Jack O' Lanterns, Moonlight, and Magic
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

Chapter One: Spirit of Halloween

I've often been mistaken for a girl, unlike the rest of my family, I've somehow inherited my mothers strawberry blonde hair and her porcelain skin tone. My frame is also kind of slender, slender arms, and a narrow waist and a bit too wide in the hips, I also tend to keep my hair long, often I wear it pulled back in a low ponytail. My name is Willow Rowan Whitethorn. I was named Willow, because according to my mom who is a self proclaimed green witch, she had a vision of a willow tree growing by a river when she found that she was pregnant with me. 

The middle name Rowan was chosen to honor my godfather who was also my uncle. And the surname Whitethorn is the family name. I live in an area of Yazoo County that is called “The Haunted Hollow” by the locals. My clan, that is to say the Whitethorn family is scattered all about the hollow. I mean, I live just a piece up the road from my cousin Cerridwen Circe Whitethorn. A piece is about a quarter of a mile in Southern Lexicon. 

Of all my cousins, aunts, and uncles, I'm closest to Aunt Pandora and Uncle Rowan. I sometimes help Aunt Pandora and her daughter Cerridwen in their small, tiny herb garden and when it comes harvest the vegetables from their fields. I also help Uncle Rowan with his many household chores. For my efforts I often find my pockets freshly lined with silver. 

It was also Aunt Pandora and Uncle Rowan who first urged my mother and father to enroll me at Benton Academy. I think their reason was because they saw a spark in me and they even offered to help cover part of the cost of the tuition. Soon other members of the Whitethorn clan took up the call and decided to pitch in what they could afford too. And so my seventh grade year at Benton Junior High School was to be the last year I spent in the Public School System and my current year the eighth grade was to the first one I spent attending a private school.

Anyway, my story starts around the last part of October. The blistering hot, and humid dog days of August had slipped on by, and the first taste of Autumn that normally comes around late September had developed into a period of time we southerners call “Autumn Proper” ; the days were shorter and the nights were longer. The air was cooler. The leaves on the trees had turned bright hues of orange and red.

It was on one such afternoon, about a few days before Halloween that I found myself riding my bike down the red and brown paved brick main street of Benton. Now, like most smallish, I say smallish cause Benton was starting to grow, but like most things in Mississippi growth in both commerce and population comes slowly to the once small hamlets that have grown from hamlets to villages, and from villages villages to towns and from towns to cities. And while in it's two hundred and forty year history, Benton had grown from it's tiny seedling start as sleepy river front settlement that had been settled in a 'S' bend of the Big Black River, to humble river port hamlet, to bustling river port, to now a somewhat thriving city with both rail and river connection, it still retained some of the characteristics of it's early pioneer days.  You know back when Mississippi was the just admitted into the Union.

Such as many of the older sections of town, sections of town that had been built by the first settlers to this area, still retained brick paved streets, a trolley, yes, you heard me right a trolley, still ran through these older sections, mainly Croft Street, Wilson Street, Madison, Washington, Jefferson, and Custard.
And of course the whole length of main street that was the beating heart of Benton. And most of the town's businesses were located on Main Street as well. Well most of the mom and pop owned businesses. The big box retailers and fast food chains were all located along the highway.

Anyway as I rode my bike through the heart of the business district, I noticed that the concrete sidewalks were almost deserted. And both sides of the street seemed almost void of cars. Normally on a Saturday afternoon both sides of the street would be filled to the brim with cars and the sidewalks on both sides of the street would be crowded with people. Even the parking lot of Sunflower, the friendly neighborhood grocery store, seemed empty. Even the town's post office seemed void of foot traffic.

None of this though seemed to really bother me in the least bit as I had other more pressing concerns that were gnawing at me. Halloween you see was only a week and a half away and I still needed to get a costume. And my choices of where to buy a costume were very limited.  You see in Benton you had only a handful of shops that bothered to sell Halloween Costumes, the first I could name off the top of my head was Potter Mercantile, a large general store that was the mainstay of downtown. One that had been owned and operated by the Potter family for five or six generations at this point. 

Up next was Super 10, a local chain of discount stores that were all owned and operated by the Burns Family. The Burns family operated twelve stores in total. Five were located right here in Mississippi, Five were located across the Mississippi River in Louisiana and two were located in Alabama. Up next was Rose's, another local discount store that had moved into the old Fred's Dollar Store building right after the company had shuttled. The closest one to me was Potter Mercantile, the furthest one way was Rose's. Of all those, I figured the most logical place to start my search would be Potter Mercantile, though I was sure the picking would slim.

I was just about to make up my mind when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a new store. Where a few weeks ago there had been nothing more than an old, empty cotton warehouse was now a brand new store that I've never seen before. It seemed the old warehouse had been given a new coat of paint. Instead of the old, fading gray color it had been freshly painted a glossy black. The old, broken windows had been replaced with new windows and the once trash filled parking lot that was a minefield of broken beer, gin, whiskey, and soda bottles had been swept clean as a whistle.

And over the door a large, orange sign had been put up. In the center of the sign were the words. “Spirit Of Halloween. And above the words was a picture of a skeleton phantom wearing a tattered black robe with a tattered pointed hood pointing upward. Two orbs of glowing reddish light seemed to burn in the hollowed out socket that once housed his eyes.

“Wow.” I said blushing as I brought my bike to a halt. This caused a wave of gravel, sand, and dirt to spray in all directions. 

“This place is insane,” I said as I dismounted my bike and pushed it toward a nearby bike rack. I quickly pushed the bike into the rack and secured it with a good length of chain and a padlock. My bike was quickly one of my most prized possessions. It was a powder blue Schwinn with a wire basket in front and one in back. Sure it was a bit on the girly side but that did not bother me a bit. I mean I was androgynous enough to pass for a girl. And given the way I was dressed today, jeans, sneakers, and a pink Team Realtree Hoodie I could easily pass for a tomboy.

“Well...” I said reaching up and removing the pastel blue bike helmet from my head. I placed it in the wire basket and smiled. “Let's see what we can find.”

And with that I started to walk toward the newly painted doors of the old warehouse. Little did I know at the time that I was going to set into motion a series of events that would fall like dominoes.