The salesman edged slowly up the lawn.

“Boy,” he said. “What’s your name?”

And the first boy, with hair as blond-white as milk thistle, shut up one eye, tilted his head, and looked at the salesman with a single eye as open, bright and clear as a drop of summer rain.

“Will,” he said. “William Halloway.”

The storm gentleman turned. “And you?”

The second boy did not move, but lay stomach down on the autumn grass, debating as if he might make up a name. His hair was wild, thick, and the glossy color of waxed chestnuts. His eyes, fixed to some distant point within himself, were mint rock-crystal green. At last he put a blade of dry grass in his casual mouth.

“Jim Nightshade,” he said.

The storm salesman nodded as if he had known it all along.

“Nightshade. That’s quite a name.”

“And only fitting,” said Will Halloway. “I was born one minute before midnight, October thirtieth, Jim was born one minute after midnight, which makes it October thirty-first.”

“Hallowe’en,” said Jim.

By their voices, the boys had told the tale all their lives, proud of their mothers, living house next to house, running for the hospital together, bringing sons into the world seconds apart; one light, one dark. There was a history of mutual celebration behind them. Each year Will lit the candles on a single cake at one minute to midnight. Jim, at one minute after, with the last day of the month begun, blew them out.

So much Will said, excitedly. So much Jim agreed to, silently. So much the salesman, running before the storm, but poised here uncertainly, heard looking from face to face.