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rainbows-fanfics · 4 months ago

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Fateful Night (Chapter 2)

Previous Chapter

Summary: Elroy Skellington is finally old enough to join his father for his first Halloween in the human world, but things go awry and he runs away. In his troubled state, the Pumpkin Prince discovers something new that will change their lives, and the world they know, forever.

A fic focused on the Skellington Children.

Pairing: Jack/Sally

Note: This is a SEQUEL to my other story, OUR NIGHTMARE. To read the original story, go here.

The skeleton sighed as he closed his book and set it aside on the nightstand. He’d been expecting to have this talk and would have brought it up if Sally hadn’t. But she was ever so observant with their children, knowing if something was amiss with them. As much as he hated it, being so swept up in his Halloween duties everyday made him too preoccupied to pay closer attention.

But Elroy was usually so talkative and excitable. He loved scaring and learning about the ins-and-outs of Halloween Town’s monarchy from his father. Even at this young age, he expressed a desire to someday take Jack’s place and regard himself as the King of Halloween. Nothing had gone awry on the boy’s thirteenth birthday, but it only seemed that lately he’d been perturbed with something he had been once so greatly looking forward to.

That wasn’t unusual with children, to change their minds on something so suddenly. But it wouldn’t do to have him worrying about things that were at least another decade or so away.

“That we do,” he responded as his wife slipped into her pajamas. “Did he tell you anything?”

“He’s nervous that he won’t be ready for Halloween; if he’ll disappoint you when the time comes.”

His face turned incredulous. “I could never be disappointed with him.”

“I know, and I told him he’ll do wonderfully. But I don’t think he quite believed me.”

He stretched out his long limbs and laid back on the pillow, gazing at the dark ceiling above them. “I remember when I was his age – I had been so unsure of myself, worrying if I was going to be a worthy King. Elroy has so many years of scaring ahead of him. It took having the greatest scare record when I was eighteen before it felt like I was truly ready for anything.”

Sally’s black eyes lingered on her husband’s form. The subject of his past and family was not one he shared often. She wondered if getting an insight might help things. “What was your father like, Jack?”

“When he was king? Terrifying and highly respected, but he was wise. I wonder if my legacy will live up to his. I hope it will by the time Elroy inherits the crown.”

“Why don’t you tell the children a bit more about your parents?” she prompted. “It might help our son if he knew a bit more about the Pumpkin Kings before him. Maybe a refresher on his heritage might inspire him in time for Halloween?”

He frowned. “I suppose it’s time for something like that.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “Why have you never spoken of him, Jack?”

“Because my father disappeared the morning after I was crowned.”

He couldn’t remember what else he told Sally that night. He was exhausted by the time their talk was finished, falling fast asleep the second they were done. He was jolted awake to the sound of something loud and sharp. It was not the usual crowing of the dead rooster on their roof, or the Mayor’s loud exclamations through his megaphone when the hour became late. It was, instead, the contact of rubber on wood.

His shoulders relaxed when he realized what it was. Sally was stirring in bed, peeking at him with one eye from below the sheets.

“Music practice,” he informed her, and she slowly peeled off the blankets. “Is it Wednesday already?”

“That’s right,” his wife yawned as she swung her legs over the side of the mattress. “I’ll go make some breakfast.”

Normally, Jack’s schedule called for him to head to the Town Hall early in the morning. But Wednesdays were his exceptions, as he wanted to witness his children’s band practice and teach them what he could about music sheets and instruments. It felt like he had been blessed when Elroy first picked up the xylophone as a child, and his talent with percussion soared . It was further proven a miracle when his sisters joined along and practiced with him every day.

His children had contributed to Halloween with their songs, playing spooky accompaniments to the resident’s singing and dancing. Later in the night, they would join along with the scaring, but their music was the highlight of the holiday. They got better each year and were picking up more instruments to play as time went on. Even Xavier was starting his hand on the xylophone.

Sally got dressed, and the pitter-patters of the family’s black cat, Ophelia, followed her into the doorway. She paused and turned to him with pleading eyes. “Will you consider telling the children what you told me last night?”

He gave her a single nod. With that, she left for the kitchen downstairs, leaving him to wonder just how much he had spilled to her in his tired state.

“Mina, you’re coming in too early. And Adeline - you hit the wrong note. Haven’t we practiced this song already?”

“Who put you in charge, Elroy? Even Xavier is playing better than you today!”

“Haha!”

Elroy did, in fact, often take charge of their band practice. He was the oldest and had been playing the longest, and was the one to oversee his siblings when his father was not around. They also learned some things from Halloween Town’s Band, who taught them new songs when they were babysitting them. It was fun learning how to play James’ saxophone and Mina enjoyed trying her hand at the bass. They joined in with them on the streets every weekend when they didn’t have school.

