Dead Leaves: 9 Tales of the Witching Season by Kealan Patrick Burke is a trick and a treat. The anthology contains nine short stories set in autumn closer to a night of ghouls and ghosts than of evenings of blessing food. Nothing juvenile about these stories, though. They are literate, well-written, and layered.
Each tale is unique. The oft-used theme of “let’s go find a ghost” is the only story that resembles most modern fare. Don’t expect much in the way of Uncle Creepy or Dark Mirror in its pages. Yes, you’ll find “traditional” monsters here along with a bevy of non traditional ones. Most of the segments, though not all, are supernatural. A taste for the dramatic and some wonderfully rich descriptions of settings are what distinguishes these stories from most. Without a doubt, the tales serve the purpose of ushering the reader into an atmosphere of delightful dread.
The book starts with the terrifying Andromeda. This straightforward tale takes the classic approach of placing a normal person in the middle of a wide-ranging, horrific event. It brings the creepiness and is the most merciless of the bunch.
Someone to Carve the Pumpkins and The One Night of the Year were both very good but not very scary stories. That said, they are the best at offering up the (bitter)sweeter side of Halloween. More Ray Bradbury than Ramsey Campbell in nature, they embrace what non-horror fans love about Halloween.
Four other stories are included, all better than your average horror tale, but never quite as scary as Andromeda or interesting as Carve the Pumpkins or One Night. The remaining two, though, exemplify good horror. The first is The Toll which is wonderful in its throwback to an old master of horror and devious in its twists and turns. It starts in a most unusual setting and when readers think they’ve figured it all out, it takes a sharp one-hundred-eighty degree turn. A tale Rod Serling would’ve adopted for The Night Gallery, this one’s a keeper.
And the second excellent story, How the Night Receives Them, is prose but reads like a dark poem. It begins with an interesting quote and goes on to describe a girl walking down the road. While sounding mundane, this tale slowly unveils how something as ordinary as a stroll down a lane can become extraordinary. Short, eerie, and poignant, the story is superbly executed and remains my personal favorite of the collection.
So what’s this about a trick and treat? The trick is, with the exception of The One Night of the Year, the rest of the stories could’ve easily been set on any night in the calendar other than Halloween. They may be spooky but they have no real connection to October 31. Burke spends time describing autumn scenes beautifully and calls out to traditions like carving pumpkins, but they play a small part in the overall narrative. However, the treat is you’ll probably not notice. The stories in this collection will sweep you away and they are, indeed, best read as the October moon wanes and waxes.