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Connor Morgan had disappeared.

And while this had provided nearly everyone at the Halloween Party with the opportunity to express a variety of suspicions, marital platitudes and conjecture (everything from another woman, an abduction, a neighbourhood teenager, middle age dementia, etc.) Addison saw it, fairly evidently, he thought, for what it really was - an omen.

He rolled down the car window and sat up straight, bracing himself against the steering wheel, inhaling the cool, rained-out air, forcing himself to concentrate on the now suddenly difficult task of driving, the very odd sensation that he, and the simple, nearly automatic process of driving a vehicle were disassociating, unwinding out into the darkness. He felt so peculiar, so disconnected from himself, that if he were to relax or lose his focus he might possibly drift right out of his body. He looked over at Beth, his wife, who was beginning to nod off beside him, and wanted desperately to take her hand and just squeeze it, touch it, but was afraid to take his hands away from the steering wheel.

Overhead, in the high canopy of the red and orange October trees, wet leaves were fluttering down through the darkness, slapping against the car, cascading and tumbling in the headlights. The clouds had moved off, and a clean, washed moon hung from the sky, shining pearl cold through the windshield, flickering between the running trees.

Addison looked at his knuckles - his hands were clenched around the steering wheel, white, and while he could see the obvious force he was applying in his attempt to overcome this unnerving situation, this lightlessness of body or being or whatever it was, he realized that he had no feeling in his fingers. He tried to move them - release his left hand. But nothing happened.

Beth opened her eyes, momentarily, sighed and then fell asleep again. A porch light printed across the windshield and slipped away - a broken pumpkin flattened beneath the car tires, thumping, while heavy, wet leaves splatted on the streets, orange and meaty as oysters. Addison looked away from Beth and noticed a single digit on his right hand pointing in the direction of the moon. He stared at the finger for a moment and then eased back into his seat, resigned, alarmed. Was this how it started, he wondered - disconnection from his very flesh. Had Connor gone through this before he vanished?

No one at the Halloween party had seemed particularly disturbed by Connor Morgan's disappearance; no one had given him much thought beyond the entertainment value he had provided by his sudden, mysterious absence. He was a short-lived, disposable anecdote - the subject of a few jokes, an object of passing interest. The humor and the indifference now struck Addison as acts of wanton cruelty. That Johanna, Connor's wife, had hardly given the situation a second thought, did not wonder what had become of her husband, where he was or whether, indeed, he might be the victim of perilous circumstance, wounded, dead or lost, was so unbearable he felt his eyes begin to water.

Addison steered the car carefully through the quiet evening streets, braking and accelerating at each stop sign as though it were his first time in control of a car, keenly aware that everything had become strange or new. His finger was no longer pointing at the moon, but it was now operating of its own will it seemed, for no sooner had he noticed this, when it released itself from the steering wheel and resumed its previous posture. Homes, street corners, mail boxes - landmarks that were ordinarily familiar to him, had been, as long as he and Beth had lived here - all seemed somehow changed, less certain. He let the car slow down until it was hardly moving at all and scanned his neighbour's front yards, their homes. The wiper blades sloshed wet leaves back and forth across the windshield, leaves as big as pies.

*.*.*

Beth had gone to the Halloween party as a red-caped, she-devil courtesan. She had arranged red plastic horns in her hair and had sewn a red tail on her skirt, which was stepped on very early during the party and torn off.

Addison had waited several hours it seemed for her to dress, to ready her makeup and her costume. He - as he had told Beth several times - was not interested in another stupid party with their stupid friends. He, in fact, had said he actually refused to go, would rather watch television, spend the night by himself. 'Just try it, Mister' was Beth's response. She neither raised her voice, nor looked at him - she didn't expect even the slightest challenge in the matter.So Addison drove to the drug store and bought a ridiculous latex mask, which, when pulled over his head seemed to fit well enough and have an ample opening around the mouth for him to smoke his cigars.The mask was a caricature of either a politician or a ghoul, but ideal otherwise. When he returned from the drug store, he grabbed his old overalls and running shoes from the garage, threw them and the latex mask on the couch and sat down again in his chair with the newspaper and the very determined intention of making a sensible start on a bottle of scotch. But Beth, she had decided to be noticed, intended to be nothing less than the center of an unmistakable and singular vortex of compliments and attention. The preparation, the ritual, the bouts of desperation, dissatisfaction, fussing and sighing - all of which he could hear clearly from the bedroom - were merely part of the perfecting process. When she had finally exhausted every conceivable combination of old and new clothing - the new dress she had bought specifically for the dance caused her to shriek in despair - when, finally, the floors above him were still and the smell of fresh perfume floated in the air, she came downstairs.

