‘Sexy Raggedy Ann’ rings my doorbell, high on October air, pumpkin spice vodka, and maybe one too many Tootsie Rolls. She is too old for trick-or-treating but her friends waiting in the car are laughing and she is grinning ear to ear. I do not answer the door.
This year I am in a haunted house for Halloween, all creaking porch and darkened windows, all empty, not a soul left to pass out treats. I am sure she will leave if I stand very still and do not make a sound. To my surprise, she stays. She pounds her tiny fist against my door and before I can protest it is swinging open and she steps inside. She wears six-inch platform Mary Janes that sink into the rotting floorboards, some expensive perfume that mingles with dust in the air, and a little blue dress, so short I’m sure my shutters blush.
Up close, I can see her freckles have not been drawn on her face and the curls beneath her wig are blonde but trespassers are trespassers even when they are beautiful so I throw everything I’ve got at her. I unleash bats from the attic to twist their claws into her hair, I call upon every creeping spider to spit their webs onto her shoulders, I send ghosts careening down the staircase to shriek and scream like rushing winds and drive her from my home in fright but I am surprised to hear her laugh instead.
She steps into my sitting room and lights a fire on the old wood stove. Every maple wall in my body is shaking because I know even rotten wood is prone to burn but she stokes the flames into a gentle glow that sends shivers up my spine.
Still, I rise up from the floorboards, a ghoulish girl draped in rags with eyes as black as night. I tell her, “You’re not afraid now but nobody loves the haunted house in May, nobody wants cracked mirrors and broken chandeliers.” She doesn’t run. Raggedy Ann extends her hand. She says, “There is beauty still in what you’ve become, but step with me into the light.”
One moment I am floating and the next my toes are brushing the floor. I touch her hand with my crooked fingers and spin out of my rags like a mummy undone. Underneath, my skin is pale and cold but her palm is a ray of sun in mine; She smiles wide and all my windows shatter. The evening light comes streaming in and fills my haunted home with gold.