This is a story. It never happened and never will. The General Disclaimer is incorporated herein by reference.

Chapter 10: All Hallows Eve

I was going Trick-Or-Treating. Here I was, dressed in an ostentatious, flowing blue robe, covered in stars and half moons that no self-respecting wizard or sorcerer would be caught dead in, about to parade through the neighborhood with a vampire (Tammy) and a girl with a small axe embedded in her cranium (Terri). I even had a tall, pointy hat that was slightly bent at the tip. Long, shoulder-length white hair from a wig gave me a smidgen of respectability, I suppose. The twins thought I was the funniest thing they'd ever seen, laughing derisively until I defiantly declared I was going to stay home.

"No, Tom! You promised!" said the pale one with haunted-looking eyes and blood-red lips, dressed in a black tuxedo and white ruffled shirt, her hair slicked straight back with gel and wearing fangs. A black cape fastened at her throat completed the ensemble.

"You look great!" added the other terror with the hatchet in her head, fake blood oozing wetly from the realistic-looking wound and splattered generously over her face and clothes. Tammy looked kind of cute (she could have given me another 'lovebite' anytime), but Terri was downright gruesome. Susan had done a good job with the costumes we had rented from the local Halloween shop a few days before. She was wearing a 'Catwoman' outfit.

"Yeah, Tom," Susan said behind her hand, where she was trying to hold in a chuckle, "you can't back out now. I need you to go with them so I can get to the hospital and get things started over there." The hospital where she worked was having a party for employees and some of the patients, and I was to bring the girls there later. "Let me get a camera so I can take a picture of the three of you," she added.

'Maybe she wants to blackmail me sometime in the future with it,' I thought to myself regretfully. Tammy snickered at that; I could never think anything to myself when she was around.

After we had taken pictures of all the possible permutations of the four of us, the twins and I set out on a mission to excoriate the countryside of all available sweets. I drew the line at actually carrying a bag and saying "Trick-Or-Treat", but nevertheless a few neighbors gave an extra piece of candy to one of the girls for "the wizard back there."

Okay, I admit it. I was having fun. It was a beautiful autumn evening, the sky a crystal-clear, deep, dark blue as the sun neared the horizon, and Terri and Tammy skipped along gaily from door to door collecting treats, occasionally pulling me onward by the hand. There were dozens of little goblins and other assorted ghouls out-and-about; super heroes (and heroines, no shortage of those, I was glad), cartoon characters, princesses, witches, and pirates were our companions. It was the ultimate kids' holiday, a costumed combination of Christmas and birthdays.

After we'd traversed I don't know how many blocks, Terri and Tammy were having trouble carrying their treasure. The sun had gone down an hour ago, and it was time to join their mom.

The party at the hospital was okay, but there weren't a whole lot of kids around. The twins quickly got bored and somewhat cranky, as young girls tend to do rather easily. Susan had to work the night shift, and since we'd already arranged for the two sisters to spend the night with me anyway, I suggested the three of us go looking for a haunted house. Susan gave her okay, but insisted that we didn't stay out too late since it was a school night. We readily agreed to her terms, but I think she knew she was wasting her time.

I checked a newspaper and found a fairly large haunted house within an hour's drive, and the girls and I took off on another adventure. We had to wait in line for almost two hours when we got there, but finally, after paying the admission price, we were inside. I'd psyched the twins up while we had been waiting, telling them scary stories about roaming spirits, gory sadistic rituals and the terrors that were set loose on All Hallows Eve, and now a small, timid vampire was hunkered down alongside me, clutching my wizard's robe and my hand in a death grip.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Terri told her sister with all the bravado a ten-year-old can muster. "Nothing's real in here." I didn't ask why she was holding my other hand. Rather tightly, in fact. I also didn't tell her that there were actors undoubtedly hiding inside.

It was pitch dark in there; as we stumbled blindly through a maze of narrow, twisting corridors, eerie music with an occasional howl or scream thrown in added the proper ambience. We could feel what were supposed to be rat's tails or snakes brushing our feet, and cobweb-like strings hung from the ceiling, tickling our faces. There's nothing like a total, complete absence of light to send a primal chill through one's soul; especially a young soul, say about ten years old. I let loose a demented laugh. It felt so good I did it again. "Cut it out Tom," I heard Tammy's voice shaking nervously from somewhere near my elbow. There must be some macho, deep-seated need for a guy to scare those who are smaller than he is, be it a wife or girl-friend, or a little kid, because I did it again. One of the girls elbowed me roughly in the gut, and I finally quit. Spoilsports.

