From under a ceiling of paper bats, Ivy’s eyes flicked to mine, and I jerked into motion. “Got it,” I said as I propped the cue stick against the wall and headed into the dark foyer with the huge bowl of candy. Ivy had filled the unlit entryway with candles to make it suitably creepy. We had turned the lights off in the sanctuary before midnight to impress the human kids, but now it was all Inderlanders and we didn’t bother. A dark candlelit church didn’t impress them half as much as a bowl of sugar and chocolate.

“Jenks?” I questioned, and a tight wing hum hit my ear.

“Ready!” he said, then let out an unreal wing chirp to pantomime a squeaky hinge when I opened the door. It was enough to make my teeth hurt, and the assembled kids complained loudly as they covered their ears. Damn pixy was worse than a Were’s nails on a chalkboard.

“Trick or treat!” the kids chimed out when they recovered, but it wasn’t until they saw Jenks glowing over the candy bowl that their expressions lit in delight, as charmed as the next person by a people-loving pixy. I had to crouch so the littlest one, in a fairy costume with illusionary wings, could reach. She was sweet, wide-eyed, and eager. It was probably the first Halloween she would remember, and I now understood why my mom loved manning the door. Watching the parade of costumes and delighted kids was well worth the sixty bucks I’d spent on candy.

“Ring the bell! Ring the bell!” a kid in a dragon costume demanded as he pointed to the ceiling, and after I set the bowl aside, I reached for the pull, grunting as I yanked the knot almost to my knees. They stared at me in the surprising silence as the rope was jerked back up. An instant later, a deep bong reverberated over the neighborhood.

The kids squealed and clapped, and I shooed them off the stoop, wondering how Bis was handling the noise. In the distance, I heard the faint sound of two more bells from neighboring churches. It was a good feeling—like a distant affirmation of safety and community—and I watched the kids file down to the street to join their moms with strollers and wagons. In the street, vans prowled, creeping slowly amid the flashing lights and flapping costumes. Jenks’s carved pumpkin glowed at the base of the stairs like Al’s face itself. Damn, I loved Halloween.