He heard her heels clicking down the stairs and something that sounded scratchy, like a crinoline, dragging on the floor. He lifted his eyes over the edge of the opened section of newspaper and saw something quite extraordinary or rather incomprehensible standing before him. He tipped back a mouthful of scotch, but still wasn't quite sure what it was that he was seeing.

"Well …?" said Beth.

Addison rose from his chair, folding the newspaper, nervously, into smaller and smaller squares, until he slipped it quite unawares inside his shirt pocket.

"My god …"

Her breasts had risen like two fattened babies out a red bodice, pink and powdered, and her hair was teased up in a frivolous, wicked mess - the red horns looked as though they had actually grown out of her scalp. She looked ten years younger, transformed. A red floor length cape hung from her shoulders, and she had a trident in her hand.

"Unequivocally amazing …" he said, studying her from head to foot.

She was also wearing a short black embroidered mini-skirt that he remembered her wearing many years ago, when she was much smaller. That it fit her again was a mystery. Beneath the skirt was a red, lacey garter belt on her leg, which interestingly, he could not recollect among her things.

"It works then?" said Beth, picking at a piece of lint on the cape.

Addison stared at the cherubic little toddlers extruding from the red bodice and began to feel his feet dance beneath him. He envisioned these wonderful bits of clothing strewn on the floor, Beth's high heels pointed demonstrably towards the ceiling, her ankles firmly in his hands, furniture rocking across the floor. And then, all at once, he felt as though someone had yanked on his ear and awoken him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept with Beth, or even touched her. He wasn't sure what to do. Should he query her interest? Utter something suggestive, smoldering and thick - perhaps something manly or unilateral? But now the thought of having Beth whimpering happily in his arms had the unexpected effect of making him feel desperately uneasy.

"Well then," said Beth. "Are you just going to stand there, or what?"

"What?!" Addison blurted out. He wished she knew what he was thinking - and he wished equally that she did not, for in either case he did not know how to proceed.

"We're going to be late. Put your ridiculous disguise on or whatever it is and let's get going."

*.*.*

At first there was a wonderful, almost liberating sense of anonymity associated with his disguise. The latex mask had made Addison invisible, unknowable. He had also decided not to say a word, to confound everyone. He might do whatever he pleased, was his first thought when he arrived at the Halloween party - all manner of outrageous endeavour! A small consideration suggested otherwise. Beth would be sure to hear of the improprieties, the behaviours of the unidentified individual in the latex mask. It was imagined license. Being the guest whose identity no one could guess was not enough to sustain him for an entire evening and, in fact, made him feel quite miserable before the party had really even begun. People poked him when they could not get a response from him, or ascertain his identity.

Beth had arrived alone at the party, and had easily convinced everyone that Addison had volunteered to pick up the Shaeffers, whose car had broken down. Addison's and the Shaeffer's arrival was imminent. The plot was so exceedingly successful that no one thought otherwise, or had made any connection to Addison's arrival, when he, in fact, had actually arrived five minutes before Beth.

Addison roamed free as a phantom through the party hall and threw himself down in one of the big, wing-back chairs in the lounge just as he might have when he was child, his legs slung delinquently over its arms, kicking up his feet, sipping from a glass of scotch. Neighbours and friends walked past him, though he knew they didn't have the slightest clue who he was. He raised his hand, waving at anyone who looked at him, and for a few moments, at least, the scotch made him feel playful, daring.

