Everett stuck his face back on to the front of his skull and walked toward the moon.
* * * *
Bennington kept a respectful distance, as Jonah Cooke released Conal from the dirt cell.
“Chloris admitted it was likely someone else who killed my boy.” Cooke stepped away from the door and stared at Conal.
“You’ll kill me, won’t you?” Conal asked. “Say I tried to escape.”
“No, Conal.” Bennington came closer. “There are other bodies. You could not have killed them all.”
“You’re not…not strong enough to…do what was done to my son,” Cooke said.
Conal stood but remained in the cell, still wary. “Who then?”
“I know who,” Bennington admitted. “God forgive me, I…helped him heal.”
“It would be best if you would consider going out on your own, though,” said Cooke. “Or with your followers.”
“Have you any idea where they might have all gone?” Bennington asked him pointedly.
Conal shook his head and exited the cell, certain, after all this time, that they had all abandoned him. Perhaps they had even been planning a separate colony of their own, without his knowledge. He did not know whether to feel relieved or dejected.
Cooke took him by the arm. “Move against Bennington or this town,” he intoned, “and I’ll kill you. You can be certain.”
Conal left, fearing that, until he was well away from the jail, Cooke would shoot him in the back—for that is exactly what he, Conal, would have done in his shoes.
He made his way up the hill and found the horses tied among the trees near his house. His friends were here, after all, for whatever reason, and had been for a good while.
So why hadn’t they tried to free him?
He found the answer in the secret rooms under his house and recalled the message of the mushroom. This was not his time.
Buoyed by the knowledge that he would soon be resting longer than he ever had, Conal labored well past dawn, dragging the corpses of his soldiers to the stone coffins they had prepared, filling then with mushrooms and pumpkin seeds that offered the promise of resurrection in an age to come.
Then he drank Schroeder’s poisoned wine and lay down with a sad smile, anticipating his chance to live again.
Later that day, Bennington, Cooke and a wary posse of recruits would find the strange mass grave. Respect the dead, they decided, and leave well enough alone. The subterranean chambers were sealed off, the stairway and doorway covered over, until the year 1923, while the empty house was expanded into a gathering hall for the town and a sanctuary for those seeking spiritual solace—the town’s church, open to all.
The rest of the town concluded that Conal must have fled with his followers. No one missed them, and indeed an annual celebration of his defeat and exile began to take place. In time, this would evolve into the annual Pumpkin Parade.
* * * *
Modern day
The Conal demon, its awful face twisted into a pained orange grimace from Hudson’s pepper spray, spun around twice, like a broken wind-up spider. But Ysabella’s cleansing rainstorm favored him in clearing his eyes of the irritant more quickly than common water.
Pedro pushed and pushed, but his massive arms only gave way more and more as the giant mouth of the pumpkin inched ever nearer to snapping shut on him.
“Petey!” called Jill.
Brinke broke the chant. “Don’t use the lightning!” she said. As she ran toward the parking lot, Jill lamented that the witch’s statuesque grace and athleticism were a few degrees diminished now.
The other women closed their line as they continued walking, trying not to show alarm at the size and maddened motions of Conal O’Herlihy, the Anti-Great Pumpkin.
“Numa Heeyosh Numa!” Brinke called breathlessly, as she came to a halt some six feet from the vehicle and the Pedro-pumpkin struggle, emitting a stream of pink light from her fingertips.
Pedro’s assailant growled with confidence, barely affected by the repulsion spell.
Jill began the beat of the march again.
Brinke took a deep breath and stood tall. “Numa Heeyosh Numaaaaaaa!” she repeated, bringing the back of her hands together, and then violently separating them, as if…
…Ripping the pumpkin in half.
Pedro fell forward as resistance against his exertion suddenly stopped. For the second time of the night, brains, seeds and stringy pie filling splashed down on him like pig blood from the gymnasium rafters onto poor Carrie White, off in some subtler universe.
“Yuck!” he squeaked, shaking his hair and holding his arms out to catch the cleansing rain shower full on.
Conal rose on his spidery legs, larger than ever now—and fully recovered.
He skittered toward the cruiser and easily raised it over his head with his two forward legs.
Ysabella stopped. “Sisters! Now!”
Jill dropped her ersatz drum and helped the weakened Brinke back to the street to rejoin the formation.
Conal hurled the car. Brinke raised one hand as she called, “Faitu yor’na!”
The car fell straight down in front of the witches, less than a foot away.
With a croaking cry, Conal willed giant crab claws to grow from his forelimbs. He snapped them in a threatening display, then gripped the fringe tree planted in the median and hoisted it like a mere weed. Mud rained down on Hudson from the disconnected root system, yet the chief deputy lay dismayingly still.
Conal scrabbled forward with the tree aloft, snarling at the coven.
The witches took steps back, until Ysabella stopped them. “Do not retreat!” she called. “Stand strong!”
Ysabella swung her arms around in wide arcs and held out her fingers, as if to catch the wooden missile in her hands. She shouted, “Bhurashtu!” in a voice starting to show signs of wear.
The women gasped but did not fall back. The tree stopped to hang in midair just inches from Ysabella.
Conal clambered toward them, his pincers still growing out from his forelimbs, inches to the microsecond.
“Faitu nooma!” The tree rocketed a hundred feet up. “Brinke! The shiel—”
Brinke was already in motion, dashing to the crone’s side with hands clasped and wedged toward Conal. “Tru-ah Ka-nah!”
Hitting Brinke’s invisible wall, Conal slowed but did
