms when I was a kid, and I’m flourishing.”

“You certainly are,” Arthur says dryly. “The point is
– unfortunate as the incident was, we might as well take advantage
of this increase in customers and do something to gain some more
public favor. So I’m thinking ... haunted house for the local
children.”

Kristy squeals, delighted.

“Oh my God,” Cora says. “What is this feeling? Am
I—is this—you guys. I’m actually
excited
about working
here.”

“Ha ha ha,” Arthur deadpans.

“I mean it! I will put on one glorious-ass haunted
house. It will blow your mind. It will change your life. The people
will come in droves! Droves! And it will be a night they won’t soon
forget.”