Inspired by prompt # 22 in the "Halloween Vault"

Total Length: 2902 words, excluding image attributions.

The orange leaves swirled around me as I approached my door. What had been a mere chill in the air earlier in the day had become downright cold, and the occasional puddle left from yesterday's rain seemed to exude a frigid mist. Even though I am in my third year at university - studying chemistry - I sometimes act like a little girl. Rainy days bring this childishness out in me, even when they are as miserable as that Halloween afternoon. I splashed through the puddle nearest the door, dislodging a muddy, yellow leaf. The leaf floated free in the puddle revealing the tracks of a small animal. The paw prints were like those of a big house cat, but with claws visible; a marten, perhaps, or a fox.

There was a package on the doorstep. It wasn't an Amazon package or a brown-paper post-office box. It was an apparel box, one of those delicate cardboard boxes that fancy stores give you when you buy clothes as Christmas presents. This was one of the bigger ones, the sort of thing you'd use for a lady's dress, and it had a soft, red ribbon tied around it.

I picked the box up curiously, surprised by its weight. I hadn't been expecting a package, and the box didn't even have a mailing address on it. I wondered if it might be an early birthday gift, and reasoned I would only knew who sent it if I opened it.

It was an hour later before I opened the box. I threw my damp clothes in the hamper and soaked in a warm bath, first, and poured myself a cup of tea. Then, and only then, I slid the ribbon off and opened the box.

The very first thing, at the top of the box, was a branch, a sprig straight off a tree, bare of leaves but with showy flowers erupting on short spurs. I lifted the branch to my nose, but I couldn't smell anything aside from maybe a faint sweetness. I set the branch aside.

The next item in the box was a pair of gold-coloured bells, tied together with another red ribbon made of that same, soft material. They were round bells, almost like sleigh bells, and for a moment I admired the distorted reflection of my own face in the shiny metal. I set the bells down beside the branch. Normally, I would ring bells like these, but for some reason I wanted to keep the bells silent. Laying them gently on the floor made my fingers feel oddly satisfied, as though this is what they were meant to be doing.

The last item in the box, and the one that took up the most space, was an item of clothing made of fine, white fabric. As I picked the garment up, I could see that it shimmered slightly - the light reflected off of it in different ways as I moved it. The material was both soft and smooth under my fingers, and I realized all at once that it had to be silk - and expensive, gorgeous silk, at that.

I stood up and shook out the garment, finding it was a robe that fell to ankle length, with long sleeves and a simple collar that extended halfway down the opening. I shrugged it on, pulling my hair out from under it. It was soft on the exposed skin of my lower arms and the back of my neck, and I wondered again who might have sent such a beautiful present.

It was then that I realized that the robe had not, in fact, been the last object in the box. There was a small, rectangular piece of paper, folded over in the direction that made the rectangle even more narrow. Still wearing the robe, I knelt beside the box and unfolded the paper. It turned out to be a letter, written in spidery black ink. This did not help me figure out where the gift had come from; the writing was in language I couldn't read, but which seemed to run from top to bottom, if the top of the sheet of paper really was the short side of the rectangle. Confused, I turned the letter around, trying to make some kind of sense of it.

All of a sudden, without really trying, I could read the note. It wasn't like the words were suddenly English; the spidery handwriting still dripped down the page in its baroque arabesques, but now, somehow, I knew what it said.

"You are the chosen one. You are picked by the Inari-Ookami to guard the shrine of Shinto from evil that's about to invade during Halloween."

I admit it, I laughed. I don't know which of my friends had done this - probably some of the nerdier ones, who would think the weird writing and unusual grammar of the note made it look exotic - but I figured it had to be a game. I just had to find this . . . shrine of Shinto, and I'd know who had sent me the present.

I sat down on the big chair near the window, laptop balanced on my knees. Ten minutes on the internet, and I had learned two things:

1) a Shinto shrine is a place of worship, and

2) There weren't any near me. Definitely none within walking distance.

This was a quandary. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time before whoever it was confessed to being the gift-giver. Through the window, I could see that it was already beginning to grow dark, though there were not trick-or-treaters as of yet. I was comfortable in my new robe, and I heard the furnace turn on, deep in the bowels of the house, and the room began to warm. I admit that my eyes were starting to grow heavy - that is, until there was a massive THUMP on the front door.

