“She said you would like that one,” he said as he shoveled a bite of cake in.
Moni handed out little plastic cups of red punch, the dye staining all our upper lips as we grabbed our buckets to go trick-or-treating.
“You sure one of us shouldn’t go with them?” Mom asked, opening the front door and rubbing her arms.
“Nah. They aren’t going to go too far. Right, kids?” Dad said—a statement, not a question for us.
“Mr. Baek, can I use your bathroom?” Oliver whined, clenching his legs together. He was nearly a year older than me but smaller. I always thought his skin, paler than the moon, looked like tissue paper.
“You bet, buddy. Over to your left there. And call me Patrick.”
“Patrick!” Oliver called as he raced away.
“Anyone else?”
We set out together, a determined clan as the dusk settled on the neighborhood. We weren’t more than four houses in when Marlow cried that she had lost her “ladybug ears.”
“Antennas. Ladybugs don’t have ears,” I corrected her.
She frowned as Topher and Greta laughed behind their green gloved hands. Each dressed as a dinosaur, their fabric tails swished behind them.
“Help me find them!” she whined, stomping her feet and crossing her arms.
“Really, Marlow?” I said with annoyance.
Sawyer tilted his mask up on top of his head as he knelt. “We can look on the way back, Marlow.”
“No. I need to find them now. I’m not a ladybug without it.”
Her eyes went limpid; I could see her gathering up the tears.
I sighed. “Let’s go look. You guys go ahead. We’ll catch up.”
Topher and Greta waddled away but Oliver and Sawyer stayed put.
“I’ll help find them,” Oliver squeaked, his voice high and almost alarming.
We backtracked to the first house. Unsuccessful in our search, Marlow began to whine again.
“Marlow, we’ll have to go without them,” I said, frustrated with the mere four pieces of candy shuffling around in my plastic pumpkin pail.
“I will not go on without them,” she pouted.
“Fine. Then you can stay here.” I turned around. My face suddenly felt itchy from the paint. I scratched my cheek, only to find orange paint under my nails.
“Sorry, Marlow,” Sawyer said quietly, following me. “C’mon. This way you can get more candy.”
“I’ll find them myself!”
She shot through the tall arborvitaes that ran along the yard of the nearest house, her red plush back disappearing.
“Marlow!” I called.
We ran after her, darting between the trees. The windows of each passing house glowed more as the street was getting darker. I began to imagine, for the briefest of moments, that I had lost her. That my finding her in the woods was all for want, and she had disappeared—returned to wherever she’d come from.
Where did you go, Marlow?
Another group of trick-or-treaters bustled past us. A few shrieks made me jump as they ran up to the next house.
“Where is she?” I asked out loud with panic.
“There! Under that streetlamp,” Oliver cried out.
I looked to where his small hand was pointing. A block down, her tiny figure was crouched down by the gutter.
“Marlow! Stay right there. We’re coming to get you!”
I was breathless when we caught up to her. But she didn’t move, a huddled mound in the street.
“Don’t run off like that!”
“Are you okay?” Sawyer asked.
She rose slowly and turned around. Her head still bent, she held her hands out. It was hard to make out at first. Shiny and dark, a beak glinted in the moonlight.
A dead crow.
Her hand cupped its black head, lopsided and lifeless.
