The months passed, the nights got longer, the air got cooler and the children continued to grow. They did indeed have fun with the Boogie Man, for he rarely scolded them and he didn't make them go to bed on time. He gave them plenty of gifts and whenever they fought amongst themselves he never intervened - in fact, he placed bets with himself on who he thought would win and the more fiercely they fought, the more he would laugh with approval. But in addition to fun there was work to be done, especially for Shock.
Right out of the gate the Boogie Man taught her to feed her youngest cohort and change his diapers, and even though it was an unpleasant task she did as she was told for otherwise she wouldn't get dinner that night. He taught her to cook, telling her it was her duty. "You oughta be good at it, princess, if you're any sort of witch at all." He taught her to sew, so that he would no longer have to mend the rips and tears in his own burlap skin. He taught both her and Lock to clean and he made Lock gather and bring in the firewood and tend to the fireplaces. "If you can't start fires outta nothin' then you'd better learn how to do it the old fashioned way, devil boy." he said, and both children spent many hours working hard. When they weren't working, they were playing just as hard and they grew strong and tough and self-reliant. Barrel followed in their footsteps and before long was out of his diapers and Oogie took his ratty old crib mattress and put it on the floor beside his friends. Soon he was put to work in the kitchen as well, cleaning the garbage and setting traps for the insects and rodents that the Boogie Man constantly devoured. They were all three taught to hunt and forage, and Barrel had broken the neck of his first rat the day before he turned two. Lock and Shock took particular delight in tormenting the animals they caught, and the Boogie Man chuckled and advised them, "Do it slow and the meat is tough with fear. Do it fast and it stays tender." So eventually their kills became more efficient, just like the rest of their skills Oogie taught them.
The Halloween of Shock's fourth year, Lock's third and Barrel's second found them venturing to the Human World for the very first time, tucked beneath the wing of the Boogie Man as he haunted the moon and crept in the shadows of children's closets and in dark alleys. They watched the fear that he caused, relished in the shivering terror of his victims, saw how he devoured lost pets and strays with the powerful sucking vortex of his gaping, hungry maw. As entertaining as it was, though, the children found themselves drawn in a different direction... for the Boogie Man's job was not their own. They felt it somewhere deep in their growing bones, that there was something else they were meant to be doing... but exactly what it was, they did not know.
When Shock turned five, Lock four and Barrel three, Oogie Boogie said it was about time they moved above ground. He was tired of three babies always underfoot, he said. "You can serve ol' Oogie better from above," he said, and the children cried at being sent away once again... but they didn't cry for long because the Boogie Man withheld their food until they obeyed. "You ready to go on up there, you three?" he boomed, and the children nodded weakly from their beds. "Good. Smart little henchmen like you need a place of your own." he said, and when he put it like that it became a point of pride.
Before long a ramshackle house was constructed, wrapped around the great tree rising up from the pit. The children dragged heavy boards and grating and sheets of metal, hammers and nails and ropes and chains, and under Oogie's direction they built it themselves. It was cold and it was bleak but even though they were now alone, they somehow felt they were finally home. A pipe was installed that led straight down to their master's lair and on the day they moved in Oogie Boogie handed them seven traps. "Send me down bugs everyday, little ones. Remember who raised you, who feeds you and keeps you. No one else wanted you, so you pay ol' Oogie what he's due." They knew it was true, that no one else wanted them, so they thanked him and bowed and he fed them some snake and spider stew that was the best thing they had ever eaten. On their first night alone in their treehouse above, they created a shrine at the mouth of the chute, lit candles around it, and sent down their first offering. And even though they didn't see the Boogie Man much anymore they always remembered who raised them and kept them and fed them... who wanted them, even if only from a distance.
The Halloween of Shock's fifth year, Lock's fourth and Barrel's third found them in the Human World once more, but this time they were alone. "The Boogie Man don't need three little babies in his way." he had said, and by now the children knew better than to cry. He left them there in the graveyard before swooping back to shadow the moon once more and the trio stood outside of the crypt, listening to that feeling deep down in their bones, the yearning for a purpose that was just on the edge of their little minds... still foggy and faint but somehow so strong, like a memory or dream they could almost recall.
