Halloween night on the island always brought out the colorful, the chaotic, and the deeply confused. I pictured Hopper the penguin stumbling around in his devil horns, or Patty wearing a cheap witch hat that kept slipping over her snout.

With a sigh, I unlatched the front door and pulled it open, holding a shiny red candy basket aloft. "Trick or tr—"

The words caught in my throat.

Standing on the welcome mat, framed by the cold autumn fog, was Ankha.

She wasn't wearing a costume. At least, not in the traditional sense. Her midnight-blue and gold pharaoh headdress gleamed under the porch light, and her pristine white mummy wraps—the ones she wore every single day of the year, rain or shine, summer or winter—were neatly wound around her arms and legs. She stared at me with heavy-lidded, perfectly lined golden eyes, looking as unimpressed as a queen standing before a particularly dull peasant.

For a long, agonizing moment, neither of us moved.

She tilted her head, her golden earrings catching the porch light. "Well?" she purred, her voice dripping with that signature, aristocratic dryness. "Are you going to stand there gaping all night like a startled goldfish, or are you going to hand over the sweets?"

I blinked, rapidly glancing from her face down to her immaculate, centuries-old linen bandages, and back up again. "Ankha... wait. Is that your costume? You're a... mummy?"

Her ears twitched in mild offense, and she let out a delicate, exasperated sigh.

"A costume, darling? Please. Some of us don’t need to run to Nook's Cranny at the eleventh hour to scrape together a polyester sheet and some plastic fangs. This is haute couture. Dynasty chic. Though I suppose expecting a refined aesthetic sense from someone who lives in... this... is quite a stretch."

She gestured dismissively with one wrapped hand toward my cluttered living room, where a poorly placed spooky archway was leaning at a crooked angle.

A nervous chuckle escaped me. "Right. Of course. Silly me. You just... naturally look like you're ready for the tomb."

"Naturally," she echoed, her eyes narrowing with supreme satisfaction. "Now. Hand over a piece of candy before I decide that your foyer’s color palette is offensive enough to warrant a genuine curse, me meow."