«Hush, you'll spoil everything,» some girl said.
«The witch came to harm, and this is her arm,» said Mich.
«Eeeeeeeeeeee!»
The items were passed and passed, like hot potatoes, around the cirle. Some children screamed, wouldn't touch them. Some ran from their chairs to stand in the centre of the cellar until the grisly items had passed.
«Aw, it's only chicken insides,» scoffed a boy. «Come back, Helen!»
Shot from hand to hand, with small scream after scream, the items went down, down, to be followed by another and another.
«The witch cut apart, and this is her heart,» said the husband.
Six or seven items moving at once through the laughing, trembling dark.
Louise spoke up. «Marion, don't be afraid; it's only play.»
Marion didn't say anything.
«Marion?» asked Louise. «Are you afraid?»
Marion didn't speak.
«She's all right,» said the husband. «She's not afraid.»
On and on the passing, the screams, the hilarity.
The autumn wind sighed about the house. And he, the husband stood at the head of the dark cellar, intoning the words, handing out the items.
«Marion?» asked Louise again, from far across the cellar.
Everybody was talking.
«Marion?» called Louise.
Everybody quieted.
«Marion, answer me, are you afraid?»
Marion didn't answer.
The husband stood there, at the bottom of the cellar steps.
Louise called «Marion, are you there?»
No answer. The room was silent.
«Where's Marion?» called Louise.
«She was here,» said a boy.
«Maybe she's upstairs.»
«Marion!»
No answer. It was quiet.
Louise cried out, «Marion, Marion!»
«Turn on the lights,» said one of the adults.
The items stopped passing. The children and adults sat with the witch's items in their hands.
«No.» Louise gasped. There was a scraping of her chair, wildly, in the dark. «No. Don't turn on the lights, oh, God, God, God, don't turn them on, please, don't turn on the lights, don't!» Louise was shrieking now. The entire cellar froze with the scream.
Nobody moved.
Everyone sat in the dark cellar, suspended in the suddenly frozen task of this October game; the wind blew outside, banging the house, the smell of pumpkins and apples filled the room with the smell of the objects in their fingers while one boy cried, «I'll go upstairs and look!» and he ran upstairs hopefully and out around the house, four times around the house, calling, «Marion, Marion, Marion!» over and over and at last coming slowly down the stairs into the waiting breathing cellar and saying to the darkenss, «I can't find her.»
Then…… some idiot turned on the lights.