The last trick-or-treater came at nine twenty-three.
Rachel remembered the time because she had looked at the clock while handing a miniature chocolate bar to a six-year-old vampire whose plastic teeth kept falling out.
After that, the street became quiet.
The pumpkins remained lit on several doorsteps, but the groups of children had disappeared.
By ten thirty, Rachel had turned off the porch light.
Her husband Mark was upstairs trying to convince their daughter Emily that consuming approximately half her body weight in sweets did not exempt her from bedtime.
Rachel cleared the wrappers from the living room and carried the remaining bowl of sweets into the kitchen.
At eleven, Mark came downstairs.
"She's finally asleep."
"How many did she eat?"
"I stopped counting after twelve."
"Excellent parenting."
"I confiscated the rest."
"For her safety?"
"Obviously."
He took a chocolate bar from his pocket.
Rachel laughed.
Outside, rain began tapping softly against the windows.
Neither of them heard another sound until 11:47.
Three knocks came from the front door.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Mark looked at the clock.
"Bit late."
Rachel glanced toward the hallway.
"Probably teenagers."
Another three knocks.
Exactly the same spacing.
Mark got up.
"Give them the leftovers."
Rachel followed him into the hallway.
Through the frosted glass beside the front door, they could see a small figure standing beneath the porch light.
A child.
Mark opened the door.
The boy outside looked about eight years old.
He wore a dark wool coat buttoned to the neck, short trousers and muddy black shoes.
A flat cap covered most of his hair.
There was no plastic mask.
No pumpkin bucket.
No bag for sweets.
The costume was unusually convincing.
The boy looked past Mark into the hallway.
"Is Thomas home?"
Mark hesitated.
"Sorry?"
"Thomas."
His voice was quiet.
"Is he home?"
"You've got the wrong house, mate."
The boy looked at the number beside the door.
Twenty-six.
"No," he said.
"This is his house."
Rachel stepped closer.
"There's nobody called Thomas here."
The boy looked at her.
For the first time, she noticed how pale he was.
Not costume makeup.
Just pale.
His hair was wet from the rain, but there were no droplets on his coat.
"He said he'd wait."
Rachel didn't know what to say.
"Who did?"
"Thomas."
The boy looked past her again.
Toward the stairs.
Then he smiled.
"He always hides."
Mark stepped outside.
"Where are your parents?"
The boy turned his head toward the road.
The street was empty.
"At home."
"Where's home?"
The boy pointed.
Not toward another house.
Toward the far end of the street.
There was nothing there except the old railway bridge and a row of trees.
Mark looked back at Rachel.
When he turned around again, the boy was walking away.
"Wait."
The child didn't stop.
Mark stepped onto the path.
"What's your name?"
The boy stopped at the gate.
He looked over his shoulder.
"Arthur."
Then he walked into the rain.
Mark watched him reach the pavement.
A car passed between them.
Its headlights briefly filled the street.
When it had gone, Arthur was gone too.
Mark walked to the gate.
He looked left.
Right.
Nothing.
"He couldn't have got anywhere that quickly."
Rachel stood in the doorway.
"Come inside."
"But—"
"Mark."
Something in her voice made him stop arguing.
He came inside and locked the door.
"Thomas."
Rachel repeated the name while they sat in the living room.
"Previous owner?"
"We've been here seven years."
"Doesn't mean anything."
Mark took out his phone.
He searched the address.
Nothing useful appeared.
Old property listings.
A planning application.
A photograph from when the house had been sold.
No Thomas.
Rachel looked toward the ceiling.
Emily's bedroom was directly above them.
"He kept looking upstairs."
Mark lowered the phone.
"He's a kid."
"At quarter to midnight."
"I know."
"Alone."
"I know."
"Where did he go?"
Mark didn't answer.
Rachel stood.
"I'm checking Emily."
Their daughter was asleep.
One arm hung over the side of the bed.
Her witch costume lay in a heap on the chair.
Everything was normal.
Rachel pulled the blanket over her shoulder.
Then she heard scratching.
Very faint.
She looked toward the wall.
The sound stopped.
"Mark?"
He appeared in the doorway.
"What?"
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Rachel waited.
Nothing.
"Never mind."
They went back downstairs.
At 12:06, the scratching started again.
This time they both heard it.
It came from the hallway.
A slow scraping noise.
Mark stood.
It stopped.
He switched on the hallway light.
Nothing.
Then Rachel noticed a thin strip of wallpaper beside the stairs had lifted away from the wall.
"Was that like that before?"
"No."
Mark pressed it flat.
The paper immediately curled away again.
Something dark was underneath.
Writing.
Mark pulled the loose piece gently aside.
Several pencil marks covered the old plaster.
Lines.
Numbers.
And one word written in large childish letters.
THOMAS.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Mark pulled more wallpaper away.
