She was pale and thin, and the lavender lotion she wore barely masked the scent of hospital wipes that clung to her skin. But she still smiled like I was the only thing holding her together. She’d sit near the window each evening with a lap full of fabric and trembling fingers, threading magic into every stitch.

“You’ll be the prettiest witch in Maple Grove,” she whispered once, brushing the fabric across my cheek. “Not scary. Magical.”

I’d giggle and spin in place while she measured my waist. “But witches are supposed to be scary, Mom!”
She smiled, tired but soft. “Not my witch. Mine will bring light. Not darkness.”

Some nights, she’d fall asleep with a needle still in her hand. I’d cover her with a blanket and watch her chest rise and fall, whispering little wishes into the dark, like maybe if I wished hard enough, she’d stay.

Three days after she finished the dress, she was gone.

She never even got to see me wear it.

They buried her in the first week of November. I remember the casket, the damp leaves under my shoes, and how the lavender clung to my coat like she didn’t want to let go.

After that, everything blurred together — the casseroles, the sympathy cards, the whispers people thought I couldn’t hear.

“Poor girl. She’ll never be the same.”

“James is slipping. You can see it.”

They weren’t wrong, but hearing it still felt like being slowly erased from my own story.

No one mentioned Halloween. No pumpkins, no candy bowls. The neighborhood still celebrated, but our house was dark and quiet.

I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate Halloween that year. I shoved the dress into a box and locked the memory up with it.

Mom made it for me. That was enough.

But even then, I had no idea just how hard I’d have to fight to keep it.

Dad met Carla the following spring.

She was 42, polite, and always smiling. She was into charity activities, always quoting inspirational lines and baking sugar-free things that tasted like cardboard.

They married fast. Too fast.

And just like that, everything started changing.

Halloween disappeared first.

“The Devil’s holiday,” she’d mutter, flinching every time she passed the candy aisle. “We don’t play dress-up for demons in this house.”

It wasn’t just Halloween either. Mom’s books disappeared from the shelves. Her wind chimes vanished from the porch. Even her old tea set ended up in a donation box without a word. Carla erased her in pieces, like she was sweeping out a stain.

I tried once to reason with her. “It’s just candy and costumes. Mom used to…”

Her face twisted, sharp and cold. “Enough, young lady! Your mother was sick in more ways than one. You don’t know what she opened your spirit to.”

That night, I locked myself in my room, clutching the dress to my chest. It still smelled faintly like Mom — lavender, thread, and warmth. I swore right then I’d never let Carla touch it, and I put it back in the box.

She had turned our house into a museum. Everything had to be prim and proper.

Fast forward to this year. I’m 20 now. Still stuck at home because rent’s a joke and Dad insists it’s “fiscally responsible.” I don’t argue. Not because I agree, but because the alternative would mean leaving him alone with Carla. And honestly, I’m not that cruel.

Then Halloween hit… differently.

Maybe it was the way the leaves looked when they hit the driveway. Or how the air felt when I walked across campus. Maybe I just missed my mom more than usual. But I wanted to celebrate again. For the first time in two years, I wanted to dress up for Halloween. And feel my mom again.

Flyers went up for the campus Halloween party — costumes, cider, music. Nothing wild. But when my friend Kayla asked if I was going, I felt something stir. Like maybe that version of me, the one who twirled in the living room while her mom sewed a dress, wasn’t gone. Just buried.

I went straight home that afternoon and opened the memory box. My fingers trembled as I pulled away the old drawings and photos and sympathy cards until finally, there it was.

The dress.

It was softer than I remembered, still holding that faint shimmer along the hem. And somehow, miraculously, it still fit.

I looked in the mirror and barely recognized the girl staring back. Not because I looked different, but because I looked whole.

I whispered, “Hi, Mom,” and for just a second, I could’ve sworn the air shifted. Like something warm moved past my cheek.

Then came the footsteps.

The door burst open without warning.

Carla froze when she saw me in the dress. Her voice was tight, already sharp at the edges. “What are you wearing?”

I held my ground. “It’s my mom’s. She made it for me.”

Her face pinched as if she’d tasted something rotten. “Take it off.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said no,” I repeated, steady this time. “I’m wearing it to the campus party tonight.”

From downstairs, I heard Dad’s voice, distant and confused. “Everything okay up there?”

