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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Halloween Queen

by

20121022

Imo­gene stood in front of the floor length mir­ror. Her dress glim­mered in the dim lights of her bed­room. She mar­velled at her cos­tume, a white tu­tu made of a 'shim­mery' satin. The bodice was dec­o­rat­ed with sil­ver em­broi­dery and the skirt flared all around her as though she wore a cloud on her waist. She was a bal­le­ri­na. She had asked the seam­stress who made her cos­tume to make her look like the White Swan from Swan Lake and they had done just that.

"Imo­gene, hur­ry up, your dad wants to drop you off so he can get back home in time for his show," called her moth­er from down­stairs. Ugh, she thought. They were rush­ing her be­cause of some TV show. This was a spe­cial night!

"Just a sec­ond!" screeched Imo­gene in a tone not be­fit­ting of a gen­tle bal­le­ri­na. She turned to her best friend for ap­proval. He sat on her bed, look­ing at her cu­ri­ous­ly. "What do you think, Spot?" she asked him. Spot cocked his head to one side, caus­ing his brown fuzzy ears to flop back and forth. Spot was a Bea­gle with a brown face, white body and a black spot right on the mid­dle of his back. He gave a bark of ap­proval, wag­ging his tail, and with that, she knew she was ready.

She bound­ed down the stairs tak­ing them two at a time. Her white bal­let flats al­lowed her all this agili­ty. If she had worn a cos­tume that had re­quired heels, she would have been in trou­ble. Her par­ents were wait­ing for her at the bot­tom of the stairs. They smiled at her in her cos­tume. She smoothed her hair and felt the bun at the back of her head, mak­ing sure it was in place. She was so ex­cit­ed for this par­ty.

"Have fun," her moth­er said as she gave Imo­gene a kiss on the cheek.

"You're gonna win Hal­loween Queen in that get-up, hun. You look beau­ti­ful," said her fa­ther as she fol­lowed him out­side to the car. "I hope so," she mur­mured to her­self as they pulled out of the dri­ve­way.A glow­ing, full moon presided over the night, as was on­ly fit­ting for All Hal­low's Eve. It hung in the sky like a crys­tal ball, a glis­ten­ing orb, sur­round­ed by count­less stars, pinned like be­jew­elled brooches adorn­ing the sky. Imo­gene glit­tered un­der the light cast by the in­hab­i­tants of the night sky as she stepped dain­ti­ly out of the car. She waved good­bye to her fa­ther who re­mind­ed her to be safe and to keep her phone with her at all times. She was stand­ing on the path­way that led to the man­sion where the All Hal­low's Eve Ball would be thrown. Oth­er teenagers were mak­ing their way to the front en­trance. The neat­ly man­i­cured front lawn was lined with jack o' lanterns. Every­where Imo­gene turned, the carved pump­kin-faces smiled, jeered and frowned at her, gleam­ing with the light of the can­dles placed in­side of them. They il­lu­mi­nat­ed the front lawn. Imo­gene stood star­ing at them, mes­merised. She loved these sorts of dec­o­ra­tions. They were so...

"Ge­nie!" squealed a voice. Imo­gene jumped and then gave a sigh of re­lief. Lo and be­hold, it was Yvette, her best friend, dressed as a pump­kin. An or­ange, felt sack ta­pered at her neck, arms and legs and had been stuffed so that her cos­tume bal­looned all about her. She wore green stock­ings and shoes (roots, Imo­gene sup­posed) and on her head, there was an or­ange hat with the green stalk of the pump­kin stuck to the top. Imo­gene pulled her friend in­to an awk­ward hug. She could not get with­in two feet of Yvette her­self. She re­leased her friend and the two of them head­ed up the path, chat­ting an­i­mat­ed­ly.

