Beware the Night

Of all the unlikely places to go, the old forgotten pumpkin patch that bordered the woods by her home was one of Madeline’s favorites. Overgrown and neglected in most places, the little girl especially loved it during the fall when the sky stayed permanently overcast, and the weather was cool to the touch morning, noon, and night. It was the time of year when Madeline felt the most alive.

Orange gourds of various shapes and sizes dotted the small field, the blanket of dark earth there ruined by all the escaping pumpkins emerging from it. This was her place, Madeline tilling the dirt the best she could while planting the seeds, really doing everything herself.

It hadn’t always been this big before, just a tiny patch of earth really. Her father had tilled a spot of earth for her as a joke, but one little pumpkin had yielded enough seeds to grow a decent crop of them next year. After that, the pumpkin patch just kept getting bigger and bigger every year due to Madeline’s careful attention. She was quite proud of her pumpkins, her family even more so of her.

Wearing a headscarf over her dark curly hair, just like her mother told her to do to ward out the autumn chill, Madeline inspected this year’s crop with the narrowed eyes of expertise, all eight years of it. It was the white twist and flick of something out of the corner of her dark eyes that made the little girl walk toward the edge of the wood. Madeline was used to the antics of squirrels, generally ignoring them, but this was something new.

“Hello?” Madeline called out into the spaces between where she had seen the movement. Something was trying to hide behind the large mushrooms that grew out of an ancient oak’s roots, many a nook and cranny there hidden within those gnarled roots and its neighborhood of fungus. The tree was the largest of its kind in this part of woods, towering high over its neighbors. Madeline loved and yet feared it all at the same time. Though she wasn’t quite sure why, the little girl carefully approaching the giant to lay her hand upon the silvering bark of the old oak.

Shifting nervously about, something translucent and barely there tried not to be noticed by the curious little girl. Madeline left off staring up at the old tree to track down where the strange flitting was coming from, the little girl quite intrigued by this oddity.

“I can see you, you know. Sort of…” Madeline told the fluttering thing. She crouched down to try and peek around the mushrooms, making the little whatever-it-was show itself in a startled flurry of movement. Madeline thought it looked like a cloud of some sort, except it had indentations for eyes and a hint of a mouth where a face could have been. Tendrils coming off the main body suggested arms, though the rest trailed off with no legs to be found or formed.

“Boo!” the little ghost tried, darting up and out to fully reveal itself. Madeline stared back at the spirit, unsure of how to respond. Her parents had always told her if she didn’t have anything nice to say, then she really shouldn’t say it, and the little ghost did seem like it was trying. It looked quite pleased with itself for a time, before the lack of response on Madeline’s part started to chip away at its brittle confidence.

“Are you too scared to move?” the ghost asked, the hope in its voice as fragile as the rest of it.

“No. Should I be?” Madeline answered politely, unsure of the etiquette one should adopt with ghosts.

“Are you about to faint?” the ghost tried again, its eyeholes going wider and misting wet. Madeline hoped that ghosts couldn’t cry. Her common sense didn’t think they could, lacking the meat equipment for it, but this ghost seemed ready to give it a real try.

“I’m sorry, but I’m actually feeling quite well, thank you.” Madeline tried smiling at the ghost. Unfortunately, it only seemed to break the little spirit, the ghost flipping over and inside out with a piercing wail. The sound of it made other shadows shift and stir, Madeline watching in amazement as two more ghosts peeked their soft little heads out. She realized that there was a hollow in the great oak, its entrance hidden behind gnarled roots and many toadstools. The littler ones joined the pair soon enough, worriedly circling the weeping ghost and Madeline.

“Hello there.” Madeline greeted them politely as she tried to comfort the other by patting its head. She stopped when her hand kept going through the ghost, making her fingertips tingle.

The new ghosts squeaked in answer, doing their best to hide behind each other. All they managed to do was look like a misty mess of tendrils.

“Now stop that. I obviously can’t hurt you. Why are you so scared of me?” Madeline asked, putting her hands on her hips in exasperation. Practicality, not patience, was her specialty so she didn’t know what quite to do when all three ghosts burst into tears, or at least, tried to. In her opinion, ghost’s tears looked like wisps of vapor, the kind the living huffed and puffed out of their mouths in the cold.

“B-b-but that’s the problem.” One ghost blubbered.

“You’re not s-s-scared.” Stammered another.

“You should be petrified,” Sobbed out the last of the trio. Madeline was having trouble keeping track of them all individually, the little ghosts weaving in and out of each other. “And you’re not. We’re failures.”

“Don’t be sad, and don’t give up just yet. All you need is a little practice.” Madeline tried to sooth. “I’m sure you’ll be quite frightening once you get the hang of it.”

“We’ve been trying and trying and trying, but nothing seems to work.” One of the three sniffled, the ghosts separating themselves to gaze mournfully up at Madeline.

“You just have to keep trying. Practice makes perfect.” Madeline said, waving her finger at the ghosts, more to keep track of them than anything. Their edges kept melding into one another while they weren’t paying attention to their borders. “Let’s have a chat, and properly introduce each other. Then you can tell me all about it. Sometimes, you just need a pair of fresh eyes looking at a problem to sort it out.”

