Title: Whisper of a Ghost, Scream of an Angel
Author: Arsenic
Rating: G
Characters: Cassandra, OFC
Keywords: Written for HL LW Halloween Challenge
Summary: Halloween at a particular witch's house
Thanks: To Titania for my lyrics.
Dedication: For my mom, who might actually be willing to read this story -- and who rescues me from the porch step all the time.

***

It had started with the oak tree.

The tree, which had seen far more centuries than most humans and far fewer than she, had grown into the house. The roots curled around the foundation's structure and strangled the cement.

The house itself was old, at least for an American habitation. It was located on a quiet back street in a small Rhode Island neighborhood, blue and white with a porch and glass windows that had curved, twisting everything on either side. The wooden floors creaked and the upstairs was drafty. Fireplaces graced near to every room and there was only one bathroom. Cassandra had fallen in love with the tree. Neither the country where the house resided, the supposed discomforts nor the rather plain appearance of the house could change her mind once she had seen the leaves that dressed the roof and the "veins" that crawled out of the steps in the front.

It was only later that she remembered why she had avoided neighborhoods and apartment buildings for so long.

The reminder came in the form of Mia, the girl scout from two houses down. Mia and an offer of cookies. Cassandra had ordered a box of five different kinds of cookies each, smiled and waved as the fourth-grader trotted off, closed her door and sobbed.

The horsemen had ensured that her biological clock was somewhat delayed in beginning to tick. When she had escaped there had been so many things to do and see, so much healing to accomplish that anyone or anything beyond herself seemed insignificant. Then there had been the temple and the all-encompassing devotion that her practices had required. Even after everything, when she began to notice the longing, began to recognize that staring at children wistfully in the street was not a normal practice, she had internalized it, found places where there weren't many children.

The tree had drawn her out of that seclusion. The neighborhood it graced boasted good public schools and relative safety. It was a kid haven, the kind of place in which every parent dreams about raising their kid.

During the spring and summer she walked out to find them riding bikes and roller-blading, throwing footballs and playing with water guns she would have been scared to operate. In the winter there was "ice-skating" on the sidewalks, snow angels and snowmen and picking the icicles off the trees to lick. Fall was the worst. It wasn't the tree-climbing or the thrashing through leaf piles or the baseball craze brought on by little boy world-series fanaticism. Instead, it could be put down to a single day -- the last day of October.

Cassandra had despised the secular, modern version of the so-called "All Hallows Eve" from its very instigation. She found it foolish and obnoxious what people did to their own religious holidays, let alone the recently "uncivilized" pagan ones. Still, all those years of avoiding children had been years of avoiding people, which lead to avoiding holidays. It had been with no small amount of shock that she had answered a doorbell on her first Halloween in the neighborhood to two little boys, one presumably a vampire and the other something that she couldn't identify but assumed belonged to modern-day culture.

"Trick or treat." They both said the words and held out small plastic pumpkin shaped baskets in unison.

Cassandra, realizing after a few minutes that it was not some kind of rehearsed act, that this was obviously part of the celebration occurring, managed to not look entirely confused. She leaned down and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "I need some help."

The boys looked at each other and leaned in to hear what she would say.

"I'm not from around here, what is it that people are asking for when they say that?"

Both children snickered. One realized he was doing it and immediately straightened his expression. "Candy, ma'am."

"Ah." Cassandra thought for a moment. She was not what one could call prepared. "Wait here for a moment." She slid in her slippers across the squeaky floor of the hallway and into the kitchen where she located the ginger cookies she had pulled together earlier that day. Giving mental thanks to every deity she could think up on the spot, she wrapped two individually and returned to the door. Smiling, she dropped one into each pumpkin. "Thank you for all your assistance."

Both boys smiled and ran off to the next house. Cassandra returned to the kitchen and wrapped the remaining twenty-eight cookies. Luckily, she was only graced by nineteen more children that evening.

It was the one night of the year where she had to actually speak with them. She knew she could go out, or refuse to answer the door, but she saw the children's faces when they were turned away or a house was dark. Three thousand years only gave a person so much will-power.

So she had started keeping an allowance for Halloween candy, in order to buy things that nobody else on the block did. After the third year, when she dressed up in a store-bought black pointy hat and one of her long black velvet dresses to the delight of every kid that stopped by, she had gone about looking for a costume well in advance of the prescribed evening. The three hours when children generally roamed the street on October 31st became the very worst kind of bittersweet to her. It was those three hours that had begun calls from people in the neighborhood announcing how much the children adored her and asking her to neighborhood pool parties and potlucks. It was those three hours that left her wanting to cry for most of the next twenty-four.

The alarm on her biological clock had gone off. Loudly.

***

Cassandra threaded the last strand of her hair into the complicated weave of pearlescent material and tiny rhinestone flowers that, along with a flowing white dress, a tube of the newly faddish skin glitter, and large white wings that attached to her arms and rested on her back, completed her look as an angel.

