The Hollow Party

“How perfect, Krystal darling!” chirped Mrs. Marsh, as she opened the fiberglass door to a young boy on the doorstep. “You’ve invited over a Magic Mirror! The very thing we needed.”

“Mother, this is Jack,” said a girl of about eight, coming up beside her mom to greet her guest. Her dark hair had been curled into charming ringlets secured with a red ribbon, and she was dressed in an expensive Snow White costume that had been gifted to her mother. “He’s not the Magic Mirror! He said he didn’t wanna be a character.” Then she hastened to give a little curtsy and add, “I did not mean that rudely, Mother.”

“She’s correct, ma’am, I’m just an ordinary mirror,” said Jack, offering his little hand to Mrs. Marsh. “Thank you for inviting me into your home. I wish you the happiest of Halloweens.”

Mrs. Marsh was delighted; she practically giggled, obliging him with a handshake. “What a proper gentleman you are!” she said – and then inwardly, Quality content, indeed!

Jack seemed also about eight, with fine blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. He had a flimsy, frameless mirror on his chest; it looked like he had taped some yarn on its back to make a sort of necklace, and it now hung clumsily around his neck. Mrs. Marsh was saying “Don’t worry – we can figure out how to turn you into the magic mirror from Snow White. It’s a perfect opportunity, really… To show how to pull something together from things around the house…”

She was also in Snow White garb, dressed as the Evil Queen with a purple velvet cape, golden crown, and heavy makeup.  As Jack was beckoned into the living room, he saw a tall, costumed Prince Charming tending to two babies on a couch with cotton beards and droopy hats – dwarves, surely. The prince gave a booming laugh when he turned to look at Jack and echoed his wife: “How perfect! You’ll fit right into the pictures.” He picked up one of the dwarves, poking his tiny nose as the baby gurgled happily. “Welcome to the party.”

And what a party it was; or rather, what a party it seemed to be! The living room was decorated for the most elegant of Halloween festivities; a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling with four dozen waxy candlesticks, and glittery black bats intertwined with fairy lights lined the beams. Flames cackled in the fireplace, and on the mantle were more candles in candlesticks (undoubtedly of crystal) beside an assortment of artificial pumpkins on a bed of lace: some white, some in silver glitter, and others, again, of crystal. There were translucent, shimmery balloons and countless bouquets and garlands of dried fall flowers. A giant skeleton sat primly on a white tufted chair, bony fingers folded in her “lap”, as though she were waiting for a lesser skeleton to fetch her afternoon tea. 

There was no music or chatter or people in the room, however – other than the Marshes and the giant skeleton – and it seemed to Jack that the party hadn’t yet begun.

But still no guests arrived as Jack and Krystal sat on the couch beside the baby dwarves. There was light conversation between Jack and the adults, who were altogether charmed by the polite little boy. Krystal sat beside him, still and silent, with a practiced, pleasant expression. And still no guests arrived as Mrs. Marsh said “Krystal, darling, why don’t you and your sweet friend go run along to the playroom for a little while? We will call you when you’re needed.”

+++

The playroom that Krystal and Jack had run along to was actually a treehouse in the backyard. The tree it inhabited was a beautiful oak, and it was at its absolute prettiest with its leaves turned golden yellow. “Fall is red and orange and yellow, see,” Krystal was saying as they walked toward it; “not white. Not…” she gestured vaguely, trying to find a description for her mother’s party décor. “Not glitter. And it’s Halloween! There should be ghosts and bats and witches…” she led the way up the treehouse ladder, Jack trailing behind; “… and eyeballs, and guts, and gravestones and people dying everywhere…”

“There were bats,” Jack pointed out.

“Glitter bats.” Krystal stuck her tongue out and laughed at her reflection in Jack’s costume mirror.

“I like your laugh,” said Jack. “I rarely hear it.”

“I wanted to be a vampire bat,” Krystal continued, “not Snow White. But Mother always wants us to be something that we can be together. I said a family of bats, maybe. I wanted fangs and blood all over my face.”

Jack considered this. “There were pumpkins,” he recalled. “You said there weren’t any pumpkins.”

“But they weren’t real. And they were glitter too!”

“There was a skeleton, I saw.”

“But that wasn’t…” Krystal twisted her mouth and averted her eyes. A long pause followed. “But her name is Emerald,” she said finally, in a low voice.

Jack laughed at that.

Krystal reached into a box in the corner and pulled out a bag of candy corn. “I stole this,” she said slyly, and Jack laughed again and the two of them dug into the sweets. Jack asked when the party was going to start, and Krystal had to explain that this was the party. This was every party. Her mother made food and decorations and set up the living room, and then her parents took pictures to share and write about on her mother’s website. Sometimes there would be a game or an activity, but Krystal disliked having to speak up for the camera or do multiple takes. “But Mother promised we could carve real pumpkins today,” Krystal said now, her eyes lighting up with sparkles.  “She said it would be a cute thing to do with my new friend.”

