A grin slipped out. “I understand, Sheriff.”
As she shook my hand, she met my gaze and held it and said, “He is making a mistake, you know. I’d appreciate it if you could help him see reason on this.”
“I’m not sure I’m the right person to help. I don’t think he wants any more advice from me.”
She was still holding my hand, and she tilted her head, as though she were trying to see the bottom of something that was just out of sight.
“Dash,” she finally said, “he doesn’t want advice.”
Chapter 18
It was a perfect Halloween night. Crisply cold, the sky full of stars and clear and hard as glass. The breeze was low, twisting through the hemlocks with the sound of a great scroll being unfurled, carrying the salt of the sea. Indira brewed an enormous pot’s worth of hot cider, and Hemlock House was warm and bright and full of the scent of cinnamon and the sweet tang of apples.
And the trick-or-treaters didn’t stop coming.
As the most recent pack of them retreated (this group consisted of a witch, a zombie, two princesses, and a genuine masterpiece of a costume: a dinosaur wearing a fedora), I said, “I thought Hastings Rock was a small town.”
After closing the door behind them, we retreated to the reception room. We never used it, but it was conveniently located next to the front door, and there was enough seating for all of us. Plus Millie had hung about a million square yards of “spider webs” all over the main floor, so getting anywhere else in the house was an endeavor.
Keme, dressed in his “skeleton in a suit” costume again, gave me a disparaging look as he opened a fresh bag of candy and emptied it into the pumpkin-shaped bowl we were using. I went for one of the fun-sized Butterfingers, but he beat me to it. And to the next one. And the third.
“Hey!”
He was grinning as he passed me the bowl. (No Butterfingers left, I’ll have you know.)
“It is a small town,” Millie said in answer to my earlier statement. Her ’80s workout costume had made a second appearance, and the only good part of the night had been watching its effect on Keme. The boy had walked into two doors (yes, two separate, distinct, totally different doors); spilled his soda when he’d tried to take a drink without, you know, actually putting the can to his mouth; and flipped right over a hassock. (Fox had to tell me it was a hassock and not a footstool.) “And Vivienne always gave out the best candy on Halloween. Plus the house is spooky, but it’s GOOD spooky. Every kid in the area comes here on Halloween.”
Which, thank God, they’d warned me about in advance. We’d spent the day recovering from everything with Jen. Deputy Bobby was, technically, still staying at Hemlock House, but that seemed to be more in theory than in practice. I hadn’t seen him since the deputies had separated us the night before. My occasional texts making sure he was okay had been answered with the kind of short, declarative sentences that made me want to bum rush every man within reach off the nearest cliff. He was avoiding me. And he was avoiding me because he was angry, of course. Angry I’d interfered. Angry, perhaps, I’d ruined his life.
But, a little optimistic voice inside me said, he hasn’t left yet.
Be quiet, I told that little voice, or I’ll squash you like Pinocchio squashed Jiminy Cricket.
“What I don’t understand,” Fox said, “is why you didn’t pick a better costume this time. You had a second chance. And for the second time, Dashiell, you chose to be a cat that was beaten to death with a keyboard.”
“Not my costume,” I said. “Also, what is your costume?”
Fox gave me a scandalized look and then, with one arm, made a sweeping gesture to encompass their costume: a dirndl, welding gloves that went to the elbow, and tissue-paper butterfly wings that made it impossible for them to do anything but perch on the edge of the hassock. “I,” Fox announced, “am a human being.”
Keme and I rolled our eyes at the same time.
“I think your costume is very nice, Dash,” Indira said. She’d gone for her tweed-and-deerstalker look, and she glanced over at me now as she filled paper cups with hot cider. “Kitty cats are very cute.”
I hadn’t been going for cute, not exactly. I mean, I wasn’t West. I didn’t have zero body fat and perfectly sculpted muscles. I certainly didn’t have abs. But in a black tee and black jeans and black Chucks, with little black cat ears perched on my head, and for once in my life, my hair was actually doing a thing I could be proud of—well, I thought I looked good. The little keyboard letters CTRL + C glued to the front of my shirt were kind of like a safeguard. If I couldn’t be hot, at least I could be clever, right?
But I didn’t want to go into all that, so I settled for “Thank you, Indira.”
Keme made a gagging noise, which immediately made Millie start giggling as she tried to shush him.
The doorbell rang, and Keme immediately recovered. But I was faster. I grabbed the pumpkin bowl and sprinted for the door, and he let out a wordless shout of outrage as he chased after me. He caught up with me as I started to open the door, and it turned into a wrestling match that resulted in a lot of laugh-shouts of protest (me), weirdly unnecessary teenage boy aggression (Keme), and a lot of mini Charleston Chews spilling onto the floor. Finally, Keme wrenched the bowl away from me, shouldered open the door, and held out the candy, breathing hard.
Deputy Bobby was standing there with a group of children. The kids were staring with huge eyes. Deputy Bobby looked like he was about to haul me and Keme in for disturbing the peace. He gave us a withering look, took the bowl from Keme, and said to the kids as he turned to them, “This is why some people, even adults, shouldn’t eat too much candy. Here, everybody take two. Oh, George, that is such an awesome chipmunk costume. Are you Alvin? And Emma, are you Wonder Woman? Don’t get me with your lasso!”
Emma, the Wonder Woman in question, did some excited flailing with the lasso in question. If I hadn’t been wearing my glasses, I probably would have lost an eye.
A few moments later, Deputy Bobby sent the kids back down the hill to their waiting parents. As little footsteps faded into the night, he straightened and turned back to me.
He was dressed in a blue uniform, with shiny black shoes that had to be incredibly uncomfortable and a peaked cap. It looked like a lot of polyester. It looked itchy. It looked like it had been packed in plastic and hanging on the pegboard at the Keel Haul General Store. The patch on the sleeve said HAPPY TOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT, and somehow, he’d gotten a little brass plaque for his shirt that said OFFICER BOBBY.
He was looking at me with a funny expression on his face, and I realized I was staring.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I nodded and made myself say, “Hi, Officer Bobby.”
(Yep. I totally nailed it.)
His mouth tilted into a smile, and he stretched up to flick the cat ears I was wearing. “Hello, Copy Cat.”
I forgot about everything else. Literally everything else. Except, maybe, slightly, about how it felt when his hand brushed my hair. “Oh my God, you got it!”
“Well, it’s not exactly hard—”
“Fox! I told you it was a good costume! Come on, you have to tell Fox.”
It was strange how easy the night was after that. Hemlock House was warm and bright and safe. There was plenty of hot cider to drink, not to mention all that candy. Kids came, kids went. Keme ragged on Bobby for going as a police officer, and Bobby, laughing, tried to defend himself by explaining that a deputy and a police officer were two different things (which made all of us groan). And at some point during the night, in the midst of all that laughing and talking and Keme trying to convince me to arm-wrestle him, I realized I was happy, and Hemlock House had become home.
