Trick or Treat
By
Pat Foley
This is set not long after "A Fish out of Water"
They walked together down the Georgetown sidewalk, lined with tall overarching trees and paved with authentic cobblestones, the black iron railings of fences guarding the houses. Above, a slip of a moon sailed in the darkening night sky. A faint breeze laced with woodsmoke lifted Amanda's hair and stirred the leaves around her ankles.
"What a perfect night," Amanda breathed out in sheer enjoyment.
Beside her, dressed in a jacket lined with thick fleece, a fleece lined hood raised over his head, Sarek tensed faintly at the breeze and didn't appear to agree. "It is cold."
"It's only October. Wait till winter."
"I don't actually care to," Sarek said. "But duty-"
"Ah, yes, duty," Amanda nodded. "We're off for tonight."
"Spock will be chilled," Sarek said, eying their son running before them, splashing through leaves.
"He's wrapped up well enough."
Sarek took his eyes off his son, to regard his surroundings. It was difficult to hear properly, with so many sounds around him. Sarek pulled down his hood, braving the icy, to him, wind on his exposed ears. The breeze moving through the tree branches, the leaves falling in continual waves around them with every gust, the leaves they were brushing aside with their feet, crushing and crunching underneath them, the continual murmuring of voices and laughing of children around them, all made it difficult for him to hear clearly. And hearing was primary, to a defensive Vulcan. "I don't believe we should be out now. At dusk, predators -"
"There aren't those kinds of predators here. And this is traditionally done at dusk."
"Illogical," Sarek muttered. An owl hooted up in the ancient trees, whose roots heaved up the cobbles and made walking treacherous. Sarek turned abruptly, a hand on her arm. "Did you hear that?"
"Oh, my lord," Amanda said.
"What?" Sarek asked, distracted.
"I didn't mean you," Amanda replied. "I meant-"
"There it is again," Sarek said, as another owl answered. "That is a predator," he said with finality. "We should return."
"Sarek, it's just an owl. They go after pigeons, squirrels. Probably rats." Amanda made a face. "Even Spock, tiny as he is, is too big for them to consider him prey."
"Why are we doing this?" Sarek asked.
"It's traditional. My tradition."
"Spock does not even care for sweets."
"And I've never understood that. You like them well enough."
"I don't understand the purpose of gathering them this way."
"If Spock doesn't want them, you can eat all of his. Look at it as a very small, partial payback by him to you for all the years of expensive education he's going to cost us in the future."
"Negative. We can afford to buy sweets, should we care to buy them. Indeed, we have purchased them, for similar distribution. We don't need to solicit them on the street like beggars."
"That's not the point."
"I have yet to understand the point," Sarek said, wincing as a breeze blew his hood fully back. "It is getting colder."
"We're only going to be out a short while. I promised Sirl he would only have to man our door at home an hour at most." She chuckled. "He's going to give some kids a fright."
"Why would you wish to frighten children?"
"They won't really be frightened."
"I don't understand," Sarek said again.
"You don't have to darling. Just do this with me. That's all I'm asking."
"Do I have any choice?" Sarek muttered, just below what he hoped was human hearing, but Amanda wasn't paying attention to him anyway.
"Just look at how brave he is," Amanda said. "Your clan leader heritage, in full."
They'd reached the first house with a light on. A bunch of animatronic figures waved menacingly, pots of vapor puffed in the air, and an eerie orange light lit the doorway. But Spock was used to orange lights, that was the hue of the sky on his home world. And his grandmother T'Pau honestly didn't look too different from the witch poised along the walk. He walked past a few hesitant young children on the step, being adjured by their parents to go forward, and he mounted the staircase. He too was wearing a fleece jacket, but he had tawny brown fleece on the outside as well as within. And matching pants. A pair of pricked ears stuck up from his hood, with tufts of cinnamon colored fur. Behind him, on the outside of his jacket, a cinnamon tufted tail, wrapped around a flexible wire for maximum movement waved jauntily.
"Oh, my lord -."
"Are you addressing me, or is that again some kind of general excla-"
"- his lematya costume is so cute!"
"I don't understand your choice of that either."
"It is your clan herald. I thought it was logical."
"Negative. And what is the purpose of those robots," Sarek asked uneasily. "Why is a substance outgassing from that -"
"Not now, Sarek. He's doing it!"
Studying the array of mechanical figures and decorations before him, Spock finally spied the circle of the doorbell. He pushed it. The door opened, to reveal a figure swathed in torn white strips, but Spock was undaunted. Were not the Mhyrrmen of Yanus III so attired? He held out his orange plastic pumpkin, as he'd been instructed, and giving his mother a smug look of conquest, said "Trick or Treat."
"Can we return home now?" Sarek asked; giving the door answerer a sketchy look. Even the Myhrrmen of Yanus III, while generally peaceful and a member of the Alliance, had their moments.
Spock came down the steps, not giving the witch even a glance.
"We have to go around the block," Amanda decreed.
"Why?" Sarek demanded. "He has obtained the treat. He's surely fulfilled your tradition."
Spock returned to them, displaying the candy. "What do I do with it?"
"Surely you are not going to let him eat that," Sarek asked. "It hasn't been scanned."
