“Sara, go put on your sparkly shoes while I talk to your grandma,” Mandy shooed her little fairy out of the kitchen and turned to her mother. “Mom, I have three this year. The first one is a bad man who lives at 21 Mayberry Street. He’s been beating his wife and daughter in his drunken rages for months and the poor woman is afraid to leave him because he threatened to kill her and the little girl if she ever leaves.
“Got it,” the old lady nodded with a serious expression on her wrinkled face.
Mandy continued, “The next one is the shifty lawyer at 13 Viola Street. She twists and turns the law and uses dirty tricks to defend her clients. A rich child molester is free because of her. They both deserve punishment. The man lives at 52 Madison Street in the big mansion.”
“Indeed, they do,” her mother exclaimed and put on a wild smile as she heard Sara running down the stairs. Are you ready, pumpkin?”
“Let’s go, Grandma,” Sarah grabbed the old lady’s hand and pulled her toward the front door. “We don’t want to miss the best candy!”
The next day as the woman opened the front door at 21 Mayberry street, she wondered where her no-good husband could be. She covered her bruised face and winced in pain. He didn’t come home last night. She thought feeling worried. Probably he drank too much and sleeping it off somewhere. I hope he’ll be sober by the time he gets home; he doesn’t get too angry with me when he’s sober.
She picked up the newspaper and as she straightened up, she spotted a large, rotten pumpkin on the bottom step. “This one is rotten already,” she mumbled, picked up the heavy pumpkin and threw it in the compost box in the back.
A weak but angry voice shouted from the pumpkin, “Put me down, you stupid woman! It’s me, don’t you see? I’m gonna kill you, I will!”
But the woman didn’t hear the voice and as the pumpkin hit the pile of rotting vegetables in the box, it exploded into hundreds of little pieces. She filed a missing person’s report two days later, but she and her daughter didn’t miss him, at all. Deep down she hoped that he would never be found.
The lawyer who lived at 13 Viola Street had a court case the next day. She had everything prepared to confuse the jurors, but the first words came out her mouth was, “My client is guilty as hell.”
She stood there feeling horrified as everyone in the courtroom cheered. From that moment on, the woman couldn’t ever tell a lie. She lost all her clients, and nobody would hire her again.
The pervert at 52 Madison Street had an awful Halloween night. He kept hearing the mother’s cries in his mind. The words she shouted at him when the not guilty verdict was announced, cut into his brain over and over. You deserve to rot in hell for what you did! You deserve to rot in hell for what you did!
He heard the same words in his mind, day, and night, for days. “I can’t take this anymore!” he finally snapped and went to the police station to confess.
He got a long sentence but didn’t find peace. Even the hardest criminals hate child molesters, so his comfortable, rich life turned into a living hell in prison.
***
A few days later Mandy’s mom stopped for a short visit. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Mom, everything is as it should be,” Mandy said, smiling.
“You know, I’m getting too old for trick or treating. It’s time for you to continue the family’s Hallows Eve Magic tradition,” the old lady announced handing her wand to her daughter. “Next year you go with Sara, and I’ll stay home to hand out the candy.”