We came upon a dimly-lit laboratory scene of various medical horrors. A rather ghastly-looking fellow, who looked like he'd been through a botched open heart surgery, noticed all the fake blood on Terri. "Perhaps the young girl would like to join us for some experiments," the cadaverous gentleman asked in a hollow voice. He grabbed Terri's free hand and pulled her insistently towards an examining table in the center of the room. Terri squealed and held on to me for dear life, until she was released. So much for bravado. For a tempting second I had almost let her go, just to see the look of shocked betrayal on her face, but I couldn't do it. Even I'm not that cruel.

We moved into another darkened passage, and now both girls were pushing me along in front of them. I guess they were willing to sacrifice me to save themselves. Their plan didn't work though. As we came into another gloomy scenario of blood and guts, Frankenstein's Monster grabbed them from behind with a menacing bellow. The two ten-year-olds almost knocked me over in their rush to place me between the monstrosity and themselves, and their eyes were wild with borderline terror as they screamed in surprise mixed with girlish delight. Kids enjoy a good scare now and then, as long as they know they can't really be hurt. And I certainly didn't mind them hanging on to me with all their might, expecting me to 'protect' them. If you've never taken a girl to a haunted house, I highly recommend it.

We made it to the end without any further mishap. It had certainly been a good time. So good, in fact, that Terri wanted to go through it again, but it was getting late. It had been a long, delightfully scary evening for my young ghoul friends (sorry, couldn't resist), and both girls fell asleep on the way home.

I managed to steer them inside my house, where I sat on the couch and began undressing Tammy, taking off her cape and jacket. Terri had pulled the hatchet off her head earlier, so all she had left was blood. It felt good to get out of my robe as well. I was tired, but the two girls seemed to have gotten their second wind when they remembered all that candy they had collected. I let them have a few pieces (and I had some too, I'll admit), and then they looked at each other silently, obviously talking between themselves. I hated it when they did that; invariably it meant the two scamps were up to something, and it usually involved me. Tammy nodded at her twin and then told me she had to go home for something. I looked at her suspiciously, but let her go. While she was gone Terri asked if I had a candle. What in the world...?

Terri was placing the candle in a holder on my coffee table when Tammy returned. Taking a match, Terri carefully lit the candle. Tammy went through my house turning off all the lights, until all we had left was the tiny, flickering flame. Silently, the two girls sat on their legs on one side of the low table, and beckoned me to sit opposite them. Then they pulled off their blouses, and looked at me pointedly until I took off my shirt. What were they up to, I wondered. Tammy took three short pieces of string from her pocket, and laid these together on the table. I could see they were 'friendship' bracelets, the kind that kids made and traded with their friends. Each narrow cord was tightly braided with three colors: two shades of blue (light and dark) and one of bright red. Understanding dawned on me. "Hey, when did you make--"

Terri and Tammy shushed me with shocked looks, as if I were interrupting a church service. For that's what they were about to perform: a ritual of naively innocent childhood, made all the more sacred as we neared the magical witching hour on All Hallows Eve.

Mesmerized, I watched Terri take the ends of the three bracelets and hold them several inches over the candle. Then she chanted in her soft voice:

Terri quickly passed them three times through the fire, fast enough so they wouldn't scorch. Then she took one of the cords and tied it loosely in a double knot on Tammy's left wrist, and silently offered her the remaining two pieces. Following her sister's lead, Tammy held the colored strings above the fire, and thought for a moment before intoning:

I was totally captivated. I watched with fascination as Tammy passed them twice through the candle, and then tied one of the strings around my wrist. The two girls were so serious and solemn, and their ghoulish makeup made them look rather eerie in the yellow, dancing flame of the candle.

They were other-worldly young witches practicing bare-breasted high sorcery on Halloween night, and I was their charmed disciple. The analogy of little girl love as a religion struck me once again. Then I realized Tammy was holding the remaining cord out to me. I was expected to contribute to the ritual as well. Terri and Tammy watched me critically as I took the small cord and held it over the candle as they had done, and gathered my thoughts. We had all had lots of practice with spells, actually. The girls were quite adept at coming up with rhymes for the book. Everyone knows the most powerful incantations have to rhyme. Just watch Bewitched.

Tammy allowed a small smile of approval to cross her face as she watched me pass it once through the flame and tie it around her sister's wrist.

Then, almost reverently, my very special friends linked the little fingers of their right hands together in their 'double promise', and silently looked at me until I wrapped my pinkie around theirs. I was deeply moved by this special gift. I felt myself shiver as goose flesh broke out on my skin, almost as if there truly was magic in the air. The girls felt it as well; I could see how their small, tender nipples had become even tinier, surrounded by goose bumps in the wavering candlelight. The ceremony now over, Terri and Tammy beamed happily at me.

