THE TURNIP AND THE TRICK by Madison McSweeney

"They can't still be vengeful, after all this time.
They'll take their treats and go..."

Rose could feel the weather turn as she set the carved turnip on the stoop. The wind took on a crisp, wintry chill as it whisked orange and brown leaves across the fields, and the sky, blue just yesterday, seemed profoundly grey. The turnip wobbled before finding a precarious balance, its ghastly face grinning malevolently at the road. Rose shuddered and shut the door behind her, her hand landing unconsciously on her rounded belly.

On the other side of the door, a black plastic tub sat on a wooden stool, filled to the brim with generous heaps of wrapped candies, dried fruits, and full-sized chocolate bars: Hershey, Aero, Coffee Crisp, KitKat. She wondered, with no shortage of bitterness, if she shouldn’t have bought more of the latter.

The little monsters were partial to KitKats. 

The afternoon of October 31st, Rose’s nearest neighbor paid a visit.

Nancy McCarthy had given birth just two months prior, and her daughter yawned agitatedly as she gently pulled her from the car seat. She’d been nervous about this visit; thankfully, Rose was pregnant again, which eased the tension somewhat.

As Rose greeted her at the door, Nancy dutifully admired the turnip, but laughed at the tub of candy. “Are those going to survive ‘til Halloween?” she asked.

Rose’s reply was uncharacteristically humorless. “Yes.”

Nancy wasn’t sure how to respond. “I wouldn’t think you’d get trick-or-treaters all the way out here. We never do.”

Rose’s tone didn’t lighten. “One year, we did.”

Nancy didn’t see how this was possible – Rose, like herself, lived on the outskirts of a farming community, where there was rarely any foot traffic, and certainly not at night – but she didn’t want to argue. “Better safe than sorry, I suppose.”

The visit progressed with similar awkwardness, with Rose giving terse answers to even the pleasantest of questions and the prominently-displayed photo of her first child adding a morbid air to the proceedings. Nancy chastised herself for thinking like that; but nonetheless, it was true.

It was only as she pulled into her own driveway that she realized the cause of her friend’s distress, and cursed herself for her ignorance. It had been around this time of year, two autumns ago, that Rose had lost her son.  

I should sleep, Rose thought, as the sky grew dim and the sun sank below the cornfields on Halloween night. She looked to the candy tub and mulled just leaving it on the porch next to the jack-o-lantern – but if she did that, there was the chance that something else might abscond with it before her visitors arrived. No, that wouldn’t do, she decided, placing a protective hand on her swollen stomach.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to her unborn child, speaking to herself more than anyone. “They can’t still be vengeful, after all this time. They’ll take their treats and go.”

And so the sky grew darker and the night grew colder as Rose sat in the den with the window half open, waiting for the goblins to arrive.

She was alerted to their presence not by a knock on the door or the ringing of a doorbell, but by the thwack of an egg hitting the side of the house, cracking and smearing yellow and red goo across the window glass.

At first, Rose thought the red guck was an optical illusion, a trick of the fading light; but no. It was, in fact, the remains of a half-formed baby bird, expelled from its tiny womb and left to rot on her porch. Her teeth clenched, and she was consumed with hatred for them.

She could hear them outside now, laughing like demons and chattering like squirrels, and for a moment she found herself filled with the wild hope that if she just ignored them, they would go away. No treats for you, she imagined herself hissing; go suck the meat from the defenseless eggs you stole from their mothers’s nests. Starve to death, for all she cared. But then she remembered her own child inside of her, and her hate turned to fear. The goblins demanded a treat tonight, and they wouldn’t leave unsated.

Fearful that she’d missed her chance to make the offering, Rose jumped up and rushed to the foyer, throwing the door open in a mad panic. The porch was empty. For a second, she thought they’d grown tired of waiting, and her heart sank. They’d be back, she knew, and when they returned, candy wouldn’t suffice. She was about to call out when she saw the first of the creatures emerge from the tangle of dead bushes along her walkway.

It was a freakish-looking thing, no bigger than a pumpkin and covered with warts and pus-filled boils, ready to pop. It walked with the uncertain gait of a toddler, but its teeth were sharp and its eyes were cruel. Behind it, five others followed, identical in structure but each boasting their own distinct deformities.

In her haste, she’d knocked over the candy bowl, sending a few excess chocolate bars scattering across the floor. Her whole body trembling, she picked up the bowl and dangled it over the threshold, her arm extended to put as much distance as possible between herself and the creatures. The head goblin – the tallest of the group, although that was a dubious distinction – looked past the bowl and over her shoulder, but the leering visage of the turnip warned it not to violate the house.

