Just another Halloween in the Young Wizards universe...

Ronan burst out laughing as the tatty dark shapes came lurching and staggering closer and closer to the wizards in the darkness, bits and pieces occasionally falling off them as they came. The laughter had a slightly panicky edge to it, though, and after a moment Ronan got his control back as he reached inside his costume’s tunic. “Sorry, sorry,” he said as he pulled out something hard to see, “honestly. I just keep expecting them to start dancing. By any chance, are you guys carrying?” 

Nita ripped her wand out of its sheath and shook the safety spell off her charm bracelet. Kit threw his plastic sword away and pulled his wand out too. “Time to make a stand,” Nita said. “We let It mess up Halloween, it’ll be coming after Hanukkah or Christmas next!” She whispered a couple of words in the Speech, and the rowan wand blazed with ready power.

“You hear me?” Nita yelled, not just at the shambling undead but at the amused Power responsible for them and doubtless watching this whole thing. “I am taking Halloween back, and you are not getting away with this! Not on my patch!”

In this 14,000-word novelette, originally written for UNICEF's 60th annual "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" campaign, we tag along with Nita Callahan, Kit Rodriguez, Ronan Nolan, and Dairine Callahan as they do a little overage Trick or Treating in their own neighborhood, and find themselves going up against an old adversary in company with a peculiar new ally...

This story, along with How Lovely Are Thy Branches and Young Wizards: Lifeboats, forms a transitional trilogy of canonical works bridging Young Wizards book 9, A Wizard of Mars, and book 10, Games Wizards Play.