The bright sun shining into the only window in my only window woke me up. Its heat slightly warming me. I stumbled over to the frosted clear glass and pulled it open. Cold are surrounded me. Shaking off the chills, I stuck my head out the window, closing my eyes to the cool breeze. No clouds were evading the sun. Despite the cold, it was actually pretty comfortable.

                On my way down the stairs to greet my mother, I noticed a sweet smell in the air.

                “Hey,”I said when I reached the bottom step, spotting her in the kitchen. She was standing in front of the oven.

                “Good Morning” She smiled, putting her hands into the pockets of her apron.

                “Are you baking something?”She ran her hand through her long brown hair and laughed as though the answer was obvious. “Well what are you baking?” I corrected, feeling a bit embarrassed.

                “You’ll see,”She said with another laugh.” I think you’ll like it.” Eyeing her closely, I slowly turned and headed back up to my room.

                Once I reached my room I pulled out the recharger for my phone out of the socket, trying to save energy. When the phone finally , there were two new texts. They were from my two closest friends, Yeong and Munhee. Both were saying happy birthday and happy Halloween. Closer observation showed how Munhee didn’t put as much enthusiasm into the Halloween part. Yeong had put a smiley face next to Halloween.

                Thinking of Munhee’s cowardice to all things ‘dark’ made me smile. My eyes drifted above me, to the pink pouch. Is it supposed to be working now? My cheeks started to flare. Ugh, why did I even do that spell? It’s so immature! I nudged the pouch with my finger. The feeling started sinking in, Doubt. Every time I attempted to do a spell, I’d end up feeling hopeless. My eyes fell to my nightstand, on the source of my doubts, my book of shadows. That was where I kept all my spells and notes on anything dealing with witchcraft. How could I ever even think of myself as a witch? Maybe I should just quit.

                Most of the spells I know aren’t even mine. I’d gotten them from the family book of shadows. Or, my grandparent’s really. My mom doesn’t have one. I don’t even think my mom knows about all the witchcraft that was going on in that house; I wonder why it skipped a gene. Why would they teach me and not her? Thinking about it was making my head hurt.

                “Lucinda,” My mom’s voice woke me from my thoughts. I followed her voice into the kitchen.

                “Yeah?”

                “Happy birthday.” She smiled wide and hugged me tightly. I looked to the clock on the wall, noon. In my family we waited until the exact time we were born to tell each other happy birthday.

                “Thanks,” She let go of me and motioned to the shiny wooden kitchen table where there now sat a plate of chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked with and a bag filled with stuff, most likely clothes. Just like last year I hadn’t asked for anything so I was grateful for what she gave me.”Thanks” I repeated taking a bite from the delicious cookie. My mom always cooks the best food.

                “Your welcome,” She said with a smile at patted my head, making me feel like a kid again.”Do you want to start decorating?”

                “Sure,” She passed me a bag full of fake spider webs.

                “You can put them on the trees and stuff outside”

                “Okay, thanks for wanting to freeze me on my birthday” I said sarcastically.

                “Well sixteen is the best time to stop at…sometimes” She turned and walked into the living room. Sometimes? What does she mean by that? I ran up the stairs to get ready for the day. After grabbing my jacket I ate another cookie and picked up the bag of spider webs.

                I was so glad to have my jacket on when I opened the front door. I’ll try to finish this quickly so I can go back to the warm air inside the house. The first and easiest task was the bushes. In doing that I discovered fake spiders in the bag. Maybe the real spiders will come out the real webs buried deep in the bushes.

                “Hey, Lucinda!” I turned to see one of my class mates jogging towards me.

                “Hey Jiyong,” I waved as I watched him cross the street to my house.

                “What are you doing?” He asked with his arms crossed over his chest tightly. He was obviously cold; he didn’t even have a jacket on. His bright blond hair was messy, his eyes slightly red. Did he just wake up?

                “Decorating,”

                “Can I help?”

                “As soon as you put a jacket on,” I said as I looked at his short sleeved shirt.

                “Okay,” He smiled as he attempted to smooth his hair down.” I’ll be right back,” I nodded as he ran back down the street to his house and started on an unwebbed bush. Jiyong  moved here around the same time that I had. Luckily, we were in the same grade so I had someone to talk to when Yeong and Munhee weren’t around. We used to play all the time. He would probably get along well with them to.  Why haven’t I introduced them yet? Maybe if I did he would stop being so-

                “BOO!”A voice screamed from behind me.

                “Oh, hello again,” I laughed as I spotted Jiyong crouching over at me with extended arms.

                “I’m gonna scare you one day,” He challenged.

                “Righhtt,” Jiyong’s constant attempts at scaring me were starting to get `original`, he never resulted to screaming boo since third grade.

                “Oh, happy birthday.” He reached into his back pocket.

                “NO! Stop, I don’t want anything.”

                “To late,” He pulled out a small card, “um...” His cheeks started to redden as he spoke, “I wasn’t really sure what you would like, so…..well, I remembered how much you would read and stuff…so I got you a gift card” He explained.

