Secret Transfic Autumn Anthology / #15

Hallowtide

by

Jasmine is bullied into going into the woods on Halloween to search for will-o-the-wisps. Believing it to be a stupid tradition where the seniors scare the neighborhood, she does so, and ends up in a party for the spirits of trans childhoods, who invite her to try out something different for a night.

 

“Bye Daisy,” Jasmine said, taking the stairs two at a time.

“Hold on! You’re not going to a party like that, are you?”

Jasmine blinked and looked down at her outfit. It was her normal jeans and hoodie combo. It was totally appropriate for a party. She had even shaken things up by wearing her fancy sneakers with fewer scuff marks on them.

“Yeah?”

Daisy rolled her eyes and returned to her phone, asking, “Why don’t you ever want to dress up on Halloween, Jazz?”

“I don’t want to feel objectified,” she retorted, pouting a little.

“Then wear something cute instead.”

Jasmine felt heat rush to her face as she added, “I don’t see why girls have to look either sexy or cute.”

“You can wear whatever you want, Jazz.”

“And I want to wear this,” she insisted, turning to the door. “Costumes just make me feel bad, okay?”

“Alright, jeez. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Then why did you bring it up?” Jasmine mumbled on her way out the door.

Young kids were already trick-or-treating. Jasmine was probably late for the party. It had taken a lot for her to get out of bed. She was never one for parties. Besides, there would probably be boys there. Boys made her so uncomfortable. Jasmine hated the way that they looked at her. Being around them sent shivers down her spine. She always had to sequester herself with other girls, not that she ever felt entirely welcome around them. It wasn’t that they didn’t try to make her feel like she belonged; the problem, whatever it was, was hers.

She watched some kids running around in their costumes. It made her feel so old. Jasmine hadn’t gone trick-or-treating since she was eleven. That was four years prior. Not that she wanted to keep doing it–she felt too old for that now–but part of her felt like she’d missed out on something. It wasn’t just Halloween; she felt that way about Christmas and Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July. Every holiday, it felt like she was only half-present. Looking back on those memories always left her feeling the slightest bit hollow. Even though she had memories of participating, the feeling of having participated wasn’t there. Had Jasmine gotten on the wrong side of a fey creature who had snatched away her attachment to her own experiences?

“Hey, Jazz, why aren’t you at Stephen’s party yet?”

Jasmine sighed and turned around. Three girls dressed in skimpy costumes had snuck up behind her. The leader was sneering at her.

“I’m on my way now. Why aren’t you there, Tina?” she replied.

“Oh, I can afford to be fashionably late,” Tine retorted. “You, however? They’ll probably forget that you exist before you get there.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Jasmine said as the girls surrounded her.

“Why are you even going?” Shawni asked. “Nobody there likes you. They just put up with you, you know?”

“Get out of my way.”

The last girl, Val, smirked and asked, “Or what? You’ll throw a punch? How unladylike. No wonder you’re such an outcast.”

Jasmine moved to walk past them, but Val and Shawni pushed her back. She curled her hands into fists and shoved them into her hoodie pocket. It had been a while since she’d hit someone.

“What do you even want?” she asked.

“Look over there,” Tina said, pushing Jasmine in the direction of the woods. Little flashes of light could be seen deep within the tree line. “If you find out if there are really ghosts in the woods, we’ll let you come to the party with us.”

“Being seen with us can only improve your reputation, after all.”

“Come on, seriously?” Jasmine asked, blowing hair out of her face. “You know that’s just the seniors trying to scare people.”

“Come back with proof, then.”

Jasmine growled and began walking toward the trees. The other girls started snickering immediately. Her ears were burning, but Jasmine just kept her head down and continued toward the woods. She would just skirt around a couple of houses and take the long way to the party.

The woods were full of flashing white lights, but Jasmine couldn’t hear the scuffle of older kids running around. She wasn’t paying that much attention, though. Jasmine didn’t particularly care if they wanted to waste their evening making idiots of themselves. There was no way that she was doing this when she was a–

A floating orb of white light moved right in front of Jasmine.

She stopped and blinked. It darted away from her and deeper into the woods, meandering on its flight path. That had been no trick. There was really something weird going on in these woods.

Jasmine turned to glance back at the houses. The other girls had no doubt already gone on to the party. There was nothing stopping her from just returning to the road and walking the rest of the way there.

But there was something supernatural going on in these woods.