The reader might like to think that what followed was a wild bacchanalia of little girl sex, culminating in the ultimate expression of love, but it was a school night. I led the two sleepy witches to the bathroom and washed off as much of their makeup as possible, and then I lovingly undressed them the rest of the way. Naked, the three of us slept in a tangle of blissful contentment, covering each other with a blanket of love and friendship.

I finished our book a few weeks later. Just before I sent it to my agent though, I added several very important lines at the very beginning, and promptly forced myself to forget about it. After she read it she said it was my best book yet, and suggested we re-negotiate my contract with the publisher. In fact she thought the book could cross genres into the sci-fi/ fantasy market, which was fine with me as long as it was still marketed primarily as a kid's book. My loyalties would always be with little girls, after all.

When my publisher read it, and after a few more weeks of wrangling, I signed a contract for an outrageous sum of money, agreeing to write at least two more books about the supposedly-fictitious twins. I didn't think that would be a problem, since it was my favorite subject. I felt I had to share the wealth with the girls though, so for a Christmas present (one of many, needless to say) I had my agent draw up a contract splitting the royalties three ways. A separate trust fund was set up for each of them, and when they reached the arbitrary but legally-required age of eighteen, Terri and Tammy would have more than enough money for college or whatever else they wanted to do. Susan nearly cried when I told her what I had done, she was so grateful. The twins, of course, wanted the money now. I laughed fondly at their plans for buying amusement parks and flower parks, or candy factories and arcades.

The book was published in February, and when my copies arrived the girls were still at school. We had already started on the next story in the series, but we had all been waiting anxiously for this one. When Tammy 'contacted' me she immediately picked up that it was here at last.

'You've got the book?' I heard her excited voice say in my head. She caught me off guard, and I was afraid she'd 'pick up' more than I wanted her to. I started singing a Beatles' song, hoping to block her out. 'Hey, what are you trying to hide?' she accused. Her curiosity aroused, I knew she wouldn't give up easily. I sang louder. 'Tom! Hey, cut it out!'

"Tammy, pleeease don't," I begged her. "It means a lot to me and I don't want you to ruin it. You'll find out when you get home." I started singing again, but I knew she could get what she wanted if she really concentrated.

'Oh all right,' I heard her pout. 'See you later, I guess.' I had no way of knowing if she'd really left my head. I dove into our sequel, hoping to put my mind on other things, in case the inquisitive, telepathic young girl came back for another assault.

I thought about the tour my publisher wanted me to take to promote the book. If I went over spring break, perhaps Susan would let the twins come along.

The next attack was when Terri and Tammy practically tore down my front door after school. Tammy had told her twin, and both girls were bubbling over with impatience as they pulled off their winter coats and rushed me.

"Let's see it!" Terri yelled.

"Yeah, where is it?" Tammy demanded, still wondering what I had up my sleeve.

I sat on the couch and pulled out a small gift-wrapped object. It was the book of course. I wasn't fooling anybody; I just thought wrapping it would be a nice touch. The girls sat down on my right and grabbed it unceremoniously from my hands. Terri ripped off the paper and stared at the cover.

"'Double Trouble'," she said with a smile, reading the title out loud. The drawing on the front was the three of us, dressed in clothes that fit the story. What possessed me to use the picture Susan had taken of us on Halloween, I'll never know.

"Hey, it's us!" Tammy exclaimed. "Cool!"

"It's my author's copy," I told the two girls, "the very first one off the press. I want you girls to have it." Terri and Tammy looked at me gratefully, but they both sensed that there was something else. Tammy finally grabbed the thought from my head. She sucked in her breath with surprise, and quickly told her sister to open the book and look inside.

I saw their eyes widen as they stared at six simple, short lines, past all the copyright info, on an otherwise blank page. Their jaws dropped open with identical looks of stunned disbelief, while they re-read it several times. Finally Terri found her voice, but it shook a little. "D-Does it say this in all of them?" she asked in wondering amazement. I could only nod as I smiled at them. Their reactions were everything I'd hoped for. I was almost overwhelmed as I felt my love for the two beautiful, special young girls pouring out of my soul, and they both felt it as strongly as I did. Our eyes threatened to start leaking. Suddenly the twins threw their arms around me, hugging me in a tight, fierce embrace as I hugged them back. Nothing more needed to be said; our love spoke volumes. It's the most excellent language there is.