A bear and a giggling package of Chiclets approached him after some obvious hesitation about the appropriateness of doing so, and just stared at him, before requesting his identity. They were the Collins. Everything about them was 'lovely' - they had lovely manners, lovely lawns and a bagful of lovely children. They were a couple of dopes as far as Addison was concerned - he'd sooner see them on a missing persons poster than standing there. They expected everything from life - and often got it. It was Sandra, the box of Chiclets, who finally stepped forward and asked Addison to reveal himself. Addison emptied his glass, belched and shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh my!" Sandra said, stunned.

"Never mind, dear," said Norm, the bear, indignantly, and taking his wife's arm, hurried her away toward the dance floor where members of the band were assembling on the stage, checking their instruments.

Several people had already gathered in front of the stage, and were talking amongst themselves, laughing, animated, ready to dance. The feedback from an unchecked amplifier suddenly shrieked from the speaker system. People covered their ears, stopped by the grinding squelch, and then broke out in motion again when the piercing noise had vanished.

Addison had followed Norm and Sandra to the dance floor - he thought he might harass them, follow them around. He saw Beth on the other side of the dance floor with her friends and he called out to her, though she clearly had not heard him. Norm and Sandra hurried off the dance floor. Addison kept his eye on Beth and her girlfriends; they were leaving the dance hall. He had a plan now, a wonderful, dangerous plan. He would show Beth how much he desired her. He would have her in the washroom, or a closet, somewhere public, risky. Hadn't they once done that at a restaurant when they were younger? He wanted to make love to Beth right there, he wanted that feeling - a fear and an ecstasy that lasted a few moments and rendered the world forever pale, mastered.

He had no sooner started toward Beth when he heard someone cry out from the dance floor crowd. Everyone was staring at him, and, at the cowboy who had fallen at his feet. It was Bill Hoode, the accountant, and he had taken quite a tumble judging by the look of astonishment on everyone's faces. Addison hadn't felt a thing, but apparently, strangely, the collision had been rather harsh. Bill was slow to get to his feet, and when he stood up he looked livid, which made Addison chuckle. Bill had the constitution of a daisy - there was a rumor that he belonged to a stamp-collecting club. He adjusted the big, white Stetson on his head and pulled his pants up, straightening his holster and guns. His cowboy shirt was purposely unbuttoned down to his waist - there wasn't a cowboy hair on his chest. He stepped up to Addison, glaring at the eyes he could see behind Addison's mask, and then strode off across the dance floor, his chaps flapping. Twice he turned around to look back at Addison, seemingly angrier than when he had fallen on the floor.

Somehow, Beth had eluded him - or he just could not catch up to her while so many of their friends had seemingly taken such an interest in her company - and by ten o'clock, he had only seen her twice, briefly, once in the lounge where she and Pamela were clearly engaged in one of those profoundly urgent conversations that arise only out of the combination of party, innuendo and drinking, and a second time at the bar where she was seated with Davis McCaan. Beth had appeared to be advising McCaan in some delicate personal matter, a matter which necessitated the occasional whisper and clutched shoulder. McCaan looked dreamy and stupid. Beth's legs were wrapped around the legs of her bar stool like long, gorgeous vines. When she saw Addison come into the lounge, she winked at him from across the room, secretly, assuming that Addison was maintaining his little charade, though remained otherwise committed to McCaan's inspired needs. Bill Hoode, the cowboy, and his wife Margaret were standing next to Beth. Bill shook his big Stetson in Margaret's face in some sort of reminder or admonishment and then turned in calm anticipation to Addison, slowly, grinning - he had anticipated his prey; he was fierce, cunning.

Addison went outside and stood on the sidewalk in front of the hall. He felt miserable; he imagined how comfortable it would have been to have spent the evening with a beer, a game, instead of stuck inside his disguise. He leaned against one of the small trees that the city had planted in the sidewalk, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, shouldering the bony little tree. He was somewhat surprised that it supported his weight, but thought nothing more of it. He watched the traffic on the streets, the taillights and headlights of the cars, the vehicles shoot through the yellow lights. He remembered the cigar he had put in his pocket and took it out and lit it. No one - particularly Beth - liked the smell of his cigars, but it nonetheless remained one of his daily pleasures. He puffed on the cigar and felt a little less heavy-hearted.

