On the day of my wedding there was music and wine and many games; children frilled about. People mentioned my sister's name more than I was comfortable with.
   
My father put aside his heartache and presented his best face, his finest garments for the most important day of my life. I thought perhaps to tell him that I was six weeks pregnant - it wasn't Constault's. I think that's why I reconsidered. But I was a woman of many passions (despite my lack of beauty) and Constault was so pure of heart that he would never yield to my advances.
    
"Thank you for coming father," I said. "It means so much to me. I just wish my sister were here. I wish mother could see this."
    
"It's a celebration, no less," he said. But he wasn't smiling. He meant he was happy to be rid of me. I wanted to cry. It only made me hate my sister more. I decided to hunt her down and kill her. Somehow: immortality couldn't protect her from dismemberment.
    
But cycles past and my fury eased itself into a mother's love.
    
I had two children. I never inquired of my daughter's father - to me, she was a miracle, and as such, I didn't want that miracle tarnished by someone who was little more than a sperm donor.
    
I grew to love Constault... eventually.
    
Together we built a home and our children were good children. And when the Halloween Man came, he always gave our children candy.
    
We were happy for a long time, even when father died, because the joy my children brought me dispelled most of the grief with time. I worked hard - very hard.
    
Constault was a carpenter by trade and I, a seamstress. I rarely thought of my sister at all.
    
Then one day before the Halloween cycle, I caught my daughter wearing a pumpkin head and a dress seemingly made of skull and bones, adorned with teeth and singed hair - a replica of the Jack 'o Lantern.
    
"Take that off this instant!" I said to my daughter. "You know that is not permitted."
    
"On Earth it was," she said. "I'm honoring our history."
    
"You know it is not permitted. It is a mockery."
    
"Tell Jankin that," said my daughter. "It was his idea."
    
"Mother look at me! I'm the Halloween Man!"
    
My son stood in the door displaying his long claws and a black cloak.
    
"You need to change before your father gets home... both of you. Now!"
    
"Why?" they said. "It's Halloween."
   
Outside, the sound of bells jittered and a horn was sounded to announce the approach of the Halloween Man.
    
We were required to open our doors and allow the children out so that they could line up for their trick or treat.
    
I didn't have time to change them and it was considered disrespectful if the children did not dress up for Halloween. I'd left costume preparations to my daughter this cycle because she pleaded with me: she wanted to make the costumes herself.
    
My husband, freshly awakened from the bells, took one look at our children and his eyes filled with horror, then hatred towards me. "What have you done?" He picked the children up in his arms. "Is this some kind of joke?"
    
The bells grew louder.
    
He instructed the children to stay with me and for us to find a hiding place.
    
My husband went out and I heard his shouts: "No, no, you misunderstand! They are ill. They cannot participate..."
    
I heard the door break in. The heavy footsteps of the Halloween Man as he went from room to room - I had hid in the cupboard with our children, but they struggled against me (my son bit my hand), racing up to the Halloween Man. My husband was gone. I assumed he was eaten.
    
"Trick or treat! Trick or treat! Trick or treat!" my children said.
    
The Halloween Man opened his mouth and devoured them in one gulp. He stared at me a moment, then left.
    
I followed after him.
    
The rest of our settlement stood in mild indifference, which only made me angrier. Fear left me, and I pounded my fists on his enormous back; clawed at the hard metal that peeled away; yanked at multicolored wires that licked at me. But this didn't stop the Halloween Man.
    
He continued in his duty, eating bad children and passing out candy to the good children and all the while I kept at him, relentless in my resolve to destroy the Halloween Man, even if it destroyed me.
    
My fists were badly cut. My head hurt, but not as bad as my heart.
    
A small group of the villagers tried to plead with me to stop, but I screamed: "Give me back my children!"
    
I did what few had ever dared to do: I left the containment and ventured forth outside our protective dome, following the Halloween Man for miles.
    
He continued through the baked landscape as if I wasn't there. That landscape soon yielded to woods and vegetation; my ears bled; I covered my mouth, felt my flesh being pulled apart layer by layer, but I pressed forward, the three moons following me overhead. I thought: This is where my sister met the Jack 'o Lantern - out here, where there was no life... where the kiss fell upon her lips...
    
The ground gave way to a patch of green vines and orange pumpkins.
    
The Halloween Man opened its cloak, made a depression in the soil, dropped seeds into the earth, covered them, and poured liquid onto the spot. The soil restored itself and the Halloween Man stopped moving.
    
I fell to my knees and dug deep for the seeds that I knew were my children.
    
"Stop it!" said my sister's voice. I thought it was inside my head, so I continued, pushing myself even harder.
    
"I said... stop!"
    
It was my sister's voice, but when I turned, it was not my sister's body, or face.
    
Her head was grossly disproportioned to her body, with large triangular darkness for eyes and jagged picket fences for her mouth. Her body was much smaller than I remember it being. She wore a dress of bones and skulls. It was clear what I must do.
    
I lunged at her violently.
    
She extended her claw-like hand around my throat and easily lifted me into the air.
    
"I wouldn't if I were you," she said. "This is my pumpkin patch and I will defend it to the very end, even if it means your death. Calm yourself sister. You will not upset the order of things out here. Is that understood?"
    
I gawked, acquiesced. She put me down.
    
"Your children are fine. They're in the ground, growing, evolving to our next form - it is the Jack 'o Lantern's function to tend to the garden."
    
"I don't care... about... t-that," I said. "You... you took Father... from me... now... children... mine. Belong to... me."
    
"The Halloween Man is programmed to harvest our lot every October cycle, selecting the natural survivors, the strongest genetic links. The rest are left to procreate. Every so many years a Jack 'o Lantern is selected to Shepherd this genetic farm; I was selected. You tried to kill me, but it was out here that I was reborn, that my purpose was revealed."
    
My throat was in flames, the air harder to breathe.
    
"You shouldn't have come out here, sister. Your lungs can't take prolonged exposure to the planet's atmosphere."
    
"I... c-c-c-don't care," I said. "I... want... my children."
    
"Take my hand. I pity you, sister, because you've always had trouble seeing, blinded by jealously and selfishness."
    
She took my hand, placed her mouth over mine. I felt a warm wind sweep down my throat. The air went in more smoothly.
    
My sister turned away from me. "Amazing, isn't it? The Jack 'o Lantern's kiss, I mean. I've prepared a place for myself... over there." She pointed to a row of red leaves bobbing in the wind. "Plant me there when it's over. Will you do that?"
    
I nodded. "I didn't mean to hate you," I said.
    
My sister smiled behind her pumpkin face - I could hear it in her voice.
    
The pumpkin head caved in and the dress caught aflame.
    
After the ashes had settled, I took the seeds and planted them and roasted my sister's head over a fire, while the Halloween Man watched in silence.
    
I understand now. Our history: the true history of my people.
    
They would carve us into shapes and make pies out of us, we were food; we were entertainment; a symbol of fear. Subservient to a race called: humans.
    
It was the Halloween Man that took the first seeds of our ancestors and planted us on alien soil - this world.
     
A probe was sent out a century ago: a time capsule containing Earth history, it included genetically altered pumpkin seeds. The humans lost contact with Rover TY-581, but it did what it was programmed to do, perhaps too well: it helped to terraform the planet. We of course, called it the Halloween Man.
   
We were food once...
    
I am the last of the Jack 'o Lanterns. There will be no more after me.
    
The patch has grown up; has grown high, including my children.
    
They will live forever; the flickering flame, undying. Pumpkin faces etched into the granite of the universe.
    
Our faces will be immortalized.
    
I think they'll be surprised to see us again.
    
Only we won't be food this time - they will.