Drop Dead Gwen has bloodily butchered pirate queen Melissa Malibu. The proof is devastating and all over the place. Lyra has already captured Gwen and sent her to the quiet corner. It’s in the right corner of the sandbox.
Lyra is an expert for all things pirate. She’s a very determined five year old. She’s very concentrated and doesn’t allow any parental interruption, except when she hollers through the garden how Drop Dead Gwen wants to kidnap Duckieduck and Melissa fights her with her surfboard. Gwen is represented by a Stone from mom’s practical neutral stone arrangement in the front yard.
Mom is a bit worried about Lyra using words like slaughtered…can’t the pirates like talk it out as a crew?
„No mom, they’re pirates.“
„Wrap it up, honey, it’s getting dark.“
The LED Sun driven Halloween lanterns are lighting up. Lyra throws Melissa across the garden because she’s dead. She then goes to pick her up for her funeral, and approaches the fence. There are lots of plants and stones and little figures of frogs and mushrooms that mom put up. Melissa has landed face down in a birdbath guarded by a ceramic hedgehog.
When she looks up, she sees her neighbour, Mr Addams, and he sees her. He’s got round glasses and the light show of her garden reflects in it. He has a white long coat that Lyra knows from the doctor’s. She raises her chin in defiance and proclaims:
„Melissa the pirate queen is dead.“
„Oh“, Mr Addams says. „What happened?“
„Dwop dead Gwen chopped her head off. Bam. Now her duck is all alone. We must protect the duck.“ Lyra points to the rubber duck in the birdhouse, where it has been brought to safety from a murderous stone.
„We must protect the duck at all costs“, agrees Mr Addams.He is lighting his own Halloween decoration.It is a pumpkin jack o‘ lantern, with one eye and a turned down toothy smile. And another thing Lyra doesn’t know.
„What’s that?“ asks Lyra.
„That’s a turnip. It’s a traditional Halloween lamp“, explains Mr Addams.
„It’s ugly“. Lyra laughs. Mr Addams beams. „Thank you! Then it fulfills its purpose.“
„We have Halloween lamps too“, says Lyra. „We bought them at the store.“
„There’s a store?“ asks Mr Addams in honest delight. „A store for Halloween lamps?“
„Yeah. We got little pumpkins, and we got bats, and we got the – so – lar – sys – tem, and we got little ghosts…“
Mr Addams glances into the Millers‘ garden.It is brightly lit at every corner. Jolly skeletons, rubber bats and plastic pumpkins with big joyful smiles, a bunch of fake crystal balls changing colours. The whole garden is filled with artificial light, spiting the early dusk of late October.
„And here I am with my pumpkin and my turnip“, shrugs Mr Addams. His garden is dark. The silhouettes of leafless gnarly trees rise into the night sky. Stone sculptures with demonic faces sit in empty flower beds. And at the garden door, the unsettling grimace of a turnip with three slits as eyes and mouth.
„My mom will go trick or treating with me“, says Lyra, „You go trick or treating with your mom?“
„No“, he shakes his head. „I’m hosting a summoning tonight.“
„What’s a summing?“
„It’s when you call upon the spirits of people who have died or gone to a different realm of existence.“ Lyra listens very seriously. „Like Melissa?“ she asks.
„Melissa the pirate queen?“ he asks.
„Yes. Can we summin Melissa?“
„I suppose so“, ponders Mr Addams, „do you have her personal belongings? A part of her body? A vessel for her soul?“
Lyra picks up the puppet from the bird-pool. „I’ve got a Malibu barbie“, says Lyra.
„Ah well. Yes I suppose that counts for all three.“ Mr Addams nods in encouragement. „Now you need a powerful place that is connected to the deceased.“
Lyra waits for his words to make sense for her. „Where is the pirate ship?“ he asks warmly.She points out to the sandbox. „Impeccable. Take Melissa Malibu there.“ Lyra rushes over to the sandbox and looks over for further instructions.
„Now“ says Mr Addams, standing between the dead trees on his side of the fence, leaning over a shrubbery with funny skull fairy lights. „Do you know what a star looks like…?“
Lyra is silently busy for a while, shuffling around in the pirate ship, when her Mother steps out of the garden door. „Lyra?“ She comes over to the sandbox and twitches when she notices the attentive face at the fence. She puts her hands on Lyra’s shoulder, just in case she needs protecting from something.
„Hello Balthazar“, she says. The 20-something bachelor living alone in his big dark house right next door, no, not all alone, with this…animal he brought…slightly unsettles her. He waves happily. She waves back carefully and turns to her daughter. „What are you doing, honey?“
„I’m summing the ghost of Melissa Malibu because she died.“
Her mom frowns. „A summ… Oh! First a slaughter, then a Summoning, honey, where do you get those ideas?“
„Mr Balsar knows how to do a summing.“
„Oh wow.“ She turns to her friendly neighbour indignantly. „She’s five“, Lyra’s mom says sternly. „I don’t think you should be talking to her about things like that. Have you told her about the slaughter too?“
„No,“ he replies casually, „that is in fact an idea she came up with all by herself.“ He beams. „They grow up so fast.“
„Lyra, go inside.“
„We need to summin Melissa Malibu first,“ Lyra complains. „Mr Balsar knows how“.
Mom walks over to him. „She’ll believe this stuff and then we’ll have to deal with her nightmares.“
„It will be a valuable lesson,“ replies Balthazar and leaves it open for whom exactly. Mom wants to reply angrily, but Lyra takes her hand. „It’s okay mom“, she says very earnestly, „it’s only a game!“ Her mom considers, and sighs, and walks with her back to the door to the warmly lighted living room.
„Happy Halloween!“, Balthazar calls after them.
„Happy Halloween!“, calls Lyra and waves with pirate queen Melissa Malibu in her fist. There’s a knowing grin in her little munchkin face.
„You taking Melissa to dinner?“ asks Mom. They get in the living room, filled with the smell of pumpkin soup and cinnamon cocoa. „Oh honey is this one of your battery driven dolls?“
„It’s her Barbie“, says her dad, bringing the food from the kitchen. „Since when are they battery driven?“
„Well she just moved, so. Don’t take her to the sandbox then, honey, okay? You don’t want her to get damaged.“
Lyra nods gravely. Mom is dead right there.
Mr Addams goes into the house, after the light in the sandbox has faded. Drop dead Gwen cannot be trusted. But the duck will keep an eye on things.
story inspired by this inktober piece of a few days ago and by a 4 year old I know (it’s his duck).
Mumpitzhausen Illustration 