+++

Mr. and Mrs. Marsh were working slowly through the living room – he with his SLR camera, she with her smartphone – and documenting the décor as forensic photographers might document a crime scene. The baby dwarves remained on the couch with their bellies up, staying relatively peaceful but occasionally hushed at. Krystal’s darling new friend was their main topic of discussion, as they had been growing increasingly concerned about their daughter’s lack of playmates. “It is just so odd for her not to have any friends to do things with… and people were asking, they really were,” Mrs. Marsh sniffled to her husband.  “It was getting far too noticeable. So for her to find one so charming, so lovely…” she smiled now, her face softening. “I’m so relieved. I so didn’t want another Emerald…”

“Never another Emerald,” replied Mr. Marsh. “That will never be Krystal, and it will never happen again. I swear it.”

The truth was that Krystal was getting increasingly difficult to manage. She had been carefully trained, of course, and had been performing satisfactorily for years now. But now she was starting to read her mother’s articles, to have thoughts and opinions and ideas of her own, to voice her questions and oppositions openly; and admittedly, it was all getting rather tiring. Mrs. Marsh found herself having to make more and more concessions, like this pumpkin-carving nonsense that Krystal wouldn’t hush up about. It was a messy activity, and Mrs. Marsh didn’t typically like to showcase any sort of mess. But Krystal had been good and finally made a friend; and for that, the girl would get her pumpkin.

+++

When the décor was sufficiently photographed, the children were called inside, ushered into the kitchen, and directed onto stools on one side of the center island. Mrs. Marsh stood next to them behind a rather underwhelming pumpkin. “Just one?” Krystal asked with disappointment. “It’s smaller than I thought…” Jack stood tall and stoic next to her, his hands folded on the countertop.

Mrs. Marsh tied an apron around her costume and motioned for her husband to stand in front of them. “Krystal, darling, you asked for a real pumpkin,” she sighed. “I am simply trying to make you happy. Dear, set up the ring light? I don’t want a full video but we could always use the footage…” She then swatted Krystal’s hand, which was reaching for the large carving knife beside the pumpkin. “I think not!” she scolded.  “What kind of mother would I look like if I let you hold this?”

 Krystal blinked, confused. “You said I could carve real pumpkins…”

“I said we would carve a real pumpkin. This is not the focus of today, dear; please let me get on with it. You and Jack will scoop the insides.”

But once the top had been removed and a bowl was fetched to hold the pulp, Krystal simply poked a finger gently into the guts, looking thoughtful. Jack picked out a seed between his thumb and forefinger before dropping it back inside the pumpkin. “Oh really, you two,” Mrs. Marsh said, throwing on a smile and glancing at her husband. “This is the fun part! Watch.” And so the children watched as Mrs. Marsh scooped the insides into the crystal bowl, hollowing out the pumpkin with almost hysterical, performative joy. The bowl filled up with orange goo as the woman laughed manically, trying without success to get the children to join in.

Krystal listened to the squelch and plop of each handful being scooped and thrown aside, accompanying her mother’s haunting titters; she looked at her mother’s slimy orange hands as they reached in and out of the pumpkin, emptying its contents without a thought. She watched the little bits of discarded pulp that managed to escape the bowl they were expelled to, and how they fell onto the pristine countertop in satisfying goops. She eyed the specks of pumpkin flesh that clung to the big, sharp blade of the carving knife. She didn’t feel the joy of pumpkin carving she’d imagined, but something stirred inside her all the same. She could sense Jack felt it too.

When Mrs. Marsh finished carving a crude face onto the pumpkin, she handed it to Krystal with bitter triumph. “There,” she said; “and now we’ll do as Mother says.” Krystal stared into its hollow eyes.

+++

Mrs. Marsh was eager to fix up Jack’s costume before doing a little photoshoot with the children. Earlier, when they were outside, she had scoured the house for jewelry and gemstones that might transform an ordinary mirror into a magic one. After some internal debate, she also decided to pick out an entirely different mirror. There happened to be a perfect one lying around with an ornate metal frame, and surely there was no need to keep the flimsy one he came in.

Now, Mrs. Marsh arranged the magic mirror accessories on a coffee table while her husband set up the tripod and camera. They would be making a video tutorial on how to make a last-minute costume upgrade, featuring the charming little boy that Mrs. Marsh was excited to show off. Krystal pulled her friend aside as her parents set up and said in a low voice, “But you didn’t want to be a character, did you? Didn’t you just want to be an ordinary mirror?”

Jack looked at her meaningfully; conveying what seemed to be a deep, unconditional love that was oddly intimate for an eight-year-old boy. He said nothing, though, and obediently took his place in front of the camera when Mrs. Marsh waved him over.

“And Krystal, come next to me, darling,” said Mrs. Marsh. “You’ll be my little helper.”

“He didn’t want to be a character,” Krystal whispered.

“What, darling?”

“He didn’t want to be a character,” Krystal said louder, more firmly.

