At the Stroke of Midnight

Halloween is a day that can play tricks.  Not just the kind committed by costumed small fry ringing your doorbell after sundown and demanding treats, but also by mischief-minded adults who wish to playfully engage the supernatural and make the last day of October a holiday of horrors.  

I must have fallen asleep at my desk because the next thing I knew Iris Noire had arrived  with a cup of coffee, a slice of pumpkin cake and a request for time off.  Since the dutiful Iris does not usually serve coffee and is always the last to leave the office, I had to wonder.  A glance at my desk calendar gave me the answer.  It was the last day of October.  Any unusual behavior is to be expected (and tolerated) on the spookiest day of the year.

“I’ve got something from one of our clients that I think may interest you, if you wish to play detective tonight,”  Iris said, placing what appeared to be a Halloween party invitation before me. 

Why Iris assumed I was awake rather than detained in dreamland was a puzzle, unless what she had brought me with the wakeup coffee I actually needed was a case for my professional scrutiny.

“Doing anything interesting for Halloween?”  I asked, rubbing my eyes at the wispy ghosts and wacky witches decorating the invitation.

“I wish,”  Iris sighed.

“That’s good, Iris, because I was thinking of asking you if you would like to—“

“Go trick-or-treating with you?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it—-“

“Sorry, no can do.  I’ve got to help my sister tonight with her kids, her dinner, and all the little monsters who’ll be ringing her doorbell for the cookies and candy I’m bringing her. She doesn’t have the time, energy or spare change to shop for kid-friendly sweets, pumpkin decorations and a good-sized Frankenstein-cuddle doll to greet the candy-snatchers.” 

I didn’t know Iris had a sister, let alone a sister in need, let alone a sister whom she aided on Halloween, but one never knows.  Surprises are the rule of the day on Halloween.  Iris had one of her own for me.

“Do you remember Mrs. Prankowich? The eccentric, eighty-year-old with the hundred-year-old mansion out in the Delta?  The mansion she put on the Delta tour map and claimed it was not only historic but haunted?”

“What about her?”  I asked politely, failing (due to a rare memory lapse) to recognize the name or remember the woman in question.

“The old gal is throwing one of her Halloween parties, or what she modestly calls a spooktacular. You won’t believe what goes on there unless you see it for yourself. You have to go in costume and you never know who (or what) you’re going to meet out there. Interested? Oh, come on, sir! Live a little! When’s the last time you got a chance to kiss a vampire or hug a phantom?” 

2.

What I discovered at the mansion was a lively octogenarian who had a habit of throwing costly costume parties. Invitations obligated invitees to wear costumes appropriate to the holiday. Those who ignored her stipulation and came in everyday garb or other incorrect attire were waved away at the front door by twin guards whose large-letter costumes proclaimed names of “Gnarly” and “Snarly” and who enforced Mrs. P’s regulations without pity.

The party’s playfulness began inside the door with a welcome by a black-clad couple who introduced themselves as Dracula and Draculette.  Warning signs read “Enter at your own risk,” “Have a frightfully good time,” and “Broomsticks for needy witches.”  Guests entered into a lavish gothic setting, complete with cobwebs, prowling werewolves, dangling bats and green-faced greeters with steeple hats and an odd habit of loud cackling. Partygoers were cautioned to expect the unexpected at the magic moment of midnight and remain calm (if possible) at its impact.  

“Everything you can imagine, and a few things you can’t,” Mrs. P. summed up her entertainment strategy for me shortly after I arrived, wondering what I could or couldn’t imagine. My hostess accepted me and welcomed “any friend of Iris,” but examined my costume with a stare and frown.

“Who or what are you supposed to be?” she asked. “Fashion disaster? Hollywood celebrity? Comic book hero?  Orange cheeks and gold wig? Oh, never mind, I think I get it. Whoever you think you are, just make sure to act like you’re a clever comedian.”

When the double doors of her mansion opened, the crowd rushed in and overwhelmed the bar with demands for such Halloween favorites as witch’s brew, vampire’s kiss, zombie’s embrace and graveyard fog.  Appetizers were served on silver trays by skeletally–costumed servants who offered “horrors d’oeuvres” in their best mangled French.

