Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Slightly More Happens - October Oracles

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Our stories tonight are some of my favorites. We’ll spend time at the Inn as the pumpkins are lit and the ballroom fills up with costumed neighbors. There will be cats in windows, a rumbling dumbwaiter, and a secret passageway that’s sat shut up for ages. We’ll wander through the alleys at the Night Market and make friends with bump in the night. Subscribe to our ⁠⁠⁠Premium channel⁠⁠⁠. The first month is on us. 💙 We give to a different charity each week, and this week we are giving to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library 🦋, dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five. → Quince | Make your bed your favorite place to be this season with Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://www.quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep.  → Little Spoon | Give them meals + snacks that are actually right for where kids are developmentally - balanced, intentional and made to support real growth. Go to https://www.littlespoon.com/NOTHINGMUCH and enter code NOTHINGMUCH for 30% off your first order. Join the Village of Nothing Much App!Order Kathryn’s new book On the Street Where You LiveNMH Merch, Autographed Books and More!Listen to our daytime show, Stories from the Village of Nothing MuchSit Meditation with KathrynFollow us on InstagramVisit Nothing Much Happens for more Village fun!Sign up for our Newsletter here to be in the know! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get more, nothing much happens with bonus episodes, extra long stories, and ad-free listening, all while supporting the show you love. Subscribe now. Thanks to Little Spoon for their support. We talk a lot here about making the end of the day a little gentler. For parents, that can start well before bedtime with fewer decisions at dinner. Little Spoon delivers meals and snacks for babies, toddlers, and big kids. From first purees to finger foods and heat and eat meals, their options grow along with your family. And it's one less thing to figure out when everyone's already hungry. Feeding the kids doesn't have to be complicated. Little spoon makes it easy with real, nutritionally balanced meals and snacks designed for every stage. It shows up ready to go, takes the pressure off, and somehow still gets devoured, veggies and all.

There are no artificial dyes, flavors, or sauce. sweeteners either. I shared some with a neighbor, and she reported back a week later, her kids ate everything I gave her, and it made packing lunches and organizing dinners a breeze. She signed up using our code and got 30% off her first online order, and you can too, at little spoon.com slash nothing much with code nothing much. That's L-I-T-T-L-E-S-P-O-O-O-N dot com slash nothing much, with code nothing much for 30% off your first order. Welcome to a special longer episode of bedtime stories for everyone, in which slightly more happens.

You feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Catherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Much happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. We give to a different charity each week. And this week we are giving to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five. Learn more about them in our show notes. Here is your monthly dose. of extra nothing much,

in which we give you a three-story episode arc on the free feed and a five-story episode arc on our premium feed. If you'd like to subscribe to premium, you'll also get monthly bonus episodes and add free listening across all three of my podcasts. You can learn more at nothing much happens.com.

Just as with a regular episode, these stories are simply a soft place to rest your mind. All you need to do is listen. I'll still tell the stories twice, going a little slower the second time through. If you wake later in the night, don't hesitate to start them over again. Our stories tonight are some of my favorites. will spend time at the inn as the pumpkins are lit, and the ballroom fills up with costumed neighbors.

There will be cats in windows, a rumbling dumb waiter, and a secret passageway that sat shut up for ages. Then the extra-large premium version will wander through the alleys at the night market and make friends with a bump in the night. there's a particular pleasure in getting your bed ready for autumn, adding another layer, pulling the quilt up, making a place where you can settle in for a bedtime story.

Quince is sponsoring this episode, and their bedding is made for that kind of comfort. Now, we just switched from their premium lightweight down alternative comforter to the regular weight version, since we need a bit more warmth in bed. And I already owned both of them well before Quince became a sponsor because I honestly love their products and have for a long time. We also have their organic cotton bedding, which gets softer each time I wash it. Make your bed your favorite place to be this season with Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash nothing much. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada in the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was nothing much

happens. It's the best way to support the show. So please make yourself as comfortable as you possibly can. Let your whole body relax and drop heavy into the mattress. You are safe and I'll be here watching over as you drift to sleep. Take a deep breath in through your nose. Let it out your mouth. Nice. One more. Breathe in.

And out. Good. All Hallows Eve at the inn. Sycamore was very excited. He sat on the check-in desk. Beside the giant book our guest sign when they arrive. His tail thumped and played. on the desktop, and his black ears twitched back and forth. We'd met in this very room the year before.

He'd been found by a friend of mine. She'd spotted him in the branches of the tall sycamore tree in the side yard, here at the inn, and when she'd niggered at him from the ground, he'd climbed down into her arms. She'd transferred him into mine, and since then we'd been the best of friends. I didn't know how he would be as a hotel cat. Would he like the constant coming and going of guests? Footsteps in the halls. Chef and our maid and me all moving from floor to floor. Some cats run at the first sound of a human.

and hide under beds. And I worried he would be the same, but he seems to have been born to be an assistant innkeeper. He loves greeting folks as they arrive, herding them from the front door, past the great staircase in the hall, and into the front office.

If you stretch out on the porch swing, he'll curl up in your lap need a bit of company while you read in the library he's happy to sit beside you and purr he knows every nook and cranny of this great old house and is as good and welcoming an ambassador

as I could hope for and now as the afternoon waned and it was nearly time for even more guests to arrive. He was eager to play his part. Many years ago, before I was innkeeper here, there was another innkeeper. She oversaw the house's first turn at hospitality. It had originally been a wealthy family's home.

been a school Ben had sat empty for a time until she opened its doors to guess when she was ready to pass the torch to someone else no one stepped into her shoes and again the house was empty then one fateful day I came bicycling down the overgrown drive

with no intention of doing anything more, been circling past the front door and going back to the road. But I felt pulled to peer into the cobwebbed windows, to walk through the old gardens and down to the lake. This place was like a book I couldn't put down. Soon I found myself with a keys in my own. hand, venturing into the dark halls with the flashlight, wanting to reclaim every cupboard, along with restoring the inn, bringing the ballroom back to life, and even rehabilitating the

dumbwaiter in the hall. We were returning another tradition to this old place. For years, the original innkeeper had thrown a giant party every Halloween night and invited the whole village to come this year in less than an hour in fact our guests would arrive

for this new old celebration I came around the desk and leaned down to plant a kiss on Sycamore's head. Let's light the candles in the pumpkins. He leapt down beside me and meowed excitedly. As we came out into the hall, we'd gone all out for this. Giant spider webs stretched up the great staircase.

