(1972) The Halloween Tree Page 7

  They heard dogs barking in the night far below. They saw a few boats on the moonlit lake moving like water insects. They heard a guitar playing and a man singing in a high sad voice.

  A long way off across the dark borders of land, in the United States, packs of children, mobs of dogs ran laughing, barking, knocking, from door to door, their hands full of sweet bags of treasure, wild with joy on Halloween night.

  “But, here—” whispered Tom.

  “Here what?” asked Moundshroud, hovering at his elbow.

  “Oh, why here—”

  “And down through all of South America—”

  “Yes, South. Here and South. All the cemeteries. All the graveyards are—”

  —full of candlelight, Tom thought. A thousand candles in this cemetery, a hundred candles in that graveyard, ten thousand small flickering lights farther on a hundred miles, five thousand miles down to the very tip of Argentina.

  “Is that the way they celebrate—”

  “El Dia de los Muertos. How’s your grade school Spanish, Tom?”

  “The Day of the Dead Ones?”

  “Caramba, si! Kite, disassemble!”

  Swooping down, the Kite flew apart for a final time.

  The boys tumbled on the stony shore of the quiet lake.

  Mists hung over the waters.

  Far across the lake they could see an unlit tombyard. There were, as yet, no candles burning in it.

  Out of the mists, a dugout canoe moved silently without oars, as if the tide touched it across the waters.

  A tall figure in a gray winding sheet stood motionless in one end of the boat.

  The boat nudged the grassy shore softly.

  The boys gasped. For, as far as they could tell, only darkness was cupped inside the hood of the shrouded figure.

  “Mr.—Mr. Moundshroud?”

  They knew it had to be him.

  But he said nothing. Only the faintest firefly of a grin flickered within the cowl. A bony hand gestured.

  The boys tumbled into the boat.

  “Sh!” whispered a voice from the empty hood.

  The figure gestured again and, touched by wind, they blew across the dark waters under a night sky filled with the billion never-before-seen fires of the stars.

  Far off on that dark island, there was a prickle of guitar sound.

  A single candle was lit in the graveyard.

  Somewhere someone blew a musical sound on a flute.

  Another candle was lit among the tombstones.

  Someone sang a single word of a song.

  A third candle was touched to life by a flaming match.

  And the faster the boat moved, the more guitar notes sounded and the more candles were lit high among the mounds on the stony hills. A dozen, a hundred, a thousand candles flared until it looked as if the great Andromeda star cluster had fallen out of the sky and tilted itself to rest here in the middle of almost-midnight Mexico.

  The boat struck the shore. The boys, surprised, fell out. They spun about, but Moundshroud was gone. Only his winding sheet lay empty in the boat.

  A guitar called to them. A voice sang to them.

  A road like a river of white stones and white rocks led up through the town that was like a graveyard, to the graveyard that was like—a town!

  For there were no people in the town.

  The boys reached the low wall of the graveyard and then the huge lacework iron gates. They took hold of the iron rungs and stared in.

  “Why,” gasped Tom. “I never ever seen the like!”

  For now they knew why the town was empty.

  Because the graveyard was full.

  By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone.

  By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out.

  By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mâché funeral parade glued to a shingle, and in the other hand a papier-mâché skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts inside.

  “Look,” whispered Tom.

  There were hundreds of graves. There were hundreds of women. There were hundreds of daughters. There were hundreds of sons. And hundreds upon hundreds upon thousands of candles. The whole graveyard was one swarm of candleshine as if a population of fireflies had heard of a Grand Conglomeration and had flown here to settle in and flame upon the stones and light the brown faces and the dark eyes and the black hair.

  “Boy,” said Tom, half to himself, “at home we never go to the graveyard, except maybe Memorial Day, once a year, and then at high noon, full sun, no fun. This now, this is—fun!”

  “Sure!” whisper-yelled everyone.

  “Mexican Halloweens are better than ours!”

  For on every grave were plates of cookies shaped like funeral priests or skeletons or ghosts, waiting to be nibbled by—living people? or by ghosts that might come along toward dawn, hungry and forlorn? No one knew. No one said.