Nodding slowly to herself, Jasmine took out her phone and flicked on the light. The orb was quickly fading into the distance. She took off at a run, hoping to catch up with it. It wasn’t moving too fast. Jasmine slowed to a walk and turned off her light, hoping that she wasn’t going to scare the ball away.

It brought her to a clearing with a small stump in the middle. Sitting on it was an unlit jack-o-lantern. The ghost orb circled above the pumpkin for a little bit. Jasmine cocked her head to the side.

The glowing ball stopped in front of Jasmine. There was a flash of white light. Jasmine covered her eyes, but still had to blink away the spots. Standing in front of her was a girl wearing a wolf mask.

All around her were teenagers wearing animal masks.

“What!?” Jasmine exclaimed, taking a step back. “What’s going on!?”

“Hey, hey! It’s alright.” The wolf girl reached forward and grabbed Jasmine by the sleeve. “Everything is alright, I promise. You’re safe here.”

“Who are you?” Jasmine demanded. “How did you get here?”

A boy said, “We’re the spirit of trans childhoods.”

“Huh?”

Another girl answered, “Specifically, the spirits of trans childhoods that never got to be.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Jasmine insisted. “So, you’re ghosts?”

“Not all of us,” the wolf girl said, letting go of Jasmine’s arm. “It’s complicated. Many kinds of spirits exist; not just ghosts. Some of us are the spirits of people who are still alive, but never got to be who they truly were as kids.”

Jasmine folded her arms and slouched over, asking, “Why am I here?”

“You followed the lights into the forest,” an androgynous kid said. “It brought you to us.”

“But–”

“Hey,” the girl in the wolf mask cooed, taking Jasmine’s hand. “Don’t worry about it. The point is that you’re here and you get to celebrate with us. If you want to. My name is Alice, by the way.” She gestured to the unlit jack-o-lantern and snapped her fingers. A box of matches appeared in her hand. “If you light the jack-o-lantern, you can join in the festivities.”

“And be stuck here forever?” Jasmine asked, pulling her hand away. “No thanks.”

She turned to storm off, but Alice grabbed her by the hoodie.

“No,” she said slowly. “You can leave at midnight once the party is over. You’re not a spirit, though I’m sure you have spirits out there somewhere like most people do. You belong in the land of the living and can’t stay with us when the celebration ends.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Jasmine relaxed, then stared at the box of matches.

“I guess a ghost party is cooler than the one I was going to go to anyway,” she mumbled, taking the offering. “But I want to be able to leave whenever I want.”

“Of course.”

She stepped up to the jack-o-lantern and knelt down. Alice helped by plucking the lid off the pumpkin. The matches felt entirely real in Jasmine’s hand. She struck one, and the flame was hot. Jasmine quickly stuck the match into the pumpkin and lit the candle inside.

The jack-o-lantern sprang to life and suddenly the whole clearing was awash in lights. A mix of paper lanterns and strings of light bulbs hung from the trees along the edge. Tiki torches were scattered around, illuminating two buffet tables and an unlit bonfire.

Jasmine fell back in surprise, landing on her butt and letting out a deep “oof!”

“Where did this all come from?” she asked, running her hands through her now awfully short hair. Her voice was a lot deeper than she was used to. She glanced down. “Where are my tits!?”

There was laughter and applause from the kids around her before they all scattered. Alice chuckled and pulled a fox mask from behind her back, holding it out to Jasmine. Hands shaking, she took it and stared at it. It was wood, but painted very nicely.

“What happened?” she grunted.

“You get to explore having a different body for a while!” Alice exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “You’ll love it, I promise! But while we’re here, is there another name that you want to go by for tonight?”

“Another name?” Jasmine shook her head and climbed to her feet. “I don’t think so. Why?”

She was taller than Alice, now. That was a little strange. Her outfit hadn’t changed, but it was a lot looser on her. It felt like she was wearing boy clothes. It actually really did feel like she was a boy.

“Um… how about Daniel?” she suggested. “Daniel is a cool name.”

Alice grinned, then took Daniel by the hands and started dragging her toward the bonfire. Several boys were throwing matches at it, and a small fire had just started deep inside the structure. Daniel squirmed a little bit. The last thing she wanted was to be surrounded by boys.

“Hey, everyone,” Alice said, “this is Daniel. Be good to him, alright?”

Him.

