“It’s my last year of trick-or-treating,” Erin whined. Next year she’d be a freshman in high school. “Why do you have to ruin it?” Her voice broke a little bit, and Amanda thought Erin might start crying.
She cried a lot lately, mostly while fighting with Amanda over perceived unfairnesses. It had been so much easier when she was younger, crying over a scraped knee or some hardship she’d endured at school — not getting enough turns on the big slide or her teacher saying she hadn’t shown her work properly on a math worksheet. Then, all problems could be solved with a hug — Give me one of your boa constrictor hugs, Mommy, real tight like you’ll never let me go! — and a trip to the ice-cream shop, where they’d split a cookie-dough sundae with extra whipped cream.
Now Amanda took in a breath, forced a smile. “That’s my job. Fun ruiner.”
Erin stared at her through her mask, her eyes angry and a little desperate. They could have been the real Hannah-beast’s eyes.
Manda, the eyes pleaded. Manda Panda, please. Don’t let them do this to me.
Amanda had to look away, glancing over at the kitchen island, where the pumpkin they’d bought last week at the farmers market still sat, uncarved. Pumpkin carving had always been Jim’s job, a task he’d taken seriously, downloading templates from the Internet, spending hours cutting out perfect cat faces, witches flying on brooms, and one year, a raven with intricate feathers and glowing eyes.
“Go change,” Amanda told her daughter. “Now.”
Erin sighed dramatically. “Can you just explain why? Can you be that fair?”
Every year since she was in third grade, Erin had asked to go as Hannah-beast. She’d seen the older kids doing it, a handful each year, and she’d heard the stories. How the real Hannah-beast came back each year at Halloween, came back with a box of matches in her pocket, so you better look out, better be careful, better hope you didn’t run into her. She was a crazy ghost girl, Hannah-beast was. She’d killed in life and she’d kill again in death, given half a chance.
But the stories were just that: stories. Myths with pieces of truth hidden inside.
Over the years, Erin had seemed eager for these nuggets of truth.
“But Hannah-beast was a real girl, right?” Erin would ask.
“Yes,” Amanda would tell her.
“A girl who died a long time ago.”
“Yes.”
“And she set a fire?”
Amanda would nod, always having to look away. “Yes,” she’d say, the same reply she’d given hundreds of times, beginning back when she was Erin’s age and the police first questioned her about it.
“And people died?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know her, Mom?” Erin would ask, eyes wide and hopeful. “Did you know the real Hannah-beast?”
“No,” Amanda would say, the lie so practiced it rolled off her tongue in a loose and natural way. “I didn’t know her at all.”
She looked at her daughter now in her blue face paint — thirteen years old, gangly as a scarecrow.
“Please, Mom,” Erin said, voice quiet and pleading now. “Seriously, it’s not fair. At least tell me why.”
“Because,” Amanda said, pausing for a moment to breathe and keep her tone calm. “Because I said so.”
Erin shook her head to express her utter contempt, the bright rainbow wig slipping slightly. She stomped off, out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her room, slamming the door with impressive force. Amanda went into the living room and sank down into the couch, eyes focused on the overflowing bowl of brightly wrapped candy in a plastic pumpkin bowl.
Erin came downstairs half an hour later, face cleaned of blue makeup, replaced by cat whiskers drawn with eyeliner, cherry-red lipstick. She wore black leggings, a black hoodie, and a headband with furry black ears gone mangy from one too many Halloweens. She had on her school backpack, which would soon be stuffed with candy, popcorn balls, and glow sticks given out by the police officers who were out in full force each Halloween, as if by sheer numbers they could ward off what was coming: the small army of Hannah-beasts, the little fires all over town — dumpsters, trash cans, vacant buildings, the old salt shed. And somehow, they never managed to stop a stuffed effigy of Hannah-beast from being hung by a noose from the town gazebo each year, cloth body stuffed full of newspaper and rags, pillowcase face painted blue, rainbow wig stapled on, pink boa ruffling in the breeze as the creepy doll swung in circles from the thick rope.
Erin went straight to the front door, passing Amanda in the living room without a word. There was a rapid-fire knocking, and she flung the door open. Her friends were gathered on the front porch — they must have texted Erin that they were there. Two Hannah-beasts, Wonder Woman, and a red devil in a too-tight, too-short dress.
Erin walked out and slammed the door behind her, but not quickly enough to drown out the first words she spoke: “I fucking hate my mother.”
1982
“Please, Hannah, please, come out with us tonight,” the three girls cooed like sweet little doves, funny partridges, as they stood gathered outside her first-floor bedroom window. They knew better than to come to the front door, deal with Daddy and his fire-breathing bourbon breath telling them they weren’t good girls, they were trash, little dipshit whores.
Girls like that, they’re going straight to hell. That’s what Daddy said. You stay away from them unless you want to get burned.
Their porch light was dark, no smiling jack-o’-lantern to greet trick-or-treaters, no bowl of candy waiting by the front door.
Hannah bit her lip, looked through the screen at the girls gathered outside smiling in at her from the shadows, begging: “Please, please, pleeeeeaze.”
“It won’t be like before, we promise.”
“Please say you’ll be our friend and come with us,” they begged.
Hannah shook her head. “I’m not supposed to.”
It was more than the fact that her daddy would skin her alive if he caught her going out with these girls. It was that she didn’t trust them. Not one bit.
They’d given her dog biscuits, telling her they were oatmeal cookies, then barked out their own laughs, saying, “Hannah’s a dog! Bowwow, Dog-face! Bow-fucking-wow!”
Then she’d cried, actually cried, and they’d said they were sorry, sorry, so, so sorry. It was a joke. Just having a little fun is all.
Some days they took her lunch money, saying it was a tax she had to pay, and if she didn’t pay it, they wouldn’t be her friends anymore, wouldn’t let her sit with them, not ever. Not like they did all that much anyway. Mostly she was greeted with disgusted snarls of “Go away, Hannah.”
The worst was the time they’d tried to turn her into a real girl. “Trust us,” Mel said. “We’ll make you pretty. You want to be pretty, don’t you, Hannah?”
And they took her to Katie’s house, where they made her soak in a tub full of “pretty-girl bath salts” that made her break out in a hot rash all over her body. Then they coated her legs with shaving cream, and Mel shaved her with a pink razor, saying, “You’ve got quite the pelt going on here, Hannah. What are you, a wolf-girl?”
And Hannah had bared her teeth, laughed, and said, “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m going to eat you up.” She gave them a growl, deep in her throat, and snapped her jaws at Mel, made like she was going to bite her.
This had startled Mel. Or maybe she just pretended to be startled. Maybe she slipped on purpose.
The next thing Hannah knew, she was dripping blood down her leg, not like little weeping dots, but like a spring stream that runneth over.