Birchwood looked different this Halloween than in previous years. Fog like milk flowed from the lake, extinguishing the homemade pumpkin lanterns. Lena adjusted her bat cape and squeezed the lantern with a thin candle. Usually the chapel bells rang at this time, but today they were silent. Grandma used to say it was a bad sign before a night of whispering over the reeds. A splash could be heard over the water as if someone was paddling very slowly. Maks, dressed as a detective, waded onto the pier and nodded at Lena. At the end of the planks stood a lone pumpkin, which no one had put up here. Its pattern resembled a street map and its eye was shaped like a key. Maks slid his hand through the lid and pulled out a folded, charred piece of paper. On the paper was a drawing of a school, a lake and a former bell tower by the reeds. In the margin someone had annotated in ink: Don't leave the bell alone, midnight. The lantern parade was moving away towards the market place, and the platform was quiet and creaking. Lena knew the legend of the Bellringer, who was said to have returned without the bell. He was said to be searching for it amidst the mist, counting his steps across the water. They took the pumpkin and the map, setting off along the path through the gardens to the chapel. Along the way, they passed empty disguises on ropes, which were swayed by the cold wind. The bell tower was low and crooked, with a ladder cluttering the doorway like a makeshift grille. Someone had loosened the chain, however; it hung like a snake, slippery from fog and rust. Inside, it smelled of wet wood, and the string from the bell lay ragged. Maks turned on the torch on his phone before something rumbled over the beams of the soffit. The light hit the writing on the stone: Come back before we count a third time. Lena's phone vibrated, though she had no reception; the screen showed a new photo. In the photograph were the two of them, looking up, with a lantern by their feet. The frame was taken now, from outside, as if the lens was hovering just above the rain beam. A door slammed shut, a string trembled, and somewhere far away the first, heavy sound sounded. A second cut the silence in half as a glowing pumpkin blinked green.