Pro­logue opens with a reflec­tion on the dis­tinc­tive­ness of Octo­ber, a month that car­ries an air of nos­tal­gia and con­trasts sharply with the oth­er months of the year. Sep­tem­ber is often dis­liked, mark­ing the end of the free­dom that sum­mer brings and the begin­ning of the school year, which for many, sig­nals the return to rou­tine and oblig­a­tions. August, the last month of free­dom, is cher­ished as the final stretch of care­free days before the school year begins. July is seen as the epit­o­me of summer—a time when the con­straints of school are entire­ly absent, allow­ing for com­plete enjoy­ment. June also holds a sense of joy, as it marks the begin­ning of sum­mer, though it is still some­what teth­ered to the end­ing of school. These months set the stage for the unbur­dened ener­gy of child­hood, where time feels bound­less and full of pos­si­bil­i­ties.

How­ev­er, Octo­ber intro­duces a dif­fer­ent tone, one filled with com­plex­i­ty and tran­si­tion. The school year has already begun, and the boys, Will and Jim, are adjust­ing to the rhythm of their new rou­tines. They are still find­ing moments of play and excite­ment in their dai­ly lives, such as com­ing up with cre­ative Hal­loween cos­tume ideas for the YMCA’s upcom­ing cel­e­bra­tion or con­sid­er­ing small pranks like leav­ing trash on old man Prickett’s porch. The changes in the envi­ron­ment reflect the shift­ing of time—autumn’s cool breeze fills the air with the scent of leaves and wood smoke, and the skies take on shades of orange and grey as the sun sets ear­li­er each evening. The boys feel the tran­si­tion as Hal­loween nears, but there is a deep­er, more sub­tle aware­ness grow­ing with­in them, one that sig­nals the pas­sage of time and the com­ing changes that will rede­fine their expe­ri­ences.

This par­tic­u­lar Hal­loween arrives unex­pect­ed­ly ear­ly on Octo­ber 24, mark­ing a piv­otal point in the lives of James Night­shade and William Hal­loway. Both boys, who live next to each oth­er, are near­ing their four­teenth birth­days, which makes this moment in their lives feel even more sig­nif­i­cant. At thir­teen years old and on the cusp of turn­ing four­teen, they stand on the thresh­old of ado­les­cence, a time when child­hood begins to give way to the com­plex­i­ties of grow­ing up. Their con­nec­tion to one anoth­er, shaped by a shared birth­day and an unbreak­able friend­ship, is about to be test­ed by the changes that come with this next phase of life. This shift is marked by a sense of fore­bod­ing, as the boys begin to sense that some­thing beyond their con­trol is about to unfold—an event that will change every­thing they know about the world around them. They are about to con­front a new real­i­ty, one that will require them to leave behind their inno­cence and step into a world filled with more ques­tions than answers.

The pro­logue sug­gests that the boys’ jour­ney through this Octo­ber week will involve a rapid and pro­found change. They will mature quick­ly, faced with expe­ri­ences that will force them to let go of the care­free inno­cence they have known. As their world begins to shift around them, the pro­logue cap­tures the essence of this tran­si­tion with a mix­ture of nos­tal­gia for what they are leav­ing behind and a sense of unease about what lies ahead. The month of Octo­ber, with its cool breezes, ear­ly sun­sets, and the promise of Hal­loween, becomes a sym­bol­ic turn­ing point in their lives. It marks a crit­i­cal junc­ture where every­thing begins to change, and they are poised on the brink of a new real­i­ty that will chal­lenge their per­cep­tions of the world. The pro­logue leaves read­ers with a sense of antic­i­pa­tion, know­ing that the events unfold­ing in the com­ing days will be any­thing but ordi­nary and that the boys’ lives will nev­er be the same again.