Rachel grabbed his wrist.
"Don't."
"We need to see."
"No, we absolutely don't."
But he had already seen another word beneath it.
He peeled the paper down.
Two names had been written side by side.
THOMAS + ARTHUR
Below them was a crude drawing of two boys.
One stood beside a house.
The other stood beneath something that looked like an arch.
Rachel stared at it.
"The railway bridge."
Mark said nothing.
Below the picture, almost hidden behind the skirting board, somebody had written a sentence.
Mark crouched to read it.
WAIT FOR ME ON HALLOWEEN.
Rachel stepped backwards.
Then someone knocked at the door.
Three times.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Neither of them moved.
The porch light was still off.
Through the frosted glass they could see the small dark shape outside.
Arthur had returned.
Rachel whispered, "Don't open it."
Another knock.
Then the boy's voice came through the door.
"Thomas?"
Silence.
"Thomas, I came back."
Mark reached for his phone.
Then a floorboard creaked upstairs.
They both looked up.
Another creak.
From the landing.
Rachel ran upstairs.
"Emily?"
Her daughter's door was open.
The bed was empty.
Rachel screamed her name.
Then Emily answered from the bathroom.
"I'm here!"
Rachel rushed in.
Emily stood beside the sink, half asleep.
"What are you doing?"
"I needed the toilet."
Rachel pulled her close.
Then Emily frowned.
"Who's that boy?"
Rachel went still.
"What boy?"
"The one in my room."
Mark reached the landing just behind them.
Nobody wanted to look into the bedroom.
Eventually he did.
The room was empty.
The window was closed.
The wardrobe door stood open.
"Emily," Rachel said quietly, "what boy did you see?"
She rubbed her eyes.
"The boy from the picture."
Mark stared at her.
"What picture?"
"The wall."
Emily pointed toward the stairs.
"The other one."
Rachel felt cold.
"What did he say?"
Emily looked confused.
"He asked if Arthur was here."
Downstairs, the knocking stopped.
A child's voice called from outside.
"Thomas?"
Then another child's voice answered from inside the house.
"I'm coming."
The voice came from the bottom of the stairs.
Mark ran down.
The hallway was empty.
But the front door was open.
Wide open.
Rain blew across the threshold.
Arthur stood at the garden gate.
And beside the front door stood another boy.
He had his back to Mark.
He wore a pale shirt, braces and dark shorts.
"Thomas?" Mark said.
The boy turned.
His face wasn't frightening.
That somehow made it worse.
He looked about nine.
He looked tired.
And he looked very, very sad.
"I was supposed to wait," he said.
Mark couldn't speak.
Arthur called from the gate.
"Come on."
Thomas looked toward him.
Then back at Mark.
"Sorry it took so long."
He stepped outside.
Arthur smiled.
The two boys walked through the gate together.
Neither opened it.
They simply passed beyond it into the mist.
Mark followed as far as the pavement.
The boys walked toward the railway bridge.
Side by side.
Their figures became harder to see in the rain.
Then they were gone.
The next morning, Mark removed the rest of the wallpaper beside the stairs.
There were dozens of pencil drawings underneath.
Most were ordinary.
Houses.
Trains.
Stick figures.
At the bottom of the wall he found a date.
31 OCTOBER 1938.
Beside it were two names.
Thomas and Arthur.
Rachel spent the morning searching old local records online.
Eventually she found a short newspaper report.
Two boys had been playing near the railway line on Halloween evening in 1938.
Arthur Bell, aged eight, had been killed near the bridge.
His friend Thomas Hale survived.
The article mentioned that Thomas had run home to get help.
Rachel kept searching.
A second article appeared four years later.
Thomas Hale had died after a short illness.
His address was listed.
Number 26.
Their house.
Mark looked at the uncovered wall.
At the sentence written beneath the boys.
WAIT FOR ME ON HALLOWEEN.
For eighty-four years, one of them had.
They redecorated the hallway the following spring.
Rachel wanted the old writing preserved, so they photographed everything before covering it again.
Life returned to normal.
A year passed.
On the following Halloween, Emily went trick-or-treating with friends.
Mark and Rachel stayed home.
At 11:47 p.m., they both looked at the clock.
Neither said anything.
They waited.
No knock came.
11:48.
11:49.
Rachel smiled.
"They found each other."
Mark nodded.
At midnight, they went upstairs.
As Mark switched off the hallway light, he noticed something beneath the new wallpaper.
A faint indentation.
Letters pressing outward through the paper.
He turned the light back on.
Rachel came down two steps.
"What is it?"
Neither of them touched the wall.
Slowly, as though an invisible pencil were writing from underneath, four words appeared beneath the wallpaper.
THANK YOU FOR WAITING.
Mark stared at them.
Then another line began to form.
This time there were only three words.
WHO IS EMILY?