Their setup was in their father’s study on the highest floor, where the town could listen to their performances if they left the windows open. Usually, Jack would already be here with some music prepared for them to play. But their parents were sleeping in today. He was sure they’d woken them up by now. Oh, well. They knew their schedule. They always practiced on Wednesdays before school.

As he instructed his siblings to take it from the top, Jack’s skull peeked up from the stairs. His children perked up as the tall skeleton entered the room carrying an old book in one of his hands. He sat down in his chair, resting one leg on the other as he addressed them with a smile.

“Sorry for interrupting. Would it be too much to end practice a little early today? I have something I’d like to show you all.”

“What is it?” Desdemona asked, dropping the small mallets in her hand and moving to sit across from him. The others repeated this gesture until he had them all waiting patiently in front of him. He chuckled at how easy it was to garner their attention.

He held up the book, which was the most ancient thing they’d laid their eye sockets on. The title was written in some old language. He brushed the dust off its cover. When he opened it, the pages were thin and brittle. His phalanges navigated them delicately, like they would fall apart if too much force was applied to them.

“I know I haven’t done a good job on telling you about your grandparents,” he admitted with some shame.

“What are you talking about? We see grandma and grandpa every week!” one of them protested.

“I’m talking about my parents, ma princesse. Sally was created in the Doctor’s laboratory, and he built your grandmother there, too. But my mother was a skeleton just like you, and my father a scarecrow.”

“-A scarecrow?” Xavier repeated, tilting his head curiously.

“You’ll know all about that when you’re old enough,” he leaned forward and pinched his son’s cheek. It was only recently Elroy’s pyromantic abilities had made themselves known, and the time would fly right by before he had to teach Xavier all about their unique genetic inheritance as well. “You all have some scarecrow in you.”

“But only Elroy can shoot fire from his mouth,” Adeline pouted with jealousy.

“And you got your mother’s lovely eyelashes and hair,” Jack pointed out as he poked the tip of her nasal bone.

“So, wait. Who are grandpa and grandma? Why haven’t we seen them?” Elroy asked, growing more interested as the seconds ticked by.

This was when the King’s smile faltered, withdrawing his hand from them and laying it in his lap. “I’m afraid your grandmother passed away a long time ago. I was young when it happened, so I did not spend much time with her.”

He flipped through some pages and turned the book around, showing a drawing of a skeleton woman wearing a dress as she rested along a wooden fencepost overlooking a large field. The children took it from their father’s hands and huddled around each other to observe the sight. Across from her, in the distance, was the silhouette of a scarecrow - its details scarcely drawn in the far perspective.

“Let me start from the beginning,” Jack began. “My father worked as a farmer in the pumpkin patches, providing the pumpkin harvests every year to the undead who migrated on his lands. When there were a lot of families settling nearby, he built a habitable capital just outside the farming lands and dedicated it to All Hallow’s Eve, which we now call Halloween Town.”

Their imaginative eyes were locked on the drawing on this page. Mina pointed to it and looked up at him with confusion. “You said he was a scarecrow…but he looks like a skeleton.”

She pointed to the man who had a jack-o-lantern for a head, but a skeletal body, with clothes fitting that of a scarecrow which had straw stuffed in them. Jack gently flipped the page for her, where they saw a new diagram of this man attached to a wooden pole in the middle of a village, lit on fire with the pumpkin fully intact.

“That’s your grandfather, Áed Skellington. He was assembled from the remains of a human who had been sacrificed in one of the rituals of Samhain. They were trying to resurrect him, but they were missing his head - which, in their haste, was replaced with a pumpkin,” he shrugged with a smile. “Things didn't go as intended, and instead of reviving this man, my father was born. He was gifted with a continual flame, which he used to ward away evil spirits and crows from his crops.”

“Seriously!?” Elroy gawked at him, and Jack enjoyed the excitement and disbelief in his son’s face.

“Why, he told me so himself ! This book was written so long ago. I drew what you see now, everything I could remember and what he described to me,” it felt like his voice grew small as his children continued looking through it.

“So, how did he meet grandma?” one of his daughters asked.

“That one’s a funny little story,” he leaned forward and guided them to the correct page. “Her family stopped by his village to get some directions, but she could only speak French, and Áed could not. He thought her so beautiful that he gave her a pumpkin for free, and vowed to learn her language so he could talk to her. They married afterwards.”

“He learned French just for her ?” Desdemona swooned, finding this romantic.

“It wasn’t her true name, but she was known in the village as Caoimhe. She’s the one who taught me to speak when I was little, and my father when I grew older. Which I now pass down to you .”

“Was he always the Pumpkin King?” Adeline asked, engrossed in these stories. At this point, Jack lowered himself onto the floor with them, so he could freely present the book and its drawings to his little ones.