All the way to the third floor, and on each step, was a carved pumpkin. Ghostly gauze was draped over mirrors and chandeliers. The stairs were delightfully creaky as we climbed. And I smiled, thinking that the house was playing its part in the spectacle. I'd first thought of putting real candles in the pumpkins. I wanted them to flicker and smoke just a bit. for the authenticity. But, chef, ever the more logical of us, pointed out that all it would take was a misplaced shoe on the stairs

to send a flaming pumpkin down into the hall. And then the fire department would have to be called, while I liked the image of that flying, grinning gorge, very headless horsemen. My guest, they had a point. And now, as we turned the landing at the second floor, and made our way, puffing slightly, up the last flight, I realized hand-lighting all those candles would have taken the whole night.

Chef had found some battery-operated lights. and kindly charged and situated each one and gave me a remote. I took it from my pocket as we stood at the very top of the stairs and looked down through the gloomy webbed flights and into the dark hall

Sycamore poked his head through the railings and I could feel his tail curl around my ankle. I pushed the button on the remote, and the whole space lit up with a flickering orange glow that was spooky yet beckoning. I hoped it would be irresistible to our party guests tonight, drawing them up to the ballroom, where chefs' punch cauldron would be. be bubbling and smoking, and the band playing, enticing them to reach for a partner, and join the dance macabre. Now, into our costumes, Sikki, not much time left when we hustled down the hall to our room. Sycamore had considered several costume options. He'd considered going as a

jaguar, slinking through the crowds as a big, powerful cat. But you know, in his mind, that was already who he was. So he wouldn't have even needed a costume, which isn't that fun. I'd suggested he'd go as Velcro, since he's black and sticks to stuff. I'd been picking some of his fur off my collar when I'd made the suggestion. But he'd just turned away from me and sighed. In the end, Chef found him a sort of onesy with a glow-in-the-dark paint that made him look like a kitty skeleton. And when we'd tried it on and flicked off the lights, he'd watched himself prowling in front of the mirror and purred. I helped him into it now, rubbing his ears as I snapped it up the back. I thought about all the silly fun we had together. How had I ever lived without him? Then I turned to my closet

and took out a vintage dress, an apron I'd found at the resale shop. I didn't know the name of the other keeper. Didn't know how old she was when she started or stopped, but I felt a kinship with her. Just like I'd dressed as my heroes when I'd gone out trick-or-treating when I was young, I was dressing as her for the party tonight. I was strange, actually. We'd found lots of pictures of the house of various times in its life. But we'd never found a single shot of her.

There was one it found in the back of a closet. But her face was a blur. She must have been moving too fast for the shutter to catch her. I could relate. It seemed I was always needed somewhere in the inn.

Still, I'd based this cost, on that blurry image, a pale dress with full cuffs, and a dark apron. Just like me, she'd worn sensible flat shoes. That would make going up and down the stairs possible and speedy, and though I couldn't tell in the photo, I'd guessed she'd tucked her hair up in a neat bun, so I twisted my own locks into place and secured them with bobby pins. Sycamore lay glowing in front of the full-size mirror in the dim light, and I stepped in front of it,

felt the air fade from my lungs. I don't know why. In some ways, I was dressing up as myself, but in the mirror I saw a different version of me, a woman who had known. even more of the secrets of this old house. And it felt like saying a word that had been on the tip of your tongue for years. A bell rang over my door. And I jumped startling myself out of whatever sort of daydream this was and looked down at skeletal sycamore. That's chef.

letting us know that guests are arriving, sigh. Let's be good hosts. I peered at myself in the mirror one more time and said as I turned to the door. Or, good ghosts. The secret stare. My breath fogged the air. As I stood outside the inn,

the Halloween party was. in full swing. I stopped what I was doing to sidle closer to a window and peer in at the flickering candlelight. When the guests arriving, climbing the great staircase

in their costumes, and I felt the silliness, heard the laughter and chatter, and smelled good sense from the treats waiting up in the ballroom. They walked, washed over me like sunshine on a cold winter day, and I smiled in the dark,

eager to join them. But first, I had a job to do. I felt into the pockets of my robe. No, not a witch's robe, though I see how you got there. I was playing into the stereotype. bit and making fun of it at the same time by wearing my fuzziest bathrobe, pink bunny slippers, and a head full of rollers rather than a spidery patched witch's hat. It was honestly the most comfortable Halloween costume I'd ever worn. And I decided that every October the 31st from here on out, I'd be elevating comfort over fashion. From my pocket, I took out a glass jar that was a third full of salt and a wooden spoon with a long handle. I stepped away from the window and started down a stone.

path toward the back of the inn. Glad the moon was full tonight. The light felt like company as I walked. I slunk past the inn's back porch, where several carved pumpkins watched me. With hollow eyes and toothy grins, I followed the stairs down toward the lake and stopped at the fire pit.

