Superstitions

“How come we have to hang these outside the tents?” The girl asked. Her little legs struggled to keep up with the fast pace of the adults in front of her.

Xiamore smiled and picked her up. She hid the brief flash of pain her joints gave her as she hoisted the child aloft. “It’s an old tradition.” She told the girl. “From a planet very far away from here. During the fall season, one must hang tokens like these outside their dwellings to keep them safe from mischievous spirits.” Xia said in best spooky voice.

The girl giggled. “Does it really do anything, Mama Xia?”

Xiamore couldn’t suppress a grin. This child was a smart one. “Of course it does!” She said, pausing to hang one of the tokens outside an abandoned building. “I mean, what could be scarier than this?” Xiamore asked very seriously, holding up the yellow piece of metal with a smiley face painted on top. The children had all done G rated designs, making all the tokens rather silly.

The girl laughed again. She helped Xiamore choose tokens to hang outside the buildings. According to the superstitions, if they couldn’t get into your home, the spirits might try and occupy abandoned buildings instead. Of course, the city was full of empty and half destroyed structures. They would never be able to cover all of them, but the ones closest to their camp should be fine. Not that Xia believed in such things, but the children usually got a kick out of it. The girl wrapped her arms around Xiamore’s neck. She snuggled in close and Xia could feel her breath on her neck. It was such a wonderful feeling. She savored it, despite the fact that the girl was already getting rather heavy.

”Okay, that’s the last one.” Xia said quietly. “You ready to go back and have s’mores?” The girl nodded sleepily. “Let’s go, then.” Xia began walking back towards camp. The breeze kicked up for a moment, making the tokens sway and reflect the light. Ironically, the city full of tokens looked like a convention of spirits. She thought if maybe that wasn’t the idea the creators of this tradition were going for. Y’know, stir up the anxiety of people superstitious enough to hang the tokens in the first place. Spooky season always makes all creatures go crazy. Humans, Lockettes, aliens... it didn’t matter. We’re all much the same in the end.