The noise startled me onto my feet and sent a shiver down my spine. I hid behind the curtains and peered out the corner of the window, looking down and over towards the doorway. To my surprise, there was absolutely nothing.

I heard a metallic tinkle, and looked over to see one of the bells had rolled sideways on the floor, sounding for just a moment as it did so. The THUMP came on the door again, and I scooped up the branch of blossoms and grabbed the ribbon joining the pair of bells, and went, ringing as I walked, to the door.

I threw the door open. Nobody was there. I watched a few errant leaves twist as they fell, casting shadows in the pool of light under the streetlamp.

Cautiously, I stepped through the door in my stocking feet - and everything changed.

I was not standing in a suburban front yard, surrounded by fallen leaves and puddles, dimly lit by a streetlight. I was somewhere I'd never been before.

I was in a dimly lit garden, standing on a stone pathway. Unsure what to do, I stood in my white robe and my stocking feet, turning to take in everything. Directly in front of me was a short flight of stone stairs; at the base of this was a large gate - two pillars topped by a lintel with a second beam connecting the pillars just a little lower down. It was painted bright red. On my left was a small pavilion with a peaked roof containing a fountain in the shape of a water-trough with a series of bamboo dippers lying along it. Behind me, behind a low, wooden fence, was a shadowy building with a peaked roof, decorated with white paper somehow folded or cut into zigzag streamers that dripped from the eaves like rain. The oddest thing was on my right- a row of stone foxes, each one wearing its own red cloth bib.

Before I could decide what course of action to take, a rustling sound caught my attention. A vaguely humanoid shape slouched between the pillars of the gate. It looked like a young man, albeit one dressed all in white, with an unusually pale face. It took me a moment to realize he was floating, his arms outstretched, but his hands dangling bonelessly from the wrists. I recoiled in shock, my mouth going dry as I realized the man was dead. I was looking at a ghost.

You are probably wondering why I didn't at that point, turn and run. The truth is, I couldn't. I felt stuck, as surely as if I were a tree and my toes were roots dug deep into the stone of the pathway. I wasn't going anywhere.

I watched the ghost warily. As he drifted closer I realized he was moaning. The sound was terribly sad, as if his heart had been broken, and even in my fear I felt badly for him. Finally, I could make out words in the moaning, snatches of explanation carried on the wind.

"My debt! I still owe my debt!" He moaned, coming still closer. He carried with him the faint scent of incense and an even fainter, less pleasant scent, like burnt hair.

Still, he came closer. And closer.

Like a winter wind that chills you to the bone, he passed through me. I shivered, and whatever spell had held me in place was broken; I turned.

The ghost had turned as well; he seemed to be making a circuit of the garden, still crying, "My debt!"

I have read ghost stories before, and one thing that comes up over and over again is that ghosts have unfinished business; if you help the ghost complete its task, it can move on to a peaceful afterlife. Also, at this point, I figured I might be dreaming - I had been pretty sleepy, sitting there on the chair, and none of this made any sense, otherwise. So, what harm could possibly be done by speaking to the ghost?

"What debt?" I asked.

The ghost, who had been proceeding to float past the fox statues, stopped and looked up in apparent surprise. He floated over towards me, his limp hands flapping disconcertingly with the movement.

"I swore a vow;" he said. "To serve my master faithfully; but I failed to fulfill it. I was not there to protect him when the castle was attacked. Therefore, I have a debt."

"Oh," I said. If his master lived in a castle, there was no way the guy was alive. Even in a dream I didn't think I could bring back the dead. "What - would it fulfill your vow if you protected something else?"

The spirit bobbed thoughtfully in the air. Then his eyes narrowed and responded, "Yes! I shall protect this place - and the people in it." He bowed to me.

I suppressed a giggle- this was a strange dream - only to suddenly feel the earth tremble under my feet. I suddenly found myself on my knees.

"Earthquake!" the ghost announced.

I have felt an earthquake before. During my last co-op term I was in an office on the 5th floor of an office tower when a small earthquake hit. It felt like the office building was a baby and someone had taken it to rock to sleep in their arms. This was not like that. This was the earth pitching and heaving like the deck of a ship on the high seas.

Far away, in the darkness, I saw a point of light. It soon resolved itself into a stream of fire, pouring down an unseen object. The light reflected off a cloud of ash in the air, and I gasped.

"Is that a volcano?" I asked.

I got no response from the ghost, however. His eyes were fixed on the red gate. Almost unwillingly, I turned to face the gate as well.