  And each boy inside the graveyard, next to his sister and mother, put down the miniature funeral on the grave. And they could see the tiny candy person inside the tiny wooden coffin placed before a tiny altar with tiny candles. And around the tiny coffin stood tiny altar boys with peanuts for heads and eyes painted on the peanut shells. And before the altar stood a priest with a cornnut for a head and a walnut for a stomach. And on the altar was a photograph of the person in the coffin, a real person once; remembered now.

  “Better, and still better,” whispered Ralph.

  “Cuevos!” sang a far voice up the hill.

  Inside the graveyard, voices echoed the song.

  Leaning against the graveyard walls, some with guitars in their hands or bottles, were the men of the village.

  “Cuevos de los Muertos—” sang the faraway voice.

  “Cuevos de los Muertos” sang the men in the shadows inside the gate.

  “Skulls,” translated Tom. “The skulls of the dead.”

  “Skulls, sweet sugar skulls, sweet candy skulls, the skulls of the dead ones,” sang the voice, coming close now.

  And down the hill, treading softly in shadow, came a hunch-backed Vendor of Skulls.

  “No, not hunched—” said Tom, half aloud.

  “A whole load of skulls on his back,” cried Ralph.

  “Sweet skulls, sweet white crystal sugar candy skulls,” sang the Vendor, his face hidden under a vast sombrero. But it was Moundshroud’s voice that sweetly piped.

  And carried from a long bamboo over his shoulder hung on black threads were dozens and scores of sugar skulls as big as their own heads. And each skull was inscribed.

  “Names! Names!” sang the old Vendor. “Tell me your name, I give you your skull!”

  “Tom,” said Tom.

  The old man plucked forth a skull. On it, in huge letters was written:

  TOM.

  Tom took and held his own name, his own sweet edible skull, in his fingers.

  “Ralph.”

  And a skull with the name RALPH written on it was tossed forth. Ralph caught it, laughing.

  In a swift game, the bony hand plucked, tossed white skull after skull, sweetly on the cool air:

  HENRY-HANK! FRED! GEORGE! HACKLES! J.J.! WALLY!

  The boys, bombarded, squealed and danced about, pelted with their own skulls and their own proud names sugar encrusted upon each white brow of those skulls. They caught and almost dropped this splendid bombardment.

  They stood, mouths wide open, staring at the sugary death-sweets in their gummy hands.

  And from within the graveyard, way-high male-soprano voices sang:

  “Roberto … Maria … Conchita … Tomás.

  Calavera, Calavera, sweet candy bones to eat!

  Your name on the snow white sweet skull

  You hurry down the street.

  You buy from the piled high white

  Hills in the square. Buy and eat!

  Chew your
name! What a treat!”

  The boys lifted the sweet skulls in their fingers.

  “Bite the T and the O and the M. Tom!

  Chew the H, Swallow A, Digest N, Choke on K.

  Hank!”

  Their mouths watered. But was it Poison they held?

  “Would you guess? Such happiness, such joy

  As each boy dines on darkness, makes a meal of the night?

  What delight! Snap a bite!

  Go ahead! Munch that fine candy head!”

  The boys tapped the sweet candy names to their lips and were about to bite when—

  “Olé!”

  A mob of Mexican boys ran up yelling their names, seizing at skulls.

  “Tomás!”

  And Tom saw Tomás run off with his named skull.

  “Hey” said Tom. “He sorta looked like—me!”

  “Did he?” said the Vendor of Skulls.

  “Enrique!” shouted a small Indian boy seizing Henry-Hanks skull.

  Enrique pelted down the hill.

  “He looked like me!” said Henry-Hank.

  “He did,” said Moundshroud. “Quick, boys, see what they’re up to. Hold on to your sweet craniums and get!”

  The boys jumped.

  For at that very moment an explosion hit the streets below, in the town. Then another explosion and another. Fireworks.