People were still arriving for the Halloween dance - horses, vampires, beggars, clowns and ghouls. The Shaeffers, whom everyone had been led to believe were arriving with Addison, ran by him and went inside the hall. They had wrapped themselves in bed sheets and put branches and grapes in their hair - a preposterous couple even without their costumes. A matador ran past him and made a dash for the open door. A group of revelers ran through the intersection causing the traffic to slow down.

Addison puffed on his cigar; it seemed to be giving him trouble, a fact not lightly suffered considering its cost. A rabbit and a princess ran by him. He took the cigar out of his mouth, examining it, displeased by its poor performance. A small wisp of smoke issued from it. He sucked on it again, heard it crackle, and then heard someone shout at him.

"Who the hell are you? You son-of-a-bitch!"

It was Bill Hoode the cowboy; he looked possessed. Addison might have answered him, might have cared, if it had not been for the rain he saw splashing off the rim of Bill's Stetson. It was raining? He didn't even feel wet; he hadn't felt a thing. He looked at the cigar and realized that it was about to fall apart in his hand. How hadn't he noticed?

"Is that you Addison, you son-of-a-bitch! You'd best tell me now who the hell you are!"

Hoode was manic, was pawing his nose.

Addison looked down at his feet. He was standing in a puddle of water, was wet to his knees.

"No! Of course, you're not! You're somebody else. That isn't you at all Addison! It's Connor! That you Connor, you son-of-a-bitch? Just who the hell are you!"

The band was well into its first set when he went back inside - people were dancing, shouting, the floor was vibrating. He caught a glimpse of Beth, her red cape mostly, and then lost her among the other dancers. He was not in the mood to dance; he sat down in one of the abandoned chairs. Cigarettes lay smoking in ashtrays, purses and drinks covered the tables, shoes had been kicked off and left under tables.

Then he saw Beth again. She was dancing with Pamela, Johanna and Elizabeth directly in front of the band. The band consisted of three musicians - each member sported a shiny bald head and a moustache. Each wore gold chains as thick as winter scarves. Johanna, Beth's closest friend, was dancing in some sort of bad weather, martial arts fashion. She was wearing a tiny, purple corset and a white, silky gown. Addison didn't know what she was supposed to be. She appeared to be fighting someone, though, swinging her arms, kicking an opponent. At one point she nearly fell into the drummer's lap, which he thought was fine. And then she accidentally struck the sax player, which he thought was delightful. It was not until one of her breasts jettisoned out of the tiny, purple corset that the band members really expressed their gratitude towards her dancing style. Johanna merely tucked the truant breast back into the corset as though it were change going into a purse. Pamela, Johanna, Elizabeth and Beth all howled. They all somehow seemed younger than Addison knew them to be, charged, confident.

The song ended and cheering and applause followed; dancers lingered in motion, swaying, conversing and laughing, waiting for the music to resume. The sax player thanked everyone and hoped they were enjoying themselves. He certainly was; he had his eyes on Johanna, his thoughts still clinging to her glorious misadventure. Some of the dancers hurried back to their tables to finish a drink or a cigarette before the band started again, and Addison suddenly realized that Beth was standing beside him, rather carefully or nonchalantly, playing along with his self-imposed anonymity. A wonderful, almost indecent smell of perspiration and faded perfume emanated from her. He had had enough of his disguise - he felt wretched, perhaps unwell - and he reached for Beth's hand, but she stepped away, hushing him against any perceived connection between the two of them.

"We think Connor's left Johanna …" she whispered, waving at Johanna who was waiting for her return to the dance floor. "Said he was going out or something. She hasn't seen him. Nothing. Just disappeared …vanished …!"

The music started and Beth was gone.

Addison needed another scotch, a double. He wanted a cigar; he wanted to leave. He'd stop at the convenience store on his way home and buy himself one. He went to get up out of his chair when he saw something quite unbelievable on the table. It was his hand; it was decidedly shocking. Someone had tried to put a cigarette out on it - it was still smoking, on his hand. A bright lump of burning tobacco was glowing on his knuckle. He didn't feel a thing! He shook the wretched thing off his hand, hoping no one had seen it.