PAR­TY TIME

As they passed through the en­trance in­to the main ball­room, Imo­gene gasped. The ball­room had been trans­formed to look like some­thing out of a haunt­ed manor. Fake skele­tons cov­ered in sil­ver cob­webs lay in the cor­ners. The walls were lined in red vel­vet. The hard­wood floor gleamed. There was a cof­fin on one side of the room and a huge jack o' lantern hung over the ball­room act­ing as a chan­de­lier, with four faces carved in­to the sides fac­ing the four car­di­nals. The pump­kin bore hap­py, sad, an­gry and scared ex­pres­sions that lit up the ball­room with flash­ing or­ange, yel­low and red lights. The dance floor was crowd­ed with peo­ple from Imo­gene's school. Imo­gene gazed at the dif­fer­ent cos­tumes. Some peo­ple were house­hold items; some were char­ac­ters from movies and books. There were lo­cal char­ac­ters: soucouyants, la­ga­hoos and douens. She and Yvette shuf­fled through the sea of par­ty-go­ers, mak­ing their way to the food ta­ble when the red boa of a girl walk­ing past whipped them both right in the face.

"Well, if it isn't Imo-geek and the Yeti," sneered the boa's own­er Mali­cia, in her ear-split­ting voice. She was dressed as a show­girl in a red Can-can styled dress and wore red heels. The syco­phants flank­ing Mali­cia laughed spite­ful­ly. Imo­gene rolled her eyes and con­tin­ued to­wards the food ta­ble. Mali­cia tried to block her with an­oth­er wave of her red boa.

"And don't de­lude your­self in­to think­ing you'll win Hal­loween Queen," said Mali­cia, glar­ing down at Imo­gene, "I'm a shoo-in." Imo­gene ig­nored her taunts and grab­bing Yvette's hand, she moved away from Mali­cia and her two id­i­ot­ic friends. Mali­cia stalked away, her heels clack­ing on the hard­wood floor.

"For­get about that, Imo­gene," said Yvette sooth­ing­ly, "No one ac­tu­al­ly likes her.... They put up with her... to get in­vit­ed to par­ties." Yvette was talk­ing be­tween mouth­fuls. She had an aloo pie in one hand and a choco­late bar in the oth­er. She of­fered them both to Imo­gene who po­lite­ly re­fused. The girls spent the rest of the night danc­ing with their friends. They danced un­til they were red in the face and head­ed back to the food ta­ble with their friend Mor­gan who was dressed as a La Di­a­b­lesse. She looked stun­ning in her wide brimmed sil­ver hat and gown ex­cept for the pros­thet­ic cow foot that poked out through the slit of her dress.

"You look great, Mor­gan!" piped Imo­gene. "I'm a reg­u­lar beau­ty queen," replied Mor­gan, clunk­ing her hoof for dra­mat­ic ef­fect on the ground. The three girls laughed as they head­ed up the sweep­ing stair­case on the west­ern side of the ball­room. They had de­cid­ed to ex­plore the man­sion. The rooms up­stairs seemed like a nev­er-end­ing show of ar­ti­facts to them. There were strange scrolls be­hind glass cas­es and book­shelves cov­ered in dust and laden with books in dif­fer­ent lan­guages. The heart of the first floor show­cased a huge glass case in an oth­er­wise un­in­ter­est­ing room. On a red, vel­vet pil­low in­side the case was a gold­en tiara en­crust­ed with red jew­els.

"Do you think this is re­al?" said Mor­gan ex­cit­ed­ly.

"Look at all those ru­bies," said Yvette. The girls oohed and aa­hed over it. A sharp voice came out of nowhere, star­tling the girls.

"Those aren't ru­bies you dimwits! They're red di­a­monds," spat Mali­cia.

Her an­noy­ance seemed to in­crease as she took in the quizzi­cal looks on the girls' faces."That's Har­low's Tiara!" she added, ex­as­per­at­ed­ly. "Don't you know the sto­ry?" She didn't wait for their re­ply.

"The own­er of this manor had a wife, half his age. Her name was Har­low. She was very vain and fan­cied her­self a princess. This wing of the manor, where we're hav­ing our par­ty is nor­mal, but the South wing is just a skele­ton of what it used to be, be­fore the fire de­stroyed it long ago. They said that Har­low got out be­fore the fire spread, but she re­alised she'd left her tiara back in her dress­ing room and ran back in­side for it. She died clutch­ing that tiara. Iron­i­cal­ly, the tiara was re­cov­ered un­scathed. They had to pry Har­low's melt­ed fin­gers from it." Mali­cia laughed dis­dain­ful­ly as she fin­ished her sto­ry.

"What a stu­pid woman; she got what she de­served, huh?" said Mali­cia.

