A Day for the Dead

(A Magical Midlife Librarian story, featuring Rosalind's first Halloween on Atlantis. This occurs after Fate of the Fae Library and may contain mild spoilers.)

“Do I really have to dress up for this?” Henry asked for the fifth time.

“Yes, of course,” I snapped, putting the final bobby pins into my massive wig.  “It’s Halloween.”

I stepped back and looked at myself in the hallway mirror.  With my white flowing gown and cylindrical bouffant wig with white zigzag stripes, I was a perfect bride of Frankenstein.

Henry stood behind me with his arms folded across his chest.  The look would have been intimidating if he hadn’t painted his face green and didn’t have bolts sticking out of his neck.  The olive suit jacket didn’t hurt either.

I giggled.  “You look great!”

“I look stupid,” he growled.

“It’s festive.  And look, we’re a matching couple.”

His stance relaxed slightly at the word “couple.”  “I suppose we are.”  He drew me into his arms for a kiss.

As his lips brushed mine, I would have preferred to have deepened it into something more intimate, but I didn’t want my cheeks to get smeared with green streaks.  I settled on a gentle kiss, then pulled away.

“C’mon,” I said.  “The guests are about to arrive.”

“Kids,” Henry corrected as we trudged our way down the branchy staircase from my treehouse apartment. “You don’t have to elevate them by making them sound special.”

But to me, today was special.  It was my first Halloween as the Librarian of Atlantis.  Most fae didn’t celebrate the holiday, but that was the beauty of running the library.  I got to decide on programming, and I decided there was no better way to get into the holiday spirit than inviting fae children over to trick-or-treat and read a scary story.

I could have run the event on my own, but Henry had offered to help.  He’d been busy for weeks with Stronghold work, and he didn’t want to pass up a chance to spend time together.  I was grateful since both Wallace and Agatha generally made themselves scarce during the children’s events.

“You know, the monster’s name wasn’t actually Frankenstein in the original book,” I told Henry.  “It was the name of the scientist who created the monster.”

“I’m not sure what it says about our relationship that you want me to dress up as a monster.”

“I don’t think you’re an actual monster. It’s just pretend for one evening.”

He eyed my ridiculous wig. “And that hairstyle is what monsters go for?”

“I don’t know.  You tell me.”

He gave me a mischievous smile as we reached the ground floor hallway.  “You could wear whatever you like or nothing at all. It doesn’t matter to me.”

I blushed but had no time to respond as a branch separated from the wall and tapped me on the shoulder. Through our mental connection, Iggy, the sentient ash tree that housed the Library of Atlantis, was telling me that the kids were arriving.

“It’s showtime,” I said. “You know what to do.”

He gave me a bow and then disappeared out of sight.  As a sasquatch, he could go invisible at will.  Even when I asked him to do it, it still spooked me a little.

Perfect for Halloween.

I trotted to the front entrance and placed my palm on the interlocking branches that made up the wall. The branches retreated for me, creating an archway to the outside that revealed a group of children in adorable costumes. I wasn’t sure what to expect since many fae didn’t dress up for Halloween, but they did not disappoint. The kids had dressed up in all sorts of outfits: some more traditional like witches or princesses, other with a magic-oriented bent as dryads or wolf shifters. One girl in the back row had painted a cardboard box to transform into a walking television set.  They all cheered when they saw me, their parents standing at their sides.

“Trick or treat!”

“Welcome!” I said in my best Transylvania voice.  I admit, I had no idea what the bride of Frankenstein sounded like.  I was just winging it here.  “Come in.  Your treat awaits.”

They all shuffled past me, looking around curiously with their cloth sacks held open.

“Where’s the sugar?” a pixie dressed as a wolf shifter demanded.

Henry popped into view next to him.  “Right here,” he said.

The kids screamed in delight, although the television girl was startled enough to run behind her mother’s back.  Her fear quickly faded, however, when Henry began dumping two huge handfuls of candy into each kid’s sack.

As the first batch retreated into the atrium, another wave of fae children arrived.  Henry and I repeated our little routine with them.  I recognized a familiar face at the back of the second group: a young woman with cream-colored braids who escorted a dozen children dressed as different colored crayons.

“Ulyssa!” I greeted the new sasquatch ambassador.  “So great you could make it!”

She gestured to the rainbow-colored crayons.  “And I brought a bunch of new faces to the library for the first time.”

Most of the sasquatch children glanced inside the branchy entrance room in awe, except for a single girl, the orange crayon, who harrumped in the rear.  As the others eagerly got their candy from Henry, she refused to open her sack.

“C’mon, Clementine,” Ulyssa coaxed.  “You love sweets.”

“I don’t want any,” she said, turning her back on Henry.

“It’s okay,” I told a concerned Ulyssa and a disgruntled Henry.  “She can just go ahead and get ready for story time.”

After all the kids got their candy, we all settled down in the library’s open-floor atrium.  The kids sat cross-legged, munching on their treats, as I pulled out a picture book adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  It had been translated into verse, which the kids loved, and contained beautiful illustrations of the entire adventure of the headless horseman.  Most kids had chocolate hanging from their mouths at the climax when Ichabod ran across the bridge for his life with the headless horseman throwing his pumpkin head after him.