“What’s your midnight surprise tonight, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked Mrs. P.

“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.”                       

“Well, then, how about giving me a clue or two?” 

“You’re a detective, aren’t you?  There’s no telling what someone like you could do  with a clue, let alone two.”  

“If I can, my lips are sealed.  If I can’t, you have nothing to lose.”

“I won’t give the surprise away, but I can tell you my guest of honor is a lady named Elvira who is a member of—shall we say,  a mystical sisterhood?  She’s going to pay tribute to a Salem ancestor who was urged to confess her supernatural shadow self.  She did so in order to save her life after she was warned that silence was an admission of guilt.  She was sent to the stake anyhow for revealing more than required.”

“Did she lay a curse on those who sentenced her and all their descendants forevermore?”

“I don’t doubt she was tempted, but an unexpected repeal of her sentence arrived at the very last moment, or just past, leaving her slightly singed, but otherwise indignant.” 

“What does that little piece of history have to do with our midnight surprise tonight?”

“You don’t ask too much, do you, Mr. detective?  I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself, if  you please!” 

The evening progressed with a hilariously sloppy dance contest, followed by a vintage Hollywood horror movie with incredibly awful acting, ridiculous dialogue, and a plot dead on arrival. The cinematic catastrophe was greeted with catcalls and chuckles.

“Our sense of horror is so much more refined and—well, unquestionably sophisticated,” Mrs. P. told me as discontented filmgoers began escaping the film.  “We turn the macabre and the grotesque into a charming fairy tale.  Which is why I am dressed tonight as an adorably evil Mother Goose.”

“Oh, is that who you are?  To tell you the truth, I was wondering about that.”

“Well, my dear detective, what did you expect a lady of eighty to be? Little Bo Peep?”

The party got back on track when a learned professor took the stage to offer a lecture on the historical reason for carving and displaying ghoulish  pumpkin faces. They were meant, he explained, to keep households safe from intruding evil spirits, which was why every table at our event had a fright-faced pumpkin as its centerpiece.

“I’m offering a grand prize to the winner of our pumpkin-carving contest,” Mrs. P. said. “The winner will be chosen by popular acclaim, though of course I will be the deciding judge.  The winning carving must be horrific enough to make the devil shiver and shudder.” 

“Happy haunting everyone!” Guest of honor Elvira greeted the crowd at midnight and unleashed her surprise—a spell that locked us into our costumes and seemed to make us the very character we had chosen to impersonate.  A startled cry erupted from the crowd as they sensed they were trapped in a Halloween role that might become permanent.   

“Hang on, folks, here comes the grand finale!” Elvira assured the agitated audience as she summoned her powers to return guests back to their original identities.

“Good heavens, do something!” Mrs. P. implored Elvira when nothing happened. “Hurry, Elvira, hurry! Otherwise, they’ll think we’re doing this intentionally. Please tell them you’re not doing this intentionally!  Please tell me you haven’t forgotten how to reverse the curse!”

Alas, Elvira had forgotten, or else lost the power to undo her spell. The Salem tradition had not only returned, but seemed intent on remaining.

Police, fire department and local clergy were summoned in the desperate hope of lifting the burden of the curse from panicky partygoers. Elvira closed her eyes in desperation and began shouting  words and phrases she hoped had the potency to undo the spell. None did.

With her party now in shambles, our Mother Goose hostess fainted dead away. I tended the stricken Mrs. P. with smelling salts and tried to revive her as ghosts, goblins and gremlins ran amok. When I wasn’t waving off these wayward creatures and trying to summon the poor woman’s lost consciousness, I was imagining what the newspapers would have to say about this party gone wrong. No doubt the sinister headlines would read “A recipe for disaster,” “Shocking events scuttle pumpkin extravaganza,” and “Trump Halloween impersonator deserves a no-vote.”   

As for myself, I was thinking of running for President until I awoke from my nightmare and found myself alone in the peace of my bed, the repose of my pillow and the calm quiet of November.

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