It was a gloomy autumn night in the land of the Munchkins when the Scarecrow revealed to Dorothea Gale that he didn’t fancy pumpkins as much as she did.

“What’s not to like about pumpkins, silly?” the girl teased. The Scarecrow did not answer her question; instead, he rested his head on the bright orange orb adjacent to hers. “I’m assuming you don’t know what Halloween is.”

“Hollow—hollow-ing?” asked the Scarecrow.

Dorothea chuckled as the Scarecrow continued to stammer over his words. Halloween… hollowing… harrowing…

“Listen here,” she said. By now, Krow’s face was stained with blush, and secretly, Dorothea delighted at the image of his mouth widening, showing a pearly white smile. “Say it with me,” instructed the girl. “Hallow.”

“Hallow,” said Krow. Initially, the word he uttered was spliced with faint curiosity. Frustrated at himself, he said it once more with gusto. “Hallow.”

“Een,” Dorothea said simply.

“Hallow. Een. Halloween.”

The Scarecrow smiled at her. Butterflies gathered in Dorothea’s chest. She loved that smile. His mouth simply widened and curved—to anyone else, the action was mundane. Everyone smiled!—but that was his smile and his smile alone.

“So what is this… Halloween?” asked Krow, adjusting the position of his head on the massive squash. “And what does it have to do with these big ol’ pumpkins?”

Dorothea turned her face away from Krow and instead found herself among the stars. Other than Krow, she knew she missed the skies of Oz most of all when she was in Kansas. No light pollution meant a purely natural, unaltered sky. Stars and stars and stars, maybe even a galaxy over there.

“It is a holiday,” Dorothea replied. Krow frowned. Not much of an answer, was it?

“We have holidays too, you know, Dottie,” he said, though the last word leapt out of his mouth against his will. Dorothea ignored the moniker, surprising him. “You ought to know your arrival in Oz has sparked its own annual party.”

Dorothea squinted. “Halloween is my favorite holiday back in Kansas,” she said. “Little kids dress up in costumes and go door-to-door, demanding candy. Oh, I wish you could see it…”

“That sounds boring, and somewhat illegal. What if the children are denied? Do they—”

“Oh, forget the logistics,” she ribbed. “I remember having to do a project on it in elementary school. It is, or was, before we all forgot about magic, to commemorate the temporary blending of the mundane and the mystical.”

“Mystical,” repeated Krow.

Before Dorothea could continue, the stars guided her into reverie. Mundane and mystical. Temporary blending. How familiar that sounded…

“It reminds me,” began the Scarecrow, taking the words right out of her mouth, “of Oz and Kansas.”

Dorothea’s heart seemed to skip a beat. “Mundane and mystical,” she said aloud.

“Do you remember? What it was like, on the way here?”

Dorothea wanted to scoff, but it became clear that she simply never told Krow of her original journey to Oz. The first of many, the first but undeniably the most important.

“If you don’t know what Halloween is, I’m sure you don’t know what a tornado is.”

“Torn—”

“It is like a storm, well, it is a storm. But it is a really strange-looking storm, where the clouds gather up into a large funnel and spin around. It’s terrible. Houses are torn to shreds in their path. People die every year because of them. I could’ve died, if this one tornado didn’t take me to Oz.”

“I live in a country of magic and I have never experienced such a thing,” said Krow. “Continue.”

“The day I was brought here, a tornado blew through the county. I stole my teacher’s car, only God knows why. Trey was there—it came out of nowhere. It all becomes foggy then. Suddenly, I wake up in the car. And there’s the Wicked Witch.”

“A strange-looking storm must have strange properties,” said the Scarecrow. While Dorothea focused on the constellations above them, Krow’s eyes darted across the pumpkin patch. “It contained a schism through the worlds.”

“I guess,” said Dorothea. “Do you remember the Witch of the East?”

“All I know is that she created me, and several other scarecrows, for her army. We were prototypes. No wonder we didn’t have any brains.”

Dorothea laughed, and snorted. Krow, confused, looked around for any signs of swine that had escaped the nearby farms, though they must’ve been invisible. “You weren’t supposed to have brains, at least I don’t think so.”

“And why would that be?” Krow inquired, blush creeping into his cheeks again. He was unsure if it was the delightful sight of her, or pent up anger.

“The Witch was too lazy to bother with real, thinking, understanding soldiers,” said the girl. “If you create a man with no brains, that doesn’t think for himself, that would be the epitome of a soldier. If I were her, I would’ve done just the same. I wonder what Munchkinland would’ve been like had I not killed her.”

Krow nodded. “Halloween,” he said to himself. “Hollowing.”

“I wish I could take you back home. You’d love it! I should probably bring a confectioner or two. Oz plus Halloween equals the most amazing thing I can ever dream of.”

“Quit trying to Americanize things,” he said with a laugh. He reached his arm over his chest and moved a lock of brown hair from out of her eyes, which were still glued to the stars. “It would be funny though, if you…” He sneered and left her waiting. No one liked waiting, especially not Dorothea Gale.

“If I…”

“You said the children dress up during Halloween? Maybe you can dress as the Witch of the East, and terrorize the farms.”

Dorothea opened her mouth, and tore her eyes away from the night sky to focus on Krow. “That would be lots of fun, but one, I don’t even know what she even looked like, or sounded like. And two, the Munchkins will shit bricks if we tried to pull that off.”

“You’re no fun,” said Krow. Dorothea smiled and rolled her eyes. “You never answered my question about the pumpkins, need I remind you. Change my opinion about these things, whatever they are. Fruits, vegetables…”

“On Halloween, you take a pumpkin, make it hollow, and carve a smile onto the front of it. You put a candle inside and leave it by your door. My research project claimed it is to defend your houses from evil spirits.”

Krow smiled, imagining ludicrous scenes of smiling pumpkins scaring bogeys and gremlins away. Almost like him to pesky crows, when he was still in the field. Dorothea relished in her beau’s smile again. For a moment, he looked just like a jack o’ lantern. He looked like Halloween. He looked like home.

Dorothea scooted away from her original pumpkin, and instead found herself resting on Krow’s chest. She remembered a time when there was no heart thundering in his rib cage, no warm, human flesh encapsulating a soul. Krow felt as if his face was in danger of melting away. He had grown familiar with the sensation of blushing now, and it almost always happened in the presence of Dorothea.

Krow planted a small kiss on Dorothea’s hair. She smelled of fresh-picked strawberries, where more scarecrows were stationed. Lifeless ones. “I’m glad you brought me out here, Dottie.”

Dorothea swooned, and closed her eyes. “I hope you respect pumpkins now.”

“Of course I do,” said the Scarecrow.

The Scarecrow and the girl both turned their eyes onto the stars, and for the first time in his life, Krow felt as if his eyes were wet. He’d seen tears before, but he never experienced them. He liked it, at least he would now.

“Happy Halloween,” he said, stifling the raw, shaky tones of tears.

“Happy Halloween, Krow.”

Next Chapter: entry #2 — dog treats