"Well, you said she was re­al­ly young, didn't you," said Imo­gene in­dig­nant­ly, sad­dened by Mali­cia's sto­ry. "She prob­a­bly got mar­ried off to that man. Maybe her tiara was spe­cial to her." With one last con­temp­tu­ous look at Imo­gene, Mali­cia flounced out of the room, heels clack­ing and twirling her red boa in dis­gust.

A CROWN­ING

It was on­ly a few min­utes to mid­night. The girls hur­ried down­stairs – the Hal­loween Queen was go­ing to be an­nounced at the stroke of mid­night. The vot­ing for the Hal­loween Queen was done with­in the first two hours of the ball.

Imo­gene spot­ted Mali­cia dart­ing down the stair­case. Hadn't she left be­fore them? Had she gone back for some­thing?

As Mali­cia came down the stair­case, the stu­dent body pres­i­dent, Daniel, took the stage. The crowd was fix­at­ed on the en­ve­lope that held the name of the win­ner. He waved it teas­ing­ly at the au­di­ence.

"Let's start the count­down peo­ple," he said, his voice boom­ing through the high-ceilinged room, mag­ni­fied by the mi­cro­phone. It was eleven sec­onds to mid­night.The crowd cho­rused, led by Daniel: "Ten, nine, eight..." Imo­gene no­ticed Mali­cia was now stand­ing very close to the stage with an ex­pec­tant look on her face.

Imo­gene crossed her fin­gers.

"Sev­en, six, five..." The three girls neared the stage to get a bet­ter view of things.

"Four, three, two..."

How Imo­gene hat­ed sus­pense.

"One!" Daniel bel­lowed in­to the mike: "And the Hal­loween Queen is... Mor­gan Matthi­son!" Imo­gene hat­ed dis­ap­point­ment too.

She sighed as Mor­gan, dumb­struck, scram­bled on­to the stage in her cow foot with a lit­tle push from Yvette. She watched Mor­gan re­move her wide brimmed hat. She was hap­py for her though. At least it was not Mali­cia.

Mali­cia looked in­fu­ri­at­ed as she glared up at Mor­gan who was be­ing crowned by Daniel. The mo­ment the tiara touched her head, the au­di­ence erupt­ed in cheers. Mor­gan bare­ly got a mo­ment to en­joy it. Mali­cia leapt on stage and shoved Mor­gan off the stage; she went hurtling in­to the crowd.

A few girls screamed. What on earth had got­ten in­to Mali­cia?

With a look of tri­umph, Mali­cia grabbed the mi­cro­phone from a dumb­found­ed Daniel and shrieked in­to it: "I'll crown my­self!" She grabbed her red boa and re­vealed what she had hid­den in it: Har­low's tiara. Mali­cia held the tiara in both hands and low­ered it on­to her head. As if Mali­cia's out­burst had not been shock­ing enough, what hap­pened next sent the crowd in­to hys­ter­ics. As soon as the red di­a­mond tiara touched Mali­cia's head, the red from the di­a­monds seemed to spread through her like a poi­son. Scar­let streaks coursed down Mali­cia's face and formed pat­terns on her arms and legs.

Mali­cia stood, frozen. The smile left her face. With­in mo­ments, the red­ness van­ished leav­ing scaly, dis­fig­ured skin be­hind. Mali­cia looked as though she had been se­vere­ly burned in a fire.

Imo­gene gasped in hor­ror.

Mali­cia's head dart­ed from side to side tak­ing in the re­ac­tions of the crowd. She sud­den­ly no­ticed her burnt scaly hands. Her hands flew to her face and then to the top of her head. She tried to yank the tiara off but it stuck, mold­ed to her scalp. She screamed in hor­ror, an un­bear­able sound, re­ver­ber­at­ing through the ball room. It cut through the night like a sword pierc­ing through flesh.

It was this scream that start­ed the pan­ic. Boys and girls screamed in hor­ror and ran in throngs, push­ing to­wards the ex­it. Imo­gene, Mor­gan and Yvette stayed close to the stage, fear­ing they would be tram­pled if they got swept up in the crowd.

