The Flower Children at Halloween - Part 1

It was a Halloween morning, many Yesterdays ago when ,as their mother carved crescent moons and stars into the shell of a hollow pumpkin; Lilly, Rose and Violet, wearing orange pumpkin flowers in their hair, were dancing round in a circle and singing a happy Halloween song,

“One misty, moonlit Halloween,
a boy, out of a pumpkin, hatched
with orange hair and eyes of green,
he jumped up from the pumpkin patch.

A wise old witch cried, “Mercy me!”
and, cradling the lad, she smiled,
“Why don’t you come on home with me”,
she said, “My little fairy child”.

And she called him Hal Owen,
bright as a lantern glowing;
wearing his coat of Autumn leaves;
the spirit of All Hallows Eve.

From that October Thirty- First,
the wise old woman raised and nursed
the child until, one Autumn day,
the fairy folk flew down to say

“Hal Owen, strong and brave and tall,
we have come from the Fairy Queen.
She says, ‘ Come to the Fairy Ball
And dance with me, this Halloween’”.

And they said hail Hal Owen,
bright as a lantern glowing,
wearing your coat of Autumn leaves,
the spirit of All Hallows Eve.

And now every Halloween Night,
Hal Owen rides upon his broom,
guided by pumpkin lantern light
as he goes gliding through the gloom.

Keeping the goblins, ghouls and ghosts,
and monsters that we fear the most,
away until the break of day.
Thank you, Hal Owen, we all say.

Yes, we thank you, Hal Owen,
bright as a lantern glowing,
wearing your coat of Autumn leaves,
the spirit of All Hallows Eve”.

And, once they were tired of singing and dancing, they sat down on the grass in the shade of their mushroom house and Lilly asked her mother, “Is Hal Owen, the boy in the song, real? Was there ever really a boy born out of a pumpkin?”.

“Oh yes. He’s very real”, said Clara, “And he really does fly through the air on Halloween night; keeping watch over all the sleeping children and keeping all the bad spirits at bay. Infact, all the ghosts are rather frightened of him”.

But then, Violet asked their mother if she would tell them a story about ghosts and, setting aside her hollow pumpkin and her carving knife, Clara started to tell them a tale.

“Now, you all know that on Halloween night is when the spirits all get restless and go out wandering through the dark but do you also know that on the bright shining moon above is where all the ghosts of sorrowful people dwell; all those who wasted their days lamenting and weeping”, said Clara and then unwrapping an old tarot deck that she always kept wrapped up in a silk handkerchief, she drew out the card of the High Priestess and showed it to her three daughters, “This lady here with the crescent moon upon her crown and the staff in her left hand is the queen of the ghosts that live up there on the moon and, every Halloween night, she and her ghostly subjects descend, sliding over silvery moonbeams, upon our magical forest where, in a clearing by the lake, they play their silver lyres and dance, just as you were dancing, round in a circle to honour the full moon and, when their dance is done, the power of their mother moon brings them all back to life again, clothing their naked souls in solid flesh, so that they are not ghosts but living people, at least for one night of the year”.

“But why does it do that?”, asked Lilly, assuming her mother’s tale to be true because it didn’t cause a terrible pain in her ears the way that lies did.

“Because, you see, that is the fate of those who cannot see the purpose or the joy of life, who live in constant sadness. The goddess grants them life again for one night a year, so that they might learn to appreciate what they have left behind”, explained Clara.

“Can we go into the forest and watch those moon ghosts dancing and playing their music?”, asked Rose, who was always eager for adventures.

“No, no, no”, said Clara, quite insistently, shaking her head, “No living soul is allowed to watch the moon people dance and, if they catch a mortal spying upon them then they’ll bind them in moonbeams and take them, as their captive, back to their moon to sleep forever in their crystal caverns”.

But, though her mother had forbid them, Rose still longed to go and see the moon people dance and, late that night, as the three sisters lay awake in bed listening to the sound of distant tinkling lyres from deep in the forest, Rose tried to convince her sisters that they should go with her into the forest and watch the moon dance.

Neither Lilly nor Violet wanted to disobey their mother, however, “Remember what she said”, Lilly reminded her, “If you get caught, they’ll take you off to the moon with them”.

But then Rose took hold of Lilly’s magical pendant of invisibility and said, “They won’t catch me if they can’t see me” and, slipping the pendant over her head, she vanished.

Nevertheless, Lilly and Violet were still frightened for their sister and so they stood in front of the bedroom door trying to stop Rose from leaving but, just as they were doing this, they heard the sound of Rose giggling and creeping out of the window before climbing down the side of their house.