Shifting its gaze to the candy bowl, the goblin snatched it from her hands and began to dig greedily through the chocolates, shoving the KitKats and full-sized Coffee Crisps into its soiled overalls. Two of the lesser beasts, enraged at their leader’s greed but secure in their own, pounced on him and began to pull his clothes apart to get at the pilfered chocolate. The three others waited on the sidelines to catch any stray sweets that flew out of the bowl, swallowing handfuls of hard candy, plastic and all.

Rose barely registered any of this, though, because her eyes had fallen on a seventh visitor. This one was smaller than the others, and lingered shyly a few paces behind them, staring at her from the brush. The sight of it made her want to weep.

The creature wasn’t remotely human anymore, if it had ever been – in fact, it was perhaps even uglier than the others, the delicacy of its features throwing its grotesqueries into even sharper relief. Its face was also scarred and marred by angry protuberances, but its eyes were a lovely robin’s egg blue, bright and wide and strangely guileless. She would have recognized them anywhere.

Do you remember me? Rose wanted to ask, but the words curdled on her tongue. Instead, she knelt and groped for one of the fallen candy bars. Never abandoning eye contact with the little goblin, she wrapped her hand around a bar – Hershey, cookies and cream, her husband’s favourite – and silently offered it up.

The young goblin approached tentatively at first, before darting up the porch in a sudden burst of speed and snatching the bar from her hand. It paused to regard her suspiciously before tearing the wrapping and taking a bite; but it barely had a chance to sink its teeth into the chocolate before one of the larger goblins knocked it out of his hand.

Those incongruously beautiful blue eyes welled up with tears, but the other goblin subdued them with a snarl. The monsters had finished their bickering and were ready to move on.

As the goblins hobbled down the walkway, the blue-eyed one once again hesitated.

He knows me, Rose thought. He still knows me.

Looking nervously over its shoulder, the pitiful creature slunk back towards the open door, its hand extended, the tiny fist clutched around something small but precious. He wanted to give something to her, Rose realized, and reached to receive it.

The child-goblin was now in front of her, its hand close enough to hold hers. She waited patiently, palm open, although she wanted nothing more than to pull him into the house and lock the door behind them. The little hand opened, and the bloody remains of an aborted fetal bird fell into hers.

Rose gagged, stifling a scream. The creature looked into her eyes one final time, giggled, and ran off to join its companions.

Later in the evening, Nancy received her first trick-or-treaters in years.

She was surprised to see them – and even more surprised to find them unaccompanied by adults of any kind. Then again, perhaps their parents were parked somewhere behind the trees at the edge of the driveway. Even so, she thought, it couldn’t be wise to let children so young wander across a vast and darkened farmhouse yard by themselves. At least they looked young – it was hard to tell under the masks.

Regardless, she had no candy for them, and told them so regretfully. Perhaps Rose had been wise to stock up. She’d make sure to buy some next year.

The kids left without making too much of a fuss (then again, had they said anything at all? Other than trick or treat?), and Nancy returned to her sofa where a grainy television and lukewarm bowl of popcorn awaited. Harvey was working late at the police station – there was always lots of trouble on Halloween night – and the baby was asleep, so for all intents and purposes, she had the house to herself.

She tried to keep her eyes open until the end of the late movie, but started fading fast. She flicked the TV off and dumped the remnants of the popcorn into the kitchen garbage before heading straight up the stairs and towards her bedroom, pausing only to peek into the baby’s room, where she found the crib empty.

Madison McSweeney is a Canadian author and poet with an interest in all things weird and macabre. She has published horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories in outlets such as American Gothic, Under the Full Moon's Light, Rhythm & Bones Lit, and Zombie Punks F*ck Off. She also blogs about music and genre fiction at www.madisonmcsweeney.com and tweets (mostly about heavy metal and horror movies) from @MMcSw13. She lives in Ottawa with her family and her cat, and celebrates Halloween year-round. 

Cover: Amanda Bergloff @AmandaBergloff

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER AND THE HAG by Madison McSweeney

They say mermaids never grow old,
but that's a myth...

In her younger days, she had a voice like a golden harp strummed by a fairy queen; now, she screeches like a cat in heat.

The old man can hear her from his bedroom in tower of the lighthouse. Sometimes he turns on the fog horn to drown her out. Other times, he yells out the window: “Yowl all ye want, sea-woman – ye won’t lure this old sailor into the deep!”