The chairs were gone at this point in the year, put away in one of the sheds till next summer. But that was fine. I wasn't here to stargaze or warm my feet at a fire. I squatted down to where bonfires had burned for decades or longer. And using my wooden spoon, scooped ashes into my jar with my salt. I screwed the top back on the jar and cleaned my spoon off in the dewy grass

before tucking it back into my robe pocket and standing tall shook the jar to mix the ash and salt together. I was making a simple protection spell. It was one of the first ones I'd read from my grandmother's book when it had come to me. Mixed salt, it said, in even part with ashes from any sacred fire, and sprinkle them around doors and windows to keep those inside safe and at ease. and what was sacred here at the inn?

Oh, many things. I could have taken ashes from the fireplace in the library or from the charcoal grill where chef cooked zucchini and veggie burgers for the guests. But my first thought had been about all the people who sat round the flames here. Pleasantly worn out after a day of sun and swimming,

making memories with their friends, sweethearts or children, wishing on shooting stars, telling stories as the moon rose. I carried the jar around the inn, sprinkling the salt at each window-sill or doorframe. When I came to the library, A face met me at the window, and I jumped with my hand over my heart and my breath caught in my chest.

I looked up at the gray face and yellow eyes of cinder, my cat, who, not wanting to get her paws wet in the dew, had gone into the party without me. I hissed her name as I came down from the fright. Sender! And she meowed at me through the glass. Beside her a second cat. This one black as night appeared. Sycamore, who lived in the inn and had become fast friends with cinder.

meowed as well. Their breath fogged against the glass, and Cinder leaned forward and left a nose print on it. It reminded me of the sigils carved into the doorframe at my shop. Spells hewn into the wood. This was Cinder's spell, calling me into the house. I decided to work smarter. and sprinkled the rest of the black salt into my hand. I opened my palm and called on the evening breeze. To carry it all around the inn, I closed my eyes and felt the wind whirling around me. The lop-bears of my bunny slippers were buffeted in it,

and soon my palm was empty. and the night calm and quiet again. Well, that's one thing done, I said to myself, as I turned toward the front of the old house. Renewing protection and prosperity spells or something all of us in the village circle did regularly. But tonight I had another chore on my list. though it was still a bit of a mystery to me, shrouded even from my keen sight.

There was a puzzle here at the inn that needed me and cinder who met me as I came through the door. The entry of the inn was absolutely stunning, especially to a witch on Halloween, A hundred small pumpkins marked each step of the grand central staircase, and the old crystal chandelier was wrapped in gray cobwebs. From somewhere far off, a bone-rattling jazz band played, and the place teemed with flickering candlelight and the scent of caramel. I stood for a moment, taking it all in. looking up through the stairs and breathing in the air of the old house. This was sacred to me too. It was something I thought of often. A part of how I lived and made decisions, reminding myself, what mattered to me, what was worth working or fighting for, and what were the things that

didn't deserve my precious energy. Places like this were worth it. They filled my cup, as did, of course, the people I found here. I looked around for the innkeeper. My eyes sweeping over gas as they mingled and climbed the stairs. There were plenty of spooky folk out tonight. and plenty more just dressed as such.

I saw a few sisters from my circle, and I saw the baker from the shop downtown, and laughed as I realized that seeing her out of her apron felt wrong in some way. She wore an elaborate gown and elf ears that suited her very well indeed. I scooted past the man who owned the bicycle shop, dressed in an old-fashioned baseball uniform.

His front was dusted with dirt, like he'd just slid into home base. And in one hand he held a drink, and with the other a worn mitt, a masked pirate with a saber, dressed all in black, took me by the arm. and I recognized our newest witch.

She guided me past the staircase and into the hall. Cinder says, You have a mystery to solve? She whispered. Blabber mouth, I said, as I frowned down at the cat. A stay-puffed marshmallow squeezed past us, and I giggled as I recognized chef. under the disguise. Thought you'd go as a pickle this year? No, too on the nose. I contain multitudes,

they said as they moved past us. Just then, a woman turned a corner down the hall, and something in my awareness hiccuped. She wore a pale, old-fashioned dress. with full sleeves on a dark apron. Her hair was pinned up at the back of her head. And though I recognized her, she was the innkeeper. I also didn't. There was a haze around her. I brought my hands up in front of my face,

as if I were holding an old-fashioned spy glass. peering through them, I rotated my hands till she came into focus. And I saw that the mist was a dreamy purple, spangled with stars like the night sky. She was carrying my mystery. I leaned over to the masked pirate and asked her to ask, ask Sycamore to herd the innkeeper into the library. As you wish, she tilted her head. Her eyes closed under the mask. And though I listened intently, I couldn't tune into her frequency.

But Sycamore, who'd been wandering by the front door, obviously could. He turned toward us and tilted his head as well, and sloped toward the innkeeper, and rubbed his cheek against her ankle. She bent down to pet him, but he inched away. She reached again, taking a step forward, and he took one back.

This way, step by step, he ushered her down the hall, and into the library. We stepped in after them and closed the door with a quiet snap. At the sound, the innkeeper looked up at us, a puzzled smile on her face. Cinder sat at her feet and purred in a calm, reassuring way. I think I've come to grant you a Halloween wish, I said, with a chuckle in my voice. Is there some mystery about the house, or my eyes roved over her face? And I was struck with a sudden knowing that my talents sometimes gifted me,

The other innkeeper? I asked with awe in my voice. I had a vague memory of hearing that before this place had fallen into disrepair before the decades when it had sat empty. There had been another who watched over the guests and walked the halls. She smiled broadly and reached for my hands. Yes, can you tell me anything about her? I feel like she's my sister from another century. As she spoke, I let my mind quiet and my senses sharpen. There was a reason we were in this room, the library. where I'd looked in earlier and seen Cinder and Sycamore looking out,

I focused on my breath, coming, going, listened to the sounds in the room, and felt for an answer, in a flash. I was drawn to the old fireplace mantle, and I ran my hands over the marble. looking for, I knew not what. I was about to give up. When I felt something under a bracket, on the side of the mantle, I ducked down and squinted at it.