A beautiful woman was approaching. She was dressed in pink and white robes, and there were flowers decorating the long, black hair that cascaded loose over her shoulders.

(image from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fuji_goddess_flies.jpg )

With every step she took, the earthquake grew more and more pronounced. I threw myself down on the ground, clinging to it with my fingers as it rose and fell, the branch of blossoms and the bells crushed beneath me. The garden, the buildings, the very earth was going to be torn apart if this continued. Then I noticed something - the flowers in the young woman's hair looked identical to the ones on the branch.

I scrabbled to hold on to a flagstone with one hand as I reached under myself with the other. I pulled out the branch, worried that the blossoms might have been ruined by my weight.

To my intense relief, the delicate flowers looked just as fresh and perfect to when I had pulled them from the box. I waited until the heaving ground reached a crest, like the top of a wave in the ocean, and then threw the branch towards the approaching woman. She caught it neatly, then stared at it, stock still, for what felt like an eternity, the ground still moving nauseatingly around me.

Then the woman smiled, bowed, and clutched the flowers lovingly to her chest.

And then she was gone.

For a moment, it was like all the light had been drained from the world. The woman was gone; the earth was still; the garden was as quiet as if nothing had ever happened. I got to my feet, then squinted into the darkness, trying to see the volcano. I couldn't make anything out. Either it had stopped erupting, or it didn't exist at all. Either way, it was not a threat.

I let out a relieved sigh, but beside me, the ghost gave an anguished wail.

"What?" I asked. "What's wrong? We protected this place, didn't we?"

"You protected it! I did nothing!" the ghost protested.

I made a face, but said, "Well, at least you didn't get in the way."

Once again, my relief was short-lived. This time, the earth did not move, nor was there a weird rustling. Oh no. This time, there was a loud crash from directly behind me.

Both the ghost and I whirled to face the fenced-in building at our backs. The ghost flapped his hands limply in ineffectual worry as we finally saw the cause of the noise. A giant skeleton, easily fifteen times the size of a normal human, hovered over the building, the grey bones of its hands scrabbling at the peaked roof.

(image from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Takiyasha_the_Witch_and_the_Skeleton_Spectre_2.jpg )

The ghost muttered something about wanting a sword, then began to float towards the building at a running speed.

"He'll see you!" I yelled, and that was a mistake. The skeleton did not notice the ghost; the skeleton noticed me.

A skull without flesh or skin on it should be expressionless, but I swear that skeleton leered hungrily at me as it turned its empty eye sockets to face me. One of the bony hands left the roof and reached towards me.

The movement attracted the attention of the ghost. His eyes grew wide when the fell on the red ribbon still clutched in my hands.

"The bells!" He yelled in his reedy, ghostly voice.

I looked at him in confusion.

"Ring the bells! Bells repel evil!"

Holding the red silk ribbon in my red hand, I shook the bells. They sounded with a metallic rattle. and the skeleton began to crumble. As I rang the bells, the skeleton turned to nothing more than dust.

"Hah! It worked!" the ghost exclaimed triumphantly. "And it was my idea! Mine! Which means I protected this place!"

He grinned at me, and began to fade, but so, too, did the garden, and the pavilion, and the paper-decorated building.

I was no longer outdoors. I was sitting, wrapped in the white robe, in the easy chair by the window. My socks weren't even dirty. It was dark now, and I saw a few children walking down the sidewalk. I realized I would have to hurry if I were going to give out any Halloween treats.

That would have been the end of it, except for something that happened the next morning. Outside the window, I saw a fox! A beautiful, orange-red fox, with black socks and distinctly white tip to his tail. I watched him as he stopped and sniffed at my front door, then trotted off around the house. Later, when I stepped outside, there was another package at my door. This time, it was a strange, cylindrical bale of straw - weirdest thing I ever saw. Sitting on top was one of those folded rectangles of paper with the odd writing. When I unfolded this one, it read,

"Keep the kimono, with thanks, and enjoy the rice. "

Then, with remarkably coincidental timing, the cylindrical bale broke open, revealing it was actually a straw basket filled with short-grain white rice.

Right now, the silk kimono is hanging in my closet. I managed to get most of the rice into the kitchen and into glass jars and containers - I only spilled a little on the doorstep. They're pretty decent presents, but I still don't know who they're from. Not one of my friends has been willing to admit it, but the gifts have to have come from one of them. Don't they?