The old man hasn’t been a sailor for a long time. He lost his sea legs years ago, and retired to a solitary life at the top of a tall tower on an outcropping of rock in the middle of the sea, shining the warning light lest a ship come by and crash into the jagged shore.

She was still young and beautiful when she first washed up on his beach. He was a younger man then, too, but knew well enough not to be fooled by her siren song. Granted, some nights he would find himself gazing out his window, watching her splayed out on the rocks, bathed in moonlight, clear water lapping up against the tip of her silver tail. Inevitably, she’d see him observing her, lock eyes with him, and start to croon some wordless lullaby from the bottom of the ocean. And inevitably, he’d feel himself drawn to her, compelled to run his rough hands up and down her pale flesh, convinced he would rather drown himself to be with her than deny himself another day. On those nights, whether there was a ship passing by or not, he would turn on the beacon and send her scurrying back into the sea.

The dance went on for five years before he finally approached her. She was sunning herself on the beach when she saw the top of his head over the edge of a cliff. She smiled and sat up straighter, throwing her long red hair over her shoulder so her whole body was on display for him. Smiling, she opened her mouth to sing. The man grunted, and something glinted in the sun; no later than the end of her first verse, a spear sailed through the air and pierced her glistening tail. The sea woman screamed and tried to pull the spear from her flesh, but its tip was firmly lodged between her scales. The more frenzied her attempts to free herself, the more damage she did. By the time she’d dislodged the weapon, she was paralyzed.

Thirty years she’s been trapped here. She’s long since lost her beauty, her voice, and her charm. All that’s left is a creature of rage and hunger and unfulfilled lust.

They say mermaids never grow old, but that’s a myth.

Or maybe they never truly do. Sometimes, when the sky is clear and the moon is full, the old man looks at her and can swear she looks exactly as she did when he first laid eyes on her. He hates her then, even more than he hates her as a hag. When she looks like that, she reminds him of the years lost, and the life he’ll never know again.

It’s the same reason he hates the ships that pass, and the men who sail them. The thought of the mariners, young and strong, their calloused hands and muscular arms hauling ropes and unfurling powerful sails, makes him feel even more acutely the arthritic ache in his own gnarled fingers.

When the ships pass by, he faithfully turns on the light for them. But on some of those nights, when the old man is in an especially black mood, he yearns to keep them in darkness and let them crash against the rocks.

The fog that crowds the rocks is thick and oppressive, but dissipates along the beach where the old man checks his fishing nets. It’s a small haul today, but enough to last him for a week or so.

As he drags the nets ashore, the hag yowls to be fed.

“Get yer own fish,” the lighthouse keeper snarls, but tosses her one anyway. She sinks her teeth into its flesh and eats it raw. He winces, straining to tune out the munchings and slurpings.

The hag finishes her meal and watches as he trudges away. “You did this to me,” she says, marking his contempt. He ignores her. “If I could swim, I’d be far away right now. You ruined me.

But you can still save me.”

“Save yerself, hag,” he mutters.

She lowers her voice, speaking as softly as her parched throat will allow. “If you would come to me, I would be made well again. Young again. And you could as well, old man. We can live forever in the deep.”

“Bugger off,” he replies, and walks into the mist.

Weeks pass. The sea is calm and the sky is clear.

The old man is sitting, watching the moonlight ripple over the furrows of the water. He doesn’t sleep much anymore.

Just before midnight, a ship appears from over the horizon and begins making its way towards the rocks. The man sighs, and wonders if it wouldn’t be so bad to let a ship navigate itself for once. At last, he extinguishes his pipe and stands. The springs of his chair screech as he rises; his muscles groan with exertion as he lumbers down the stairs. He is old, he knows – perhaps too old even for this.

The foghorn blares and the beacon flashes across the water. This is usually enough to correct a wayward captain; he leaves the light on but lets the horn go silent.

As he watches the sea, the Lighthouse Keeper becomes increasingly puzzled. The boat is not changing course. He shouts at the vessel, his voice overpowered by the roaring of the sea. And this is when he sees the sea-woman, perched atop one of the jagged rocks, her body obscured in shadow. Faintly, over the noise of the lapping waves, he can hear her singing.

“Do they still warn the youths against the songs of the sirens?” he muses to himself. “Or have today’s seamen outgrown the superstitions of old?”