And the others, cats and all, looked with me. Is that, I asked. A keyhole. said the pirate witch. The innkeeper fumbled her keychain from her pocket and looked for one that matched the slot. No, I don't think I have a key for that. I know where all these go already. From over her shoulder came an arm, swathed and silky black material. and clutched in the fingers was an old rusty key.

The innkeeper and I turned, both of us, with mouths agape. To look at the newest witch. What? Where? I started. She smiled and said, The crows gave it to me a few weeks ago. I thought it was just a trinket they found, but I've kept it in my pocket in case it was more than that. And now I think it is.

With a gulp, the innkeeper took it and fitted it into the hole. It took both hands to turn. But when she did, a piece of paneling. beside the bookcase slid open, and a dark hallway appeared from behind it. We could make out the bottom step of a staircase that ascended to somewhere unknown. The lights in the room flickered, and I felt the house itself sighing contentedly, as its last unknown space was finally unlocked. We edged up to the secret doorway.

My pink bunny slippers, beside the sensible shoes of the innkeeper, the black boots of the pirate, and the gray and midnight paws of the cats. Sycamore lifted his face to sniff, the air, I could smell old paper, and with another flash of understanding, I knew that, among many other treasures in this hidden space, we would find something that the other innkeeper had left for safekeeping, maybe even knowing that when the time was right, The panel would slide back, and the trove would be found.

As the band played above us, I conjured a candle from my pocket, lit it from my fingertip, and handed it to the innkeeper. Her face lit with the glow of excitement, an adventure, and we stepped onto the secret stare. Chef and the ghostlight. In the ballroom on the second floor, revelers were dancing. Candles flickered within the hundred or so jackalantons, lining the grand central staircase, from the inn's entryway, all the way up to the attic.

There was an eerie, greenish glow from my bubbling caldron. of homemade punch on the buffet table, and through the tall windows that looked down to the lake, dark as night and reflecting a thin crescent moon, branches swayed in a rising wind. The rain had been threatening to wash out trick-or-treating all day. More than once, while I cooked, and prepared for the festivities,

I'd seen a thick gray ceiling of clouds sweep over the village. And then, as if they'd somehow been frozen in place, just stop. I don't know if you've ever seen completely still clouds. I hadn't. But that's what they appeared to be. No swirling, no shift. and no rain. I suspect that friend of the innkeeper,

the one who'd promised us a bright sunny day for the wedding we'd hosted here a few years back, as she'd had something to do with it. Just in the last half hour, the wind had picked up. Leaves were tumbling from trees, like orange and scarlet snowflakes. And I figured we had only minutes before the rain finally fell. At least the trick-or-treaters had gotten through their neighborhood trumps before it came.

I'd had a dance or two and was just catching my breath, leaning up against a pillar near the double doors. When a flash of something caught my eye from the hall, It was the red light on the dumbwaiter. A bit like a miniature elevator. Its panel had a call button on each floor. When it was in transit, its tiny bulb glowed red, when it arrived at the floor it had been called from.

It flipped to green. I tilted my head in question. wondering who had pressed the button below. I scanned the ballroom, looking for the innkeeper, searching for her blue dress and white pinafore, read coordinated costumes this year. She was Alice, and I was the Cheshire Cat. Or, I'd teased, the Chefshire.

cat. The theme had been her idea. When I asked what inspired it, she said something about how she sometimes feels like she's through the looking glass. And besides, Sycamore wanted to be the mad catter. She didn't get any argument from me. I was already thinking of the cookies I could decorate, to say eat me. And the bottles of cordial and fizzy juice I could tie drink-me labels to. My costume was a deep plum chef's coat, silky black ears atop my head, a tail snaking from my back. I painted my nails in stripes of dark and light purple. And when I pulled my feet, face, into a wide Cheshire grin. I had false fangs glued to my canine teeth. Just for fun. It was Halloween, after all. Alice didn't seem to be anywhere in the ballroom, so I guessed she must be

the one calling the dumbwaiter. Likely she was refilling platters down in the kitchen. To bring up to the buffet, but when I checked the chafing dishes and domed plates, there was still plenty of my crescent moon pies and candied crows. My fog on the lake punch was more than half full, and the mystery cauldron dip with bat-crackers had a backup waiting to be set out. She must not have realized that I had a stocked cooler under one of the draped tables. And it's not that I don't trust her in my kitchen, but, well, she should enjoy the party and leave the food restocking to me. I slipped out through the double doors and on to the landing, making my way down the steps, carefully in the candlelight, when I rounded the half-landing

between floors, a little niche in the wall, where the innkeeper had hung a bouquet of nightshade from a hook in the ceiling, a sort of Halloween version of mistletoe. I chuckled, sidling past the couple there. In the entryway, the center table was decorated with dripping black candles. and a giant centerpiece of orchids. In the same midnight hue, a single tarot card was peeking out from the moss at its base when I could just make out

that it was the six of cups. Party-goers were everywhere. Lounging on the fainting couch beside the front door, telling stories and jokes near the bowls of candy by the front office and crowding the long hallway that led to the back of the inn. I was just inching my way through it when a green light blinked on beside the butler's pantry.

