"Magic, magic, it's magic!"

"It's not magic, now come along."

"Thank you!" the kid dressed as a dog of some sort yelled before running down the sidewalk towards the street.

"It's not," Pearl said quietly to Cordell. Both were sitting quite comfortably nearby in the side yard, costumed and masked and sitting between rag scarecrows and skeletons on a bench. No lights were pointing at them, making their presence fairly undetectable.

"Well no," Cordell replied. He squeezed Pearl's hand and she squeezed back.

The centerpiece of their display was just in front of the porch, anyway. The styrofoam gravestones and plastic pumpkin lights were extras.

Another kid came running up toward the porch and the plexiglass box containing a giant bowl of candy.

'WHAT KIND WOULD YOU LIKE?' read the top line of the sign behind it, along with 'HOLD YOUR BAG OPEN'.

One Snickers, Cordell passed along to Pearl. It had taken practice for Pearl to not nod at Cordell's every command; but as the night has progressed she'd gotten better at just grabbing what was needed.

The kid quietly held their bag open; Pearl had no idea what character they were supposed to be. But one Snickers floated up from the bowl and through a small hold at the top of the plexiglass box before moving over to drop down into the kid's bag.

For a long moment, the kid stared and then finally mumbled something that Pearl didn't think they should know yet.

"Thank you?" The kid then circled the box, looking for how the trick worked, but they didn't even look over at the decorations.

Another group came, and each member got the candy they wanted. Chocolate, hard candy, sours... Pearl had tried to have a good variety. There were even some fruit snacks in there, just in case.

She'd spent the entire previous weekend working on picking each one up and getting it through the hole in the top of the box. And as fun as it was for her and Cordell to get to use their unique skills, she was going to feel it in the morning.

"Next year, we'll just hand it out the normal way," she said during the next lull.

"This isn't? Because I was thinking we could..."

Pearl very loudly thought a few things she and Cordell could perhaps do over the weekend once they were well-rested if he could just drop whatever that idea was, please. He didn't listen to her thoughts normally, but she knew how to get his attention.

And she had his attention, at least until the next small group of older kids came up the sidewalk.

Sours, please, for the green guy, and a Snickers for the cat...

Pearl did her thing and watched as the group all circled the box and even peeked under the tablecloth just in case. Disappointingly, there was just an old metal table and no trickery.

With some mumbled thanks, they shuffled off towards the street.

After that, there was quiet.

"Are we done?" Cordell whispered.

"Are we?" Pearl questioned in response. She couldn't quite get the switch for the porch light, but she could unscrew the bulb and when Cordell didn't reply, she did just that.

At least there wasn't too much candy left and it only took a couple of minutes to put things away in the garage.

Pearl snagged a pack of fruit snacks for herself and then pulled her mask off so she could properly smile at Cordell.

She didn't even have to ask and it had nothing to do with telepathy. A moment later, she dropped a Snickers into Cordell's waiting hands.

"How did you know?"

"Magic," Pearl said.