Tribute in Foil

I drifted across the entryway console table, where a shallow ceramic dish held the household’s autumn tribute. Among the ordinary wrappers rested a single coin of chocolate, swathed in radiant orange foil stamped with a grinning jack-o'-lantern. Setting my gnarled staff against the dish, I gripped the gleaming disk in my skeletal fingers. With deliberate theatricality, I nudged the heavy medallion onto its edge and sent it spinning across the polished timber. It wobbled and clattered to a halt right inside my lantern’s amber ring, its foil catching the flickering light like molten bronze. A low, thoroughly satisfied chuckle stirred beneath my cowl; the night’s sweet toll has been duly collected.