I stepped closer to the dumbwaiter station, trying to understand what was happening. I'd assumed whoever had pressed its call button had done it from the hoistway in the kitchen. A floor below where I stood. I looked up and down the hallway. And while I saw plenty of people, and more than one cat, they all seemed busy with conversation or games, no one was looking at me or the dumbwaiter. If someone here was playing a trick on me,

they had a solid poker face. I reached for the gate. to slide it back and see what was being sent from floor to floor. But in that moment, the green light blinked out, and the red one flashed on beside it. Come on, I said aloud. I needed to see what was happening in my kitchen. I started toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

When a sudden flash of lightning cut through the night, Through the windows of the back porch, I saw it reflected in the surface of the lake. It was so bright that most of the people thronged in the hall, paused their conversations to gape. A moment later, they broke out in nervous laughter, and as I rounded the corner and started down the kitchen stairs, a boom of thunder struck. chasing me down to the bottom, like I was escaping an explosion in an action movie. I'd left most of the lights on down here, anticipating the need to fill fresh platters and fetch more punch ingredients from the fridge. But someone had turned them off. There was only one left on, the one over the staff table, where we ate our meals together. It was an old

pendant light, with a pretty jade green glass shade. The innkeeper told me she'd found it in a box down here when she started renovating. It made a soft circle of light around the table. and when I went to bed each night, it was the light I left on. I'd even joked before, but it was like the tradition in theaters, where they always leave a single bulb lit on stage to burn through the night,

a ghost light, they called it. Just then, I heard the mechanical whir of the dumbwaiter through the wall. As I turned to look, the green light snapped on. Rain spattered against the window panes and branches swayed in the wind,

throwing moving shadows across the walls. I approached the gate of the dumbwaiter and reached for the knobs. My hands weren't shaking. But my bow. breath was a little fast, feeling in the air. It was the same as the scent of ozone when lightning strikes. I wasn't afraid. I was excited. The doors opened easily, and at first I thought it was empty. But this was just a prank. And probably Alice and the mad catter are watching me from a corner.

stifling their giggles. But then I saw a gleam of white at the back and reached in for it. It was a card, an old one, more yellow than white, worn at the edges. The ink faded. I took it over to the table to read it under the light, and handwriting that reminded me of my grandparents. I read the words at the top, original, Village Inn, Pickles. My mouth fell open.

As I scanned through the listed ingredients and method, the recipe was different from mine, not by a huge margin, but enough to make me wonder how these would taste. Suddenly my mind filled with new dishes I could serve. beside these pickles. A whole dinner dedicated to this original recipe. It made me wonder if there were more cards like these somewhere, if whoever had sent this one might offer up more. I smiled broadly as I tucked the precious card into the front pocket of my chef's jacket and climbed the stairs. to rejoin the party. All Hallows Eve at the inn.

Sycamore was very excited. He sat on the check-in desk beside the giant book, our guest sign when they arrive. His tail thumped and played on the desktop, and his black ears twitched back and forth. We'd met in this very, room the year before. He'd been found by a friend of mine. She'd spotted him in the branches of the tall sycamore tree in the side yard, here at the inn, when she'd knickered at him from the

ground. He'd climbed down into her arms. She'd transferred him into mine. And since then, we'd been the best of friends. I didn't know how he would be as a hotel cat. Would he like the constant coming and going of guests, footsteps in the halls, chef and our maid, and me, all moving from floor to floor. Some cats run at the first sound of a human and hide under beds.

And I worried he would be the same, but he seems to have been born to be an assistant innkeeper. He loves greeting folks as they arrive, hurting them from the front door, past the great staircase in the hall, and into the front office. If you stretch out,

on the porch swing. He'll curl up in your lap, need a bit of company while you read in the library. He's happy to sit beside you and purr. He knows every nook and cranny of this great old house and is as good

and welcoming an ambassador as I could hope for. And now as the afternoon waned, and it was nearly time for even more guests to arrive, he was eager to play his part many years ago. Before I was the innkeeper here, there was another innkeeper. She oversaw the house's first turn at hospitality. It had originally been a wealthy family's home, then a school, then had sat empty for a time,

until she opened its doors to guess, when she was ready to pass the torch to someone else. No one stepped into her shoes, and again the house was empty. Then one fateful day, I came bicycling down the overgrown drive with no intention of doing anything more than circling past the front door and going back to the road. But I felt pulled to peer into the cobwebbed windows to walk through the old gardens. and down to the lake. This place was like a book. I couldn't put down. And soon, I found myself with the keys in my hand,

venturing into the dark halls with the flashlight, wanting to reclaim every cupboard, along with restoring the inn, bringing the ballroom back to life. And even rehabilitating the dumb waiter in the hall, we were returning another tradition to this old place. For years, the original innkeeper, had thrown a giant party every Halloween night

and invited the whole village to come this year. in less than an hour, in fact, our guests would arrive for this new, old celebration. I came around the desk and leaned down to plant a kiss on Sycamore's head. Let's light the candles in the pumpkins. he leapt down beside me and meowed excitedly. As we came out into the hall, we'd gone all out for this. Giant spider webs stretched up the staircase, all the way to the third floor.

And on each step was a carved pumpkin, ghostly gauze. was draped over mirrors and chandeliers. The stairs were delightfully creaky as we climbed. And I smiled, thinking that the house was playing its part in the spectacle. I'd first thought of putting real candles in the pumpkins. I wanted them to flicker and smoke just a bit. for the authenticity. But chef, ever the more logical of us, pointed out that all it would take was a misplaced shoe on the stairs

to send a flaming pumpkin down into the hall. And then the fire department would have to be called. While I liked the image of that flying, grinning gourd, very headless horsemen, I guessed they had a point, and now as we turned the landing

at the second floor and made our way, puffing slightly, up the last flight, I realized hand lighting all those candles would have taken the whole night. Shep had found some battery-operated lights and kindly charged and situated each one and given me a remote. I took it from my pocket as we stood at the very time. of the stairs and looked down through the gloomy webbed flights and into the dark hall.

