Spooky Stories: Halloween Vault 2020 -2021

Being the Witch (ComeAndSitWithUs)

Profile:   comeandsitwithus

Prompt Title: The Unsaid Story

Prompt: Clothes make a statement, costumes tell a story -- Mason Cooley. Choose your Halloween costume and tell us the story. (500 words)

Word count: 493

Being the Witch 

It's Halloween night and the cobbled high street is full of laughing, lively people out for a good time. Glowing pumpkins and strings of rubber bats decorate the long expanses of bar and restaurant windows. Children in padded coats and with painted faces walk hand-in-hand with adults who pause every now and again to take a photo of their cute darling. 

It's quite chilly, but I don't feel it much. I've got a few layers of thermal underwear on under this shiny black dress. The wig and hat should keep my head warm. Only my hands, stained green with dye, on the knotty hickory of the broomstick might get a little cold. 

I take one last look at my make-upped face in the van's side mirror and an involuntary shudder runs through me. 

Even after all these years, after all the times I've been her, she still terrifies me. 

I have to force myself not to look away. 

"Show time!" Nigel says, and zips out of the side street where we're parked in the monkey costume he's getting a tad too paunchy for. The wings on his back shiver as he plonks down the donation caldron with the words "Wytham Public Library Fund" on the side, and yowls like he's dropped it on his foot. A few groups of people slow.  

"Make way!" he shouts. "Make way for the Wonderful Wicked Witch of the West!"

That's my cue. I throw the smoke bomb and step out into the curling red plumes that quickly dissipate into the night air. "So, this is Wytham!" I cackle. "Anybody seen a girl with a little dog?" 

Although it was difficult, I've studied Margret Hamilton's acting carefully. When I hunch and pace around, point my broom, bug out my eyes, grin, or crouch down and beckon a kid hiding behind its mother to come closer, I'm a dead ringer for the best Hollywood character actress ever. Nige and I've done charity performances like this for over ten years now, and each year we get more requests than we can handle. 

People say I'm so realistic, it gives them the creeps.

We gather a crowd in no time. 

Smiles of recognition and nostalgia decorate the faces of adults. The kids are smarter. They stay well away from me, only stepping forward long enough to throw the coin an adult has pressed into their hand into the cauldron before scampering away. 

I don't blame them in the least. 

You see, the Witch isn't just a Halloween costume for me. She's real. She's the best embodiment of all the unnamed terror that's swirled under the surface and destroyed my life for so many years. 

And that's why, every Halloween, I turn my face into hers. I become what I fear most and force myself to see through her eyes.

So that I know the Witch is not nearly as terrifying as I think she is.