He knew precisely who his daughter was talking about. Young, unattached, and decidedly liberal, the woman had moved in down the street only a month ago. The house was small and slightly run down, with a pair of shaggy overgrown mountain ash trees framing the front walk. This time of year it was not unthinkable for such a setting to inspire children to come up with such a story. When the newness of the neighbor wore off, the rumours would die out. The woman might be a flower child, but witches were the stuff of fairy tales.
Mr. Carson had no time for fairy tales, nor for trick-or-treating thanks to the demands of work. Bureaucracy which would pause on such inconsequential dates as a bank holiday had no time to waste on Halloween falling on a Wednesday. There was a report to be finished by tomorrow, and his wife could manage the kids alone. As he set out his paperwork on the dining-room table, he listened to the chaos of getting the kids bundled out the door. Briefly he reflected that the exercise would have done him good. Some mornings when he looked in the mirror he was startled by the man he saw there, going soft and saggy and changed in ways he once swore he’d avoid. It is every man’s nightmare to look into the mirror one morning and see their own father looking back. By the time his second thoughts were fully formed, the rest of his family was away down the walk, and he settled in to work with a sense of resignation.
“Will you look at that?” Something weighty was plonked into the small pile of candy deemed unsafe, and Mr. Carson glanced up. What his wife had just pulled out was a home-made candied apple on a stick, the kind people had given out in their own childhood, when you knew everyone on the street and no one would dream of using a razor blade for anything but shaving.
From the hall, in a nightgown but still wearing a black cat mask, their daughter protested, “She said it’s magical! She said apples are powerful symbols an’ if you believe, it’ll-“ The recitation, clearly memorized earlier, was cut short as she was hustled away to brush her teeth.
When his wife returned to the sorting, he asked without looking up, “From the new woman? Didn’t you go up on the porch with them?”
“There was a crowd, parents at the back.” She shook her head.
The report was nearly done when she went to bed, and Mr.Carson absently murmured he’d be along soon. As he shuffled everything back into his briefcase, ready for the next morning, the apple seemed to watch him from the counter. His wife must have left it out to cut up before throwing away. Pulling a knife from the butcher block, he peeled off the cellophane and sliced the apple as near down the middle as he could, slow and careful in case there was anything in it. It seemed such a shame, how times had changed. The apple glistened with all the appeal of his own long-forgotten youth. Another cut, crosswise to the first, and the stick came out easily enough. He sliced the apple into smaller wedges, all without finding any trace of a razor blade, then his own hand unbidden picked up a piece. He hesitated, with the thought that there could be any number of other threats. Razor blades were probably out of style now, but every day you heard of new cocktails of drugs born into existence. With some trepidation, he bit down anyway.
The apple was cool and crisp, the caramelized sugar smooth on his tongue. For just a moment he could taste all his early memories of fall, when the leaves changing colour meant something and the air was infectious with a kind of vibrancy that touched everything else.
He dutifully swept the rest of the apple into the dustbin, along with the stick, and washed the knife. The kitchen light was turned out behind him, and he padded off to his nightly rituals before bed. The face in the bathroom mirror made him pause. He didn’t look as tired as he expected to, and the shirt that had been getting tight around his waist seemed to hang looser. Peering skeptically, he searched for the usual bags and lines around his eyes. A trick of the light, probably. His wife must have changed to one of those newer bulbs in the fixture overhead. He shifted and the shirt clung to him once more before he unbuttoned it. A different angle and his face was the same tired one he was getting used to. It was a shame, he thought as he climbed into bed, that there really was no such thing as magic.
