Chapter Twenty-Five #3
“Most cultures have ways to fool the wandering spirits or to frighten them off.” Seph lifted her own turnip to turn it around and reveal the face she’d carved into it, its eyes drooping, its mouth open in a silent scream.
“Tonight we are doing the same. Give your turnips a face. A face to frighten the dead. Or a symbol of protection, if you prefer, but I recommend the face.”
“A cross seems wise,” Yuri said with a hint of nervousness shaking his voice. “Yes, Father?”
“Oh, I’m not certain any of this is wise,” the priest answered jovially, already tracing a wide grin onto his own turnip. “But it couldn’t hurt.”
Rhys swapped turnips with Merlin again, Seph saw, his own expertly hollowed and the older man’s still hacked and half full. This time, neither of them acknowledged it.
“So here is Stingy Jack, standing on the cobbles, with the Devil between himself and the pub,” she said.
“What’s a man to do? So Jack marched over, nudged the Devil with the toe of his boot, and told him to get up and get on with it already.
The Devil hopped up, delighted, and then frowned at how defeated and resigned Jack looked about the whole thing.
He had been hoping for another clever ruse.
Or at least a fight. This man was simply a complacent, defeated soul, which would not do at all.
“So, the Devil offered drinks again, knowing he could not pull the same trick twice, and Jack declined, sighing and motioning around to the trees lining the cobbled path. ‘I only wish,’ Jack told him, ‘that it was still apple season. I’d love a last apple before I go.’ And the Devil looked up and pointed out, reasonably, that there were still a few apples left, at the very tops of the trees.
He told Jack that he could climb up and get one and eat it on the way to his death.
“So, Jack agreed, perking up and picking a tree that had visible fruits, and began to scale the thing, chattering all the while about how he so admired the Devil’s ruse in Eden with the forbidden fruit.
It got the Devil distracted, talking about his days of glory, while up in the tree, Jack quietly snapped off apple branches and tied them into many, many little crosses.
While the Devil spoke, he dropped these crosses, one at a time, quietly, until they created a circle around the tree, the Devil, and Jack himself. Once again, he’d laid a trap.”
Little Parley gasped.
Nini rolled her eyes and muttered, “Clem. Towner.”
Seph grinned. “Indeed. He’d won again. And he told the Devil this time that to let him go, he wanted a permanent guarantee that he’d never have his soul taken to Hell.
Not now. Not for any reason. Not ever. And the Devil had no choice but to agree.
He had been tricked twice now, and he never wanted to see Stingy Jack again. ”
“So he won?” Mr. Charpentier asked, slapping his hands on his thighs. “Stingy Jack won, in the end?”
Seph held up a finger. “Well, he died, eventually, as all people do.
And his soul, safe from Hell, ascended to Heaven.
But Heaven took one look at Stingy Jack and said, ‘Absolutely not. You cannot be here.’ He had no choice but to go to the gates of Hell and beg entry.
The Devil himself came to the gate to laugh and remind Jack that he had given up his own right to be there.
He would not be let in. Not now. Not for any reason. Not ever.
“Jack would have to go back to Earth, but he would never be alive again.
He would be something else. Dead and not dead.
Cursed. In pity and perhaps in recognition, the Devil gave him a parting gift, an ember from the brimstone of Hell, that would burn forever and light his way.
Jack could not carry the ember in his hands because it was too hot, even for a spirit, and so he looked about at this gate to the underworld and found the thing that grows under the ground, that thrives in the dark.
A tornapa. A neep. A maip. He plucked one from its rooty ceiling and put the ember inside.
And he wanders still because he is not welcome elsewhere.
He is not welcome anywhere. And he never will be.
“But near All Hallows’, on Samhain, when the veil is very thin, we might see Stingy Jack, a drunkard with a turnip lantern, wandering the countryside, looking for a new person to fool, a new trick to play, and perhaps a way into Heaven, into Hell, or back into a body of his own.
We create and carry these lanterns to remind him that we know his game.
That we see him coming. And that he had better not try his tricks on those of us who are wise to him. ”
Seph rose, feeling the eyes of everyone following her as she walked her turnip to the hearth and took up the fire tongs, reaching inside for a glowing round of coal.
She dropped it into her turnip and turned the warming vegetable to the gathered, its ghastly face glowing out from her palms, held near her heart.
“Light your lanterns, friends,” she said, “until Samhain has safely passed. And always watch for strangers in the road.”
There was a long, silent pause. A mutual held breath that swelled and released throughout the room.
And then there was applause and a few gasps and nervous giggles besides.
Seph grinned and held her tongs out, inviting anyone who dared to come closer. And one by one, she lit their way back home.