Happy Samhain
by
Owlcroft
Delia had finally convinced Charles to go to Recourir Contrefaire, a fancy resort in New Mexico for self-styled artists, for their vacation. "Pleeease," she'd begged, eyes blinking and lower lip wobbling. "Just this one time, Charles? Pleeeeeease?"
Finally, he sighed and gave in, but not before getting her to sign a note that promised she'd never ask to go there again. And, since they'd be away for a week, they'd solicited their daughter and her husband to babysit the house. "Just keep an eye on things, pumpkin," Charles had said. "I'd feel a lot better knowing someone was here, that's all, especially with Halloween coming up. If it's not an imposition?"
Naturally, Lydia had acquiesced and even Beetlejuice thought it wouldn't be a problem. In fact, once they'd bade the Deetzes good-bye and settled in, he found it amusing to relive old times.
It had only been a couple of years since they'd married, and they did miss their own place a bit the first day or so, but they had fun playing house, reliving old memories, and celebrating Lydia's birthday. Then, three days later, it was their favorite holiday.
Lydia insisted on touring the town just to see the decorations and Beetlejuice thought it was amusing, in a pathetic sort of way, that they tried so hard to be scary and failed so disastrously. "It's like watching one of those hokey horror movies, where the sets teeter and the acting's so bad," he commented.
But they bought several pumpkins and took them back to the house to carve and set a Jack-o'-lantern in each downstairs window and several on the porch, where Lydia had contrived cobwebs made out of a dingy gray lightweight yarn. A sinister wind whistled in the background, interspersed with anguished moans, and every ninety seconds the tiny speaker hidden in the corner of the porch would also emit an evil witch's cackle. Beetlejuice arranged a few plastic skeletons and hung half a dozen plush bats, then stood back and admired his work for a moment before Lydia prodded him gently in the ribs.
"Don't make it too scary," she warned him.
"Me?" he said in amazement. "Me! Look at what you've done!"
She did, with a certain amount of admiration for her own work, then said, "We have to get dressed. It'll start getting dark in another half hour or so."
ooooo
Lydia wanted to be the Bride of Frankenstein, which made Beetlejuice's costume choice extremely easy. He juiced himself into a recognizable monster then modeled it for his Bride.
She adjusted her wig a bit while studying his outfit. "You know you look like yourself wearing a cheap costume, right?"
"Well, sure. You said you didn't want to scare anybody. Right?" He extended his neck to look down at himself, interested particularly in the platform shoes. "Hey with these shoes –" He suddenly transformed into a disco dancing Frankenstein in a familiar pose. "Voilà – Prancingstein. What do you think, babes?"
She shook her head, trying hard not to smile.
"Hmm." He snapped his fingers and was a large neck-bolted can of beans. "Frank-n-beans?" he asked hopefully.
This time she did laugh, but shook her head again. "Beej, they'll start arriving any minute now."
"Fine," he mock grumbled, once more becoming the monster kids knew and loved to be frightened by. "How many kids are we going to get anyway?"
Lydia adjusted her wig again and led the way downstairs to the hallway, where she checked her makeup in the mirror above the hatstand. "Usually about a dozen. We are a little ways out of town, so not all that many, unfortunately. Oh, what did you decide we're giving them?"
"Gummy spiders and creme-filled chocolate beetles." He held up two enormous bags then suddenly looked unsure of himself. "Is that okay? I figured they wouldn't want the real things."
Just as she grinned at him, the doorbell rang.
"Trick or treat!" was shouted by three youngsters all clad as cowboys. Their costumes were admired by the house-sitters before Beetlejuice doled out large handfuls of treats. "Happy Samhain!" he told each of them as they ooh'ed at his costume and that of his helpmate.
ooooo
In all, they got fifteen children, and three adults who were enticed by the unusual treats into making an appearance on the porch.
At ten o'clock, after looking carefully to make sure there were no more visitors en route, Lydia turned off the porch light and they took the small amount of leftover spiders and beetles inside with them. Then they settled in front of the television with the sandwiches prepared ahead of time, which were accompanied by dill pickle-flavored mealworm chips and the leftover candy.
The local channel was showing 'The Avocado Horror!' and they'd only seen that twice before. In between laughing and feeling sorry for the actors, they reminisced about past Halloweens.
"Oh, no!" Beetlejuice suddenly slapped his forehead, forgetting he was still in costume. "Ow! Mrs. Stein, how did we forget Party-People-in-a-Can?"
Lydia hid her face in her hands for a moment. "I had forgotten them. And then you had to remind me," she scowled at him, then shook her head, smiling at the memory. "I do love Halloween," she said. "It's such a shame that it's only one night a year. Beej, what exactly is Samhain anyway?"
He considered for a moment then told her, "It's a celebration of the end of harvest. And a sort of party before winter really starts and things get all dark and gloomy." He looked at the last chocolate beetle and wavered before snatching it up and gulping it down. "Just another way of saying 'Happy Candy Day'."
Lydia looked at the last spider and closed her eyes and pushed it over to her husband. "So it's kind of an older version of Halloween, then?"
Through a mouthful of gummy spider, he said, "Yeah, basically. But there's been all sorts of goofy scary stuff added over the centuries – you know, graveyards and witches and demons and ghosts. Ooooh," he intoned, fluttering his fingers mystically, "the veil between the living and the dead is thin tonight."
"How thin?" she asked with an appreciative smile. "About the thickness of pajamas, I'm thinking."
He lowered his lids halfway and chuckled salaciously. "It's as thin as no pajamas at all." He waggled his eyebrows quickly a few times as she took that in.
"I do love Samhain," she said. "It's such a shame it's only one night a year." Then she grabbed him by the neckbolts.
