No One Ever Sees Me

Halloween was the best family event of the year.

Every Halloween, The Cousins  played Ninjas.

Our grandmother had ten children. Ten children all got married except Uncle Steve. He died in Vietnam, and my dad always poured a beer into the grass for Uncle Steve when all the siblings got together.    

All these children having children is what led to The Cousins. We said The Cousins with reverence, with importance. With an age range spanning nearly thirty years, there were forty-three of us. Practically a battalion. Our numbers contributed to our sense of importance, of unity

Some families only get together on Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or maybe not at all. But there were simply too many of us for one Thanksgiving dinner, one gift-opening session around a dry evergreen. There was no house big enough for all of us to gather.

Until Aunt Lydia and Uncle Joel bought The Farm. The Farm was twenty acres of a child’s wildest dreams. Endless trees to climb, fields to explore, hills to roll down giggling, and even a creek to wade in during the summer months, to walk across at Christmas and pretend we were in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It also sported a massive barn that, to our extreme delight, was rotting, unused, and full of places to hide.

While we invented and played many games as The Cousins, we all agreed (except Lainie, who pretended to be too old for games) that Ninjas was the most fun.

Ninjas started in the barn as hide and seek. The old farming equipment, rotting hay bales bleached white with age, and junk-stuffed hayloft provided a myriad of perfect hiding spots for us. The barn was nearly the size of the main farmhouse, huge and cavernous, full of treasures and adventure. None of us minded the smell of mildew and dust. I still believe those smells are the best in the world to inspire the imagination.

Jamie tries to take credit for the idea that turned hide and seek into something more “sophisticated,” the white flags and total darkness that made the game our own. I don’t remember who actually had the idea, but I know it wasn’t Jamie. He was the smoke blower of The Cousins. Last year he tried to convince me his girlfriend was a famous OnlyFans creator. You know the type.

Regardless of whose idea it really was, hide and seek in the barn turned into Ninjas by the third year at The Farm. It was our special game, and we only played on Halloween.

Some of the younger Cousins would try to convince us to play at other times of the year. I didn’t blame them. We never caved though, whether it was Christmas, Easter, or Fourth of July.

Ninjas was strictly a Halloween game, and we stuck to it.

It was perfect for the spooky season. All us Cousins looked forward to it. Halloween to some kids meant candy, dressing up, watching scary movies. To us Cousins, it meant playing Ninjas. All that other stuff was secondary.

The last time I ever played Ninjas, I was sixteen.

Most teenagers lose their interest in kid games around the time they gain interest in sex, but The Cousins had too tight of a bond to be broken by a false sense of maturity. Kelly, twenty-seven at the time, still played every year with enthusiasm.      

That year was like any other, all of us showing up at The Farm with our black outfits and face chalk, excited and full of energy. We passed the time and watched the sun set anxiously as the nine siblings, spouses in tow, drank wine and discussed the latest scandals.

The energy among us was palpable by eight o’clock. The sun teased us. In a desperate attempt to keep our game ay bay, it threw out the very last light.

Our parents finally released us outside at nine thirty. Very late for the younger Cousins, but holidays were always exceptions. We congregated around the front of the barn in the new black night, all of us in our darkest clothing, black lines painted under our eyes like football players. 

Kelly and I had been the Flashlight Holders for several years running. We were nominated again. If any Cousins got lost, scared, or otherwise needed to be escorted from the pitch-darkness of the barn, the Flashlight Holders guided them out into the fresh October night air. The four light bars that hung on rusty chains from the barn roof still worked, amazingly, but were flicked off for the game. We needed utter blackness.

That year, as we waited for the rest of The Cousins to gather, my eyes landed on Caleb, the youngest Cousin (at least until someone else had another kid). Caleb was six, still young enough to instinctively reach for my hand as he sidled up to me.

“Hey Caleb,” I said, taking his small hand. The gesture made me feel warm despite the late October chill.

“I’m scared,” Caleb whispered. “I don’t like the dark.”

This was Caleb’s first year playing Ninjas. Aunt Jen had forbidden it every year before. She ranted about rusty machinery and tetanus shots while the other adults tried to wear her down. The argument was a lost cause and they knew it, but Aunt Jen had been adamant. Until this year.

“Hey, you’ll be okay, buddy. It’s really, really fun,” I assured him, bending to my knees to talk face to face with him. “Plus, if you really get too scared, me and Kelly have magic flashlights.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah, see?” I shined mine at the dying grass beneath our feet. “It can guide us out of the barn, no matter how scared or lost we are.”

Caleb’s face melted into a crooked smile. His front teeth were missing. 

“Oh. Okay. That’s good.”

I straightened and tousled his hair. We’d gathered at The Farm for his riotous first birthday celebration. The maternally inclined female cousins doted on him every chance they got. His cherubic face and sweet innocence melted us.

The last of the participating Cousins arrived, to teasing remarks from the brasher of us. Twenty in all that year. A good turnout. Despite the popularity of the game, it was very rare for every single Cousin to be present at a gathering. Families went on vacations, had busy work schedules, and got sick. 

As Flashlight Holders, Kelly and I were the informal leaders of the game. I clapped my hands twice for silence, and all eyes were on me.