Night Of The Masks

Chapter 6
Part 6

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Chapter Description: With the Gilne exposed, the children rush to put an end to yet another Halloween Night.

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Twenty minutes later and there wasn’t much in the way of progress at the house. Half the money saved up by Miles had been passed off to trick-or-treaters, and even though the trio of kids tried to strike up awkward conversations with every group, they were no closer to discovering which was a Gilne.

"Part of me wonders if it came and we missed it," grumbled out Tia with a pout. As Fiona waved good-bye to another group of candy-seekers, the increasingly-smaller girl looked through the enormous book she had in her lap.

Across from her, likewise sitting on the floor, Miles shook his head, "No, I don’t think so. I think I might know its costume if I saw i- Mmph..."

The boy’s speech was cut off when he was given a hug from behind, courtesy of Sylvia who’d taken to toddling around the room. Sighing, he soon took his sister off of her feet and set her onto his lap.

Tia’s response to that sight, after a quick turn of the page in the book she was in, was to admit, "Cute and all, but I’m starting to get really worried."

"Starting to?" Clearly not in the best of moods himself, Miles went silent for a moment to adjust where his sister was seated briefly before adding on, "I’ve been silently panicking ever since the first two books failed to produce anything."

"Okay - I’m starting to get even more worried than when we started," rephrased the bookworm. As she shut the book, the girl looked over her hands in fear, asking aloud, "How old do you think we even are?"

"I’ve been trying not to think about it," mumbled out the boy. After spending a few moments getting snuggled by his baby sister, he put a hand to his forehead before saying, forlorn, "At least she hasn’t gotten somehow tinier. Maybe there’s a cap to it."

"Hopefully it’s higher the older you are or something..." Better than nothing, Tia supposed. Before she could say more, however, things were broken off by a loud clatter at the door, shaking it back and forth hard on its hinged.

That at once got Sylvia to begin sniffling, and Miles flew to action to address it. Fiona for her part awkwardly questioned of the others, "Sh-Should I open it, or --"

Before the shy girl could continue, she was cut off from a somewhat unusual voice through the door bemoaning, "These twisty movey walls are always so confusing! Open!"

That drew a frightened yelp from Fiona, who at once scurried away from the door as if it were about to sprout arms and strangle her. "AH! Th-That’s it! It’s the- MMPH!"

Fiona was cut off before giving things away when Tia placed her hand over her mouth. Once the teddy bear quieted down, the bookworm rose a finger to her lips.

"Shhh...." That remark was from Miles to his sister however, in an attempt to calm her down after all the noise. Once he’d managed to quiet the fussy baby, he gave her an extra snuggle before turning to Tia, "You ready?"

Tia gave the honest answer of, "No."

"Time to get there, then." With a sigh as he careful set his sister on the couch, Miles instructed the girls in a low voice, "We have to be quick and grab it. Lock the door afterward, we don’t want interruptions."

"Got it."

"O-Okay..."

At that, while still hesitant Fiona grabbed the doorknob and slowly began to twist it to open.

"Treats and tricks!"

That was the first thing the pair heard as the door was swung open, and Tia did a quick check to make sure there was only one person on the stoop. She was afraid the Gilne might have come with a crowd, but for the moment it seemed totally alone on the doorstep.

It didn’t look much different than a normal ten-year-old girl, however. It had a happy, childish face adored by blond hair, apparently dressed as a baker covered in blood splatters (complete with a plastic knife covered in fake blood) "Wrestle-baby said you were giving out change! I never had any- what’s it taste li-AH!"

At once, the stranger found herself jerked into the house by the combined might of Miles and Tia, and immediately found herself alarmed. Fiona meanwhile flew into action at a surprisingly quick pace for her, instinctively closing the door and locking it - not that this was necessary, given the stranger’s apparent trouble with doors.

At once, the slightly odler girl responded to the others by shouting out, somewhat fearfully, "Help - I’ve been stolen!"

"Quiet!"

