Without Trace - a Short Story for Halloween - by Felicity Radcliffe

 Without Trace

In the Oxfordshire village of Great Wenderby, Halloween is a big deal. Parents clamour to ensure their darlings are spookily yet charmingly attired. Amazon costumes don’t cut it there. Specialist suppliers are de rigueur, unless one can afford the ultimate status symbol - a costume handstitched by a stay-at-home wife - but these are rare. No one can do Great Wenderby on one salary. Not unless there’s family money.

PR guru Annabel Bright is transforming daughter Aurora into the perfect Wednesday Addams. She glues fat false eyelashes onto her eight-year-old, applies styling wax to her blue-black plaits, then stands back to admire her artistry. She had wanted to accompany Aurora dressed as a sexy, slinky Morticia, but she has a massive pitch the following day, so must delegate to husband Josh, who is cruelly, but not entirely inaccurately nicknamed ‘Dim’ by his fellow investment bankers. Annabel suggested in vain that they take her surname when they married.

Their ten-year-old son Arlo doesn’t want to go trick-or-treating. Josh tells her to leave him be, but Annabel insists. His Joker costume cost a fortune, so Arlo is jolly well going to wear it. When her son sidles in, she pushes him onto a kitchen chair and plasters his face with an ultra-thick layer of white stage make-up, topped with black eyeshadow. She finishes with a slash of scarlet lipstick, smudging it with the back of her hand. Arlo complains that the slap makes his skin itch. Annabel is unmoved.

As they leave, Annabel issues instructions. Aurora mustn’t smile; it’ll ruin the Wednesday effect. Conversely, Arlo must grin maniacally the entire evening and Josh must stay sober. Annabel knows some neighbours offer shots to trick-or-treating parents. Pretty Caitlyn, at Wenderby Hall, is particularly generous. Josh must be vigilant. The village has no streetlights, and the pavements are treacherous. The children must be supervised at all times.

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 Much later, Josh wobbles home with the children in tow. Annabel is incandescent with rage. She needs to get her beauty sleep before the big pitch. Josh ricochets off the kitchen cupboards. Annabel banishes him upstairs, roughly combs out Aurora’s plaits, rips off her false eyelashes, and sends her daughter sobbing to bed. 

Arlo is next. Annabel scours his forehead with a flannel. The skin underneath is dark and mottled. Maybe he has reacted to the make-up. Above one eyebrow, the slap is cracked and flaked. The facecloth reveals a line, etched deeply. Then, underneath the eyes, blackened eyebags, like no ten-year-old ever had. 

Sobbing frantically, Annabel scrubs hard and fast. More lines crosshatch sunken cheeks. The scarlet lipstick disappears to reveal chapped, scab-encrusted lips. Then the cruel mouth opens and laughs, uproariously, like Arlo abjectly failed to do during trick-or-treat, revealing yellow, vulpine teeth and issuing forth a squall of halitosis.

Annabel’s strident voice deserts her. She barely manages a whisper.

‘What have you done with my son?’

The Creature dodges the question.

‘He told you he didn’t want to go.’