‘Weeelll, you’re always a pickle but tonight, Elechi Ada McKenzie, you are going to be the witchiest witch of them all!’ She pulled the fabric off her arm and it opened out to be the most detailed witch costume Alex had ever seen.
‘Oh, oh, oh, oh. I looove it!’ Ellie looked like she was going to hyperventilate as she pulled the dress from Sylvie’s arms and held it against her. ‘Look, Dad, I’m going to be the witchiest witch. And it’s got pockets!’ And it did – she had different-coloured pockets with outsized stitches all over the skirt.
‘You certainly are.’ Alex grinned down at her and then mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ over Ellie’s head.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sylvie.’ Ellie was still quite breathless, her brown eyes shining with joy.
‘They’re for putting your charms and spell stuff in. We’ve got snails and frogs and all sorts, just pretend ones though, andthere’s more,’ Sam said, a proud grin on his face. ‘Mum’s made you a hat, and a wand and even, you’re not going to guess…’
‘What? What? What?’
‘She made you real witch’s warts, look!’ Sam leant into his mum’s basket, rummaging so hard that she nearly lost her footing.
‘Easy there, big guy. Here they are.’ Sylvie triumphantly pulled out some prosthetic warts from the crevice of the basket. ‘You learn a lot in the theatre – it’s not all pink and white tutus, you know. Now you go and slip that dress on, although it should fit, and when you come back downstairs, and only after you’ve eaten some vegetable soup, then we can do your make-up and then we can go…’
‘Trick ’n’ treating,’ the children screeched in unison.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What’s Sam going to be?
‘I’m going to be an evil vampire, mmwhahahaha,’ said Sam in a very evil vampire voice. ‘Mine is in here. I’ve got a proper swishy cloak and fangs and Mum’s going to draw blood running down my face and everything.’
‘Ha, you’re going look so scary.’ Ellie giggled.
‘He is. Now you two little ghouls go and get changed while we heat this soup up. Is that also in your magic Halloween basket?’ Alex couldn’t believe what Sylvie had achieved in a few short days; if nothing else that basket was like Mary Poppins’s bag and Sylvie herself very definitely had magical properties.
‘It is indeed. Veg before candy, them’s the rules.’
If Alex thought he had been finished off by pockets then he was mistaken; his heart continued to melt many times as the evening progressed. The first time was after the children had noisily slurped their soup and Sylvie painted their little upturned faces, adding warts and blood as desired, Alex wordlessly changing the water time and time again as it becamea green-brown murk. Watching them all in his kitchen he was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of warmth, of satisfaction with life. And then, he realized, this was what family felt like.
Chapter Twenty-three
As they wandered around the village Alex could see that trick-or-treating was fully embraced in Penmenna, with lots of the older couples, their own children having long flown the nest, making specially iced cakes, biscuits or candies for the kids when they knocked. Huge efforts had gone into the decorations with houses of horror popping up all over the village; badly sawn-off legs littered driveways and you could barely move for spiders, skeletons and elaborately carved pumpkins.
Sam’s evil vampire bravado had a bit of a wobble once they left the house although Ellie was happily shrieking, ‘Boo!’ at everyone they walked past until Alex reined her in a bit. Sam appeared overwhelmed by the whole thing. Alex didn’t blame him, it was very full on. But slowly, slowly, as Sam watched, mouth agape and standing very closely to Sylvie, he began to throw himself into the party atmosphere; his initial fear turning to shrieks of joy the scarier things got. It wasn’t long until he too was racing door to door with Ellie, knocking and rawr-ing and comparing the treasures they received. Every now and again he would jump up and down with excitement and grin at his mum. Sylvie’s face was so flooded with pride and love it made Alex go a bit swooshy inside as well.
One house even had an apple-bobbing competition in its front garden. With Ellie and Sam struggling a little bit, they pulled Sylvie down on the ground next to them so she could show them how to do it. Alex watched as she knelt over the bigbarrel and with her hands stretched out behind her back – for balance, she said – managed to get an apple first time.
‘Wow, Mum, and you don’t even have vampire fangs.’
‘Oh, but she does,’ piped up the lady whose garden they were in. ‘Don’t you, dear? We’ll be watching again tonight. We checked the listings and were so pleased to see it was on again.’
Sylvie removed the apple from her mouth as she smiled up at them.
‘That’s ever so sweet of you.’
‘You don’t really have fangs, do you, Mum? Does she?’ Sam’s new-found fearlessness took a knock as he worried that his mum might be an actual real-life vampire.
‘You are both very pale, you could both be!’ Ellie said, nodding seriously in her witch’s hat, helpful as ever.
‘No, no, of course I don’t have real fangs.’ Sylvie leant across, still on her knees, and plopped a kiss on his head, which he immediately shook off. ‘Mrs Murray is talking about a ballet I was in – it had vampires, but we were only pretending. Now, are you two going to have a go? I bet both of you could get one with a bit of practice. Whoa, no, Ellie, don’t just bash the water with your head, you’ll hurt yourself… Ooh, and drown the rest of us with your splashing!’
‘It’s always such a treat. Your mother, God rest her, used to let us know whenever they were showing one of your productions, and they’re all so beautiful. You have such poise, dear.’
Sylvie scrambled to her feet. ‘Not so much any more, Mrs Murray, my life is all scraped knees and a hundred and one ways with pasta these days. But it was good fun, that production.’
‘What production?’ Alex was desperate to know.