                “Aww, thanks,” I gave him a hug, which I tried not to do too often. Jiyong has a habit of…hanging on to long. He hugged me tightly, laughing for some reason. I pulled back and shoved a fist full of webs into his chest.” Now, get to work”

                After a while, and a lot of dropped degrees later, we had finished hanging the webs in the bushes and trees and even had time to put out head stones and other décor.

                “Alright…”Jiyong yawned with a big stretch,” I believe my work here is done”

                “Thank you so much,” It would have taken me forever if he hadn’t been here to help me.

                “Your very welcome,” He held his hand out to me. Does he want me to shake his hand? Once I held his hand a smile crossed his lips. His deep blue eyes held mine as he lifted my hand and kissed it.” Be safe tonight.” He whispered and turned, still smiling.

                Even though I was extremely embarrassed, I couldn’t stop him from doing that. But, even though it was a kiss, it wasn’t the kiss I’ve waited for. And Jiyong is NOT the result of my spell. Laughing quietly to myself, I walked back into the house.

                “Are you done?”My mom asked as she filled up a large bowl with candy.

                “Yeah, do you need help with anything?”I felt like I should ask, even though most of the work that needed to be done inside the house was already done.

                “No…but you should call Munhee to see when her mom is going to pick up Yeong. That way we’ll be able to guess when they’ll get here,”

                “Oh yeah,” I hadn’t realized how late it was. Instead of trick or treating we decided to just watch movies all night again. Just as I reached the top of the stairs there was a knock on the door. I watched my mom open the door. It was Munhee’s mom with Munhee and Yeong behind her. We all greeted each other and Munhee’s mom left. Munhee’s usual dark brown hair was now streaked with white, her small figure covered head to toe in an elegantly ripped white dress, she said she was a ghost. Yeong, ironically, came as a witch. I didn’t put too much effort into Halloween, so my costume consisted of an all black outfit.

                “So, where do you want to start?”I asked as we walked into the living room. Yeong, smiling wickedly, took her long pointed hat off, making strands of her red hair stand. Munhee’s expression turned into her seemingly constant expression of worry.

                “Hmm…I don’t know,”Yeong started, staring at Munhee. The taunting was about to begin. “I know for sure I want to see some stabbing…or maybe some burning. Mostly slow deaths, I’m in the mood for some torture.”

                “Do we really have to watch horror movies all night?” MunHee managed to squeak out.

                “Yes,” Yeong and I laughed, which was joined by my mom. I turned to see that she was already in her sleep clothes.

                “It’ll be okay Munhee, it’s just a movie.”She smiled. Munhee nodded and looked down to her feet, her face uncertain.

                “Are you going to bed “I asked, it’s not even dark enough outside to see the stars yet.

                “Yeah,” She breathed,”Good night you guys.”

                “Good night,” we all said. I watched her walk up the stairs slowly; I hope she’s not sick.

                “Lucinda,” Yeong called, “What are you suppose to be?” I looked down at my unplanned outfit.

                “Uh…I don’t know…a shadow” When they started laughing at me the door bell rang. I quickly grabbed the large clear bowl and went to the door.

                “Trick-or-Treat!” A group of children screamed at me. Smiling, I handed them the bowl. It always made me happy to watch their excited faces as they weaved through the bowl.

                “That’s so cute,” Munhee said, watching from the couch. When the children danced off I returned the bowl and went back into the living room.

                “I know a game we can play; we can do that instead of watching movies.” Yeong announced.

                “What game?” Munhee asked excitedly. I hope she doesn’t actually believe her.

                “It’s called bloody Mary….or we can pla-“

                “Stop!” Munhee yelled, covering her ears.

I couldn’t help laughing with Yeong, even though it felt like I was torturing Munhee.

                While we watched the movies we passed candy to the children and teenagers. After about three movies it was around twelve. I looked over at everyone. Munhee was curled up on the couch, holding the pillow closely. Her eyes were blank as she stared out the darkened windows. It looked kind of like she was shaking. I hope we didn’t traumatize her. The movie credits ended quietly while Yeong was in the middle of a big stretch. No children had come for what felt like hours. The silence in the room was a bit awkward; I guess everyone’s too tired to speak.

                “Are you sleepy?” I asked, not knowing who I was asking.

                “Yeah,” They both answered.

                After cleaning our mess of popcorn and candy wrappers, we turned all the lights out and went up to my room. I pulled open my window curtain. The full moon shone directly into my window. Yeong and I pulled blankets off my bed while Munhee got out her sleeping bag. I didn’t want to be the only person with a bed so we all slept on the floor. I turned out the light as we all laid down, our faces illuminated by the moon. We lay where we could all see it. Munhee suddenly looked at me, as though she thought I had fallen asleep. I looked back at her, my face questioning.

                “Happy Birthday Lucinda” She whispered. Then Yeong suddenly remembered and repeated it, though her voice was louder.

                “Thanks,” I whispered back to them. It wasn’t  long before we all fell asleep.