He was in every story she ever wrote;

sometimes he was a hero, sometimes a villain sometimes he was a face in a crowd but he was always there.

It was his voice she heard when she wrote.

Her name was Violet Hunter.

Violet’s stories passed in and out of fashion a very long time ago but  on Halloween somebody somewhere tells a version of one of her stories and when they do they don’t realize that Violet Hunter was born on Halloween and died on Halloween

comes back to life, for a little while.

Both  Violet Hunter the writer and the young man whose name was Milo Playfair

 

Once years ago, it was at Halloween Party, somebody told a story about Milo and the shade of Violet Hunter sat next to the storyteller like she sometimes does and in her mind’s eye Violet was watching Milo live again when she heard someone say:

” Those stories are so weird, have you ever thought of developing them into a play or something ?” asked a woman who was dressed as witch and whose real name was Karla.

” Actually, I was thinking about turning one of them into screenplay. These stories are amazing. They’re visual you know? They’re just made to be put on the screen. I’m not sure, but back in the sixties I think someone was working on a screenplay based on one of her stories – it was called Typical Trixie. Nothing ever came of it. The project died the way some them do. Still. I think I would like the chance to do an interpretation of one. You know, make it my own- in a way. “  Bailey told Karla.

Violet would have narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t have them anymore- she hadn’t for years. But she could see fine as mist a man with his hair slicked back. He was wearing a cape.

Violet was not amused.

Bailey the screenwriter told Karla, “ Her life was made for the screen too.  Violet started to write after her boyfriend disappeared without a trace on her birthday-. He had  been gone for a few years  when Violet ups and starts writing all these horror novels . So everyone figures she had something to do with his disappearance.   It turns out to he was in an accident, a stupid car accident and they find this kid in his car at the bottom of the Duwamish River fifty years after he disappears. But really it probably helped to make her career. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by stories written by a suspected murderess?”

” So what happened to her?” Karla asked Bailey.

” The day they bury her friend’s bones, she’s  was in her early 70’s by then, she disappears from the graveyard.”

” Come on.” Karla laughed

” Seriously. They found her car in the lot in front of the Funeral Home and she’s gone. They never found her” Bailey insisted.

The shade of Violet reaches out and traces a line on the back of the neck of the woman dressed as a Witch and when the Witch reaches back to warm the cold that is creeping up and down her spine Violet whispers into her ear, ” maybe there was nothing for anyone to find.”

” Maybe there was nothing for anyone to find.”

” What?”

” Oh. Nothing. So she disappeared from the cemetery?”

” Yes.”

” Well. In my opinion that’s your movie. An old school horror writers from the what- 1940’s disappears from a cemetery. And what’s going on that day? The body of her friend- who she was falsely accused of killing is laid to rest. Now that’s a movie I’d pay to see Bailey.”

” I know, but I can’t get away from it. Those stories of her’s  it’s like they’re alive. “

” So you say.”

Bailey says more to himself then to Karla, ” I want those stories of hers.”

Violet stands up, walks behind Bailey and puts her hands on his shoulders.

She squeezes and Bailey turns his head painfully from left to right.

” I wonder how she did that, made those stories live like that.” Bailey says.

Violet leans down and whispers in Bailey’s ear, ” Milo.”

Violet covers Bailey’s mouth and nose with her hand and he begins to cough. She pulls her hand away and he takes a breath. ” I wonder why no one has ever tried to do this before. Those stories are just made to go up on the screen.”

Violet covers Bailey’s mouth and nose with her hand and this time as he struggles for air  she does not let go.

Instead, she tells Bailey who is desperately clawing at his face, ‘ Like you said,  a long time ago somebody did try to make one of my stories their own- but the project died the way they sometimes do.”