He spits fake vampire teeth into his hand. “I’m Hall,” he says jovially, giving me a wave that brings his fright factor down a few pegs. His Party City bat wings flap. “Who’re you?”
I rear back, aghast. “You’re not Hall.”
“Am so. Hall O’ween. I’m the Holiday Spirit!” He peers around. “This is a large bathroom.”
“It isn’t a bathroom. This is my living room.”
“Did you not summon me? Go into a bathroom, lock the door, switch off the lights, spin around three times in front of a mirror while chanting ‘Bloody Mary’?”
I smack my forehead. “She sent the wrong one.”
“It’s the lemon poppy seed muffin part that most folks forget,” he goes on. “That’s your sacrificial offering! Never forget the muffin. Now my pal Bruce is totally different, he only accepts cranberry, but you don’t want to summon Bruce. He has six heads and his skin is transparent, so you can see all the blood lava.”
The information that someone can beckon this particular Holiday Spirit merely by presenting a muffin to a mirror while chanting “Bloody Mary” opens an endless stream of doors in my head.The way I’ve been accessing holiday magic has been through the record player, but it’s staggering to contemplate how many other methods might be out there. What if someone in Tallahassee is watching a VHS tape ofWeird Sciencethat they stole from a Blockbuster in 2002, then pause it at 4:44 a.m. exactly, and due to the rules of National Science Fiction Day, I am teleported to that person’s bedroom so they can obtain the perfect woman? There are hundreds of holidays, each probably with their own weird trip wires and access points. It’s only down to sheer coincidence (and Mariah Carey) that I metmyHall.
“There’s been a misunderstanding.”
But Hall O’ween isn’t listening. He’s helping himself to my charcuterie board, dipping grapes in goat cheese. “So, what can I do you for? Ex-boyfriend need a dose of what he’s got coming, maybe? I passed a 7-Eleven on my way here; we can hit it up for toilet paper and go festoon some trees.” He rubs his hands together. “Where’s your nearest cemetery?”
“Not that I wouldn’t love to toilet-paper trees with you, but I’m searching for a more Christmassy holiday spirit who also goes by Hall,” I explain. “Can you help me find him?”
“Oh, honey, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that.” He touches one of my throw pillows, turning it black, with a glittery purple skull and crossbones design. The air is pungent with the scent of candy corn. “There are literally thousands of Christmassy holiday spirits.” He fills an ornamental bowl with rubber spiders, then flicks his black-painted fingernails at a lamp. It transforms into a gnarled wizard’s staff with a round, cracked glass globe at the top, and a live crow on top of that. “Kind of a basic lot, if you ask me.”
“Here, I’ve got a picture!” I run to grab one (of forty-three)scrapbooks Hall left behind, brandishing it under his nose. A Polaroid of a very smug Hall and a disconcerted mall Santa gleams on the page. Hall was giving him tips on how to look convincing.
“Oh,thatguy. He’s been super bumming everybody out lately. His magic stopped working, so now he just kind of drifts around, all gloomy-like.” He makes an exaggerated sad face.
I lower the scrapbook. “His magic stopped working?”
Hall O’ween shrugs. “Happens sometimes, if you’re having personal issues. I’ll go fetch him for you. Don’t forget to leave a jack-o’-lantern on your doorstep on Halloween night to ward off bad luck! Or not! I don’t know what you’re into!”
He throws a bat-winged arm across the lower half of his face, spins, and vanishes in a puff of acrid smoke and a “MUAH HA HA!” A plastic cauldron filled with Reese’s Pumpkins rattles in his place.
Hello?another voice echoes three seconds later, and my chest tightens in response.
“Hall!”
But he isn’t here.
I analyze the golden pool of light slanting from the record player onto the carpet, the dials waffling back and forth of their own accord.
I twist the volume knob as loud as it’ll go.
A low voice crackles through the speakers.“Hear me?”
“Hall?” All the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “I can hear you!” I grab the record player on both sides, tunneling gaze fixed on the silver Kinollghy logo.
“Can hear you, too,” the static replies.
My heart is a hummingbird, beating so quick that it hurts. “Where are you? Are you down here or up there? Can you see me?”
“I’m somewhere in between.”
The line cuts briefly, blipping betweensomewhereandbetween, but it’s Hall’s voice pouring out, when I didn’t think I’d ever hear it again. My hands tremble.
“Are you all right?”
A few beats, and then:“No. I learned how to have a will of my own down on earth, but I don’t know how to make it stop.”
