Hi! My name is Riley. I’m 15 years, old and I have a confession to make. I absolutely hate Halloween.

I know, I know. Who hates Halloween? There are so many costumes! What’s not to love? Well, everything. Especially the creepy houses.

Unfortunately, I live right next to the creepiest house in town. It’s this enormous, abandoned mansion with broken windows and a garden full of dead flowers. Nobody has lived there for years,. At least, that’s what everyone says. But every Halloween, a light appears in the attic. And every Halloween, someone disappears.

“Riley! Hurry up!” my best friend, Emma, shouted from outside.

I grabbed my candy bucket and ran downstairs. “Coming!” I called out.

When I stepped outside, Emma looked me up and down before sighing dramatically. “Are you seriously wearing that? You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“What’s wrong with my outfit? It’s black. Halloween is literally about scary things.”

“It’s about costumes, Riley. Costumes!” She rolled her eyes and I followed her down the street. Honestly, sometimes I wondered why we were even friends.

That night, 8:47 p.m.

We had been trick-or-treating for almost two hours when Emma suddenly stopped walking. Across the street stood the old mansion, its windows dark and its front gate hanging loosely from one hinge. Except something was different this time. A faint yellow light flickered in the attic window.

I froze. “Absolutely not,” I said, turning around.

“Oh, come on!” Emma grabbed my sleeve. “We should check it out. Imagine the stories we could tell!”

“Or imagine us getting hurt. That sounds slightly less entertaining.”

Emma laughed. “You’re such a coward.”

Now, I’m not easily offended. But there is one thing I cannot stand, and that is being called a coward. So, naturally, I marched straight toward the mansion, completely ignoring the fact that every instinct in my body was telling me to run in the opposite direction.

The front gate creaked as we pushed it open. Dead leaves crunched beneath our shoes and something rustled in the bushes beside us. I told myself it was probably a cat, although I had never heard a cat sound quite like that.

When we reached the porch, Emma knocked on the door. Nothing happened. She tried the handle and, to our surprise, it opened.

“Hello?” she called as we stepped inside.

The door slammed shut behind us. I immediately spun around and pulled at the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The entrance hall smelled of dust and something strangely sweet, almost like rotten flowers. Old paintings lined the walls, their subjects staring at us with unsettling expressions.

Before I could say anything, we heard footsteps coming from upstairs. Slow, heavy footsteps, followed by the sound of a little girl humming.

“Which one of you took it?” a voice whispered.

Emma squeezed my hand. “Took what?” she called back, her voice trembling.

A shadow appeared at the top of the staircase. It was a little girl wearing a white dress, with long, tangled hair covering most of her face. She held an empty candy bucket in one hand. Slowly, she began walking toward us.

“My candy,” she whispered.

I swallowed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“My candy!”

Her scream echoed throughout the house. Emma panicked and threw her entire bucket of candy up the stairs. Chocolates and sweets scattered across the wooden steps. The girl stopped screaming almost immediately. She crouched down, picked up a chocolate bar and examined it carefully.

Then she smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

The front door clicked open. Emma and I didn’t need to be told twice. We ran outside, slammed the gate behind us, and didn’t stop until we reached my house.

The next morning, Emma came over for breakfast and we spent almost an hour discussing what had happened. Surprisingly, she seemed more upset about losing her candy than about nearly being trapped in a haunted mansion. I couldn’t entirely blame her. She had sacrificed an impressive amount of chocolate.

Later that afternoon, I walked past the mansion again. The attic light was off, and the windows were dark. However, something caught my attention. A small pumpkin sat on the porch, and underneath it was a folded piece of paper. Curiosity got the better of me, so I picked it up and unfolded it.

“Thank you for sharing. See you next Halloween.”

I stared at the note for a moment before laughing nervously. Perhaps the little girl wasn’t evil after all. Maybe she was just tired of watching everyone celebrate Halloween without ever sharing anything with her.

Or perhaps I was being ridiculously optimistic. Either way, I decided I would never enter that house again.

Well, unless she had more chocolate.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 31st, 2026