She sighed softly. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through for the two or three kids who would brave the rain that had covered the town steadily for over a week to collect on their candy. Still, considering that most of the houses that regularly supplied goodies for the kids had their porch lights out, Cassandra figured the kids who did go out deserved something particularly special.

Hearing the doorbell, she moved to the door and picked up the bowl with her stash in it. She answered the door to discover a wet pig, ballerina and alien. Noticing the headlights in the street, she let them choose their treats, waved to whichever parent was waiting, bid them a happy Halloween and shut the door.

It was two hours and seven children later when she was ready to call it quits for the evening. She was about to extricate herself from the wings when the doorbell rang. Shrugging, she picked up the bowl and made her way back to the door. It was past ten, which was a bit late for most of the kids in the neighborhood, but there were a few teens who went this route, mostly for the excuse to cruise and accumulate free candy.

What stood on her doorstep was not a teenager and it was not dressed in a costume. The child was wet enough to attest to at least half an hour spent in the rain. Large brown eyes peered out of bruised circles in an otherwise ghostly pale and sickeningly thin face. Opening her mouth, the girl coughed and spluttered for several moments before managing to get her planned words out. "I thought...I'd see...if you really...were...an angel."

Cassandra didn't say a word, merely pulled the girl inside, shut the door, and turned off the lights to the porch. She led the way into her bathroom where she ran a hot bath as quickly as she could and motioned for the mysterious child to climb in. Leaving wet garments on the tiled floor, the girl did as told.

Cassandra left her there to get some towels and heat some of the food from her dinner up. When she returned the girl's shaking had slowed and some of the color that had been so alarmingly absent was creeping back.

Cassandra sat on the toilet seat facing the girl. "What's your name?"

"Oriole." The voice was still scratchy, but the coughing that followed it was less vehement than it had been on the doorstep. Cassandra wondered if there were any twenty-four hour pharmacies around. It hadn't been something she had cared to find out until now.

"Pretty name."

"You're not going to ask me what I'm doing here?"

"And get in the way of you building a mystery?"

"I watched you with the other children. You have a smile that won't wash away. I think my parents were like that."

"And you won't give up the search for the ghosts." Cassandra knew what it felt like to look for something so insubstantial. "Will someone come looking for you?"

"Mrs. Trent. Maybe, in a few days. The newest set of fosters were alcoholics, they might not notice for awhile." Oriole's eyes screamed to know if she would be allowed to stay.

"How old are you?"

"Ten." She ducked her head and then lifted it back up. "Well, almost."

Cassandra unfolded the towel on her lap and held it up. "Come along, there's food downstairs. I have a large bed, if you don't mind sharing."

Together, the regal woman dressed as an angel and the gangly, dark-eyed, towel-swathed waif made their way to the kitchen. Oriole went at the food that Cassandra placed in front of her slowly, as if she had been hungry before and knew better than to inhale. Reassured that she wouldn't have to deal with a sick urchin, Cassandra retreated to the bedroom where she found a long sleeved shirt that would do as a night gown. Bringing it to the girl who was still entrenched in saffron rice and spinach salad, Cassandra picked up the yellow pages and found a delivery service that would pick up over-the-counter cough medication from a drug store and bring it to her. She placed an order and was told it would be under an hour.

When Oriole was finished, the two women went back upstairs where Cassandra gently combed the tangles out of the child's wild, untrimmed hair as well as putting some toothpaste on Oriole's pointer finger and telling her to brush as best she could. The doorbell rang in the midst of that and Cassandra swept downstairs to pay the delivery boy. She returned with the medicine and had Oriole swallow a tablespoon, much to the girl's chagrin.

Exhausted, Cassandra undressed and allowed the costume pieces to fall where they would, she could deal with them in the morning. She slipped into the nearest nightgown available, threw back the covers on the bed and motioned for Oriole to climb in. The bed was high and it took the girl two tries before she made it without sliding back down. Even through her weariness, Cassandra giggled and gave a small push to help her up. She slid in beside her and pulled the covers underneath her chin.

With an extension of her right arm, the light in the room went out.

A small voice rose out of the darkness. "Are you the ghost I was looking for?"

***

Building A Mystery
By: Sarah McLachlan

You come out at night
that's when the energy comes
and the dark side's light
and the vampires roam
you strut your rasta wear
and your suicide poem
and a cross from a faith
that died before Jesus came
you're building a mystery

You live in a church
where you sleep with voodoo dolls
and you won't give up the search
for the ghosts in the halls
you wear sandals in the snow
and a smile that won't wash away
can you look out the window
without your shadow getting in the way
oh you're so beautiful
with an edge and a charm
but so careful
when I'm in your arms

(Chorus)
'Cause you're working
building a mystery
holding on and holding it in
yeah you're working
building a mystery
and choosing so carefully

You woke up screaming aloud
a prayer from your secret god
you feed off our fears
and hold back your tears

Give us a tantrum
and a know it all grin
just when we need one
when the evening's thin

Oh you're a beautiful
a beautiful fucked up man
you're setting up your
razor wire shrine.

Chorus