After I finished that story and a quick explanation of how some humans celebrated Halloween, I invited the fae adults to share ghost stories with the children.  While Ulyssa and several other fae told stories from their magical tribes, Henry and I passed out apple cider to all the rapt children.  My favorite tale of the evening was Ulyssa’s story about a lonely spirit who haunts the sasquatch on nights with a red moon, but only wants to play, not harm, the children.

All in all, the evening ended way too quickly, but I counted it as a wild success.  The kids and adults both chatted excitedly as they made their way out of the library. I was in the process of saying goodbye to a centaur boy dressed as a hippo when Ulyssa ran up to me.

“Have you seen Clementine?” she asked.  “The sasquatch girl in the orange outfit?”

I frowned.  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her since she came in the library.  I didn’t give her an apple cider during the second half of the show.”

Henry overheard the commotion and walked over to us.  “Is that onery sasquatch girl missing?”

Ulyssa nodded.  “She’s been having a rough go of it.  Her grandfather died this past month, and she adored him.”

“Poor thing,” I said.

“She probably turned invisible,” Ulyssa said.  “She could be anywhere.”

I patted her on the shoulder.  “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find her.”

“Yes, but I have to take the others home.”  Ulyssa gestured to the other sasquatch children, restless in their crayon outfits near the front entrance.  “Their families are waiting for them.”

“You go ahead,” Henry said. “Come back once the others are safely back home.”

Ulyssa looked a little uncertain but eventually took his advice.  She was the last one out the door before the branches resealed the library shut.

Henry turned to me. “Ulyssa did have a point.  A sasquatch that doesn’t want to be found is almost impossible to find.”

“Maybe in ordinary places, but the Library of Atlantis isn’t ordinary.”  I stuck my hand on the nearest wall. With my magical connection to the tree strong, I mentally asked Iggy if she would search around the library for the sasquatch girl.

Iggy gave me her firm reassurance she’d be able to find the girl.

“Any luck?” Henry asked as I pulled my hand away.

“Give Iggy some time,” I said.  “She’ll have to wait until the girl starts moving around or does something else to feel her presence.”

Sure enough, about ten minutes later as I was reshelving a bunch of Halloween books from the atrium Halloween display, Iggy’s branch waved me toward the second floor.  Henry followed me, a few books still in my hands, as we approached a set of bookcases Iggy had moved from their ordinary position so that they touched each other in a rough diamond pattern.  The shelves shook as something rattled against them.

Iggy had created a bookish prison.

“Let me out!” a girl’s voice wailed.  Clementine.

“Not until you show yourself,” I said.

“I don’t want to,” she said, her voice shaking.  “I don’t care about your stupid stories or your stupid library.”

“Don’t you want to go home?” Henry asked.

“No!”

Henry made a move toward the shelves.  “I can drag her out.”

I held out a hand to stop him.  This was clearly a girl in pain.

“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” I said.  “I lost my grandmother too.”

The shaking shelves stopped. “You did?”

“Yes.  She was the librarian before me.”

“Do you miss her?”

I paused, deciding on honestly.  “Actually, I never got to meet her.”

“Then you don’t know anything about how I feel,” she snapped.

“Well, actually, I kinda do. You see, I also lost my mom and dad.”

She gasped.  “Both of them?”

“Not at the same time. But yeah, they’re both gone.”

To my surprise, the orange crayon outfit popped into view between the cracks of the library shelves. Big bright eyes filled with tears looked back at me.  “Aren’t you sad?”

“Of course.  I’ll always miss them.”

Her lower lip quivered. “I want Pappy back.”

I glanced down at the top book in my hand.  It was about the Day of the Dead.

“I find comfort knowing how other people deal with loss.”  I showed her the brightly colored picture book with the sugar skulls on it. “Did you know that some people celebrate the dead on the day after Halloween?”

She sniffed, intrigued by the book.  “No.”

“Here,” I held it out for her.  “You can borrow this and read it.”

Branches parted the shelves so Clementine could squeeze through.  She tentatively took the book in her hands.

“This looks so weird.”

“It will feel foreign to you because it’s different.  But think about it: until recently, not a lot of fae understood the sasquatch.  But as we learn about each other’s lives, it feels less weird.  And we understand how alike we are despite our differences.”

She flipped through the book, looking at the pictures.  She stopped at a page with a bright photo of an altar surrounded in bright marigolds and framed pictures.  “What’s that?”

“It’s called an ofrenda.”

She read the passage about them, her eyes shining with each passing word. “I’d like to make one for Pappy.”

“I think you should.”

I led her downstairs, where she read more of the passages in the book.  By the time Ulyssa arrived, we were waiting for her at the entrance.  Clementine was engrossed in the Day of the Dead book and had a sack full of chocolate and candy to take home.

Ulyssa blinked.  “You already found her?”

Henry puffed his chest out with pride.  “Rose is the Librarian of Atlantis for a reason.”

“Clementine checked out that book,” I said.  “She’s supposed to bring it back in three weeks, but she can honestly keep it longer if she wants.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her parents.”  Ulyssa looked bemused as she motioned for the now docile Clementine to follow her. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” I said, waving as she led Clementine up the hill and out of sight.

Henry threw an arm around me.  “I take it all back.  It’s not a stupid holiday after all.”

“What made you change your mind?” I teased.  “The candy? The horror stories?”

“None of that,” he said, looking deeply in my eyes.  “Just you, Rose.”

This time I didn’t mind that I got green makeup all over my face as we settled in for a long, promising kiss.

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