The blood-splattered baker had a hand put over her mouth and quickly went from fearful to perplexed. She was quiet enough to hold still while Miles looked her over, "Hm... Yeah, I remember putting this together.... I even called a friend I have at my theater group for stage bloo- EW!"

When the boy pulled his hand away from the creature’s face, Tia was first afraid she’d bitten him. But instead he only glared at his palm, which was dripping with saliva, "She was licking my hand."

"Oh, yeah, you taste familiar..."

After that strange comment, the oddity before the trio pulled back to study things a bit further. After a moment, she questioned, "Oh! Hey, you’re all in those neat outfits. Did you just wanna show me them, is that why ya stole me? Because those are really nice, and --"

"Shh!"

That was Tia interrupting now. Putting her hands on her hips, the bookworm now demanded, "Look, can you just change everything back to normal already?"

The strange little baker stared at the geek for a moment before blurting out, "Dunno whatcha mean!"

"W-W-What she means is...." Fiona inched nearer timidly, clearly afraid of the stranger. Still, she worked up the courage to ask, "A-Are you a.... A-A Gilne?"

There was another very long hesitation from the odd little girl before she answered, and when she did it was with way too much volume, "A Gilne? No! Whatever could one be?"

"Maybe this isn’t it, they’re supposed to be good at hiding." A frown on his face, Miles nonetheless decided to change tactics. "Okay... Umm.... How do you feel about Halloween?"

"Oh, it’s great! Wonderful even! I like all the funny costumes, and that good, good food everybody gives out!" Grinning wildly, the girl seemed to get lost in her own thoughts as she began to mumble to herself, "And all the funny costumes, and thingies on people’s houses, and neat scary things on the boxy thing with the little people inside, and --"

"Stop, stop." Holding out a hand to further indicate that the girl was to indeed stop, Miles changed the line of discussion a bit to question, "Okay, how familiar are you with other holidays?"

"OHMIGOSH! There are MORE?!"

An excitable squeal emitted from the blonde and she began hopping up and down in a rush, "That’s..... That’s so cool! I mean, I always just partied Mindy’s birthday every year, then people told me about Halloween, but now.... What other holidays are there? Tell me!"

Sighing, Tia was happy to remark, "I guess this isn’t the same one who did that stuff on New Year’s, at least..."

"New Year’s? What’s that? Is that like at the creation of a new year when everything old is tossed aside or something in some big ceremony, or --"

"Not quite."

Miles was clearly at a loss for how to approach this, but after a moment of silent pondering on it he seemed to hit on a direction to go in. "There are a great many. One next month is Thanksgiving, which is a big feast for giving appreciation, and then a month after that is Christmas..."

Seeing that the girl was looking very exciteable now, the boy continued with, "Of course, the only way you could properly see every one of them would be if it weren’t Halloween every night, but right now it seems like there won’t be any more..."

"Oh... But..."

The stranger did seem worried for a moment. As reluctant concern drew over her face, she admitted, "But Halloween’s just so much fun. And when you have to do other holidays, don’t you have to do a lot of really boring days before you get to them?"

"Well, yeah, but...." Tia attempted to mull over how to address this properly. "Waiting for something is sorta fun too, don’tcha think?"

That seemed ot have some effect, as the Gilne began considering it once mentioned. Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt something tugging at her bloody apron. Said thing being Sylvia, who cooed out a clumsy, "Hi!"

"Hi, baby!"

Fiona, alarmed as ever, seemed none-too-eager to see where this went, as she began to interrupt with a nervous, "E-Excuse me, I think --"

"Wait a second," Miles interrrupted to the girl in a low voice. Whether he wanted to see where this was going or if he just didn’t want to distract from the subject, Fiona didn’t know, but either way the teddy bear did as instructed.

Following this, Sylvia began to poke at the Gilne, drawing a much heavier amount of giggles from her than one would expect.

After some of the mutual giggling had subsided for a moment, the creature bent down to scoop the baby up, cooing at her, "Awww, you’re such a sweet little baby! You’re just like Mindy when she was little!"

