[Castle] "Jack of the Lantern" (G)
Author's Note: Written for < lj user="fic_promptly">'s Castle, Rick Castle, Halloween is the best time of year. In celebration of my own successful carving of two turnip jack o'lanterns.
The cool wind of late October blew crisp leaves across Alexis's path as she hurried to the door of their apartment building, scudding in through the door as the doorman buzzed her in and she went up to their floor.
As she let herself in, she found Dad at work at the kitchen table, a large, lumpy, purple vegetable in hand, gleefully digging away at it with a melon baller as "Night on Bald Mountain" played on the CD player.
"Dad, what are you making? We having turnip for dinner?" she asked, head tilted.
He looked up, smirking as if he had a plan that only he knew about. "Alexis, you are looking at an old school Halloween in the making," he said, setting back to work carving out the tough inside of the turnip. "This is the time when past and present and future are all as one, the time of the year that is outside of time and so it's the best time of the year to get in touch with the past.
"With a turnip?" she asked.
"This, Alexis, is how the grinning, globular, orange goblin of the garden got its start," Dad related, setting aside the melon baller and taking up a wax pencil, started to trace an oval-shaped eye on one side of the turnip. "See, in the Old World Europe, when Halloween was still Samhain, people hadn't discovered pumpkins yet. Those wouldn't come till Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two and brought back a cargo of orange pumpkins."
"You know he probably brought back tobacco," Alexis said, pulling up a stool and perching on it.
"Oh, let me have my romanticism, in this deliciously creepy time when the veil grows thin," Dad twitted, continuing to trace a face on the side of the vegetable. "Instead of the golden fruit we all know, the Celts of Ireland and Wales hollowed out turnips or potatoes as lanterns to guide the spirits of the departed from the previous year, as they moved from the here to the hereafter. Or from the hereafter to the here, as the case may be. So, I thought, for a change, out with the new and in with the old."
"Isn't that hard to cut though? Those things are as solid as rocks," she asked.
"Oh, yeah, but it's worth the effort: melon-baller's a life-saver. I can just see some farmer on the old sod trying to carve this out with a knife," Dad said, taking up one of the small saws from his tool kit and setting to work scoring the lines of the face before starting to cut into the shell of the turnip.
Alexis watched as the face took shape. "Yeesh, you sure this is supposed to light up the way of the ghosts or summon demons? That thing is freaky."
Dad held the carved vegetable away from himself and eyed it judiciously. "Huh. Traditional face does have a certain air to it. Next one I'll give the usual triangle-eyes and snaggle tooth mouth."
"Hope that one is more festive and less freakish," she said, getting up and heading to the fridge in search of an apple. And finding a tray of candied apples on the shelf at eye level. "Any apples you didn't sacrifice to the sugar goblins? And what's the old school Halloween explanation for candied apples?"
"Oh, there's a Roman custom: offerings to the fertility goddess Pomona. Apples were one of her gifts to the mortals, so it was only fitting that her devotees gave back some of the best of the fruit," Dad replied, starting to saw away at the top of the next turnip.
"And the 'candied' part of 'candied apple'?" she asked.
"Willy Wonka?" he said, clearly fishing for a reference.
"Good try," she said, heading upstairs to her room.
The cool wind of late October blew crisp leaves across Alexis's path as she hurried to the door of their apartment building, scudding in through the door as the doorman buzzed her in and she went up to their floor.
As she let herself in, she found Dad at work at the kitchen table, a large, lumpy, purple vegetable in hand, gleefully digging away at it with a melon baller as "Night on Bald Mountain" played on the CD player.
"Dad, what are you making? We having turnip for dinner?" she asked, head tilted.
He looked up, smirking as if he had a plan that only he knew about. "Alexis, you are looking at an old school Halloween in the making," he said, setting back to work carving out the tough inside of the turnip. "This is the time when past and present and future are all as one, the time of the year that is outside of time and so it's the best time of the year to get in touch with the past.
"With a turnip?" she asked.
"This, Alexis, is how the grinning, globular, orange goblin of the garden got its start," Dad related, setting aside the melon baller and taking up a wax pencil, started to trace an oval-shaped eye on one side of the turnip. "See, in the Old World Europe, when Halloween was still Samhain, people hadn't discovered pumpkins yet. Those wouldn't come till Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two and brought back a cargo of orange pumpkins."
"You know he probably brought back tobacco," Alexis said, pulling up a stool and perching on it.
"Oh, let me have my romanticism, in this deliciously creepy time when the veil grows thin," Dad twitted, continuing to trace a face on the side of the vegetable. "Instead of the golden fruit we all know, the Celts of Ireland and Wales hollowed out turnips or potatoes as lanterns to guide the spirits of the departed from the previous year, as they moved from the here to the hereafter. Or from the hereafter to the here, as the case may be. So, I thought, for a change, out with the new and in with the old."
"Isn't that hard to cut though? Those things are as solid as rocks," she asked.
"Oh, yeah, but it's worth the effort: melon-baller's a life-saver. I can just see some farmer on the old sod trying to carve this out with a knife," Dad said, taking up one of the small saws from his tool kit and setting to work scoring the lines of the face before starting to cut into the shell of the turnip.
Alexis watched as the face took shape. "Yeesh, you sure this is supposed to light up the way of the ghosts or summon demons? That thing is freaky."
Dad held the carved vegetable away from himself and eyed it judiciously. "Huh. Traditional face does have a certain air to it. Next one I'll give the usual triangle-eyes and snaggle tooth mouth."
"Hope that one is more festive and less freakish," she said, getting up and heading to the fridge in search of an apple. And finding a tray of candied apples on the shelf at eye level. "Any apples you didn't sacrifice to the sugar goblins? And what's the old school Halloween explanation for candied apples?"
"Oh, there's a Roman custom: offerings to the fertility goddess Pomona. Apples were one of her gifts to the mortals, so it was only fitting that her devotees gave back some of the best of the fruit," Dad replied, starting to saw away at the top of the next turnip.
"And the 'candied' part of 'candied apple'?" she asked.
"Willy Wonka?" he said, clearly fishing for a reference.
"Good try," she said, heading upstairs to her room.