Maksim only asked thirty-seven or thirty-eight times when he could go trick-or-treating, even though the response was always, "Once it starts to get a little dark after supper."

 

At last it was time to go.  Mackie insisted that I take him around (as opposed to Kala), so off we went.  Aran stayed with us while Sasha went off on his own.  Unfortunately, most of the houses were dark, clearly not handing out treats.  Fortunately, the subdivision is fairly large and the boys have increased stamina for walking.

 

The weather was in the sixties, quite warm!  After some time, both boys complained their masks were too hot, so they took them off.  Their costumes had hoods, so they still had masks of a sort.  While the boys were at one house, I put Aran's mask on and popped out from behind a car at them as they came back.  "Raarrr!"  Both of them freaked out, then said, "Da-ad!" 

 

We met up with some of the neighbor kids Mackie plays with and their mother, and we merged into a larger group.  We passed through an intersection that contained a patch of thick fog.  It hovered like heavy ghost over just that intersection, swallowing up anyone who walked into it.  It was very weird.

 

At another house, the residents had set up a haunted graveyard in the front yard.  Strobe lights, tomb stones, glowing bones, fog machine, spooky sound effects.  The local teens leaped out of darkness in bloody costumes, snarling and spitting.  Mackie just about wet himself, but once we were safely past it, he couldn't stop talking about how cool it was.  Yet another house had a similar haunted graveyard in the yard, and the owner had stuck a fuzzy wig on a remote control car.  It whizzed unexpectedly out from under his truck at trick-or-treaters.  "WHAT IS THAT?" Mackie shrieked.  Aran laughed.

 

It's not Halloween without some serious trauma in the treats.

 

Then home to paw through the pile.  I worked in the kitchen to assemble the Samhain foods and Kala had the boys set the candles around the house.  We went outside and cleared off the outdoor altar, bringing everything from it inside, then lit the candles in the house, ate, and extinguished everything.  The year ended.