Daniel’s insides squirmed. She wasn’t a guy, not really. Looking like a guy didn’t make her a guy. Nobody would believe that she was a guy. They’d just look at her with the same discomfort and implied disgust that boys looked at girls with.

“Hey, Daniel.”

“Hi, Dan. Is Dan okay?”

She mumbled, “Just Daniel, please.”

Alice slipped away, leaving Daniel at the mercy of a bunch of guys. Her heart plummeted. Why would Alice do that? What happened to girls protecting girls?

“You want a match?” one boy asked.

“I’m good.”

“You nervous?” someone asked.

Another boy added, “No reason to be nervous, man. Everyone here is super friendly. And the girls are super cute.”

“And the boys are super cute, too,” the first guy replied, to chuckles from the rest of the group.

Daniel’s breathing steadied a bit.

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“You from around here?” someone asked Daniel.

She nodded, explaining, “Yeah, I live in a neighborhood real close. I… saw the lights and wanted to see what was up.”

“Lucky you. This is a great party.”

“Yeah…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, I’m… actually kind of enjoying myself.”

She listened to conversation for a while, pitching in once or twice. It took a while for her to realize that she just needed to talk louder to avoid being talked over. Boys came and went, joining and departing the little group. Occasionally, a girl or two would come to relax in front of the fire.

After a while, Daniel made his way to the buffet tables. Snacks were piled high, along with all kinds of sweets and candy. It was Halloween, after all. He grabbed a plate and started piling it high.

Was this real? Everyone here was a spirit, right? The tables had appeared from nothing. But the fire had seemed so real. This food certainly looked real.

Across the table, a girl with a sheep mask was watching Daniel.

“Hey, can you pass me the bowl of candy corn?” she asked.

“Blegh. Who likes candy corn?” Daniel replied.

“Hey, I do,” she retorted, pouting. “Call me crazy, but I have an affinity for underappreciated things.”

“Like candy corn?”

“Like candy corn.”

She snorted, grinning slightly, then picked up the bowl to pass it to the girl.

“Thanks. I don’t actually care about candy corn. I just wanted to talk to a cute boy for a bit.”

Daniel stammered and sputtered as heat rushed to her face.

“You think I’m cute?” she asked.

“Sure. In a handsome way, though. Not a pretty way.”

That gave Daniel a warm, fuzzy feeling in her gut for some reason.

Stomach full–perhaps a little too full–Daniel wandered a little further away from the bonfire. He followed the tiki torches and hanging lights toward the sound of bubbling water and guys playing around. The lights stopped just short of a dry river. A small creek ran through the riverbed. Boys were playing in the dirt and climbing over a log that had fallen to create a makeshift bridge.

Memories of playing in the woods with boys when she was really young crawled their way out of the back of Daniel’s memories. She chuckled and ran over, climbing on top of the log and doing her best to hold her balance. About halfway, Daniel felt a gentle push from behind. With a queak, she teetered to the side and had to jump off to avoid falling, landing in the mud.

The boys around her chuckled and Daniel blushed again before joining in the laughter. Following the lead of the other boys, she climbed back up on the log, each of them trying to push each other off while maintaining their claim on the bridge. After a while, they started taking turns seeing who could jump the furthest off the log.

Muddy and wet, Daniel made her way back to the bonfire. She passed by a group of boys wrestling on the grass while boys and girls cheered them on. The urge to join in pushed Daniel closer. Her sister never enjoyed roughhousing. Daniel really wanted a part.

“Having fun?”

Alice had found her. Daniel blinked and cleared her throat, nodding.

“Come on, let’s get you dried off.”

The two sat down around the bonfire.

“So, you seem like you’re really enjoying yourself,” Alice said. “Do you think that you’d like to stay a boy when all this is over?”

Daniel frowned.

“I’m not a boy, though,” she mumbled. “Looking like a boy for a night doesn’t make you a boy.”

“No. Wanting to be a boy makes you a boy,” Alice retorted. “You can start transitioning as soon as you leave the party, in fact. You already have a name you want to try out. How does it feel, by the way?”

Daniel hugged her knees to her chest.

“It feels good. It all feels good. But I can’t transition. I can’t just be a boy. People will never look at me and see a boy. I’ll just be a girl who wants more privilege. All this is probably just internalized misogyny anyway. There’s nothing I’ve done tonight that a girl can’t do. I should just–”

“No, stop that. Right now,” Alice instructed, placing a hand over Daniel’s mouth. “Do you enjoy being a girl?”