Sycamore poked his head through the railings, and I could feel his tail curled around my ankle. I pushed the button on the remote, and the whole space lit up with a flickering orange glow. That was spooky, yet beckoning. I hoped it would be irresistible to our party guests tonight, drawing them up to the ballroom, where chefs' punch cauldron would be bubbling and smoking, and the band playing, enticing them, to reach for a partner and join.

the dance macabre. Now, into our costume Sicky, not much time left, and we hustled down the hall to our room. Sycamore had considered several costume options. He'd considered going as a jaguar, slinking through the crowds. as a big and powerful cat. But, you know, in his mind, that was already who he was. So he wouldn't have even needed a costume, which isn't that fun. I'd suggested he could go as Velcro, since he's black and sticks to stuff. I'd been picking some of his fur off my collar

when I'd made that suggestion. But he'd just turned away and sighed. In the end, chef found him a sort of onesy, with glow in the dark paint that made him look like a kitty skeleton. And when we tried it on and flicked off the lights, he'd watched himself prowling in front of the mirror and purred. I helped him into it now, rubbing his ears.

As I snapped it up the back, I thought about all the silly fun we had together. How had I ever lived without him? Then I turned to my closet and took out a vintage dress, an apron I'd found at the resale shop. I didn't know the name. of the other innkeeper, didn't know how old she was when she started or stopped, but I felt a kinship with her, and just like I'd dressed as my heroes. When I went out trick-or-treating when I was young, I was dressing as her for the party tonight. It was strange, actually. We'd found lots of pictures of the house at various times in its life,

but we'd never found a single shot of her. There was one I'd found in the back of a closet, but her face was a blur. She must have been moving too fast for the shutter to catch her. I could relate. It seemed I was always needed somewhere in the inn. Still, I based this costume on that blurry image, a pale dress with full cuffs and a dark apron.

Like me, she'd worn sensible, flat shoes, That would make going up and down the stairs possible and speedy. And though I couldn't tell in the photo, I'd guessed she'd tucked her hair up in a neat bun. So I twisted my own locks into place and secured them with bobby pins. Sycamore lay glowing in front of the full-sized mirror in the dim light, and as I stepped in front of it, I felt the air fade from my lungs.

I don't know why, in some ways. I was dressing up as myself, but in the mirror I saw a different version of me, a woman who had known even more of the secrets of this old house. And it felt like saying a word that had been on the tip of your tongue for years, reing over my door, and I jumped startling myself out of whatever sort of danger. dream this was. I laughed and looked down at skeletal sycamore. That's chef, letting us know that guests are arriving, sigh. Let's be good hosts. I peered at myself in the mirror one more time and said as I turned to the door. Or good

ghosts, the secret stare. My breath fogged the air as I stood outside the inn. The Halloween party was in full swing, and I stopped what I was doing to sidle closer to a window and peer in at the flickering candlelight and the guests arriving, climbing the great staircase in their costumes. I could feel the silliness. Hear the laughter and chatter. Smell good sense from the treats waiting up in the ballroom. It washed over me like sunshine on a cold day and I smiled in the dark. eager to join them. But first, I had a job to do. I felt into the pockets of my robe.

No, not a witch's robe, though I can see how you got there. I was playing into the stereotype a bit and making fun of it at the same time. by wearing my fuzziest bathrobe, pink bunny slippers, and a head full of rollers, rather than a spidery patched witch's hat. It was honestly the most comfortable Halloween costume I'd ever worn, and I decided that every October the 31st from here on out, I'd be elevating comfort over fashion. From my pocket, I took a glass jar that was a third full of salt and a wooden spoon with a long handle. I stepped away from the window and started down a stone path toward the back of the inn.

Glad the moon was near full tonight. The light felt like company as I walked. I slunk past the inn's back porch where several carved pumpkins watched me. with hollow eyes and toothy grins. I followed the stairs down toward the lake and stopped at the fire pit. The chairs were gone at this point in the year, put away in one of the sheds until next summer.

But that was fine. I wasn't here to stargaze. I'll warm my feet at a fire. I squatted down to where bonfires had burned for decades or longer and used my wooden spoon to scoop ashes into my jar with my salt. I screwed the top back on the jar and cleaned my spoon off. and the dewy grass, before tucking it back into my robe pocket and standing tall, I shook the jar to mix the ash and salt together.

I was making a simple protection spell. It was one of the first ones I'd read from my grandmother's book when it had come to me. Mix salt, it said, an even part with ashes from any sacred fire and sprinkle around doors and windows to keep those inside, safe, and at ease. Oh, it was sacred here at the inn, many things. I could have taken ashes from the fireplace in the library or from the charcoal grill where chef cooked zucchini and veggie burgers for the guests

but my first thought had been about all the people who sat round the flames here pleasantly worn out after a day of sun and swimming, making memories with their friends, sweethearts, or children, wishing on shooting stars and telling stories as the moon rose.

I carried the jar around the inn, sprinkling the salt at each window-sill or doorframe. When I came to the library, a face met me at the window when I jumped with my hand over my heart and my breath caught in my chest. I looked up at the gray face and yellow eyes of cinder, my cat, who, not wanting to get her paws wet in the dew had gone into the party without me. I hissed her name as I came down from the fright. Cinder, and she meowed at me through the glass,

beside her, a second cat. This one black as night appeared. sycamore, who lived at the inn and had become fast friends with Cinder meowed as well. Their breath fogged against the glass, and Cinder leaned forward and left a nose print on it. It reminded me of the sigils, carved into the doorframe at my shop. spells hewn into the wood. This was cinder spell, calling me into the house. I decided to work smarter and sprinkled the rest of the black salt into my hand.

I opened my palm and called on the evening breeze to carry the salt all around the end. I closed my eyes and felt the wind whipping whirling around me. The lopiers of my bunny slippers were buffeted in it, and soon my palm was empty. And the night, calm and quiet again. Well, that's one thing done, I said to myself, as I turned toward the front of the old house, renewing protection and prosperity spells, or something all of us in the village circle did regularly.