Second time that’d been mentioned, noticed Tia. "Uh.... Mindy?"

"Where?" After the Gilne checked the room for a moment and realized whoever that was couldn’t be there, she began to rub Sylvia’s tummy against her golden hair, "Ooooo, whoosa happy baby?"

"Well, that’s the thing..." mumbled out Miles again. "Sylvia’s not supposed to be a baby."

"She’s not?" The Gilne stopped with the rubbing, watching as the toddler squealed and laughed happily above her head, "Huh... Well, maybe she should take those diapers off. They give the wrong impression."

"That’s not quite -- Honestly, if you’re confused by the concept of a door, that’s a pretty strange word for you to even..."

While Miles seemed at a loss for how to respond to that statement, Tia opted to take over by coolly explaining, "See, she is supposed to be older than she is - we all are. But with Halloween being this way everyone’s getting younger and younger, and we don’t know when it’ll stop. Or if it will."

"What’s wrong with going younger and younger?" was the obvious question. The Gilne soon placed Sylvia on her shoulders and began to half-gallop around the three other kids, speaking as she went, "When I learned about Halloween they said I couldn’t do it, then I got myself fixed so I can now!"

"Uh...." Clearly Miles wasn’t very enthusiastic watching the creature get more physical with his sister, but bit his tongue about it. "Well, When you get younger there’s also some stuff you can’t do. Say, for example, since I’m a little boy I can’t make you costumes anymore."

"GASP!"

That definitely threw the monster off. Stunned in place for a moment, during with Fiona helpfully scooped Sylvia off of the girl’s shoulders just in case, the Gilne took a moment to compose itself before complaining, "But isn’t Halloween for kids to go and show off how spooky and colorful they can be?"

"Yes, but someone has to be old enough to make them." Miles began to study himself now, putting on a frown as he did so while explaining, "And I’m afraid at the rate I’m going I’ll be lucky if I know how to walk in the morning. There’s no way I could possibly use a needle and thread in this state."

"But I wanted you to make Mindy something...." The same whining tone you’d hear from a disappointed child was in the Gilne’s voice as she spoke, and it only became more complete by the pout that came with it. "I said we’d go out together...."

"Well, not everyone can be a little kid and go out on Halloween," explained Tia. "Then nobody would stay inside to give out candy."

"That’s right..." As Fiona stepped nearer with his little sister, Miles picked her up and held her close, "And if I get any smaller, I won’t even get to take Sylvia trick-or-treating tomorrow, so neither of us will get to go."

"Oh..."

That the creature definitely seemed put off by. After a moment, the girl asked, as if for confirmation, "So if you get little enough you can’t do anything for it?"

"That’s right." Nodding solemnly, while fighting off the urge to grin at how well this was going, Tia explained, "See, when you get young enough there are a lot of things you can’t do, and you need some people to be older otherwise no one can do things like make costumes and give out candy."

"But that’s no fun," came the simple reply. "If you grow up you don’t get to go out anymore, why doesn’t everyone get to do it?"

"That’s just part of growing up," replied Tia simply. "I mean, I’m too old to go trick-or-treating..." The bookworm trailed off, looking over her grade-school body and chopped-together costume, "Uh... usually. But I don’t mind because I can still take my little brother out and let him have fun."

"R-Right." With a timid nod, Fiona added on to the point by saying, "And it’s okay to, um, to do some things like that s-sometimes, but you need to know when to move on."

"And similarly..." Bringing this around to the group’s other key point in dealing with the Gilne, Miles explained, "Being hung up on one given event will get you nowhere. You need to let the days go by as they will if you really want things to work and to get the most enjoyment out of life."

This all seemed to somewhat sink in for the creature, who stared meaningfully from one of the members of the group to another. After she’d apparently run the concept through her mind a few times, she brought all her attention to Fiona, "But.... After Halloween’s over, don’t you have to go back to being a regular teddy bear?"

That question perplexed the taller girl for a moment. Soon she answered, half-exasperated, "I-I’m not really a teddy bear... I’m a girl in a teddy bear costume."