Daniel removed her hand and explained, “It’s not about whether I enjoy it. It’s what I was born as.”

“Do you enjoy it, though?”

“...I don’t hate it.”

“But do you like being a boy more?”

Daniel didn’t respond right away.

“Daniel?”

She sighed and nodded.

Desperate to change the subject, Daniel asked, “What’s your story? What are you doing here? What  happened to you?”

Alice shook her head, explaining, “We’re only allowed to talk about our history with other spirits. No living people allowed. Sorry. You can join the party, but you can’t know too much about the spirit world.”

“There are only teenagers here, though.”

“That’s right. I’m sure the younger spirits are off trick-or-treating somewhere.”

“So… You said spirits could be of people who were still alive. If I’m really trans, does that mean that there’s, like, a spirit of me as a boy trick-or-treating right now?”

Alice pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything.

Someone passed around some cheap beer. Daniel took one and offered it to Alice, who shook her head. “Religious reasons,” she explained. Daniel nodded and kept the drink for himself, tossing the bottle cap in a trash bag that was being passed around.

The beer tasted watered down. Several of the boys around the bonfire chugged their drinks and got into a small burping contest. Daniel laughed along, but several of the girls were grossed out. Downing the rest of her drink, Daniel let loose the deepest, loudest burp that she could. Alice wrinkled her nose and shoved him playfully.

“You pig!” she cried.

Daniel chuckled, then frowned.

“Alright,” she said quietly. “Maybe I do want to be a boy.”

His vision was a little blurry. It was so surprising to hear himself say it, but it felt so true. He sniffled and covered his fox mask with his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I feel so stupid for crying.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Alice insisted, placing her hands on Daniel’s arms. “It’s alright to cry.”

“I can’t cry if I’m a boy.”

“Yes, you can. Trust me; I wish I’d learned that a long time ago.”

Maybe it was just the beer, but Daniel felt really warm and bubbly. Alice’s hands were still on his arms. He lowered his hands, eyes all red and puffy. Alice was staring right at him. Their masked faces were awfully close. Slowly, Alice removed hers. Daniel did the same.

Alice leaned close and her lips met Daniel’s. Daniel leaned into it. This was the first time that he’d kissed someone–boy or girl–that really felt right.

“It’s getting close to midnight,” Alice said. “We’ll have to go soon.”

Daniel frowned.

“Will I get to see you again?”

“Probably not.” Alice smiled softly, then stood up. “Come on. Let’s dance.”

She pulled Daniel to his feet and a little further away from the fire, where a bunch of kids had started dancing. Daniel stood awkwardly for a few moments while Alice cut loose. Taking a deep breath, he began to dance as well.

There was a lot of noise and a lot of movement. The lights were glowing brightly around them. Alice pressed herself close to Daniel. People were dancing all around them. The bonfire stretched up to the heavens. Daniel spun around, letting himself laugh in a way that he hadn’t been able to for a while.

And then it was dark.

As Daniel’s eyes adjusted to the light, he found himself alone in the clearing. The lights were gone, the tables were gone, the bonfire was gone. All the kids were gone. The only thing remaining was the jack-o-lantern on the tree stump. The candle had gone out.

Looking down, Daniel was back in his old body. All his clothes were clean again, but they looked like girl clothes. He moaned, a little disappointed. Still, though, he was wearing the fox mask. He took it off and looked at it in the moonlight.

There were voices in the distance, as well as the flashing of sweeping flashlights.

“Hey!” Daniel cried out, wincing at his own voice. “Over here! Who is that!?”

Someone was running through the underbrush toward him. His older sister Daisy burst through the tree line and ran up to him. She grabbed Daniel in a firm hug, smothering him against her chest.

“You dolt!” she cried. “I was so worried about you.”

“I’m fine!” he insisted, pulling away. Several of Daniel’s other friends had arrived with Daisy. “How long have you been looking?”

“Nearly an hour!” Daisy cried. “Your friends came to check up on you when you never showed up to the party. Did you just forget how dangerous the woods are on Halloween?”

“I promise that I’m fine,” Daniel said. “Can we go home now?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

They started walking back toward the neighborhood, Daniel’s other friends in tow.

“There is one other thing,” he said. “Could you start calling me Daniel from now on?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’d really like to go by that, instead.”

“Sure thing, squirt.”

 

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Secret Transfic Autumn Anthology / #15

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