Carla didn’t answer him. She stormed halfway down the hall, then turned back to me, eyes blazing. “You’re opening spiritual doors you don’t understand. That dress is part of the darkness your mother brought into this house.”

I almost laughed. “It’s a Halloween costume, not a cursed relic.”

She pointed at me like she wanted lightning to strike. “Keep mocking. But when evil takes root, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I didn’t say anything. Just stared her down.

Then I shut my door and folded the dress like it was the most precious thing I’d ever owned.

Because it was.

Two more hours. And I was wearing it… no matter what.

The much-awaited moment finally came.

The sun dipped behind the trees in a burnt-orange glow, and everything smelled like bonfires and cinnamon.

That evening, before heading out to campus for rehearsal, something tugged at my gut. A little knot of unease I couldn’t shake off. Carla had been unusually quiet all evening, and quiet with her was never a good sign.

So I decided to hide the dress… just in case.

I folded it carefully, smoothing out every crease like I was touching skin instead of fabric. Then I wrapped it in one of Mom’s old flannel blankets, slid it into a box, and tucked it behind a stack of books at the very back of my closet. Before I left, I locked my bedroom door.

And for the first time in years, I felt a little proud of myself.

I spent the next few hours helping Kayla hang paper bats and string lights in the rec room. We played music, laughed way too hard trying to tape up a sagging ghost, and ate an entire bag of gummy worms meant for the trick-or-treat table.

Afterward, I made a quick stop to pick up some candy and snacks for the actual party. Just simple stuff — Reese’s, cider packets, and caramel popcorn. Nothing wild. But it felt good. Like maybe I could still have a version of the life Mom would’ve wanted for me.

I pulled into the driveway around 9 p.m.

That’s when I noticed it. The porch light was off. It felt weird. Dad always left it on.

I stepped inside, my heart racing.

The silence hit me first. Carla’s usually humming or preaching to herself or both. But the house was eerily still.

Then the smell hit me, faint but unmistakable.

Smoke.

My heart dropped into my stomach, and I bolted to the backyard.

Carla was standing by the firepit in her robe, one hand clutched around a metal poker. The flames were high, flickering orange into the darkening sky like they were trying to eat the stars.

And in them… strips of black and purple. Silver thread curled into ash.

It didn’t register at first. My brain just refused to process it.

But my knees gave out before the scream did.

“No. No, no, no, no…”

Carla turned, calm as a statue.

“I did what had to be done,” she said, like she was discussing trash day. “That dress was cursed.”

My voice cracked. “It was my mom’s. She made it for me. It was the only thing I had left of her.”

She didn’t even blink. “She made it for the Devil’s holiday. I burned it to save your soul.”
I staggered forward, the heat from the fire licking my face. “Save my soul? Are you crazy?”

“You don’t understand what that dress held,” she snapped. “Darkness. Her spirit has been lingering. I saw it. Shadows in your room, whispering through the vents. I had to cleanse it.”

“You had to do what?” I choked out, my hands shaking. “That wasn’t yours to touch! It wasn’t yours to destroy!”

Dad came stumbling outside in his pajama pants, barefoot, confusion still on his face. “What the hell is going on out here?”

I pointed, shaking. “She burned it! She burned Mom’s dress!”

He froze, taking in the sight — Carla by the firepit, the twisted silver threads among the flames, me crying in the grass like my chest had split in two.

“What?” he said, like the word hurt to say.

Carla folded her arms. “I did what was needed.”

His eyes didn’t move from the fire as he quickly grabbed the water hose. “You destroyed the only thing she had left of her mother.”

Her voice sharpened. “Don’t you dare blame me for protecting this house.”

“From what?” he snapped, dousing the flames with water. “A mother’s memory in a dress?”

“Your daughter was opening doors,” she hissed. “I’ve felt it for years. The dreams, the cold spots, her defiance… don’t you see it?”

“I see a woman grasping at control,” he shot back, stepping closer. “I see someone who can’t stand not being the center of every room.”

Carla’s eyes widened, her voice rising into something brittle. “You’re actually defending her? Defending that evil?”

The word “evil” cracked through the air like a whip — sharp, desperate, almost scared.

“I’m defending my daughter.”

“You’d throw away your salvation for her?”

He stepped right into the glow of the fire, face hard. “For my daughter? Every damn time.”

