A Halloween Tale

Saturday was a strange day, a dark and rainy day. My first tutorial wasn't until 9:30 am, and there was this rummage sale ...

I saw the ad the night before, and though it started at 9:00 am I figured I could spend 15 minutes inside and take 15 minutes to get to that first student, no problem. The lure of the hunt throbbed in the air - especially since this one was actually billed as a "Treasure Sale." When I entered the church that fateful morning, a quick glance at the tables told me the label wasn't vanity or exaggeration - porcelain vases and dishes, silver and silver plate, crystal and craquelure, and lots of art met my hungry gaze. I snagged an elaborate Victorian brass desktop set with double inkwell (beautifully done, though no liners) for $10, and a couple of pretty but practical household things before I spotted the jewelry. Well, actually, I spotted a ring of women, leaning like willows in the wind, and assumed there was a table full of either shoes or sparkly things. Since I could plainly see the footwear in the opposite direction, I headed to the crowd.

I towered over the circle of heads and shoulders. Oddly, the display seemed pretty sparse for that dense a cluster of hunters, but I thought that perhaps donations were down - the usual grab-fest was more shuffle than snag, as if they were ... waiting. Strange, yes, but who questions luck? I shrugged and began to reach gently in and over, toward whatever caught my eye. A pair of silver dolphin earrings (tarnished so cheap and unclaimed) went into my hand, then a ring, both of which I would look at in a moment as soon as I'd picked up anything else of interest. A shoebox lid across the table held a pair of CZ earrings, so I leaned in, twigged it with two fingers - and gasped as a woman snatched it back and took a swipe at my fingers, as if to slap them, then went back to work all without a word or even a glance in my direction. My astonishment (and fury) deepend as I realized that the container was not part of the display at all but had been and was being methodically filled to overflowing by that ... that harpy.

She was about 5-foot-nothing, twenty-ish, with long, black hair and brown eyes, my exact opposite in every way, the opposite of all of my friends. Yet something about her was ... familiar. It wasn't the build or the clothes or the moves that caught my eye, but ... what? Yes, the expression! The hawklike intensity and rapaciousness! I knew it from somewhere!

No, it couldn't be ... not that, anything but that!

The impulse to yank the earrings from her grasping claw drained out so fast it left a dizzying vacuum. I couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't do more than blindly snag that pair of earrings when she - after a contemptuous glance - tossed them back into the center of the table. Surely it was a trick of light! For a moment it was ... me!

I clutched my finds and backed away in horror, mouth at half-mast, unable to shift my gaze as this blood-chilling Mini-Me finished her gluttonous raid, tossed a few pitiful crumbs to the hovering ladies, and paid the attendant. So transfixed was I by the train wreck of my imagination that I couldn't even overhear her total or get a glimpse of what I'd missed out on by not getting there early.

That's not me, I told myself as I pumped the cash lady for information. Never in a million years would I be that ruthless for something as silly as a pile of whatever it was (no one could tell me for sure, the witch was too fast). And I'm not that obsessed, not any more. I even walked away with just the three jewelry items before going to pick out a print for the Big Lug - one I did not pluck from beneath the hand of another woman who, though she was hardly there before me, hurried past my reaching arm to get there first. And, yes, I thought good "put it down" thoughts right at her, but I stood patiently the entire ten seconds before she set it back on the chair. Okay, so I had it before it touched wood, but I wasn't rude - I smiled and even said "not at all" when she apologized for her obviously abrupt behavior.

I released the fear that had frozen my veins. Not me. Not me. We're all kind of crazy this time of year, and with the economy the way it was now ... yes, she probably wasn't a harpy at all - she's just as strapped as the rest of us, and trying to find gifts for her friends and family for the holidays. Or maybe she's just another hunter, one without my scruples or my restraint - I'd run into dealers before, even ruder than she was. And two of the three pieces I'd bought were fine sterling items - the ring turned out to be a Mary Engelbreit original, which I'm wearing even now. I know that if I were meant to have the other jewelry, I'd have gotten to them in time.

But it was weird, that instant of recognition, wasn't it? In another universe it would be one of those moments that parents warned about, the Twilight-Zone cautionary kind meant to scare little kiddies into eating their oatmeal and keeping to the narrow path. I have nothing to worry about. It wasn't real; it was simply an illusion, the Halloween spirits at play.

What else could it be?