🎃Halloween Vault Treats🎃

Little Jade

The night was black and furiously cold. A biting wind whistled under a pale, frozen moon, scattering dry leaves across neatly mowed lawns with little care for their neurotic owners. Carved pumpkin heads rolled down front porches to their gruesome deaths. Ghosts made of plastic and cloth tore free from their restraints and took to the sky, fluttering with all their might.

Little Jade waved her pretty lace handkerchief at one such fugitive. She then folded it carefully and put it back inside her satin handbag, and set off again, the long skirts of her dress ruffling like feathers with each hurried step.

The sharp rectangles of modern homes gave way to fields of cracked earth and weeds. Little Jade picked her way across, mindful of her lacquered shoes. She could see the lanterns now, hung from the eaves of a great old house. They swung and swayed and laughed, lapping at the sky with tongues made of fire.

"Come, Little Jade," they sang, "the hour is near!"

Little Jade reached the door at last. It swung open on its own, to a dark room filled with quiet and dust and memories long rusted. Little Jade was scared to go inside, but excited too – it was her first Hallow's Eve, and she wanted to greet it properly.

So in Little Jade went. As soon as she did, the room changed, the house growing bright and loud with song. There were a great many merrymakers, each more impressive than the last. Some were large and strong and laughed with voices that rang like thunder. Others could stand in the palm of Little Jade's hand, robes rich and colorful, faces bright like jewels. Little Jade watched all with wide eyes, still in her spot by the door.

"Why, Little Jade," a woman exclaimed. She was so beautiful she glowed, and seemed to dance even when she stood still, the gentle sway of her body a pleasure to see.

The woman beckoned Little Jade close. Little Jade went, feeling flustered. The woman watched her with a knowing smile on her thin, ruby lips.

"You do not remember me?" she asked. Little Jade moved her head this way and that, cheeks red. "Why, I am the one who invited you here, that sunny day in the garden."

Little Jade brightened. "Is it you, Kiyohime? I did not recognize you without your tail."

Kiyohime hissed in laughter. She lifted the skirts of her pale dress, revealing coils of scales that gleamed like onyx.

"This little doll is Little Jade," Kiyohime announced to the room. "She is freshly made, one hundred years a moon ago. Welcome her well."

Cheers rose, some as hisses, others as gurgles and shrill screams. Little Jade smiled as widely as her porcelain cheeks would allow. Her first family had gone away a long time ago. She missed them still, the little girl that'd aged too fast most of all, but a little less now that she was loved again.