Silence.

Carla stared at him as if he’d grown horns. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her voice dropped to a cold hiss. “You don’t mean that.”

But he did.

He turned to me and then back to her. “Start packing, Carla.”

She blinked. “You’re choosing her?”

“No,” he said flatly. “I’m choosing sanity and peace. I’m choosing the daughter I should’ve protected better years ago.”

Her mouth trembled, but her pride held her spine straight. “You’re making a mistake, James.”

“No,” he said. “I made one when I let you stay this long.”

Carla left the next morning.

She made a whole performance out of it, of course. Muttering about demons and spiritual warfare and how Dad had “turned from the path.”

She said something about me being a “witch child” on her way out, but I didn’t even flinch. I just stood by the stairs, arms crossed, watching her drag her suitcase past the front door like it weighed more than her righteousness.

Dad didn’t say a word. Just sat at the kitchen table, staring into his cold coffee like it might offer an escape.

The quiet that followed felt unfamiliar, like the house itself didn’t know how to breathe without Carla filling it with judgment.

Around noon, he finally spoke.

“I should’ve stopped her sooner,” he said, not looking up. “I thought she’d help us heal. I thought maybe if I let her believe it hard enough… it would fix things.”

He let out a long breath. “I was wrong.”

His fingers trembled against the coffee mug. “I thought maybe if I believed in her goodness long enough… she’d start to believe it too.”

That broke me more than the fire had. It wasn’t just guilt in his voice — it was grief, reshaped into regret.

My throat still burned from the smoke. From screaming. And from holding in everything I didn’t know how to say. So I just nodded and sat with him in silence.

That night, after I’d showered and tried to sleep, he knocked gently on my door.

I opened it to find him holding something in his hand.

“I found this,” he said quietly. “In the dryer vent.”

A small piece of fabric — black and purple, singed at the edges, but somehow still shimmering faintly under the light. It was the hem. I’d recognize that silver stitch anywhere.

My hand flew to my mouth. “I thought it was all gone.”

He shook his head. “Guess she missed a piece.”

I held it like it was my own heart beating outside my body.

“Your mother loved Halloween, you know,” he said softly. “Told me once it was the only night people could be anything they wanted. No masks. Just courage in disguise.”

His voice cracked then, like he was holding back everything he’d buried. “I think I forgot that.”

I looked down at the scrap in my palm, eyes wet. “But Mom didn’t,” I whispered.

He nodded, voice barely there. “No. She didn’t.”

A week later, Carla tried to sue Dad. But the court threw it out in minutes.

But karma? That was right on time.

Her car caught fire in the mall parking lot… an electrical issue, apparently. No one got hurt. But the flames swallowed the stack of framed “inspirational quotes” she always carried in the back seat, the ones she used to scold people with.

A photo made its way online. She was standing there stunned, watching it all burn.

Dad saw it and just muttered, “Poetic.”

It’s almost a year now.

I still miss Mom every day. Some nights, I swear I hear her humming that soft tune she used to sing when she sewed.

A few weeks ago, I slipped the scrap of the dress into a locket.

The night I wore it, the wind shifted, and I could’ve sworn I smelled lavender. Not just a trace… but like Mom was standing right behind me, breathing beside my cheek.

“She’s proud of you,” he whispered.

I nodded. “Maybe she never left.”

He smiled, his eyes shining. “Maybe she just changed shape. Witches do that, don’t they?”

We laughed.

That night, I tucked the locket under my pillow and fell asleep holding it.

At 3:00 a.m., I woke to a sound I hadn’t heard in years.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

A sewing machine.

But we don’t have one.

It was faint, coming from the attic. My heart pounded. I sat up, clutching the covers.

Then I smelled it.

Lavender.

“Mom?” I whispered into the dark.

The sound stopped. Just for a second. Then… one last Tick.

The silence didn’t feel empty, though. It felt aware. Like the air itself was listening, holding its breath.

For a moment, I thought I saw the faintest shimmer near the window — like a thread catching moonlight, then vanishing.

In the morning, the scrap was gone.

But hanging over my desk was a silver bow. No one else was home.

I don’t know whether ghosts are real. Or if that was a dream.

But I do know this: Kindness doesn’t die. Love doesn’t burn. And sometimes when life takes everything, your loved ones find a way to stitch it back.