The Witch

I’ve always loved Halloween. The cold nights, street lights spilling pools of safety onto sidewalks. Candy, pumpkins, knives plunged deep into orange flesh. And costumes! Children become fairies and jesters, cowboys and knights. So young, so sweet and tender it makes me ache as I sit, watching from my darkened room.

My mother was partial to ghosts. There’s nothing easier than making a ghost, you see. But I want to be a princess, I’d say. Don’t we all, she’d reply. And she was right. Just a white sheet, a bit of rope, and poof! You’re a ghost. Like my mother.