Surely, they’ll change course, he thinks. Someone will see to it. Even at the height of her powers, a siren could never transfix an entire crew. He sets off the foghorn again, momentarily drowning out the song. The crew snaps from their spell, but it’s too late – they’ve already drifted into rough waters. The ship lurches to a halt as the hull wedges itself between two massive rocks.

The lighthouse keeper smiles slightly in spite of himself. The ship is stuck, not damaged, and he can’t help being amused at the thought of the chaos breaking out on the decks.

The beacon sends out another burst of illumination, and the Lighthouse Keeper catches a glimpse of a young man leaning over the gunwale, his eyes rivetted to the hag. The Lighthouse Keeper’s face falls. The rotation of the beacon sends the ship into shadow again; when the light returns, the sailor is lifting his leg to step onto the ledge.

“What ar’ye doin’?” the Lighthouse Keeper mutters. He assumes that one of the other crew will set the boy straight, but no one does, and soon the sailor has one foot on the ledge.

Let him jump, the old man thinks. It’d serve him right.

For what? For being young?

For being foolish, he replies, more to comfort himself than anything. For he knows he cannot stop this man from plunging to his death. Even if he could, his tired legs will not carry him to the shore quickly enough.

As quickly as he accepts that rationale, he moves to defy it.

The sailor could have jumped a thousand times in the time it takes the old man to drag himself down the stairs and limp to the foot of the tower; however, when he emerges, the sailor is still standing on the ledge – with both feet now, but firmly planted. Motionless, watching the siren sing.

The Lighthouse Keeper can hear it now. The hag is singing her sweetest song, and in the harsh light she looks as lovely as she did in the peak of youth.

“Stop!”  The old man shouts, but the youth does not heed him. The sea-woman flicks her head ever so briefly towards the beach, flipping her hair and locking eyes with the Lighthouse Keeper.

She rejects him, turns again, and continues to croon to the sailor.

There’s something about the way a siren sings. In reality, her voice is no louder than the roar of the waves crashing against the hull, but when it reaches your ear, it sounds like it comes from all the ocean. The wind around you begins to feel strangely oppressive, and above you the whole sky seems to shimmer.

If you listen and watch them long enough (for the listening and the watching go hand-in-hand), it will start to feel like you’re staring through a mist, and the woman is the only thing visible at the other end. Once you reach that point, it’s only a moment before the siren is the only thing at all. The past seems distant, irrelevant, and your future seems non-existent without her in it. The only option, then, seems to be to hurl yourself into the sea.

The lad must be feeling that way now. Even the Lighthouse Keeper is beginning to feel stirrings of it, and he’s been long immune to her charms.

The old man cries out again, hoping that some miracle will send his voice across the water. But no one hears. The youth bends his knees, preparing to jump. He’s under her spell now, and there is no breaking it. On the rocks, the beautiful hag smiles, tensing her body to pounce. She’ll have her man tonight.

Frantic, the Lighthouse Keeper dashes across the sand.

For the old man, there is no sound save the smacking of his bare feet against the sand. Time seems to have stopped.“This is what you really want, sea-woman!” he howls, and runs headlong into the cold water.

The woman meets his eyes.

She smiles at him, and to his surprise, there’s no malevolence in that smile – just lust, unsullied by any of the old hate. The man’s mind is whirling, and it occurs to him that she has waited thirty years for him – and he, for her.

He wades further into the water, and is soon up to his knees, his hips. When the water is at chest-level, the woman dives off her rock and emerges to embrace him.

The woman is radiant, all the hopes and mysteries of the sea personified. Her fingers linger lovingly on his flesh, and he opens his mouth in ecstasy. For a moment, as the sea woman pulls him under, the old man feels very, very young.

He feels his throat fill with seawater as his body is submerged. Around his waist, her fingernails sharpen into talons, and at his throat, her lips curl to reveal her fangs. The Lighthouse Keeper gurgles a soundless scream, and the water that caresses his flesh turns red.

Madison McSweeney is a Canadian author and poet, working mainly in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in outlets such as American Gothic, Under the Full Moon's Light, Rhythm & Bones Lit, and Zombie Punks F*ck Off. She lives in Ottawa with her family and her cat, and frequently blogs about genre fiction and the Canadian arts scene.

Website: www.madisonmcsweeney.com

Twitter: @MMcSw13

Instagram: madison.mcsweeney13

Background Cover Painting: Mermaid Sketch by John William Waterhouse, 1892
Cover: Amanda Bergloff @AmandaBergloff