Kara bounced through the lobby door of Lena's uptown apartment building.
"Do you need some help Miss Danvers?" Came the kind call of Ethan, the night concierge of the building.
Kara teetered a little as she rebalanced the large bag of takeout food and the ginormous pumpkin she was carrying.
Ethan dove forward and relinquished Kara's hold on the huge gourd.
"I have it Miss…oh!" Ethan cried as he finally got a clear view of Kara's Halloween costume. She was dressed as the Corpse Mother from Krypton's own mythologies. Her face was painted with skeletal makeup and she wore a long traditional Kryptonian robe with tattered ends and the crest of the dead. The heavy boots with high heals were murder on Kara's balance.
"Oh, sorry Ethan," Kara cried as she regained her balance.
"Not a problem Miss Danvers. Your costume just caught me off guard. Very scary. I have the pumpkin and you have the food. Going up to see Miss Luthor I take it?" Ethan asked with a smile.
Kara laughed softly, "I have told you before Ethan, you have to call me Kara, and yes I am headed up to see Lena. She insisted she has to work tonight but I figured some surprise pumpkin carving and take out before I go to my family's party would get her to take even a little break perhaps."
Ethan offered a soft smile, "It's good she has someone to look after her Miss…I mean Kara. She works far too hard. Let me grab the elevator for you."
Ethan strode across the polished marble floor and while balancing the huge pumpkin he punched in the elevator access code.
Once himself and Kara were safely onboard, he waved his access card at some indeterminate point above the elevators control panel and as if by magic it started whizzing up to the penthouse on the 4oth floor, despite the elevator control panel only listing 35 floors.
The elevator dinged and Ethan stepped out to the small foyer in front of the penthouse doors.
The foyer was carpeted with lush, thick, red carpet, appointed with soft silver accents and furnished with a tasteful chaise longue, a side table on either side of Lena's doors with a bouquet of plumerias.
Kara barely glanced at the magnificent, but familiar surroundings, seemingly blind to the cameras and scanners that activated to monitor the guests disembarking from the elevator.
Ethan stepped up beside Kara and gently handed her back the pumpkin. "I hope you have a lovely evening Miss Dan…Kara."
Kara smiled blindingly, "Thank you for your help Ethan. I hope you have a quiet night and I will see you on my way down."
Ethan nodded genially and swiftly retreated back to the elevator.
When the doors closed, Kara took a deep breath and knocked strongly on the door.
Her super hearing picked up a scuffle and Lena cursing fluently.
Steps grow closer and then the door opens.
Kara gasps at the sight before her. Lena is still in her work trousers, but her blouse is unbuttoned at the neck and the cuffs, she is four inches shorter in bare feet, her hair; usually in a severe ponytail; swings free around her shoulders in black waves. Frankly, Kara thinks she is gorgeous.
Lena's brows are scrunched and then her eyes widen in delighted surprise as her eyes land on the costumed Kara. Lena is sucking her finger between lush red lips and around her finger she mumbles, "Kara!?"
Kara restarts her stuttering brain, "Hi, uh, I brought dinner…and pumpkin ...I mean a pumpkin for carving. Um, Lena are you okay?" Kara asks in sudden concern as she realizes that Lena is sucking her finger because it is bleeding.
Lena's eyes cast down in annoyance at her finger as she pulls it from her mouth and squeezes the small wound to prevent further bleeding.
"Oh, it's fine Kara, just a nick. I love your costume," Lena replied.
Kara blushed and twirled in her cloak, "It's the Corpse Mother from Krypton's mythology. Think of a guardian of the dead and you're pretty close."
Lena smiled at Kara's joy, "Anyway, what are you doing here? I thought you had a family party to go to?" Lena asked.
Lena stepped back in a silent invitation to enter and as Kara walked in, she replied, "Oh I do, but I figured I would stop by so we can have some Halloween time together before I have to go. That and I wanted to make sure you at least ate, instead of working all night."
Kara blushed in embarrassment while Lena's face softened, and Lena shot forward to place a chaste kiss on her girlfriend's cheek. Girlfriend. 10 months of dating and Lena is still flabbergasted that Kara is her girlfriend.
"That sounds wonderful Kara and a brilliant idea. Let me just deal with this and then we can eat," Lena said as she raised her injured finger.
"Okay," Kara blushed and nodded while heading in the direction of the kitchen while Lena headed for the bathroom and her first aid kit.
Kara wandered into the kitchen and deposited the food and pumpkin on the dining table. With practiced ease and familiarity, she headed towards the cupboards which held the plates and cutlery.
Before she made it to that cupboard though Kara caught sight of the droplets of blood which led a trail across the rosy granite worktops to the Belfast sink.
Kara gazed in confusion at the set of box cutters, craft knives and a half-mutilated turnip that lay discarded at the bottom of the sink and splashed with spots of blood.
Kara hesitantly lifted the mutilated turnip from the sink and turned it in the light, realizing that it was partially hollowed out and the beginnings of an eye were cut into its front. Kara gazed in confusion at the vegetable trying to fathom what it was when suddenly Lena walked back into the kitchen, a bright blue plaster on her finger.