"I think I know..." Lock said that night, his white face glowing in the light of Oogie's haunted moon and Shock and Barrel waited with bright, eager eyes, wanting to know as well... they were so close, they thought, so close to knowing what would ease the unsettled feeling inside them. He led them from the cemetery to the streets of the town, the bright lights from the houses calling them like the moths that fluttered and died around the lanterns above the stoops. They crept close to a house and saw a Jack-o-Lantern carved in the grinning visage of the King of their own land. Lock picked it up and his cohorts watched in transcendent excitement as he lobbed it through the thick glass windowpane of the home it belonged to, and the sharp sound of the shattering glass was thrilling. They heard a shout from inside and they laughed as they ran and hid themselves amongst the brambles, then watched with glee as the humans emerged from the house, cursing and calling for the culprit. They repeated this act all down the street and each time they destroyed a symbol of their King and the property of the ones who had carved it, their satisfaction grew and grew. "You kids are trouble." Oogie had told them, and by the satisfaction now warming their guts they knew it was the way they were meant to be... but still, something was missing.
"I think I know..." said Shock on the Halloween of her sixth year, Lock's fifth and Barrel's fourth. Her black eyes glinted in the light from Oogie's haunted moon and her cohorts watched transfixed as she walked boldly to a door and knocked three times. The door was answered and she plucked her dress away from her bony little knees to form a sort of hammock, the way she did when she carried the delicate toadstools she foraged at home for their dinner. "Trick-or-treat!" she cried, and she didn't know from where those words had sprung but the joy and sense of completeness they gave her was indescribable. Lock and Barrel felt that same flood of purpose and relief as they echoed that phrase in their minds and watched as the human placed a small cake and a coin in the basket of her dress before retreating back inside. The warmth spread through them and what had been an uncomfortable restlessness down in their bones was melting and changing to a different sort... an exciting sort, a pleasing sort. They repeated this act all down the street and they returned to their world with their pockets full of sweets and coins and little trinkets. The treats that they ate filled their souls as well as their tummies... but still, something was missing.
"I think I know..." Barrel said on the night of his fifth Halloween, Lock's sixth and Shock's seventh, and his cohorts looked at him in surprise for rarely did the youngest of them lead the way. His teeth shone in the light of Oogie's haunted moon as he grinned widely and led them behind a merchant's shop in the middle of town that they had seen every Halloween but always passed by. This time they crept through the back door and their little hearts pounded when they saw shelves full of carved masks. The evil-looking things called to the children and they inspected each one with wide-eyed wonder and excitement before Shock saw one that stopped her dead in her tracks: it was green like her skin only darker, the lips turned down in a menacing grimace and the nose as large and as curved as her own. She reached out to take it with trembling hands and when she placed it against her face it felt as though a part of her that she didn't even know was missing had been restored. It fit perfectly without need for a string to keep it in place, and her cohorts grinned and oooh'd in awe and in jealousy before hurriedly searching for masks of their own. Lock found his next: it's carved features were as sharp as his own from the pointed teeth of it's wicked smile to the two horns at the crown, and when he placed it against his face he felt for the first time that perhaps he could start fire out of nothing someday with the power and completeness that his new mask had given him. Barrel searched frantically, so afraid that he might be left out... but then he saw it: as round and as pale as his face with a matching grin of unsettling skeletal teeth. Putting it on felt like coming home, and beneath it he smiled as wide as the mask.
"You look great!" Shock told him, "But not quite complete." She looked down at his clothing, all dirty and plain and grey, and somehow she thought that she knew what was missing. "When we get home I'll sew you some bones on your clothes to go with your mask. Your costume." Shock didn't even know the word she had just used, and Lock and Barrel stared at her in amazement for it felt as though she was speaking in tongues just as she had when she'd cried trick-or-treat. A costume. That's exactly what they were, what they had needed. They swiped three empty flour sacks from the merchant then crept back to the streets and houses once more, knocking on doors and speaking their phrase, collecting their treats and playing their tricks on the humans who denied them.
Now nothing was missing. They had found their purpose at last.
