A
Small Favour
I knew trouble was
brewing when Darlene showed up on my porch, dragging her drunken
husband. I shouldn't have opened the door, but I did. Once she
pushed Daryl onto the porch swing, he belched, and his eyes rolled
into his head. His wife folded her arms and gasped, "You gotta help
me, Agnes. He's gone and drunk all the money again."
"Well, what the
hell can I do?"
She wrung her hands,
dropping her eyes. "I thought you could turn him into somethin'-you
know-scare him some."
Shaking my head, I
tried to close the door. Too late. Darlene's size nine blocked it.
"You owe me," she hissed. "Besides, I can spill your dirty
secret."
Butterflies erupted
in my belly, and I caved. Of course, she turned sweet and her eyes
ballooned when I suggested he join the marrow species for a bit. "You
mean a pumpkin?"
I nodded, and the vixen chuckled when I turned my gaze on her
dearest. Holding Daryl's balding head, I keened the ancient verses.
Darlene gulped as the air shimmered, and the rumpled man shrunk into
a ball, turning green, yellow, and finally a grooved orange. The
swing creaked under its enormous weight. Boasting a green stalk,
Daryl excelled as a vegetable, a county fair winner.
"Wow," Darlene
breathed. "Can you leave him like that?"
"No! I'm a
witch,
not a monster.
The spell lasts twelve hours. That's it!"
Leaving Daryl on his
perch, a subdued Darlene followed me inside for coffee. While she
updated me on the town's gossip, my son's excited outburst
carried from the driveway. Halloween, such an exciting time for kids:
trick-or-treating, jack-o'-lanterns...
A cold sweat washed
over me as I rushed outside. My knife-wielding boy beamed at me, his
arm, shoulder-deep in pumpkin guts.
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