Queen of Halloween

.

You were old enough to know better. That is a fact. She was married, you were not, she was older, you were not; her eyes and lips should have not roused you, you should have not stepped forward.

You vaguely remember the circumstances. A celebration, maybe? There were lots of people there. You were alone, and her husband had stepped away for the moment or maybe forever. You went forward.

-

The next few months were uneasy. Stolen glances and smiles, the work on the farm made worth it by imagining the upward curl of her lips.

Boyhood crushes happened, and while you were excellent at hiding who was the object of your affections, people could tell by the dreamy look in your eyes that someone had charmed you. No one judged you, no one said anything that you would have been hurt by—it was simply a way of bliss.

But when she was alone, and you happened to be nearby, all of a sudden her dainty hand would take your callused one. Knowing looks would grace her face in the town when she looked at you, her too-formal posture seeming to tease you and tease you.

The first time was initiated by her: it was the early morning as you walked to the field, and all of a sudden she was behind you and grabbed your wrist and you twisted around and you got kissed.

"That's a sin," you said, dumbly.

She blinked, afraid, as you smiled. Was this not the end of all your fantasies? Just one kiss. She was married, and that's all it would have been.

All it should have been.

-

You hurt yourself in the field one day, a spattering of days or weeks later. You went to her house—she was good at this sort of thing, no one had any other ideas—and as you stood there, in the doorway, she smiled.

The door was closed, and she was alone, all alone, with only a young boy for company. Her husband was somewhere else, and to be fair, she didn't love him.

What was she supposed to do? Not kiss you?

And what were you supposed to do? Not kiss her back?

Someone said, "we shouldn't," and the other person said "we shouldn't," but neither of you stopped. Neither of you wanted to stop.

So you didn't. Not for a good while, anyways, just looking at her and smiling and whispering secrets until you had to go. As you opened the door behind you to leave, she put a finger to her lips, confirming what you already knew.

This would be your little secret.

-

Her birthday was the month afterwards, and so in the middle of the night after everyone went to sleep, you showed up several hundred feet behind her house, in the woods where you always met.

She showed up a few minutes later than normal—her husband almost woke up when she crept out the window—and you smiled and said it was okay.

All the time you had with her was stolen, so there was no point in being upset. You gave her an amulet. You had found it while preparing a fresh plot of land for the farm—it was caked with dirt and looked older than your grandfather, but you had washed it in the river and polished it until it was as good as new.

You told her so, and her eyes widened as she looked at it. You slipped it over her neck, and she looked up at you with wet eyes.

"Thank you."

-

Her husband went to work and you slinked in through the window. You shared a bed together. You breathed in her smell. She held your hand. This was wrong, but it was the sweetest thing that had ever happened to both of you. What were you to do? Not go against the church? Not commit sins so grievous that she would later be burned for it?