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"... Isn't this supposed to be a children's holiday?"

Melody sat perched atop a shelf as she watched Tanner put the last touches on his costume. Honestly, she still didn't know much about the specifics of human holidays, even though she had seen the decorations go up year after year. Still, from what she could remember, all the people running around in strange clothes asking for candy had been kids. She'd seen people Tanner's age too, but she could never tell exactly what they were doing. Most of them didn't dress up.

"Hey, I'm still a kid," said Tanner, not even bothering to turn around to look at her. He stood facing the mirror, painstakingly drawing along the edge of his eye with a wand of something or the other. She had been watching him put on make-up for the better part of an hour by now.

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Melody made a face that indicated just what she thought of that--- not that he was going to see it. The adults were going to decide that, she supposed. Looking to change the subject, she said, "What are you supposed to be, anyway?"

Tanner traced under his eye one more time, then grinned, whirling around and taking a bow. "A vampire," he said, but the smile disappeared abruptly from his face. "Why? You can't tell?" He turned his head back to look himself over in the mirror again, frowning dubiously.

"I don't know what that is," said Melody, giving a shrug. Tanner looked incredulous.

"What, really? You've never seen, like, Twilight or Dracula or any of that stuff?"

Melody shook her head. "Our job is just to deal with the dead," she said. "Sometimes I look around when I'm bored, but it's not like I can talk to people."

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"Oh, right," Tanner said. "I guess you can't read books or anything, huh?" He seemed to come to some sort of decision then, and started walking toward the door. "Come trick-or-treating with me," he said. "It's your first Halloween, right? It'll be fun."

She mulled it over for a moment, but the truth of it was that she didn't really have anything better to do. That was why she was here in the first place. Her superior had told her not to consort too closely with the human boy, but she figured that just talking wouldn't hurt. "Sure, why not?" she said, and drifted out after him. He was grinning again, and she briefly wondered what she had gotten herself into, but she shouldn't have had anything to worry about. She was a reaper, after all. What was the worst that could happen?

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"... So you really don't know what a vampire is?" Tanner glanced back at her as they walked through the streets. Or, well, he walked anyway. Melody just sort of drifted beside him. She could have walked, of course, but why do that when she could float? That was the general fashion amongst reapers, maybe to better separate themselves from humans.

Melody frowned at him. "I already told you, I don't. Why would I? They're a human story, aren't they?"

Tanner sighed. "If you're saying that, they must be, huh?" He swung his bucket of treats around. "I thought, since you're a reaper, maybe you've seen one, but I guess not."

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"Oh," said Melody. She hadn't thought about it that way before, and tried to think of whether she had seen anything a human might have considered supernatural, but nothing else came to mind. "Well, ghosts are real," she said. "Evil spirits are real." But that was why reapers existed--- to prevent ghosts from becoming evil spirits.

They came up to another house, and Tanner gave his treat bucket another twirl. It flew easily, its few contents rattling inside it as if they were uneasy. Tanner walked up the steps and pressed the doorbell. A thin, harried-looking woman answered, but her face hardened as soon as she saw him.

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Tanner flashed her his most winsome smile, blinking innocently. "Trick-or-treat!" he said, holding out the pumpkin-shaped bucket expectantly. He really did look sort of like a kid, but only in mannerism--- physically he was very clearly past puberty, if only by virtue of his height. The woman's lips pressed into a thin line.

"Aren't you too old to be going around like this?" she said, holding her bowl of candy bars closer to her. Melody shot him an I-told-you look, but he pretended not to see.

He feigned a hurt expression. "Aww, don't be like that. Don't you like my costume? I worked really hard on it, you know." He gave his cape a flourish and winked at her, but that only seemed to make the woman angrier.

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"Look, kid, if you're looking for trouble, you can go somewhere else," she said, and slammed the door in his face. Tanner blinked a couple of times before knocking on the door again. The woman made no answer, not even after he started ringing her doorbell in earnest.

"Give it up," Melody said.

Tanner heaved a sigh. "I guess I should, huh?" He examined his still mostly-empty bucket and seemed to consider it seriously for a moment, but the next minute he pushed up a grin. "Come on, one more house. This one's gonna be good, I can feel it."

"If you say so," said Melody, not sounding convinced in the least.

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Tanner was determined to be successful this time, so he spent quite a while picking out a suitable house. They passed several with their lights on, some decorated and some not, but Tanner rejected them all. "A big one," he said to Melody, "with lots of decorations. People with real holiday spirit are more open-minded. Hey, there's a good one!"

It certainly was an impressive house. The building itself was fairly large, but it was the display on the lawn that was the most remarkable. The whole front yard was covered in large decorations, from cobwebs strung up on fences to the automated pop-up ghouls that lined the walk. One cackled and beckoned invitingly.

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Melody eyed it uneasily. She knew it was all fake and that those things couldn't do anything to her, but something about them still made her... well, not nervous exactly, but---

"Aagh!" she screamed as one launched itself at her. She heaved a huge sigh as the ghoul groaned and its mechanisms moved it back to its original position. Her chest burned uncomfortably, and her breath came shakily. Beside her, Tanner was laughing incredulously.

"Wait, did you really get scared by that? Really?" He walked over and gave the ghoul a kick. It jumped out at him too and he flinched back slightly, but immediately recovered and gave it a pat on the head, grinning broadly.

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Melody glared at him. "I wasn't scared," she said mulishly.

"Aaah!" said Tanner, his voice pitched mockingly high as he wiggled his hands about.

"Hey, I don't sound like that!" Melody retorted. Tanner only laughed some more.

"You're a reaper! How come you're scared of something dumb like that?" he said. He was about to say something else when he let out a scream of his own--- something had latched onto his ankle while he had been distracted. Now it was Melody's turn to laugh.