As Mali­cia wres­tled with the crown she had so des­per­ate­ly want­ed, Imo­gene smelled some­thing strange.... Smoke! She looked around and a jolt of ter­ror lurched through her as she saw a trail of fire was com­ing down the stair­case, blaz­ing its way to­wards them. Yvette and Mor­gan screamed and raced to­wards the door. The ball­room was al­most clear. Imo­gene hes­i­tat­ed. Mali­cia was still on the stage, strug­gling. The room filled with smoke, the fire roared. It black­ened the ceil­ing and scorched the dec­o­ra­tions. It burnt through the hard­wood stair­case, pick­ing up speed and in­creas­ing in size and fury. Imo­gene watched as the All Hal­low's Eve ball de­te­ri­o­rat­ed around her, re­al­is­ing Mala­cia would be burnt to death, just like Har­low in the sto­ry. She had to act now.

She clam­bered on­to the stage. She could feel the heat of the flames as they danced across the oth­er side of the room, smoke fill­ing her lungs. Mus­ter­ing every ounce of courage, Imo­gene grabbed the tiara on Mali­cia's head. To her sur­prise, it freed it­self with­out a tug-of-war. She was about to fling it in­to the rag­ing fire when an un­nat­u­ral­ly high wail left her frozen, afraid to move. She slow­ly turned and saw a woman com­ing out of the flames, heer long hair bil­low­ing about her. The ruf­fles of her gown trailed with each step. As she neared them, Imo­gene re­alised the woman bore burn marks iden­ti­cal to Mali­cia's.

"Har­low," Imo­gene thought.The ghost­ly Har­low gave an­oth­er deaf­en­ing howl that sent chills up and down Imo­gene's spine. She wore the ex­pres­sion of a mad woman, des­per­ate­ly reach­ing with both hands, reach­ing for the tiara, mov­ing with su­per­nat­ur­al speed. Sud­den­ly she was be­fore them. She grabbed both girls, drag­ging them to­wards the fire, cack­ling mad­ly.

"Take it, take it!" Imo­gene screamed. Imo­gene let the tiara fall.

Har­low grabbed it, re­leas­ing the girls. With­out hes­i­ta­tion, Imo­gene was on her feet. She grabbed Mali­cia, sup­port­ing her, hur­ry­ing out of the man­sion. as she left the burn­ing build­ing, she looked over her shoul­der to see Har­low crown her­self.

As the crown touched her head, she burst in­to flames.

Har­low's shrieks pierced the night and es­ca­lat­ed in pitch un­til they fad­ed in­to the crack­ling of the red flames.

Imo­gene and Mali­cia ran out the dou­ble doors and on­to the path. They then trudged slow­ly, futher and fur­ther un­til they col­lapsed on the grass.

Imo­gene was vague­ly aware of the sound of sirens. Yvette was sob­bing. Mor­gan was there too. She looked frail and shaky, her crown askew. Imo­gene heard her fa­ther's voice, thick with wor­ry. She thought she heard the huge jack o' lantern laugh­ing from in­side the burn­ing man­sion. The small­er jack o' lanterns out­side swirled around her. She felt her­self be­ing lift­ed up and car­ried some­where amidst the sobs and the sirens.

EPI­LOGUE

When Imo­gene awoke, she was in a white room hooked up to an IV. A gag­gle of wor­ried-look­ing peo­ple sur­round­ed her. She was told that she had in­haled a dan­ger­ous amount of smoke and that she had sec­ond-de­gree burns on her hands. That was strange. She had not felt any­thing then but as she tried to move her fin­gers, she felt them now, sting­ing un­der the dress­ings. A voice was say­ing that Mali­cia's burns cov­ered her face and limbs but they were sur­face burns and would heal with time.

Ac­cord­ing to the fire de­part­ment, the man­sion fire was caused by a can­dle from a jack o' lantern that had tipped over. Imo­gene did not say any­thing in re­sponse to this in­for­ma­tion. She did not want to be­lieve her own mem­o­ries of the fire. Her par­ents fussed over her. Yvette cried, apol­o­gis­ing through her tears for leav­ing Imo­gene. Mor­gan came over to her shy­ly. Daniel was there too. He whis­pered some­thing to Mor­gan who nod­ded.

"You were re­al­ly brave, Imo­gene! You're the re­al Hal­loween Queen," said Mor­gan with a slight smile. Daniel took the Hal­loween Queen crown from Mor­gan and was about to place it on Imo­gene when she stopped him, hold­ing her ban­daged hands up in protest.

"No thanks. I'm re­al­ly ho­n­oured but... I'm not a big fan of tiaras."


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