"There are only two tragedies: One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
-Oscar Wilde
***
Most of the year it was just an empty lot, dusty and overlooked. Little ever grew there, and no one ever tried to build anything on it. But people knew, deep down, that it was a special place, and they treated it with deference. It was a place of power.
Jezibaba's little house crouched across the street from it, and that night she drew her curtains aside and peered through the gloom. It was the first new moon in October. When the clock struck half past, she went out. Alone, at night, she did not stoop or hobble, as she did when other people may be watching. She carried her old rocking chair, hefting it easily with one skinny arm. She hesitated, as always, before crossing the threshold onto the lot; this was her own place of power, but even she needed to respect it. Especially tonight.
She set her chair in the precise center of the vacant property and arranged an old quilt on her lap, muttering to herself in a language no one else in the world spoke anymore. Her thick fingers retrieved something rolled up in the hem of her skirts: a seed. It was an unwholesome color, blackish-purple, and it smelled like a bad wound. Perhaps it even squirmed a little in her grasp, like a grub. Perhaps.
She held the seed, she said the words, she kissed it with her withered lips and then, telling herself there was no sense putting it off any longer, she cast it into the dirt, and then she waited. She rocked back and forth, and she watched, and she waited, and at first nothing happened. That was always the way. The wind picked up and the branches of the old trees rubbed together, but still nothing happened. Jezibaba paid it no mind. She rocked some more. Clouds rolled over the night sky, darkening what had been dark already, and nothing happened, and Jezibaba found herself wondering if, perhaps, this year it wasn't going to work...
And then it started. First the soil shifted, and the earth groaned, and then something shot up out of the ground like a sapling bursting into life all at once. But it wasn't a tree: It was a wooden post, grown whole and intact, the progeny of that sown seed, and then, a few feet further on, there came up another one, and another, and another, and soon the lot was full of them. Then, tiny at first but growing with each second, creeping green vines twisted around each post, curling up out of nothing. Jezibaba nodded. It was good.
Finally, THEY grew, springing full-grown and fat and round and ripe into life, hundreds of them, already waiting for the eager hands that would pick them up and carry them home. Each of them was special. There, in the middle of the night, at the witching hour, the pumpkin patch grew, and Jezibaba rocked back and forth, and watched, and knew in her black heart that it would be a good year.
***
Sonia was waiting.
Mr. Palmer considered the pumpkins one at a time, hefting them and feeling all around the surface of each. He'd been at it for fifteen minutes. Sonia smiled as politely as she could. Come on already, she thought...
"This one," Mr. Palmer said.
"Great."
"And all these too. I'll take all of them except this one." He nudged one gourd with the toe of his shoe.
Sonia's smile stretched the corners of her mouth. "Sure thing, Mr. Palmer. Let me help you get these to your car."
It took a few trips. Sonia wiped her brow on her sleeve. Mr. Palmer closed the trunk. "It's nice of you to help Ms. Marzanna with the pumpkin patch this year," he said.
"It's the least I can do. She was always so nice to us as kids."
"Was to me too."
Sonia blinked. "Was she doing this even when you were a kid?"
Mr. Palmer nodded. "Every year. She was old even then. Can't imagine what the neighborhood will do when she finally passes on. Halloween won't be the same."
She took Mr. Palmer's money and watched him drive off. It was Halloween day, and she was 18 years old, and this would be her last year in the old neighborhood, and her last year to pick over Ms. Marzanna's special pumpkins. It would be her last year for a lot of things.
There had only been a dozen left that morning and now they'd all sold but one, an oblong gourd of moderate size. Sonia picked it up. It felt cool. I guess this one is mine, she thought. The smell of the old hay on the ground followed her as she made her way across the lot. Ms. Marzanna was waiting for her, leaning back and forth in her rocking chair. So she'd been old even when Mr. Palmer was a kid? Looking at her now, hunched and brittle, like a drought bush, Sonia believed it. The old woman cleared her throat. "It's the last day. That means it's time for your payment. Is that the one you want?"
Sonia held out the pumpkin. "All the other ones were sold."
"Then this is the one for you," Ms. Marzanna said. She pried it from Sonia's hands with her stubby fingers. "There's power in being the last of a kind; the last of a family. Yes, this one will do for you." She stood. "Come with me. Bring the chair."
Sonia lifted the old rocker. It took two hands. She followed Ms. Marzanna to her little, funny-shaped house across the street. Sonia had known Ms. Marzanna all her life but had never visited her home. She rarely even saw Ms. Marzanna at all, except around Halloween when she minded the pumpkin patch, as she always did. Each year she had a helper, too. An old woman couldn't cart all those pumpkins and drive all those posts into the ground herself, after all. Although she hadn't asked Sonia to do it either. She wondered who'd helped with that part?
The kitchen was small and smelled like incense and library books and time. Ms. Marzanna set the pumpkin on the red-checked tablecloth and sized it up. "You've been a helpful dear for me and I want to make sure you get what you deserve," she said. Sonia couldn't shake the funny feeling that she might be talking to the pumpkin rather than her. Then Ms. Marzanna began talking to herself, or maybe singing to herself. Sonia did not recognize the language. Slavic? German?
She laid out tools: knives of many sizes, a spoon with a serrated edge, and a great ceramic bowl. She picked up the largest knife and drove it into the roof of the pumpkin with a sick, juicy thunk. Lickety-split the old woman sawed a lid, pried it off, and began scraping the insides with the spoon. The moist scent of pumpkin entrails filled the kitchen. Sonia shifted in her seat. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she said.
"Sit there and think about what you want. It helps." Ms. Marzanna paused. "You do know what you want, don't you?"
Sonia nodded. "Yes, Ms. Marzanna."
"Don't call me that," Ms. Marzanna said. "Silly name. Call me Jezibaba."
"Is that your...maiden name?"
Ms. Marzanna cackled. Sonia felt embarrassed, although she didn't understand why. "I DO know what I want," she said when Ms. Marzanna finally stopped laughing.
"Good. Be a dear and throw these out into the compost heap." She handed Sonia the bowl teeming with pumpkin innards. "They won't do much for the soil, but as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea, every little bit helps."
Sonia found the back door. The yard smelled faintly like a chicken coop, though no birds were visible. The compost was piled high with clippings of strange plants, and--was something moving in there? She emptied the bowl as quickly as she could and went back inside. Ms. Marzanna was working away at the gourd with the smaller knives. Sonia tried to peer over her shoulder but Ms. Marzanna waved her away. "Don't pester me, there's nothing you can do to help with this part. It's a lost art. Just sit there and think about the thing you want. Think as hard as you can. Concentrate!"
So Sonia sat. She thought about blue eyes, and a velvety voice, and strong hands. She thought about drowsy afternoons of daydreams, and the many times she'd "accidentally" walked by a certain house, and even about the jealousy, like a needle in her heart. She thought about the nights she'd stayed up, not able to sleep but dreaming while she was still awake and wondering if he was--
"Finished," Ms. Marzanna said. Sonia blinked; the clock said an hour had passed. She'd barely noticed. Ms. Marzanna turned the freshly carved jack o' lantern for her to see, and Sonia flinched. It was fantastically ugly. She couldn't believe that Ms. Marzanna, with her stubby fingers and skinny arms, could have carved so much detail into its face, nor invested such a degree of leering malice in its eyes and smile. It looked, she reflected, like a real monster. She thought about that ritualistic moment when flickering, ghostly candlelight would first spring into its features from a lit candle and she shivered. Could something this awful really help her?