  The boys took a last look in at the flowers, the graves, cookies, foods, skulls upon graves, miniature funerals with miniature bodies and coffins, at candles, crouched women, lonely boys, girls, men, then whirled and exploded down the hill toward the firecrackers.

  Into the plaza Tom and Ralph and all the other costumed boys raced panting. They jolted to a halt and danced about as a thousand miniature firecrackers banged around their shoes. The lights were on. Suddenly the shops were open.

  And Tomás and José Juan and Enrique were lighting and tossing the firecrackers with yells.

  “Hey, Tom, from me, Tomás!”

  Tom saw his own eyes glinting from the wild boy’s face.

  “Hey, Henry, this from Enrique! Bang!

  “J.J., this—Bang! From José Juan!”

  “Oh, this is the best Halloween of all!” said Tom.

  And it was.

  For never in all their wild travels had so much happened to be seen, smelled, touched.

  In every alley and door and window were mounds of sugar skulls with beautiful names.

  From every alley came the tap-tap of death-watch-beetle coffin makers nailing, hammering, tapping coffin lids like wooden drums in the night.

  On every corner were stacks of newspapers with pictures of the Mayor and his body painted in like a skeleton, or the President and his body all bones, or the loveliest maiden dressed like a xylophone and Death playing a tune on her musical ribs.

  “Calavera, Calavera, Calavera—” the song drifted down the hill. “See the politicians buried in the news, REST IN PEACE beneath their names. Such is fame!

  “See the skeletons juggling, standing high

  On each other’s shoulders!

  Preaching sermons, wrestling, playing soccer!

  Little runners, little jumpers,

  Little skeletons that leap about and fall

  Did you ever dream that death could be

  Whittled down so very small?”

  And the song was true. Wherever the boys looked were the miniature acrobats, trapeze performers, basketball players, priests, jugglers, tumblers, but all were skeletons hand to hand, bony shoulder to shoulder, and all small enough for you to carry in your fingers.

  And over there in a window was a whole microscopic jazz band with a skeleton trumpeter and a skeleton drummer and a skeleton playing a tuba no bigger than a soup spoon and a skeleton conductor with a bright cap on his head and a baton in his hand, and tiny music pouring out of the tiny horns.

  Never before had the boys seen so many—bones!”

  “Bones!” laughed everyone. “Oh, lovely bones!”

  The song began to fade:

  “Hold the dark holiday in your palms,

  Bite it, swallow it and survive,

  Come out the far black tunnel of El Dia de Muerte

  And be glad, ah so glad you are … alive!

  Calavera … Calavera …”

  The newspapers, bordered in black, blew away in white funerals on the wind.

  The Mexican boys ran away up the hill to their families.

  “Oh, strange funny strange,” whispered Tom.

  “What?” said Ralph at his elbow.

  “Up in Illinois, we’ve forgotten what it’s all about. I mean the dead, up in our town, tonight, heck, they’re forgotten. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares. Nobody goes to sit and talk to them. Boy, that’s lonely. That’s really sad. But here—why, shucks. It’s both happy and sad. It’s all firecrackers and skeleton toys down here in the plaza and up in that graveyard now are all the Mexican dead folks with the families visiting and flowers and candles and singing and candy. I mean it’s almost like Thanksgiving, huh? And everyone set down to dinner, but only half the people able to eat, but that’s no mind, they’re there. It’s like holding hands at a séance with your friends, but some of the friends gone. Oh, heck, Ralph.”

  “Yeah,” said Ralph, nodding behind his mask. “Heck.”

  “Look, oh, look, look there,” said J.J.

  The boys looked.

  On top of a mound of white sugar skulls was one with the name PIPKIN on it.

  Pipkin’s sweet skull, but—nowhere in all the explosions and dancing bones and flying skulls was there so much as one dust-speck or whimper or shadow of Pip.

  They had grown so accustomed to Pip’s leaping up in fantastic surprises, on the sides of Notre Dame, or weighted down in gold sarcophagi, that they had expected him, like a jack-in-the-box, to pop from a mound of sugar skulls, flap sheets in their faces, cry dirges.

