I'm afraid this one's a wee bit short, but oh well. I'm trying to be an example to certain peoples. ((Ahem)) You know who you are. Pay attention! Follow mine explain, youse!

Hope you enjoy!

Roll it, Louie!

To describe the atmosphere would be futile. There were only snippets of reality. Light, sound, color. Texture. Laughter.

Screams.

Candy!

Kesy was picked up and swept away. She spun, leaped, two-stepped, laughed, dipped, and curtsied over tombstones in the real world cemeteries. She slipped through shadows and cackled madly. By repeating a phrase, she received candy. She reveled in the screams.

She flew.

Halloween, she would reflect later, was absolutely intoxicating. The moon was in waxing gibbous, which, at the beginning of the night, she thought was a bit of a disappointment. Kesy had been expecting something like a crescent or new moon to be properly Halloween-y.

That hadn't made any difference. Kesy had entered the town with the vampires and other witches, riding on a broomstick she had just enchanted that afternoon. The others parted company and left her hovering above the real suburb. Kesy thought she heard Jack's laugh somewhere in the neighborhood.

Fifty feet above the unforgiving asphalt, Kesy went into a straight nosedive.

Later, listening to the chatter of children passing a graveyard, she enchanted a headstone and set to work. Underneath an old tree, she contorted her limbs in ways she didn't know were possible and danced. Wildly, thoughtlessly, she blazed energy through her veins, scorching her nerves and sending whiplashes of excitement through her body. She heard screams, and the pound of feet. She laughed.

The icing on the cake was her pom-poms. She slipped them under beds and watched as they woke the children with their growling. They screamed as the little pieces of yarn nibbled on them, and breathed heavily and shuddered when the little nightmares disappeared without a trace. They looked with astonishment at their bodies, where the terrors should have bitten.

They worried that there wasn't a trace, or ever even any pain.

Kesy was alive. She could feel it brimming within her, the soul that had been lying dormant for all the years she spent singing carols without actually singing, baking cookies without really baking, decoration trees but knowing her heart had never been in it.

When the whole town returned triumphant, singing, she had joined in. Her voice was high and broken-sounding, defying all the chords that the music teachers in Christmas town had tried to lock her into. For it's brokenness, it was all the more beautiful.

She had felt something entirely new that night, as well. When Jack had entered the town, sitting like a scarecrow, she hadn't recognized him. When he began to dance, it clicked. He leaned down close to her, swooping past her and the folk around her. For a single moment, she felt the fire burning his costume, and a scream sprouted up like a black weed from her heart and grew in her lungs and dashed up the pipe of her throat and flew out of her mouth, the most complete scream of exhilaration she had ever made.

After the parade, she saw that Jack was busy with the females of Halloweentown and sat at the fountain, swirling her hand in the green water and trying to catch her breath.

The Mayor started calling for awards. He called Kesy up, and she stood on the platform, looking confused and disheveled.

"For the most original scare," the politician crowed, holding up the awards and giving it to the witch. Kesy took it, held it in her hands, and then raised it above her head, grinning. She spied Jack towards the back. He winked at her.

Kesy got down and found a bench to sit on. She took a big, shuddering breath, and smiled.

She had to be helped home.

Jack escorted the half-conscious witch home. Kesy yawned, and walked with her eyes closed. When it had become apparent to him that the witch would soon fall asleep on the bench, he had asked if she needed assistance. Kesy had given him a sleepy "Uh huh," and stood up, only to have to sit back down. Then she got up again, swayed, and found her center of gravity.

So now they were walking through the residential section. She was leaning against him slightly, and whispered "Nearly there," and "Mmm…take a left here."

He recalled the scream that she had let loose. It was impressive, to say the least. For a moment, he had been worried if he had really knocked her out of her gourd, because she was grinning. But when he had gotten a good look at her later, it was clear that she was better than okay.

In all his years of scaring, he could swear that he'd never heard anyone scream like Kesy did. She had screamed without a trace of fear.

He had checked up on her earlier in the night when he took a brief break from scaring. Kesy had been in the graveyard, and she was doing a very good job of scaring people with her dancing.

Soon they stood in front of her doorstep. Jack tapped her on the shoulder, and watched as she smiled, and, eyes closed, walked up to the door.

"Thank you, Mr…" she said in a sleepy voice, her eyes still closed.

Her hat was bent and on crooked, her hair was tousled, her trophy hung from her fingers in a way that suggested that it was about to fall, she was sweaty and swaying slightly, and she was wearing a lopsided smile that was coated in smeared black lipstick. Jack thought he had never seen anything prettier.

"Pumpkin King," he said with a grin. Kesy's eyes shot open, and for a brief moment, she seemed totally awake.

Then, she yawned massively, and smiled. "Thanks, Jack," she whispered, and entered her house.

Then she opened the door, and tossed something at him.

"Happy Halloween," she said, and closed the door with a half-awake wink.

Jack caught it and stared at his palm. A package of things called "Smarties" rested there.

"Happy Halloween," he whispered, and heading home, whistling softly.

Whoofa. Well, I hope-y you like-y'd.

Please review. They are wonderful, shiny things!