The Halloween Tree

The unemployed of all midnight Europe shivered in their stone sleep and came awake.

Which is to say that all the old beasts, all the old tales, all the old nightmares, all the old unused demons-put-by, and witches left in the lurch, quaked at the call, reared at the whistle, trembled at the summons, and in dustdevils of propulsion skimmed down the roads, flitted skies, buckshot through shaken trees, forded streams, swam rivers, pierced clouds, and arrived, arrived, arrived.

Which is still to say that all the dead statues and idols and semigods and demigods of Europe lying like a dreadful snow all about, abandoned, in ruins, gave a blink and start and came as salamanders on the road, or bats in skies or dingoes in the brush. They flew, they galloped, they skittered.

To the general excitement and amazement and much babbling shout from the fringe of boys leaning out, Moundshroud leaning with them as the mobs of strange beasts came from north, south, east, west to panic at the gates and wait for whistles.

"Shall we drop white-hot boiling lead down on them?"

The boys saw Moundshroud's smile.

"Heck, no," said Tom. "Hunchback already did that years ago!"

"Well, then, no burning lava. So shall we whistle them up?"

They all whistled.

And obedient to summons, the mobs, the flocks, the prides, the crush, the collection, the raving flux of monsters, beasts, vices rampant, virtues gone sour, discarded saints, misguided prides, hollow pomps oozed, slid, suckered, pelted, ran bold and right up the sides of Notre-Dame. In a floodtide of nightmare, in a tidal wave of outcry and shamble they inundated the cathedral, to crust themselves on every pinion and upthrust stone.

So here ran pigs and there climbed Satan's goats and yet another wall knew devils which recarved themselves along the way, dropped horns and grew new ones, shaved beards to sprout tendril earthworm mustaches.

Sometimes a swarm of only masks and faces scuttled up the walls and took the buttress heights, carried by an army of crayfish and wobbly-crotchety lobsters. Here came the heads of gorillas, full of sin and teeth. There came men's heads with sausages in their mouths. Beyond danced the mask of a Fool upheld by a spider that knew ballet.

So much was going on that Tom said: "My gosh, so much is going on!"

"And more to come, there!" said Moundshroud.

For now that Notre-Dame was infested with various beasts and spidering leers and gloms and masks, why here came dragons chasing children and whales swallowing Jonahs and chariots chockful of skulls-and-bones. Acrobats and tumblers, yanked out of shape by demidemons, limped and fell in strange postures to freeze on the roof.

All accompanied by pigs with harps and sows with piccolos and dogs playing bagpipes, so the music itself helped charm and pull new mobs of grotesques up the walls to be trapped and caught forever in sockets of stone.

Here an ape plucked a lyre; there floundered a woman with a fish's tail. Now a sphinx flew out of the night, shed its wings and became woman and lion, half and half, settled to snooze away the centuries in the shadow and sound of high bells.

"Why, what are those?" cried Tom.

Moundshroud, leaning over, gave a snort: "Why those are Sins, boys! And nondescripts. There crawls the Worm of Conscience!"

They looked to see it crawl. It crawled very fine.

"Now," whispered Moundshroud softly. "Settle. Slumber. Sleep."

And the flocks of strange creatures turned about three times like evil dogs and lay down. All beasts took root. All grimaces froze to stone. All cries faded.

The moon shadowed and lit the gargoyles of Notre-Dame.

"Does it make sense, Tom?"

"Sure. All the old gods, all the old dreams, all the old nightmares, all the old ideas with nothing to do, out of work, we gave them work. We called them here!"

"And here they will remain for centuries, right?"

"Right!"

They looked down over the rim.

There was a mob of beasts on the east battlement.

A crowd of sins on the west.