"Give it to your father," Amanda said. "I think his blood sugar is low. Maybe it will stop his whining."
"Amanda," Sarek said darkly.
"Put it back in your pumpkin, darling," Amanda said. "And we'll get a few more. Will you stop being such a killjoy?" she said to Sarek as Spock ran up to the next house, his tail bouncing behind him. "What a Tigger tail," Amanda said fondly. "You are spoiling my night," she said, turning back to her husband. "I put up with your traditions, don't I?"
Sarek gave her a look at that. "With a great deal of-"
"All right, you can complain. A little," Amanda said, cutting off that line of argument. "It's only around the block. A little patience-"
An animatronic black cat raised its tail and gave a screech and pounce as they walked by, triggered by a motion sensor in the display, and Sarek literally jumped and pushed Amanda behind him. On Vulcan all cats are dangerously venomous, invariably wild predators. Sarek hadn't yet acclimated to Terran domestic cats or their Halloween facsimiles. They still triggered an instinctive defensive reaction from him when she or Spock were around. By himself, Sarek would have calmly taken on a dinosaur without turning a hair.
"And what was the logic of that?" Sarek demanded.
"And a great deal of Vulcan fortitude-" Amanda said, undaunted. She had to admit, Vulcans didn't seem to have the scary fun gene. A threatening display was logically to be considered hostile, rather than a source of amusement.
"I don't like this," Sarek said.
"Courage, my great clan leader," she said, eyes only for her son, a small lematya among a little pack of ghosts, witches and ballerinas and yes, black cats. "You don't want Spock to see that you're scared, do you?"
Sarek gave her a look.
"I know," she said comfortingly. "You're looking out for us. But this isn't the Forge after dark, and however odd it seems to you, this is meant to be fun."
"I can better understand," Sarek said testily, "why Vulcans have no use for human 'fun'."
She gave him a sidelong look. "I wouldn't go that far, my husband."
He returned the look, with interest, and took her hand.
"What a haul," Amanda said, when they finally arrived home. They poured the contents of the pumpkin onto the table, with Sarek waving a scanner suspiciously over the hoard.
"They are innocuous," he grudgingly conceded.
"You see? Not a poisoned apple in the lot," Amanda said cheerily. "And you may have one treat, Spock, and then bedtime."
Spock regarded the array of sugary comestibles consideringly, and shook his head, Terran style. "I will have a poisoned apple."
"You may have an apple," Amanda approved, going to the kitchen for the treat. Giving him a quarter of one, she gave the rest to Sarek. "I haven't had one of these in ages," she said, picking up one of the packages. "A licorice witch. May I?"
Spock nodded agreeably and Amanda nibbled on the tiny confection. "Oh, delicious."
"If you wanted a licorice witch," Sarek said darkly, consuming the apple alongside his son, "I would have obtained-"
"Sarek, enough, please." She tore off a piece and offered it to Spock, "Sure you don't want a little?"
Finishing his apple, Spock sniffed the licorice, screwed up his face as at something very bad, and shook his head. "No, ugh."
"Spock, your control," Sarek said.
"He doesn't like it," Amanda defended him.
"A calm refusal is enough. He needn't show it."
"Come on, bedtime then," Amanda said, and Spock ran off, his tail bobbing behind him. Amanda smiled after him and looked up at her husband. "Thank you for this," she said. "I know it was way out of your tradition and your comfort zone, and I'm sorry if I was shrewish." She leaned up to give him a quick kiss.
Sarek recoiled as if burned. "What noxious substance?!"
"What do you mean?" Amanda asked, startled.
"What did you eat?" he said, making a face.
"The licorice witch? My darling husband, your control," she teased. "What, so Vulcans don't like licorice?"
"Correction," Sarek said. "Upon further evaluation, I will never obtain licorice witches for you, my wife."
"Oh, dear," Amanda said, licking her lips, stained a little black from the licorice. "It's not a Vulcan poison, is it?"
"It might as well be; given its taste," Sarek said.
"Mother!" Spock called.
"I better go see to our little cub," Amanda said.
Sarek checked through Spock's spoils and threw the single remaining licorice witch into the recycler.
Later Amanda came back, dressed in a flowing gown. "Our little cub is purring in his sleep," she said. "Sirl has gone away and I've turned the porch light off. Halloween is nearly over."
"Nearly?" Sarek asked suspiciously. "What now?"
"Well, some of your clan are convinced that I bewitched you," Amanda said. "And witches deserve their due." She tilted her head suggestively.
Sarek raised a brow. "Unfortunately, I don't care for licorice witches."
"I brushed my teeth," Amanda said.
Sarek regarded her, then beckoned her over. He gave her a tentative kiss and then drew back, surprised.
"I forgot to mention, I ate a little chocolate," Amanda said, showing her teeth in a wicked little grin. "Dark chocolate. Very dark."
Sarek pulled her down next to him, across from the spill of candy, beside the plastic pumpkin, ignoring all the unpleasant signs of his otherwise horrible evening.
"Oh, trick or treat," Amanda sighed. And then she turned off the light.
fini
review, review, review
Trick or Treat
By
Pat Foley
10/13/2018
Part of the Holo series