The Halloween Project 2025 - Story 9: Mr. Tricks - Part Five, Finale
- Carl W. Bosch
- Oct 31
- 6 min read
Five stories, five Halloweens, one long haunting. Since 2020, Mr. Tricks has shadowed Brunswick’s life—appearing in doorways, lakes, lighthouses, and dreams. Each year he’s changed shape, but the story has always been about something more human: growing up, carrying fear, and learning what it means to face what follows you.
Thanks for walking through these Halloweens with me. Now, one more turn down the path—back to Brunswick, back to the shadow, and back to Mr. Tricks.
But the Halloween Project goes on. There will always be more stories waiting in the dark.
Brunswick walked back to his room on South College Street only a block from the University of Edinburgh’s main campus. In the third year of a doctoral pursuit, he was now focused entirely on his dissertation. Celtic Studies and Scottish Studies had called to him for a number of reasons. At 27, he hoped to become an academic teaching somewhere, if not in Scotland, then back in the States.
Today was Halloween, and the town was resplendent with autumn foliage and parties all across campus and the city’s local streets. He had been to pubs with several friends for the past few days. Today, he asked Maisie, his steady girlfriend, a cute undergrad senior, to a party in a local establishment where students drank, smoked weed in the alleys outside, and told ridiculous tales. There was apple dookin’, the Scottish version of dunking for apples, except accomplished with heads bobbing into a large bucket of ale. Maisie grabbed his hand and led him over to a table where many foamy bowls of oatmeal and whipped cream rested. She pressed a spoon into his hand.
”Let me explain,” she offered.
”I’m well ahead of you, Maisie,” Brun replied affectionately, “It’s called fuarag. I’m to dip my spoon and pull out…well…there are four objects in each of these bowls; a coin for wealth, a button to live life as a bachelor, a thimble to be a spinster,”
”And a ring,” Maisie interrupted, “for an upcoming marriage. Come on, dig in!”
Brun had always loved Halloween as a child until that day 16 years ago, when he was only 11, and it began. When he first met him.
Mr. Tricks.
He and Tricks had walked down the street together, hand-in-hand. He kept coming for Brun. Five years later when his boyhood friend was found in the lake. Two years after that his college fraternity members died. And four years ago, when Chloe disappeared, not only from his life, but from the world. Always when Tricks appeared. Always on Halloween.
”C’mon Brun! Git Gein!” Maisie insisted.
”OK, I’ll hurry!” He answered and dug his spoon into the mixture. He scooped around once, twice, and smiled at Maisie.
”I think I found something!” he announced, lifting the spoon to reveal…
”A ring! Brilliant!” Maisie screamed and planted a kiss on Brun’s cheek. He turned and exchanged a deeper, longer kiss.
Much later that evening, past midnight, they walked back down South College. Maisie clung to Brun’s arm. Revelers were still calling from windows and standing in clumps outside pubs with music blaring here and there. Costumes were rampant and students were in various degrees of inebriation. In the closest alley a witch was holding back the sheet of a vomiting ghost. Vampires and werewolves abounded. Down the block a figure emerged.
”Maisie, I’m not bringing you home to my place tonight,” Brun said flatly but with emphasis.
”Oh Brun, c’mon, the night’s young. It’s Halloween. We can have some real fun,” she said.
”Not tonight, Mais’. There’s something I’ve got to do. Something important that I have to take care of. I’m sorry. How about tomorrow night?”
A look of disappointment shadowed her face but she knew when he was serious. “You’re not mad or somethin’, are you? It’s Halloween!”
”No, no, not at all. In fact, I’ll see you tomorrow in the canteen. Breakfast? Or lunch?”
”Em, let’s do dinner? I’ll be sleepin’ in tomorrow, it’s Saturday and tonight is Halloween. God knows what else is happenin,” she said.
”God knows,” Brun replied, and kissed her. She turned toward her street and waved goodbye.
The figure had halved the distance between them. It fit in perfectly for Halloween. Disheveled trench coat, sloping hat covering most of the face save for a glowing eye. Long arms dangling from torn sleeves. Brun stared at it hard then turned and walked away. He headed as a crow might, in a direct line to Greyfriars Kirkyard Cemetery. As he walked closer, eventually entering through the gate, crowds had diminished, a few drunk partygoers with flashlights, moved about in the distance.
”What a place to celebrate Halloween,” Brun muttered, then hissed, “Celebrate.” Brun continued deeper, turning once or twice to just see the glowing eye following between the trees and gravestones. He finally stopped and turned. And waited. It came upon him smoothly, footsteps barely heard on the grass. A rank smell wafted to Brun. The figure had never changed. Disheveled, angry, malevolent.
“Brunswick,” it began, the voice a rasp on metal, speaking very slowly, “Again I come to claim you, Brunswick. I will never stop until you come. Tonight.” It reached out and the fingers coursed in a grasping gesture.”
Brunswick looked hard at the figure. Looked deep and tried to summon courage. And pity. Then he spoke.
”Not tonight. Not ever. In fact, this is the last night that we will ever see each other. It’s the end for us. It’s the end for you.”
Laughter, if laughter can arise from misery, crackled beneath the creature's throat. It raised its head and the face appeared once again. A visage that changed or appeared to. A crow, a rat, a smoky cloud, worms, eyes, many eyes. And the laughter. A coarse laugh, more a cry of the wind.
“Sluagh,” Brunswick said and Tricks’ laugh died like a slamming door.
”That’s what you are. A Sluagh. I don’t know what you were in life. A man or woman. I don’t know how long you’ve roamed the earth. Centuries perhaps. I don’t know the terrible, impossible thing you must have done to be cursed like this.”
Tricks, the Sluagh, pivoted and turned its head from side to side as if searching for someone, something. “Brun,” its voice simmered.
”Why do you think I’m here in Scotland? What is it you think I’ve been studying these three years? But I know that I’m right. And I know your curse. To wander forever among living souls and snatch them if you can because of what you did. And whatever that was, it was so horrific that a Sluagh is denied entrance. Not to heaven, not to hell, not to purgatory. You’ve had nowhere to go. Cursed to wander. Alone. And to hate.”
The Sluagh began to vibrate, its hands tossing to either side of its poxed face. The shifting clothes grew animated. Birds flew from beneath its garment. Clawlike hands raked its cheeks. Snapping sounds cracked from joints.
”Tricks, listen carefully to what I’m about to say. There is a way, and I am here to provide it to you. There is only one thing you need.”
The creature stilled, head leaning forward, glowing, transmuting eye fierce and staring. Hands reaching now toward Brun.
“You need to be forgiven.”
The Sluagh stopped, frozen. The cemetery stilled. Edinburgh quieted.
”I forgive you. For whatever it was, whatever unspeakable sin, it is forgiven. You have spent long enough. You are absolved. Clean. It is over.”
A calmness filled the night air. The Sluagh drew into itself, in anguish, in conflict, hate flying from it like acidic rain. The outer garment rendered transparent. Brun could see the creature beneath and turned his gaze in sad awareness. Centuries of guilt and evil passion burned away.
“Brunswick,” it whispered.
And it disappeared.
Brun waited, and the midnight world turned. He thought of his college friends, the boy in the pond. He thought of Chloe. And he cried. He reminded himself of the long and torturous journey he had taken through no fault of his own. He sat for an hour then rose and began the walk back through the tombstones into a new life.
As he crossed through the gate of Greyfriars he took out his phone and began to text Maisie.
Comments