By: S. C. Huddleston

Everything will be white soon. Dark leaves of maple, weeks ahead of the oak,
swirl without her recognition to the cracked cobble beneath. The children too, a rouge
response to the nip of the air, meander unseen as she pushes past, for the atonement,
as distant as a pup’s patience, will eclipse her. The petrified phalanges of the Constant
Count, marking each of her steps, are imperceptible to the complacent. Hindrance from
naught, she must move with purpose.
Patch’s persistence.

Traffic spreads its feathers in the breeze and its waves into orbit and the
creatures, indifferent and blind, ebb to and from the proprietors’ reach as she scuttles
forth. Save for the vagabond’s squint, her toils lay hidden and waiting in the dim.

“Samhain is nigh,” whispers a woman’s voice, gruff and low, from where the
ungues of the familiar, black as pitch, protrude.

“Pardon?”

The claws saunter as the refuse shifts in the backdrop. Her beak, crooked and
cloaked in umbra, unveils as she leans. “You’ll never make it,” she chortles, “but you will
learn.” A wry smile reveals an unkind dentition.

“Look, I’m running la—”

“Running, running, running,” the woman chants in a higher pitch, “patchy, patchy,
running, running, running.”

“How do you know my name?”

“The Goddess knows all,” the woman snaps, eyes wide and focused, “one must
only listen when she speaks.”

“Yes, grimalkin” she mutters quieter now, head cocked to the side, “she knows
not of the seed.”

“Lady, I just need to pick up some damn candy so I can get home.”

“I’ve spoken, child! You’re already late, one time less than thrice… He’ll
beg…again for forgiveness, when he’s finished with your consequence.”

“You’re crazy. I don’t have time for this.”

Inhibition ignored. She scurries past the bum witch and her cat.
Patch’s perseverance.

Pickin’s are slender, the eleventh hour for such a task, and the unnatural glow of
fluorescent tubes grips tightly and strains. Words of the unworthy trespass in the mind
and trickle slowly until unconsciously the till rings confection and sticks that offer the
quickest response, with one faint line or two. Naught to existence, hinderance meddles
and flees.

---

Lies linger in the olfactory, wisps of embers and a trace of sweet. The familiar
again appears, clinging to the bare bones of Magnolia who surrendered a dress of pink
and white to the blades some time ago. Shoo, she thinks as it watches her hurried
approach past the tree and up the steps, content and knowing what awaits her inside. A
farmer of straw, clad with twine and plaid, dangles from a screw beneath the glowing
exterior light. The children meander no more, for their aim is true and the crinkle of their
cases, where cotton used to be, exacerbates the tremble in her wrist and the jingle of
her keys. Already late…. She breathes deeply and leans into her punishment.
Knocker and knob of brass, the red door swings. Stench cuts the lie from her
nostril and guilt gazes, head down while his posterior sways. The puppy pushed and
painted, the soft beige carpet beneath, a darker color. Too late, indeed.

“Trick or treat,” says one behind the crinkles.

The goblins, ghouls, and maleficence of Autumn’s birth pull the sun aground, for the veil
between realms is at its thinnest.

---

The faint lines respond quickly as two.
Arrives in July, Patch’s pride, at seven pounds and two ounces.

-END-