Sort of Dead

25 - Two Birthdays

My two birthdays were coming up.

Two, you ask? Yes, two.

Remember how when I was first born, I was a stillborn. You better, I put in a lot of effort telling you that whole story. Yeah, well, that’s my first birthday. Technically, at least.

And, of course, my second happy, happy, not-so-happy birthday is celebrated yearly on the day when that witch breathed life into me. That is, the day following my actual stillborn-birth.

Whatever. Point is, my birthday – unlike most – lasts for two days. So while I’m sure you guys are going to rile up and say birthdays are epic, that the only thing wrong with them is that they’re too short . . . I stand to disagree. I feel like my birthdays are a bit of a stretch.

Should come off as no surprise, considering it goes on for two days. And taking into account that I had no real friends in my life before Aar and Bee.

On my earlier birthdays, it just used to be me, Dad, Mum, Uncle and – my sixth birthday onwards – Es too. We used to go to amusement parks, take a carousel ride maybe, cut a cake, blow a candle and that’s happy birthday in a nutshell for you, buddy.

It was a lot different this time around. For starters, Mum would no longer be there to participate. Then Aar and Bee would be there, which is a bit of a balloon.

And last but most definitely not the least, my birthday took place on a very, very special day. A day everyone was looking forward to. A day everyone was oh-so-ready to spectate.

That’s right. You guessed it, you smarty-pants, you.

My birthday – or should I say my second birthday – would be sharing it’s regality with the Witch Moon. Or the Ghost Moon, as you prefer.

We didn’t know that, of course. And we didn’t know what this simple coincidence would lead to.

We didn’t know.

If there was any way we had known, we would not be sitting in a jet flying to a witch trying to get a corpse revived.

Got carried away there for a second, pardon me. I’ll explain everything. That’s what your concierge is here for. 

So at first Aar and Bee pretended to be busy and occupied and whatnot on both my birthdays. They even bandaged See's sable-black paws to make it seem like the beagle was hurt too, and even he couldn’t join.

Now they may think differently – and let them, it’s a free country – but I knew they were hoodwinking me the entire time. There was no way these guys were missing my birthday, not for the world.

I wish they had, though. I wish they’d never known me. Then they’d never have gotten themselves into this mess.

They didn’t fool me one bit; I knew they were planning a surprise for me on my birthday and I really didn’t mind. It was the first time anyone was doing anything so good for me, after all. Believe me, it felt awesome.
But meh, they could’ve tried to hide their original intentions a chunk better. I mean, ignoring me a whole week prior to my birthday and yet paying regular visits to my Uncle? Come on, sons and daughters, you can do better than that. I expected more discretion from Bee, at least; she’s supposed to be so intelligent and all.

I guess it’s still not their fault, though. The fault is all that of Bee’s granny. (She told me they were planning a surprise for me on the teeniest termite of a coaxing.) She’s another person I wanted to introduce to you. Boy, is she a character? And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean it in a very, very good way.

Physical descriptions first, even though I suck at them. I’ll try because old people, for me at least, have always appeared to have faces that stick with you forever. Know what I mean?

She’s laced with wrinkles, Bee’s granny is. With the almost non-existent skin she has holding her bones together – just barely – I’m surprised the wrinkles don’t crack her body down as a whole. She’s got snow-white hair, a long, thin neck and a healthy portly body.
Anyway, she’s a sweetheart. She knows a lot of fun tales. Where Uncle always used to tell me thriller stories – she was more of a dark, scary stories person.

She was the one who enlightened us much on the topic of the Witch Moon. I don’t even know where she got all this stuff. Like, she’s over ninety-years-old and the mysterious phenomenon of the Ghost Moon has literally just been discovered by astrologists and astronomers (sometimes I get the two mixed up, don’t judge).

She’s Bee’s granny, but she acts like she’s all of our grannies, since neither Aar nor me have one. So we all just call her "Granny." Yes: capital G and everything.

She told us how if you got even the tiniest scrape, cut, gash, laceration, whatever, on the eve of Witch Moon Day – you’re doomed to hell.

‘You see,' she told us in her croaky, I’m-old-but-young-at-heart voice, 'Satan is always looking for blood. And if he sees it on Witch Moon Day, he doesn’t let go easy. He can enter your arteries, squeeze your jugular, make you do his bidding if he shall condone. So whatever you do, do NOT let your blood show on Witch Moon Day. At any cost.’

Now, you of all people know of my blood tribulation. So did Aar and Bee, by that point. So we simply exchanged nervous glances when she told us that. We weren’t going to want blood anywhere near me anyway, Ghost Moon or Halloween or Christmas or Summer or Winter or Spring or Vacations or Bring-Your-Kids-To-Work Day or not.

Nah-ah. Nope, nako, nata.

Scientists and astronomers kept fluking at when the date of the Witch Moon was going to fall. They said it was probably still a good month away.

Stupid scientists.

As always, thanks for reading.

Bah-bye!