Bill Hoode the cowboy was pacing endless, erratic circles around one of the bar stools, his face burnt with anger, his toy guns and holster slung over his shoulder.

*.*.*

At last, Addison brought the car to a stop in the laneway behind the house, shifted the car into park and got out to open the garage door. The lock clicked open, the garage door rose up on its runners retracting into the rafters.

He had never felt so relieved to be home. He looked at Beth, who was still sleeping in the front seat, and pulled the garage door shut again. He opened it several times more. Click. Roll. Thud back and rest. The whole, unnerving evening was over.

The car locked, the garage lights off, he and Beth set out across the long back yard to the house. The rain had left the grass silvery and sparkling in the moonlight - glistening leaves dropped down around them out of the oak trees, scratching and clicking against the branches as they fell to the ground. Beth stopped for a moment, laughed, pointing at her bare feet - her heels had pierced the soft lawn, were planted in the ground. Addison took her arm and walked beside her, ready to catch her should she stumble. Beth's long, red cape dragged over the dead Astilbe and Marigolds that lay fallow in the dark.

Beth unlatched the garden gate - Addison right beside her - and they made their way carefully through the tangled ceiling of emaciated vines, the remnants of Morning Glory, and all the other flowers they had grown, now brown and withered, dangling from the trellises and the arbors. Addison kept his hand in front of Beth, keeping the vines from brushing across her face, steadying her through the garden until they reached the back door.

When Addison awoke the next morning, he threw on his bathrobe and rushed downstairs. He hadn't slept well - he had been awake most of the night, agitated, troubled - and then sometime in the early morning, following what felt like a few, precious moments of sleep, relief, he realized that something had gone wrong. And now, he was afraid. He had to know; he had tried not to think about it, dismiss it, but the very real possibility that his worst fear had come to be could not be ignored.

Beth was on the telephone and did not even notice him come into the kitchen. There was a cup of coffee on the table - a white, oily island floated on its surface - and a plate of toast. She had eaten one corner from it.

He stood there, listening, piecing together the substance of the telephone conversation from Beth's responses, her sighs, and immediately understood that the disappearance had been confirmed. Connor Morgan had vanished. He had set out his Halloween costume on the bed, showered, shaved - there was some minor detail concerning where Johanna found his bath towel - and then 'phoof' (Beth was echoing Johanna) he was gone. Beth's eyes were fixed to the wall; she was recording the information. She'd have a dozen telephone calls to make as soon as Johanna hung up. The first November wind had blown out of the sky, and everything that had been wet and rained-on just hours before, was now frosted crisp, frozen - the Astilbe thrashed and crackled in the wind, the trellis vines were as white as grocers' string.

Addison walked toward the garden gate, light-headed with fear, unsteady, insensitive to the rough, icy ground beneath his bare feet. The gate was open, was swinging in the winter wind. He took a cigar out of his bathrobe pocket and struck several matches before managing to light it. His hands were shaking. He looked down at his waist and then at the garden gate. The miserable gate was hardly wide enough to admit the passage of a single person; he knew that already because he had built the foolish thing.

He had never left Beth's side; he had passed right through the fence. It had started!

Beth took one look at him and put the telephone down on the kitchen table - a small, raspy voice could be heard in the handset.

Addison ran his nervous hands through his hair, sucking on his cigar. Blue smoke filled the kitchen.

"Addison…?" Beth said, standing up. "What's wrong?"

He stared at her, lost. A thousand words and thoughts flew through his mind like quick-veering arrows of starlings, shooting in one direction, fragmenting, bunching.

"Beth …" Addison's lips moved, but another word was not there.

"Yes, Addison?"

He turned his cigar in his fingers, studying it, and then stubbed it out on a piece of Beth's toast where it stood upright.

"Have we …?" he said, and then stopped.

He looked out at the icy branches in the oak tree, the pale sky about it.

"… you know … been happy?"

A wind pushed the thin, black branches against the sky, bending and shaking them in the clouds, and he raised his hands, opening them outstretched. He had missed the moment now - he had almost taken Beth's hand. He knew he shouldn't, not like this. He'd frighten her. He could see through his skin the small bones of his hands quivering like the branches.