The Ghost Had One Little Fan
Brian Armer
Nora watched a small vampire lose his hat outside her window and wished she could tell someone. By the time his father caught it, the baby had finished feeding, started hiccupping, and objected to being put down. Outside, the neighborhood lantern walk moved on without her. She had helped string those lights last year. This year she was wearing yesterday’s sweatshirt and trying to remember where she had left her tea.
Her phone buzzed on the sofa. Stay there. Bringing something. Nora glanced at the baby asleep against her shoulder. “Excellent instructions,” she whispered. “Very achievable.” Ten minutes later, someone knocked so softly she nearly missed it. On the doorstep stood a ghost holding a glowing pumpkin, wearing running shoes beneath a white sheet that had caught on one elbow.
“I saved the last lantern,” said the ghost. Nora recognized her friend Beth’s voice, though the eyeholes were pointing somewhere above her eyebrows. “Also, I may need help getting into your house.” Nora freed the sheet from the door handle and stepped aside. Beth placed the battery-lit pumpkin on the windowsill, washed her hands, and asked whether there was a job she could do. Nora looked toward the kitchen. “Find the tea. It’s been missing since four.”
They were still negotiating whether reheating it counted as witchcraft when the baby woke. Nora settled him in her lap, expecting the usual hungry complaint. Instead, he stared at Beth. She pulled the sheet into position and gave a small, deeply unconvincing “Boo.” His mouth opened. One startled little laugh escaped, and both women went perfectly still.
“Do that again,” Nora said. Beth did. This time he kicked his feet and laughed properly, a bubbling sound that made Nora laugh with him. Beth tried a grander ghostly flourish and got nothing. The ridiculous tiny boo worked every time. “Tough crowd,” she murmured, returning to the approved material.
Nora’s husband came home to find a pumpkin glowing in the window and a ghost crouched beside the sofa performing to an audience of one. Nora handed him her phone. “You have to get this.” In the first video Beth’s eyeholes slipped sideways. In the second Nora was laughing too loudly to hear the baby. They kept both.
When Beth finally gathered her sheet, Nora asked her to leave the lantern a little longer. Outside, the last families were heading home beneath the lights. Inside, her tea was warm, her husband had the baby, and the window had its own small Halloween glow. “Same time tomorrow?” she asked. Beth lifted one running shoe from beneath the sheet. “Off duty. But I take requests.”
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