  But no. Suddenly, no Pip. No Pip at all.

  And maybe no Pip ever again.

  The boys shivered. A cold wind blew fog up from the lake.

  Along the dark night street, around a corner, came a woman bearing over her shoulders twin scoops of mounded charcoals, burning. From these heaps of pink burning coals firefly sparks scattered and blew in the wind. Where she passed on bare feet she left a trail of little sparks which died. Without a word, shuffling, she went around another corner into an alley, gone.

  After her came a man carrying, on his head, lightly, lightly, a small coffin.

  It was a box made of plain white wood nailed shut. On the sides and top of the box were pinned cheap silver rosettes, handmade silk and paper flowers.

  Inside the box was—

  The boys stared as the funeral parade of two went by. Two, thought Tom. The man and the box, yes, and the thing inside the box.

  The man, his face solemn, balancing the coffin on the top of his head, walked tall into the nearby church.

  “Was—” stuttered Tom. “Was that Pip again, inside that box?”

  “What do you think, lad?” asked Moundshroud.

  “I don’t know,” cried Tom. “I only know I had enough. The night’s been too long. I seen too much. I know everything, gosh, everything!”

  “Yeah!” said everyone, clustering close, shivering.

  “And we’ve got to get home, don’t we? What about Pipkin, where is he? Is he alive or dead? Can we save him? Is he lost? Are we too late? What do we do?”

  “What!” cried everyone, and the same questions flew and burst from their mouths and welled in their eyes. They all took hold of Moundshroud as if to press the answer from him, yank it out his elbows.

  “What do we do?”

  “To save Pipkin? One last thing. Look up in this tree!”

  Dangling from the tree were a dozen Halloween piñatas: devils, ghosts, skulls, witches that swayed in the wind.

  “Break your piñata, boys!”

  Sticks were thrust in their hands.

  “Strike!”

  Yelling, they
struck. The piñatas exploded.

  And from the Skeleton piñata a thousand small skeleton leaves fell in a shower. They swarmed on Tom. The wind blew skeletons, leaves, and Tom away.

  And from the Mummy piñata fell hundreds of frail Egyptian mummies which rushed away into the sky, Ralph with them.

  And so each boy struck, and cracked and let down small vinegar-gnat dancing images of himself so that devils, witches, ghosts shrieked and seized and all the boys and leaves went tumbling through the sky, with Moundshroud laughing after.

  They ricocheted in the final alleys of the town. They banged and skipped like stones across the lake waters—

  —to land rolling in a jumble of knees and elbows on a yet farther hill. They sat up.

  They found themselves in the middle of an abandoned graveyard with no people, no lights. Only stones like immense wedding cakes, frosted with old moonlight.

  And as they watched, Moundshroud, landing light on his feet in a swift quiet motion, bent. He reached for an iron rung in the earth. He pulled. With a shriek of hinges, a trapdoor in the earth gaped wide.

  The boys came to stand at the edge of the big hole.

  “Cat—” stuttered Tom. “Catacombs?”

  “Catacombs.” Moundshroud pointed.

  Stairs led down into a dry dust earth.

  The boys swallowed hard.

  “Is Pip down there?”

  “Go bring him up, boys.”

  “Is he alone down there?”

  “No. Things are with him. Things.”

  “Who goes first?”

  “Not me!”

  Silence.

  “Me” said Tom, at last.

  He put his foot on the first step down. He sank into the earth. He took another step. Then, suddenly, he was gone.

  The others followed.

  They went down the steps in single file and with each step down the dark got darker and with each step down the silence grew more silent and with each step down the night became deep as a well and very black indeed and with each step down the shadows waited and seemed to lean from walls and with each step down strange things seemed to smile at them from the long cave which waited below. Bats seemed to be hanging clustered just over their heads, squeaking so high you could not hear them. Only dogs might hear, have hysterics, jump out of their skins, and run off. With each step down the town got farther away and the earth and all the nice people of the earth. Even the graveyard above seemed far away. They felt lonely. They felt so alone they wanted to cry.