But tonight I had another chore on my list, though it was still a bit of a mystery to me, shrouded even from my keen sight. There was a puzzle here at the inn that needed me, Ancinder, who met me at the door as I came through. The entry of the inn was absolutely stunning, especially to a witch on Halloween. A hundred small pumpkins marked each step of the grand central staircase and the old crystal chandelier was wrapped in gray cobwebs from somewhere far off a bone-rattling jazz band to play.

and the place teemed with flickering candlelight and the scent of caramel. I stood for a moment, taking it all in, looking up through the stairs, and breathing in the air of this old house. This was sacred to me too. It was something I thought of often, a part of. how I lived and made decisions, reminding myself of what mattered to me, what was worth working or fighting for, and which were the things that didn't deserve my precious energy. Places like this were worth it. filled my cup, as did, of course, the people I found here.

I looked around for the innkeeper, my eyes sweeping over guests as they mingled and climbed the stairs. There were plenty of spooky folk out tonight, and plenty more. just dressed as such. I saw a few sisters from my circle. I saw the baker from the shop downtown and laughed as I realized that seeing her out of her apron felt wrong in some way. She wore an elaborate gown and elf ears that suited her very well indeed. I scooted past the man who owned the bicycle shop, dressed in an old-fashioned baseball uniform.

His front was dusted with red dirt, like he'd just slid into home base, and in one hand he held a drink, and the other a worn mitt, a masked pirate, with a saber, dressed all in black, took me by the arm, and I recognized our newest witch. She guided me past the staircase and into the hall, Cinder says, you have a mystery to solve? She whispered. Blabbermouth, I said, as I frown down at the cat,

a stay puffed marshmallow squeezed past us, and I giggled as I recognized chef under the disguise. Thought you'd go as a pickle this year, I said. Nah, two on the nose. I contain multitudes, they said back as they moved past us.

Just then, a woman turned a corner down the hall. And something in my awareness hiccpped. She wore a pale, old-fashioned dress. with full sleeves and a dark apron. Her hair was pinned up at the back of her head.

And though I recognized her, she was the innkeeper. I also didn't. There was a haze around her. I brought my hands up in front of my face, as if I were holding an old-fashioned spyglass. Peering through them, I rotated my hands till she came into focus.

And I saw that the mist was a dreamy purple, spangled with stars like the night sky. She was carrying my mystery. I leaned over to the masked pirate and asked her to ask Sycamore to herd the innkeeper into the library. As you wish, she tilted her head. Her eyes closed under the mask.

Though I listened intently, I couldn't tune into her frequency, but Sycamore, who had been wandering by the front door, obviously could. He turned toward us and tilted his head as well, then sloped toward the innkeeper and rubbed his cheek against her ankle. She bent down to pet him, but he inched away. She reached again, taking a step forward, and he took one back. And this way, step by step, he ushered her down the hall and into the library. We stepped in after them and closed the door. with a quiet snap. At the sound, the innkeeper looked up at us.

A puzzled smile on her face. Cinder sat at her feet and purred in a calm, reassuring way. I think I've come to grant you a Halloween wish, I said. with a chuckle in my voice. Is there some mystery about the house, or my eyes roved over her face? And I was struck with a sudden knowing

that my talents sometimes gifted me. The other innkeeper? I asked with awe in my voice. I had a vague memory of hearing that before this place had fallen into disrepair before the decades when it had sat empty. There had been another

who watched over the gas and walked the halls. She smiled. broadly and reached for my hands. Yes. Can you tell me anything about her? I feel like she's my sister from another century. As she spoke, I let my mind quiet and my senses sharpen. There was a reason we were in This room, the library, where I'd looked in earlier and seen cinder and sycamore looking out. I focused on my breath, coming and going, listen to the sounds in the room, and just felt for an answer. In a flash, I was drawn to the old fireplace mantle, and I ran my hand.

over the marble, looking for I knew not what. I was about to give up when I felt something under a bracket at the side of the mantle. I ducked down and squinted at it, and the others, cats and all, looked with me. Is that? I asked. A keyhole, said the pirate witch. The innkeeper fumbled her keychain from her pocket and looked for one that matched the slot. No, I don't think I have a key for that.

I know where all these go already. from over her shoulder came an arm swathed in silky black material and clutched in the fingers was an old rusty key the innkeeper and I turned both of us with our mouths agape

to look at the newest witch where I started She smiled and said, The crows gave it to me. A few weeks ago, I thought it was just a trinket they found, but I kept it in my pocket in case it was something more than that.

Now I think it is with a gulp. The innkeeper took it and fitted it into the hole. I took both hands to turn, but when she did, a piece of paneling beside the bookcase slid open, and a dark hallway appeared from behind it. We could make out the bottom step of a staircase that ascended to somewhere unknown. The lights in the room flickered, and I felt the house itself sighing contentedly, as its last unknown space was finally unlocked. We edged up to the secret doorway.

My pink bunny slippers beside the sensible shoes, of the innkeeper, the black boots of the pirate, and the gray and midnight paws of the cats. Sycamore lifted his face to sniff the air. I could smell old paper, and with another flash of understanding, I knew that among many other treasures in this hidden space, we would find something that the other innkeeper had left here for safekeeping, maybe even knowing that when the time was right, the panel would be slid back and the trove would be found. As the band played above us, I conjured a candle from my pocket, lit it from my fingertip,

and handed it over to the innkeeper. Her face lit with the glow of excitement and adventure. And we stepped onto the secret stair. Chef and the ghostlight. In the ballroom on the second floor, revelers were dancing. Candles flickered within the hundred or so jackalantons, lining the grand central staircase from the inn's entryway,

all the way up to the attic. There was an eerie, greenish glow from my bubbling cauldron of homemade punch on the buffet table and through the tall windows that looked down to the lake, dark as night, and reflecting a thin crescent moon.

Branches swayed in a rising wind. The rain had been threatening to wash out, trick-or-treating, all day. More than once, while I cooked and prepared for the festivities. I'd seen a thick, gray ceiling of clouds sweep over the village. and then, as if they'd somehow been frozen in place, just stop. I don't know if you've ever seen completely still clouds, but that's what they appeared to be. No swirling, no shifting, and no rain. I suspected that friend of the innkeeper, the one.

