Over the course of the week, Amias had gotten quite used to being stepped on firs thing in the morning. Groggy under-ten year olds climb out of bed, oblivious to the fact that there Captain is asleep on the floor beneath them, trampling across his face and abdomen as they trudge past. Today however, the step was too hard- it was on purpose. Amias woke up with the wind blown out of his chest, a face all too familiar glaring down at him.

“Good morning” he whimpered. His blanket had been stripped off and his nightgown ridden all the way up his knee- he didn’t look very dignified.

“Ye promised Cap’n” August reminded, “Every year, you promise”

Amias’s mind was still cloudy, “I’m sorry, August. What are you talking about?”

“Halloween!!” Sylvester shrieked at the top of his lungs. Amias couldn’t put his finger on it. All those days out at sea had blurred his vision of dates. He figured out the time, barely, from the position of the sun, but days and months had been long forgotten.

“It’s today?” he asked. A small book- a diary- floated forward, being held up by the tiniest of the children: Theodore (the boy with the canary). Amias remembered the child doodling and writing all day, trying to perfect his hand at letters and noting.

“See?” he squeaked, flipping to the last page which held a miniature calendar, “October 31^st”. The Captain winced. The children wanted to go ashore, mingle in the streets and visit people’s houses. He didn’t trust most who lived on land. Ironically, there was always something rather fishy about them, like they were plotting something at the backs of their minds. Worse of all, he figured the threat would be quite large this time around- they got attacked by a Naval Force ship! Someone in the authorities is bound to know them and spread word.

“Please, Captain?” June begged, “Last year we were too far from land, the year before we were raiding another ship, the year before that-“
“Yes June, I understand” Captain Keggard sighed. He wanted to say no but August clearly looked like he would implode. He got up and pulled his long coat over his shoulders and left upstairs to clear his head, leaving the rest response less.

Amias deemed his decision successful. He stared in awe at the streaks of color that climbed up the sky before shattering into a shower of sparkling dust. Fireworks- he had never seen them before. Pirates did not like grabbing attention so having such noise cracking items on board was useless to them. Being Halloween, disguises were normalized that night so they were able to pass as anything, just ordinary citizens celebrating the spooky traditions of the night. Of course their costumes weren’t the best. Everything put together in a rush out of bits of sail canvas, leftover sacks and some pieces of jewelry- they looked like rich scarecrows. Beside him, Polaris stood jerking his head at the sky every so often. Amias felt it too- like someone was breathing at the back of his neck, yet he ignored it, believing it to be chills of the Halloween spirited atmosphere.

“Polaris?” he called

“Hm?!” the White Man gasped. Out of the majority of suggestions from the children, he was supposedly dressed as a ‘mermaid’. His top was bare aside from a heavy silver necklace that adorned his neck and his tails was made by wrapping his silver cape around his legs, loose enough for him to shuffle his feet and move forward and a paper fin pasted at the bottom. Amias had spent five good minutes laughing before getting off the ship. ‘Kids could be rascals’ he had thought. Not that he was far better off, dressed in pieces of rusted can tied to his limbs as the ‘Tin-Man’ from Wizard of Oz. The children were mostly scattered, although they maintained a radius of being no more than thirty feet off their Captain, their pillow cases slowly bulging more and more as sweets were poured into them. Amias made a mental note to stash them some place out of reach once they get back. Sugar-hyped children would not be easy to handle on a moving ship.

“Amias,” Polaris whispered, “Please, may we go back?”

“Are you feeling cold?” Amias asked

“That’s the least of my concerns”. He looked back at the sky-at the moon. For a moment, it seemed to wane just a bit, then wax back as if to wink at the two of them. Amias swore that his eyes were playing tricks on him. It wasn’t the warm white that the moon was usually romanticized for, but a harsh solid ghostly color coating the circle in the sky. It didn’t shine, it didn’t cast the beautiful rays of lantern-like light- it just stood there in the sky, rather like a white patch that someone did not color in.

“Yes.” Amias agreed, feeling unsettled. It was then that a howling wail followed by a rush of people gathering at a corner of the street. For some unknown reason, the Captain’s heart dropped. He should be in that crowd. He cast a worried glance at Polaris and ran ahead, leaving his friend waddling awkwardly to catch up.

The bit of street circled by the mob had soaked in rust red, speckles of it flung all the way back. The Captain felt his lower lip tremble. He pushed his way forward, the suspicious knocking in his head growing louder by second. Until, it stopped. Everything stopped. The forces holding Amias’s legs up broke lose, sending him crumpling down onto the floor next to the body of a little blonde girl in a gold dress with a canvas cloak. The fall of Princess June. He shivered as the pumping Halloween music drowned out behind him and his eyes clouded into blurry smudges. A child had died in his hands- his child had died in his hands. Everything around him didn’t seem to matter- not even Malachi disappearing into the alleyway-not even the moon waning into a vicious crescent smile