“No, mon ange. See, he wondered why everyone kept buying his pumpkins, and he learned they were being used to scare off evil spirits. So he offered to ward them off on his own. He enjoyed scaring so much that it became his passion to do it every night. When the town saw him scaring, they thought he was so terrifying that they named him as their protector: The Pumpkin King!

But Áed got curious after some time, and asked the spirits why they were tormenting the villagers when they hadn’t bothered him before. They explained that he was one of them , a creature from the land itself, and they weren’t happy that their home was now being occupied. Your grandfather negotiated with them, and they decided to share the land so long as they had somewhere to stay. He offered the spirits to live in his pumpkins, and to show their gratitude, they allowed him to scare them every night.

From then on, monsters, spirits, and the undead alike learned to get along, making the village bigger and bigger. Everyone was fascinated with how your grandfather could find a new way to scare, and asked him to teach them how to do it. He let them in on his tricks, and it quickly became a tradition to start scaring your neighbors. But Áed came up with a solution - he decided that everybody could scare each other one day of the year, which became Halloween . Since he was the scariest in town, he was crowned as exactly that, the King of Halloween.”

They processed this story with their mouths agape, drinking up everything they were seeing and hearing. Jack wondered why he had never shown them this before – Halloween Town was taught of its history and founding, but the details of the former Pumpkin King were minimal at best, and his name had been forgotten as time went on. Jack had never shown this book to anyone else until today, holding onto it closely as it was the last memory he ever had of his father.

“Where is grandpa? Is he still around?” Elroy asked slowly.

“Something tells me that he is. But I don’t know for sure,” he took a deep breath in preparation for this next news. “He…disappeared after he gave me the crown. I’m not sure where he went, and no one has been able to find him since. A spirit says they saw him wander into the Hinterlands forest, and never came back. He might’ve gotten lost.”

“Is that why we’re not allowed in there?” Adeline asked timidly.

“Yes, I couldn’t bear to lose any of you, should that happen again,” he replied firmly. “That forest is no place any of you should ever be.”

“Did you ever go looking for him, dad? How…how big is it, exactly?” Elroy asked with uncertainty.

“Of course I did. I searched for three days straight. The Hinterlands is a vast, confusing place. I was lost for a day and barely got back myself,” he ran a stressed hand on his skull, reliving this memory. “Promise me you will never venture out there on your own?”

“We promise,” Mina nodded firmly, and the others followed suit. Except for the eldest, who hesitated as his gaze went to the floor.

“Elroy,” The King warned.

“But what if there’s something out there, dad? Something grandpa found? Maybe he’s just staying somewhere, and we can find him.”

His sternness was replaced with sadness, and he reached out a hand to lay on his son’s shoulder. “I wandered that forest for many days and found nothing but barren trees and twisted trails. If there is something, it will take a long time to get to it, and there’s no guarantee you’ll find your way back to town by then. It’s just not safe.”

He remained quiet even as his father withdrew his touch. He stood to his full height, grabbing the book as he did so and tucking it under his arm. “Thank you for listening to your old man’s tales. I hope you learned something.”

“We did!” Xavier supplied helpfully, and his sisters agreed. Elroy still had that somber look on his face, and Jack worried that all these stories did was worsen his dubiety.

After having breakfast, they quickly prepared to depart for school, where they learned the basics and ins-and-outs of scaring, the town’s history, and general knowledge all children were taught. His siblings skipped out the door and began their trip down the long stairs. Before Elroy could leave, Jack stopped him at the doorstep and crossed his skeletal arms expectantly.

“Son, you need to know that you will never disappoint me, and this coming Halloween will be one of my personal favorites, no matter what you do or what happens. Do you understand that?”

A smile raised at the corners of his lips. “Yeah, dad.”

“Is there anything else bothering you?”

This was when it fell again, and he looked away before meeting his sockets once more. “I’m just thinking of what it must’ve been like. I couldn’t imagine you just…going away like that, after my big day comes…Did grandpa hate you?”

“What? No, of course he didn’t,” he bent down to meet him at his eye-level. “Your grandfather was the greatest man who loved his son as dearly as I love you . To tell you the truth, I don’t exactly understand what happened. He had acted a little withdrawn in those last days,” he paused, as it occurred to him that Elroy’s behavior was nearly identical to that he remembered of his father. His grip tightened on the boy’s arm. “I assure you, I will never abandon you or this family. Do you believe me?”

“I do,” and he sounded sincere.

“Have a good day at school, mon fils .”

He sent him off, and when the door shut behind him, the Skellington Manor had a new dreary feel to it, its walls reminding Jack of the man whose home this once was, and wondering what exactly had happened to him.

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