Mrs. Marsh frowned. “Darling, I’ve had quite enough opposition from you today. Do come here and stop being silly.”

Krystal stood still.

“Just think of it as including him in the family theme, then. He’s going to be one of us. Won’t that be nice?”

Krystal blinked and stood silently for a few seconds. Then she screamed a sharp, blood-curdling scream; a sound far too forceful to be coming from such a small girl. And while her parents stood frozen and startled, she grabbed the mirror with the ornate metal frame her mother had brought over, lifted it high above her head, and threw it down to the marble floor with a deafening crash as shards of glass fell every which way. Her baby brothers started bawling, still bellies-up on the couch. Her father stayed wide-eyed and still, while her mother’s face grew a deep dark burgundy as she sprang forward and grasped her daughter by the shoulders.

“What is the matter with you?” she screamed, shaking the girl and staring her in the face. “Are you trying to end up like your sister?”

Krystal sobbed loudly, turning her little face away from her mother’s and shrinking backward. Mrs. Marsh’s expression then switched rapidly from one of exasperated anger to one of calm disgust. “You think about your behavior,” she said then, coolly. “Or you will join Emerald before the night is over.” She pushed Krystal forcefully onto the couch next to her screaming brothers; Krystal continued to weep but her sobs had turned silent, and tears poured down her cheeks in streams. Mrs. Marsh stared contemptuously at her for a few seconds more, then knelt beside her baby dwarves to hush them. Mr. Marsh, still manning the camera, stood silently with his eyes fixed on the floor.

When Mrs. Marsh turned around, she saw Jack standing center stage, right where she’d left him – unbothered and unfazed. She rose to her feet and sighed, then smiled as she looked back to her weeping daughter. “Let’s behave nicer for your lovely friend, shall we?” she chirped as Krystal took some raspy breaths. “He is fine, darling, do you see?” And then she gave her daughter a little kiss on the top of her head and returned to her mark.

“We will just decorate the mirror you already have, then,” she said brightly to Jack, “which I think is a better idea anyway. It’s all about transformation; working with what you’ve got.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jack, and Mr. Marsh smiled in relief from behind the camera and affirmed, “I quite agree.” Krystal, still on the couch, looked down at the floor and sniffled quietly.

“All right!” said Mrs. Marsh. “Let’s start. We can do this as many times as we need.” She nodded at her husband, who started to record and gave a chipper thumbs-up.

“Happy Halloween, my loves! This is Caroline Marsh; welcome back to my channel,” Mrs. Marsh recited to the camera. She put an arm around Jack. “I’d like to introduce you to someone very, very special…”

And out of nowhere, as Mrs. Marsh smiled brightly with wide-open eyes and the camera kept its focus on the two of them, Jack pulled the carving knife from behind his back and expertly sliced Mrs. Marsh’s throat in one, firm stroke.

+++       

A stream of crimson spewed from Mrs. Marsh’s beaming, stunted face; it squelched and splattered onto nearby crystal candlesticks and the camera lens and the polished marble floor. Her body slowly toppled down and hit the floor with a resounding thud, and the knife she had used to carve the sad little pumpkin not ten minutes before clanged beside her. The rest of the room seemed lost in time as the remainder of the Snow White cast stayed frozen in place. Jack, however, was gone in an instant; he had presumably dashed right out of the house, though no one had heard the running of feet or shutting of doors.

In a moment, the room abruptly sprang back to life and there was a cacophony of screams; Mr. Marsh lunged to his wife, the babies wailed, the camera rolled, and Krystal stared blankly at her lifeless mother in her father’s arms. “Call the police!” Mr. Marsh bellowed, presumably at her, so she slowly rose and started walking to the telephone.

Krystal would call the police, and they would pronounce her mother dead and her father would scream at the officers to catch the little monster who did this; and the officers would search for days, weeks, and months on end for a little blonde-haired boy called Jack; and they would talk to every student and teacher at Krystal’s school, and every student and teacher at all the schools nearby, but they would find that no one had ever seen or heard of him. And her father would post a very graphic video online with the caption “My beautiful wife, Caroline, shared her whole self with everyone around her. She was passionate about transparency and truth, and was so proud of what an inspiration she was to everyone who followed her. This breaks my heart to share, but I know Caroline would want you all to see it. Remember that everything can be gone in an instant. Love truly and completely,” and it would be removed within minutes for violating community guidelines (though there were plenty of screen recordings). And years later, Mr. Marsh would start a true crime podcast with his twin boys Flint and Pyrite, and together they would write a bestseller about the great mystery of Caroline Marsh’s murderer who vanished into thin air. And Krystal, out of what her father assumed was extreme guilt, would refuse to be a part of it in any way.

But before Krystal reached the phone, she dipped her fingers into a puddle of her mother’s blood and smeared it on the corners of her mouth. She caught at her reflection in a jagged piece of the broken mirror on the floor. And she looked with fascination at the reflection of a little girl – a girl who had wanted to be a vampire bat for Halloween.