A ragged set of gravediggers, Rosie, Guy, Jack, and Lucy, were having a wretched time. It was pouring rain, as it always was on Halloween, thought Lucy bitterly, but even worse than usual. 

Lucy was a small, dark-haired girl who had just turned 10, and was out trick-or-treating with her brothers and sister. So far the pickings had been slim.

The sky was thick with clouds, making the streets dark. Their costumes, baggy workpants and sweaters, were soaking wet and the heavy shovels they were carrying were, in retrospect, a stupid idea. 

“This is grim,” sighed Guy, who was 12, and whose idea the shovels had been. 

“Can I please put this down,” said Jack for the fourth time. “It’s so heavy and I can’t carry my candy.” Jack was 7, and small for his age. 

“If you put it over your shoulder, said Rosie, the eldest, “it’s not as heavy. Just don’t clunk me in the head with it.”

The United Church bell rang out 8 times. The streets were almost empty. The rain had driven most kids back indoors. The houses had turned their lights out early.

The sad quartet was winding the corner toward Glenwood Cemetery, when Guy noticed lights at the old chapel. There was something flickering in the windows.

“Hey, look!” said Guy. “Let’s go see!” Always ready to cheer up, the four quickened the pace down Ferguson. 

“It’s supposed to be closed,” said Rosie. “It’s sinking into the ground it’s so old.” 

“Maybe they opened it up for Halloween, the way the funeral home used to,” said Guy. 

“I remember that,” said Rosie, excited. “One year they had it like a haunted house. They had hot chocolate and vampires.” 

“With marshmallows?” asked Jack.

They were now at the chapel, and firelight was clearly flickering inside. Guy knocked at the door. Except for the rain, all was silent. 

Lucy, sad again, and cold, and wet, looked again at the very small amount of candy in her bag. 

Just then the doorknob turned, very slowly. They all saw it. There was no sound. Just a very, very slow turning. Four sets of eyes fixed themselves on the spot. 

The turning stopped. 

They waited, scarcely daring to breathe. 

And then the big, heavy door slowly, very slowly, barely moving, began to open, inch by tiny inch. The four pulled closer together. Terror took hold of their hearts. 

The door opened about one foot and then stopped. A strange, soft, vapoury voice just breathed, “Do I really need to keep pulling at this now, dears?” There was a puffing sound. “I don’t have much in the way of flesh left, you know.” 

Four hearts pounded.

“Do you think you could just slip inside now? I have to save my strength. I need to shut it again, you know.” 

Jack, Rosie, Lucy and Guy stared at one another, and then, as though under a compulsion they could not resist, single-filed into the chapel, which was very warm. A huge fire was burning in the middle of the room. 

Over a dozen white and grey skeletons were on long pews arranged around the fire, in which could be seen a bunch of chairs and a lectern. The skeletons were glowing in the flames. They all had coloured drinks in their bony hands. Whitish skulls swivelled round to look at the new arrivals. 

Jack dropped his shovel and his candy bag. Water from their costumes dripped onto the stone floor. 

“Come sit,” puffed the skeleton who had opened the door. She had blonde hair and green fingernails. But no eyes. Just sockets.

“You’re burning up all the furniture,” said Guy.

“Oh, never mind that, breathed the skeleton. “Nothing we do makes any difference, you know. We come up here every Halloween, it’s the only night we get to go out, you know, and we’re always so cold, but it’s all right as rain the next day, you know.” 

“It’s like we don’t exist,” grumbled another skeleton. It had white hair and black fingernails. “Nothing we do matters anymore.”

“Come round the fire with us. We can make you hot choc. Is that what you were talking about? Hot chocolate and marshmallows? That sounds delicious, you know. I haven’t had hot choc in forever. Not since. Well, I don’t like to talk about it now, you know, but not since,” her voice lowered even more, “I passed away.”

Another skeleton stood up. “Children! I haven’t seen a child in years! It’s not like it was last century. They came down all the time then. Come over to the fire so we can look at you. What’s that you have there. Are those shovels?”

It was so warm, the skeletons so friendly, and the hot chocolate, which the blond skeleton heated up in a pot over the fire, was so sweet and delicious, the children forgot to be scared. The skeletons were so excited by the candy Rosie offered they started trying to eat it. 

“But,” said Jack, “where’s it going to go?”

Oh! laughed the blonde skeleton. “Don’t worry. We don’t really eat or drink, we just come up once a year and pretend, you know.” 

“What do you mean ‘come up’?” asked Guy. 

“We come up our of our graves,” said a skeleton whose booming voice suggested he had once been quite large, though you couldn’t see it now. 

“But how do you get out? And how do you get back in?” said Guy. 

“Do you want to see?” asked the blonde one. “We can take you back with us, you know.”

The children froze. 

“It’s good you have those shovels,” said another skeleton with a scratchy, raspy voice, which creaked like a rusty hinge. 

“If we go back with you, will we be dead too?” asked Jack, unwrapping a red jolly rancher with care. It was his favourite. 

Suddenly, there was an uproar. The skeletons were on their feet, throwing their drinks, glasses and all, on the fire. 

“Come with us!” “Oh, this is so exciting!” “Of course you won’t be dead! We’re just having fun you know, it’s only once a year.” “Come, we’ll show you, it’s so much fun. Come with us,” they said all at once. 

They all raced, out of the chapel, into the cemetery, and all the way across into Delhi Park.   

“Where are we going,” said Rosie. “Aren’t you buried here?” 

“Oh no,” said the blonde one. “This is for new arrivals, you know. We’re centuries old. We’re at Macaulay.” 

And they raced, bones rattling, feet clacking, teeth jittering, almost carrying the children along, across the park, over the little bridge, across the stream, through the old Courthouse grounds, and across the street to Macaulay House and its small cemetery. 

Tombstones were lying on the ground among tufts of grass and mud.

“Here we are. Are you coming in with us? Let us show you. It’s not bad, you know, being dead. It’s comfy. Cold, you know, and dark, but not terrible. I do love a fire.”

But just then the church bell sounded again. 12 deep gongs. Midnight! The skeletons howled in protest. “No! Not already! No!” they cried.

“Next year, my dears, next year. We must go. Promise us, next year, on Halloween Eve, come at 6pm sharp. Bring the shovels. It’ll be a party.” 

Each skeleton found its stone, jumped in, and pulled it back into place. Long, bony fingers came up through the soil, making the final adjustments, then disappeared. 

Silence reigned again. 

“We are going to catch it!” said Guy. “Run! ”

That was the best Halloween I’ve ever had, thought Lucy.