“We don’t have any eyes.” One of the ghosts pouted, the group of them wondering what eyeballs had to do with anything.

“That’s neither here or there. It’s a figure of speech, and please don’t interrupt. It’s rude.” Madeline said, sitting herself down on a conveniently shaped tree root. “My name is Madeline, Maddie if you really must, and you all are?”

“Winky.” Said the tiniest ghost, whiter and wispier than the other two.

“Blinky.” said the little grey ghost, more like fog than vapor.

“Noddy.” said the biggest ghost of the three, whose eye holes and mouth were the most defined.

“It’s very nice to meet you all.” Madeline said, nodding her head to the trio in greeting. “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

“We can’t scare anyone.” Said Winky.

“Not even squirrels.” Said Blinky

“They throw nuts at us.” Said Noddy.

“How rude.” Madeline sighed, not one for squirrels herself. She had been pelted in the head before once or twice by an irate woodland creature. “Why do you want to scare anyone?”

“Because it’s our job, and our boss said so.” Winky said, making Madeline wonder about it all. Who would ever employ ghosts in the first place?

“We’ll be in so much trouble if we don’t learn how to.” Noddy’s suggestion of a mouth began to tremble again, warning the little girl of more impending waterworks.

“Enough of that.” Madeline warned. “We will simply have to work together then, and teach you how to frightening spirits.”

“But how?” asked Noddy, the sentiment echoed by Winky and Blinky.

“I have no idea, but I would like to help.” Madeline admitted, getting up to brush off her skirts, already thoughtful and thinking about the problem at hand. A quick glance up at the darkening sky though told her it was getting time to head home. “It’s getting dark. I must get in before it gets too cold. I’ll be back tomorrow though. I promise.”

“You promise?” Winky asked, sounding unsure.

“Really?” Blinky asked as well.

“Really, really?” Noddy echoed the other two’s sentiment.

“Really, really. I promise, and I always do my best to keep my promises.” Madeline said, feeling like she was forgetting something, something very important. The little girl racked her brain, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what was so darn important. All she could do was say her goodbyes, hoping for the best that it wasn’t anything too vital.

Walking through the forest back to her home, Madeline was so absorbed in her thinking that she failed to notice what was in her way until she walked smack right into it. The obstacle caught her arm in time to keep her from spilling over, though Madeline would have given anything not to know what moving bone felt like to the touch.

Death was dressed rather neatly in an elegant black three piece suit, though it was only caught in glimpses. The reason being was that the gentleman grim reaper also wore a wide brimmed hat with an encircling veil attached to its brim upon his smooth skull. The material fell like a shimmering wall, dripping off the hat all the way down to his silver tipped shoes. The translucent veil shifted with the movement of air and breezes, parting here and there, and yet never really revealing what truly lay beneath. Which was probably for the best, Madeline decided as she studied Death, and he returned the favor.

Glimpses of polished white could be easily explained away if the mind was willing. Madeline’s own was not, the little girl trying hard not to stare at the well-dressed skeleton who made a show of putting back on his gloves to hide his slender finger bones. Madeline wasn’t about to start telling herself silly lies and pretty stories when the ending of all tales was standing right in front her.

“Would it be safe to assume that you are the one who employs ghosts?” Maddie said more than asked. The answer was standing right in front of her. She just didn’t know the ‘why’, but it seemed impolite to ask such a thing at this point. They had only just met. “I thought it was all about resting in peace. That’s what my parents keep telling me anyway.”

“Yes, I am the one who employs ghosts, as well as other things, but you really must forgive the living. They tend to forget that endings aren’t really endings at all. They are just new beginnings, or a different part of the journey. You don’t stop going places just because you make it home safe for the night.” Death said, peering down at the little girl who dared to stand almost toe to toe with him.

“Fair enough. What do you want? I’ll feeling quite well at the moment, unless you know something I don’t.” Madeline said, mentally patting herself down to count all her fingers and toes. To her knowledge, everything was in good working order, and accounted for. Though there had been some frost earlier in the day, Madeline hadn’t even felt a little cold.

“I was simply checking in on my charges to find them making friends, instead of scaring the socks off of the living. I feel a stern lecture is in order.” Death tutted. He was quite amused to find Madeline studying him again, the little girl obviously about to come to a decision of some sort.

“They are doing their best. I just don’t scare easily is all. They can’t be blamed for that. It’s not their fault.” Madeline said, rallying herself for what was to come next. “I have decided that I am going to help them though, and make them the best ghosts ever.”

“Are you now? I would very much like to see that.” Death grinned, though he had very little choice in the matter in the range of his facial expressions. Luckily for Madeline, Death seemed to have a very expressive tone of voice. “You do realize that I’ll be checking in on your progress then from time to time as well.”

“You won’t be disappointed.” Madeline said with more confidence than she was actually feeling.

“I rarely am, Madeline.” Death said, giving the little girl a wave as he made his way back through the pumpkin patch coming to a stop at the great oak there. Placing a gloved hand upon it to pat the silvering bark, Death watched Madeline retreat further into the woods until she was well out of sight.

Feet flying fast enough to scatter scarlet and gold leaves about, Madeline was already halfway home before she realized she hadn’t given out her name. She then felt very silly for thinking Death would not know it already.