Each Halloween colossal oaks lurk along streets, parks, hollows.

Stripped of their yellow, brown, and red veneer, they shiver ever so silently in the October twilight. They seethe among shadows, their twisted trunks grinning. The squirrels usually scurrying and hoarding acorns have sought the safety of the pines. The sparrows too have fled to the elms and maples. A young boy - on a dare takes the short cut through the darkest hollow. He hears the branches shiver in the wind while he wipes the sweat from behind his mask. He suddenly realizes it has been an Indian summer and there has been no breeze. Each Halloween these colossal oaks silenced since early settlers hacked and sawed them into submission twitch in anticipation their thick roots reach out to trip their skeletal branches anxious to snatch a solitary trick or treater. Ever so slightly, the boy shifts to the far edge of the path and clutches his bag of candy tight just in case.

But all is silent. The movement must have been a trick of the twilight. There is a tug and he turns to see a slender branch caught on the bottom of his bag. It tugs again, almost eager and the bag splits and his candy spills onto the path. Then the boy stumbles on a thick root that had not been there before. He slips into the tall grass beneath the trees. He hears the branches shaking as if a storm is brewing. It must be his friends playing a trick. Then each ankle is snatched, each wrist encircled. Dried leaves and foul bark fill his gaping mouth. Dust and splinters clutter his disbelieving eyes. The branches tug more eager than ever and the boy splits and he is spilled into the trees. Now a storm is brewing the oaks creak and moan as their bases bend and

their branches snatch. This is no trick at all. The trees have their treat.