"..... Ohhhhhh. I thought some trick-or-treaters were things like witches dressed like kids, and then tomorrow they’d have to go back to being burned at the stake."

"No. Everyone who’s been dressing up are kids dressed like other stuff," explained Tia simply. "When Halloween’s over, they’ll just go back to being normal kids."

That seemed to have the stranger floored for a moment, as if that idea hadn’t occurred to her. After a moment, the Gilne finally gave a large exhale, before saying, in a somewhat dramatic manner, "I guess ya should know - I’m the reason for all this."

"You don’t say." Smirking in a somewhat smarmy way but trying to remain friendly, Miles then questioned, "Don’t you think you should fix everything now, then?"

"I..... Guess...." The creature was still very reluctant about the whole idea, and the emotion was dripping off its tongue as it spoke. But nonetheless, it nodded and admitted, "If it really is messing things up that much.... But is being a kid again really that bad, or do I have to fix that too?"

"Yes, That too." proclaimed Tia, fuming as she folded her arms. "I’m supposed to be getting ready to go to college, not the third grade."

"Hm...." With a frown, the Gilne added, "Yeah, okay.... But you didn’t have any fun with this at all?"

There was a hesitation there on Tia’s part. After a moment, however, she admitted reluctantly, "Well, I wouldn’t say that... It’s just not the time for me, you know? But it has been pretty fun I guess, and I’ve made some friends I wouldn’t have otherwise."

"And I have to admit," Miles added in himself, "that this year’s Halloween will more than likely be the most memorable for us."

"Awesome!" The Gilne gave a happy cry before asking aloud, "Wanna do it again? I can bring Mindy things time. We can all be kids again on...."

The creature trailed off, before wondering aloud, "Hey, when is the next Halloween anyway?"

"Umm..." Fiona helpfully answered, "It’s once a-a year. But n-next year-"

"Just once a year?!"

"Yeah, but there are a lot of other days like this in between." Tia wasn’t sure how to approach the subject, but soon began to do so by asking, "Remember the other holidays we mentioned? Like... Well, Thanksgiving next month isn’t the most flashy thing ever, but there’s always Christmas - lots of lights and decorations, and kids get presents. You might like that."

"Huh. Sounds fun... Deal, then! We can be kids again on that Mass thing and spend the day together or something! It’ll be fun!"

Miles, somewhat alarmed, decided to helpfully point out, "Well, it wouldn’t hurt to not do that every time and keep some variety, yes?"

"I.... guess...." mumbled out the Gilne at last. She did look out the window once more and asked, "But uh... It’s still Halloween now, so can I keep going treat-and-tricks? Or do you still want to keep me stolen?"

"I suppose I don’t see why not..." mumbeld out Miles reluctantly. "But shouldn’t you get to work on changing us back?"

"Oh, that don’t work ’til midnight," came the simple reply. As the creature looked over the four humans once more, she asked, "Hey, I don’t even think I know your names...."

"Oh, I’m Miles," the boy explained at once, before beginning to gesture to the three girls he was seated with, "And these are, in order, my sister Sylvia, Tia, and Fiona."

Feeling like she should at least try and be sociable with the surprisingly friendly creature, Tia saw fit to point out, "I don’t think you’ve told us your’s, either."

Things were interrupted a bit, however, by a turn of the doorknob. Once that failed, the recognizable voice of Iris was heard calling much too loudly, "Hey! Let us in! You’re not that broke that you’ve gotta go hiding or something, are ya?"

"I-I’ll get it..." announced the sheepish teddy bear.

Fiona wasted no time in opening the door, and let in the missing four members of the group. Of particular note were AJ, who now seemed only a few inches shorter than Sammy (which, Tia noted with annoyance, was not quite as short as herself), and Iris, who by the look of her had dropped down to the three-or-four-year-old range.

"I-I’m glad you’re back..." Mumbled out Fiona happily, giving the tiny wrestler a hug. "W-We found the Gilne causing this...."