"Oh!" Lena gasped as she caught sight of Kara inspecting her failed attempts at a Halloween tradition.
Kara's eyes shifted to Lena and immediately felt embarrassed at being caught snooping, "I uh went to get plates, and there was blood so, turnip?" Kara rambled.
Lena blushed scarlet and strode forward to take the turnip from her girlfriend.
"You have discovered yet another of my deep dark secrets Kara Danvers. I am absolutely incapable of arts and crafts," Lena mumbled embarrassedly and with faux light heartedness.
Kara's brows scrunched as she gazed at the turnip, "You know you're meant to carve pumpkins Lena, right? I know your childhood was…well Lillian, but carving Jack O'Lanterns is a great American Halloween past time."
Lena blushed again and with a cool smirk took the turnip from Kara, "Actually Kara, the Jack O'Lantern tradition comes from Ireland. Not America. Seen as most people don't know that and you're an alien, I'll let it pass this once."
Kara's face became a mask of confusion, "What? Alex never told me that!"
"Mmm, carving pumpkins is a distinctly modern version of the tradition. The original practice was to carve turnips," Lena informed her proudly.
Lena walked back towards the dining table and absently caressed the mutilated turnip as she sat down.
Kara watched Lena closely and saw a defensiveness in her girlfriend that spoke of a delicate emotional wound. Lena's shoulders were hunched like she was expecting a blow. Suddenly, Kara realized that she had been focusing on the wrong thing, she should have been asking why Lena was trying to carve a turnip. Lena had been disparaging of the very idea of Halloween and had purposefully piled work onto her schedule, yet there is no evidence of work and lots of her trying to covertly carve a turnip. So poorly had her efforts gone that she had obviously cut herself, but this seemed to be important to Lena.
"Why were you carving a turnip Lena?" Kara whispered.
Lena smiled weakly at her girlfriend. She turned the turnip in her hands, her eyes becoming glassy and seemingly lost in another time.
When Lena spoke, it was in a soft voice, lilted with a tinge of her long lost irish accent. A gentle voice that few others beside Kara had ever heard, "You know my birth mother was Irish, and I grew up there before she died?"
Kara nodded hesitantly as she drew closer to Lena and sat down beside her, placing a hesitant hand on her girlfriends back.
"I don't have many memories of my mother, even fewer that are pleasant. The clearest one is of her telling me folk stories while carving turnips. Their glow lighting up the windows of our little house, and my mother laughing when people told her she was meant to carve pumpkins. She would tap her nose and tell them, 'Oh, if you were serious about keeping the spirits away you would carve a turnip too!' and then she would wink at me. It was our own inside joke. My mom loved history and I was raised on the myths of our homeland."
Kara drew closer to her girlfriend, enraptured by her soft voice. So rarely Lena spoke of her life before the Luthors, it was always the most precious gift to hear her stories of a happier time. The longing in Lena's voice as she spoke of her mother and "our" homeland. There was a vibrancy and depth of emotion in those words that was missing when Lena spoke of the Luthors.
Kara began gently rubbing Lena's back and her right hand curled protectively around Lena's as she cupped the turnip.
"So, you were trying to relive a memory?" Kara asked softly.
Lena turned slightly and offered her girlfriend a soft smile, "More like continue a tradition. After I joined the Luthors the folklore bedtime stories and traditions stopped. No more Brigid Crosses, no more mummering, no more fish Fridays, St. Patrick day parades or Halloween turnip carving. Lillian caught me trying to carve a turnip in the kitchen with one of the chefs that first year. She had him fired and told me in no uncertain terms that I was to never indulge in such foolish, childish endeavours ever again. So of course, I made it a tradition to spite her. At boarding school, at Luthor Manor, here…every year I carve my own turnip to frighten away evil spirits."
"Oh Lena," Kara whispered. Kar could just picture a small defiant Lena covertly smuggling in a turnip and finding some quiet place to repeat a lost tradition.
Lena sniffled, setting the turnip down and rubbing tears from her eyes.
"Did Alex ever tell you where the Jack O'Lantern tradition came from?" Lena asked.
Kara's face clouded in confusion, "Uh, no, she just told me it was a tradition and then she said I could eat all the candy I wanted so I never thought to ask."
Lena laughed softly and blushed while shaking her head, "Thinking with your stomach as usual dear."
Kara ducked her head and grumbled.
Lena softly cupped her face, "Would you like to hear the myth my mother told me that inspired the Jack O'Lantern?"
Kara's head snapped up like a dog scenting the fox, "I would love that Lena…if you feel you can."
Lena smiled, "I think my mother would have loved you and been greatly pleased that I widened your education on something she loved."
Kara smiled again and leaned into Lena.
Lena closed her eyes, casting her mind back, to a time of safety and a voice with lilting southern brogue.
"The practice of carving Jack O'Lanterns goes back to pagan Irish times, back to Samhain when people carved scary faces into gourds to frighten spirits who would cross over on Halloween when the barrier between the living and the dead was thin. They would make headdresses of horned animals from straw to scare the spirits and jumped over bonfires for cleansing and good fortune.