One who'd promised us a bright sunny day for the wedding we'd hosted here a few years back had something to do with that. Just in the last half hour, the wind had picked up. Leaves were tumbling from the trees, like orange and scarlet snowflakes. And I figured we had only minutes. minutes before the rain finally fell. At least the trick-or-treaters had gotten through their neighborhood tromps. Before it came, I'd had a dance or two. When was just catching my breath, leaning up against a pillar, mere the double doors, when a flash of something caught my eye from the hall,

It was the red light on the dumbwaiter, a bit like a miniature elevator. Its panel had a call button on each floor when it was in transit. A tiny bulb glowed red when it arrived at the floor it had been called from. It flipped to green. I tilted my head in question. wondering who had pressed the button below. I scanned the ballroom, looking for the innkeeper, searching for her blue dress and white pinafore.

We'd coordinated costumes this year. She was Alice, and I was the Cheshire Cat. Or, I'd teased, the chef-shire. cat. The theme had been her idea, and when I asked what inspired it, she said something about how she sometimes feels like she's through the looking glass. And besides, Sycamore wanted to be the mad catter. She didn't get any argument for me. I was already thinking of the cookies I could decorate, to say eat me, and the bottles of cordial and fizzy juice I could tie, drink me labels to. My costume was a deep, plum, chef's coat, with silky black ears

atop my head and a tail snaking from my back. I painted my nails in stripes of dark and light purple. And when I pulled my face into a wide Cheshire grin, I had false fangs glued to my canine teeth. Just for fun. It was Halloween, after all. Alice didn't seem to be anywhere in the ballroom. So I guessed she must be the one calling the dumbwaiter. likely she was refilling platters down in the kitchen to bring up to the buffet.

But when I checked the chafing dishes and domed plates, there were still plenty of my crescent moon pies and candied crows. my fog on the lake punch was more than half-fall and the mystery cauldron dip with bat-crackers had a backup already waiting to be set out she must not have realized

that I had a stocked cooler under one of the draped tables and it's not that I don't trust her in my kitchen, well, she should enjoy the party and leave the food restocking to me. I slipped out through the double doors and onto the landing, making my way down the steps,

carefully in the candlelight. When I rounded the half landing between floors, a little niche in the wall where the innkeeper had hung a bouquet of nightshade from a hook in the ceiling as a sort of Halloween version of mistletoe.

I chuckled. Sideline passed the couple there. In the entryway, the center table was decorated with dripping black candles and a giant centerpiece of orchids and the same midnight hue.

A single tarot card was peeking out from the moss at its base and I could just make out that it was the six of cups. Party goers were everywhere, lounging on the faintly. couch, beside the front door, telling stories and jokes, near the bowls of candy by the office, and crowding the long hallway that led to the back of the inn. I was just inching my way

through it, when a green light blinked on beside the butler's pantry. What? I stepped closer to the dumbwaiter station, trying to understand what was happening. I'd assumed whoever had pressed its call button, had done it from the hoistway in the kitchen, a floor below where I stood. I looked up and down the hallway. And while I saw plenty of people and more than one cat. They all seemed busy with conversation or games. No one was looking at me

or the dumbwaiter. If someone here was playing a trick on me, they had a solid poker face. I reached for the gate to slide it back and see what was being sent from floor to floor. But in that moment, the green light blinked out, and the red one flashed on beside it.

Come on, I said aloud. I needed to see what was happening in my kitchen. I started toward the stairs at the end of the hall, when a sudden flash of lightning cut through the night. through the windows of the back porch. I saw it reflect in the surface of the lake. It was so bright that most of the people thronged in the hall, paused their conversations to gape.

A moment later, they broke out in nervous laughter, and as I rounded the corner, and started down the kitchen stairs, a boom of thunder struck, chasing me down to the bottom like I was escaping an explosion in an action movie. I'd left most of the lights on down here, anticipating the need to fill fresh platters and fetch more punch ingredients from the fridge. But someone had turned them off. There was only one light on, the one over the staff table, where we ate our meals together.

It was an old pendant light. With a pretty jade green glass shade, the innkeeper told me, she found it in a box down here when she started renovating. It made a soft circle of light around the table. table. And when I went to bed each night, it was the light I left on. I'd even joked before that it was like the tradition in theaters where they always leave a single bulb lit on stage to burn through the night, a ghost light, they call it. Just then, I heard the mechanical whir of the dumb waiter, through the wall. As I turned to look, the green light snapped on, rain spattered across the window

panes, and branches swayed in the wind, throwing moving shadows across the walls. I approached the gate of the dumbwaiter and reached for the knobs. My hands weren't shaking, but my breath was a little fast. The feeling in the air was the same as the scent of ozone and lightning strikes. I wasn't afraid. I was excited. The doors opened easily, and at first I thought it was empty, but this was just a prank. And probably Alice and the mad catter were watching me from a corner. It's disfling their giggles. But then I saw a gleam of white at the back and reached for it. It was a card, an old one, more yellow than white, worn at the edges, being faded. I took it over to the table to read it under the light and handwriting that reminded me of my grandparents. I read the words

at the top. Original Village Inn. Pickles. My mouth fell open as I scanned through the listed ingredients and method. The recipe was different from mine, not by a huge margin, but enough to make me wonder how these would taste. Suddenly my mind filled with new dishes. Filled with new dishes. I could serve beside these pickles. A whole dinner dedicated to this original recipe. It made me wonder if there were more cards like these somewhere. If whoever had sent this one to me might offer up more. I smiled broadly as I tucked the precious card.

into the front pocket of my chef's jacket and climbed the stairs to rejoin the party. Sweet dreams.