The Gilne in question gasped at the new arrivals before asking Tia, "They didn’t say treats-and-tricks! What do we do?!"

"It’s okay, they’re friends," Tia assured the confused girl. That didn’t seem to do much to offset her shock over things, but she soon tried to change the subject back by asking, "So, yeah... Think you should introduce yourself now or something? Maybe tell us if there’s anything in particular we need to do at midnight or something?"

"Nuh uh, that’s all me." The Gilne gave a shake of her head to emphasize the point, and then addressed the other subject by announcing, "But these four have to say their names first! I’ve gotta know your friends since we’re friends so they’re my friends!"

The preschool wrestler grit her teeth angrily but after a happy squeeze from the Teddy bear, she relented, "I’m Iris. This’s Pam, Sam, an’ AJ."

"Uh.... Hi. You look more normal than I thought you would...." Sammy inched nervously around the creature to stand beside his sister who he grinned at, "Heh... You’ve sure gotten cute, haven’t you?"

"Shove it."

"You sure you’re friends?" That question only got the Gilne a mean look from both siblings, so she soon gave a big smile and announced, "One of my names is Demora."

After a moment, Tia looked around at the other members of the group and responded with a joking comment of, "Not quite as cute-sounding as Mindy."

"Who?"

"Oh, no, nobody’s cuter than Mindy!" With a shake of her head, Demora happily commented, "Well, I better go - if things’re going normal tomorrow, I need to stock up on as much candy as I can!"

"Heh."

Looking around at the other members of the group, and then to his little sister in his arms, Miles commented, "Shame, if not for Sylvia being a little too young for that we could all join you. So long as we only have tonight to do it, I suppose."

"Oh... Wait..." Demora stopped in place at that before asking, "What if Sylvia was bigger, could you guys come Halloweening with me?"

"Uh.... Well..."Miles looked nervously at his sister, who was sucking her thumb innocently in his arms. "I suppose, but are you certain whatever you’re doing won’t... effect her?"

"We’ll explain all of that in a minute," Tia answered impatiently to the wrestler. Afterward, she added on the detail, "It’s all pretty complicated and we still don’t fully get it but we’ll be fine in the morning."

"Uh huh! But I think I can do somethin’ now." Turning her focus to Miles now, the Gilne soon shook her head and happily explained, "But nuh-uh, she’ll be okay! Changin’ one person back like this is real easy, just doing a whole buncha people hasta be done after midnight. It’s hard to say it so you’d get it but --"

Miles interrupted, looking down at his sister while commenting, "I think I get the gist of it, thank you."

Then, a moment later, Pammy interrupted with, "Wow, this really is one weird dream!"

Demora seemed more interested in that statement than anything else. Giving the baker’s daughter a curious look, she asked, "Wait, is this all a dream? Well, no wonder you guys could see through my-"

"No, no, no! Stoppit!" Fortunately the Gilne’s attention was called back by Iris, "I wann’ grow up again!"

"Wait, what aobut Sylvia?" Questioned Miles.

"She’s already in diapers, I’m just a few minutes away from them. Do me first before I get there."

"Nah, it’s okay! It’ll stop here for now, promise."

"Wait, you can decide to stop it on a whim but not to -- Nevermind, not important." With a shake of her head, Tia ignored Iris moving to further protest this by turning to Miles and commenting, "Okay, seeing as how we’re being all forthcoming and things can’t get much weirder, something I should probably get out of the way. See, I was wondering if, y’know, maybe --"

The girl’s cousing cut in, wrapping an arm around Tia’s neck while teasingly explaining to Miles, "Heh. I think ma cousin’s tryin’a ask ya out."

"AJ, SHUT UP!"

"I-I see...."

A blush came over Miles’ face as well, and he began to busy himself by adjusting Sylvia’s position in his arms. After his baby sister cuddled him violently, he quietly replied, "If she’s right, I.... Don’t think I’d mind that."

Sammy soon ruined the mood by blurting out, "Even though she’s a massive dork?"

 

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