Some say the Jack O'Lantern comes from the myths of Fae and the Maith Daoine, the Will-o'-the-wisp who travelled across the dark peat bogs of western Ireland luring the unsuspecting with a burning light.
My mother told me the Christian origin story about Stingy Jack.
Stingy Jack was a miserable, greedy, drunken old blacksmith who was cruel, he cheated his neighbours, stole from his friends and drank too much. One dark, Halloween night, Jack was in the pub drinking heavily when a stranger walked in. Strangers were rare in those days and a novelty in the little village. Jack befriended the dark man and told him stories in exchange for drinks, taking joy in getting to know the stranger and keeping him from the other curious villagers. Jack was playing with a small iron cross he kept in his pocket while he drank, when just by chance he dropped the cross and when he went to pick it up, he realised that the stranger's feet were wrong…they were hooves! The sign of the Devil.
Standing up the Devil smirked and told Jack he knew that Jack knew who he was now. The Devil had enjoyed their chat as it was so rare that he met people as mean as himself but now it was time for the Devil to reap Jack's soul. Jack thought quickly and said he would willingly go with the Devil once he had had one more drink and the bill was paid. The Devil smirked and quickly turned himself into a sixpence to pay the bartender, but Jack immediately snatched the coin and deposited it into his pocket, beside the iron cross that he was carrying. Thus, the Devil could not change himself back and Jack refused to allow the Devil to go free until the Devil had promised not to claim Jack's soul for ten years.
The Devil agreed, and ten years later Jack again came across the Devil while out walking across the rolling hills. The Devil tried collecting what he was due, but Jack thinking quickly, said, "I'll go, but before I do, will you get me an apple from that tree up there, I haven't eaten all day?"
The Devil, loving the irony of giving another man an apple before damning him jumped up into the tree to retrieve an apple. As soon as he did, Jack carved crosses all around the trunk of the tree, thus trapping the Devil once again. This time, Jack made the Devil promise that he would never take his soul. Seeing no way around his predicament, the Devil grudgingly agreed, and Jack carved lines through the crosses letting the devil go.
Ten more years later Stingy Jack was pealing turnips for his dinner one day when he dropped dead. So greedy was he that even in death he held onto his turnip. He climbed up and up the great steps that went to the Gates of Heaven while scooping out his turnip as a snack. When St Peter saw Jack he laughed, "Oh Jack, I don't even need to check my book, you are never getting in here! You were cruel, mean and sinful all your life."
So, Jack then turned and climbed back down the stairs, down, down and down until he came to Hell.
When the Devil saw Jack he laughed too, "Oh Jack, I promised I would never take your soul, so you can't come in here either. "
"But where can I go?" asked Jack.
"Out to the darkness, lost between heaven and hell, belonging to neither. Damned to wander alone for all time," replied the Devil.
Stingy Jack pleaded with the Devil to at least provide him with a light to help find his way through the dark.
The scoffed but thought it funny to give jack some false hope with a little light so he tossed Jack an eternally glowing ember straight from the fires of Hell. Jack placed the ember in the hollowed-out turnip which he had been eating, fashioning a lantern. From that day forward, Stingy Jack has been doomed to roam the earth without a resting place and with only his lit turnip to light the way in the darkness. On Halloween night when the veil is thin people mimic Jack's lantern because even the evil spirits fear and pity Stingy Jack, they want to stay far away from anything so hated by both heaven and hell.
So, if you see a Jack O'Lantern, beware it may be Jack's spirit. Looking for a somewhere to rest, even if its in your body.
The Irish carved turnips to scare away evil spirits and when they came to America, they found these giant, soft, much easier to carve pumpkins and so the modern Jack O'Lantern was born."
Lena smiled after her retelling. Kara's eyes were wide in amazement and awe.
"Wow," Kara whispered.
Lena laughed softly.
"I always carve a turnip like my mother and I used to, and put it in my window wherever I am. It makes me feel closer to her and maybe, just maybe it helps keep the evil away."
Kara smiled softly and kissed her girlfriend's cheek, "That is a beautiful tradition Lena."
Lena scoffed a little and held up her plastered finger, "Yes, but dangerous. Turnips are tuff suckers."
Kara laughed but grabbed up the mutilated turnip and smirked, her eyes glowed for a moment and then two blue jets quickly danced across the turnip.
When Kara turned it back to Lena there was a perfectly scary face burned into the turnip, the holes still scorching and glowing beautifully.
Lena laughed and took the turnip from her girlfriend, "It's beautiful," she whispered.
"You're beautiful," Kara replied blushing.
Lena ducked her head and then grabbing her girlfriends' hand she led Kara to the window where she placed the Jack O'Lanterm.
"Thank you, Kara, Happy Halloween."
"Happy Halloween Lena. I love you," Kara whispered as she ducked closer to her girlfriend.
Lena rose up on her tip toes and just before their lips met, breathed a benediction across Kara's hovering lips, "Mo Grá."