“Are we going to sleep in the forest?” Lucy asked, tugging on his pant leg. “I’ve always wanted to see if there were night monsters. I bet they’re big with fangs and claws and filled with rage that only subsides when sucking out the marrow from the bones of unsuspecting—”
“There will be no marrow sucking,” Linus said sternly.
Lucy hung his head, shoulders slumped. “Yet another thing we can’t do with bones. What’s the point of even having bones if we don’t get to play with them?”
“We won’t be going into the forest,” Linus said. “I have something different in mind. Single file, children! You are responsible for the person in front of you. Should we arrive at our destination with a missing member, the person whose job it was to ensure their safety will be lucky enough to listen to me regale them with stories about—Well, then. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get in line that fast before.”
“You know how to threaten with the best of them,” Sal told him.
“I do try,” Linus said. “Follow me!”
He led the way, crickets chirping loudly as the sun ignited the horizon in shades of red and orange and pink. The first stars had started to shine, and the moon looked like a translucent ghost haunting the western skies.
They followed Linus along the side of the house, heading toward Talia’s garden. Ever the courteous gnome, she stopped them every few seconds to discuss the latest trends in horticulture, including a study she’d read in Gardening Science Monthly that said plants responded more favorably when sung to.
Talia saw them first: the twinkling fairy lights that had been draped along the railing of the gazebo. The wooden floor was covered in at least a dozen pillows and what appeared to be almost every blanket in the house. In the corner, the small portable Zenith record player, spinning dead-people music in the form of Buddy Holly, singing if you knew Peggy Sue, you’d know why he felt blue without Peggy, his Peggy Sue.
“Is this for us?” David asked, looking around with wide eyes.
“It is,” Linus said. “Tonight, I thought we should be together. The next two weeks are going to be busy for all of us, and we should have a night when the only thing we have to worry about is Chauncey’s night gas.”
“I’m biologically unique!” Chauncey exclaimed to no one in particular.
Talia went to the blankets and pillows first, moving them around until she’d made a perfect nest for herself. Theodore did the same, a bigger one for him and Sal. Lucy decided that Phee needed to be brained with a pillow. Unfortunately for him, Phee proved to be quicker, flying up and over Lucy, landing behind him, and then snatching the pillow from his hands. Before he could turn around, she swung the pillow at the back of his head, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
“Do me!” David cried.
Naturally, Phee obliged.
Which then dissolved into a pillow fight to end all pillow fights. By the time the battle had ended, goose feathers floated around them as Lucy screamed he gave up when Theodore tried to shove a pillow down his throat. Linus lay on his back on the floor of the gazebo, breathing heavily, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“That went well,” Arthur said, standing above him and looking down, head cocked.
“Too … old … to … function,” Linus wheezed, face red, hair plastered against his forehead.
“Ah, well, you certainly didn’t act like it,” Arthur said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grown man hurl a pillow at a child with as much force as you did.”
“We should tell that to the inspector,” Lucy said as he peered over his shoulder, trying to look at the flap on the seat of his pajamas. “I bet they’ll find it hysterical without holding it against us.”
“Or,” Linus said, rolling over onto his stomach, “we don’t do that at all and instead attempt to act at least a little normal so that we don’t make … things … worse.”
“Children,” Arthur said, “it’s time to settle in. Make sure you … David? Is there an issue?”
David stood near the steps to the gazebo, gripping the railing with one hand, the other balled into a fist. He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “I … uh.” He looked away, gnawing on his bottom lip. “It can be kind of hard for me to sleep when it’s not cold. Is it okay if I make some ice for me?”
“Way ahead of you,” Linus said, pushing himself up off the floor. “Here, look.” He motioned for David to move to the right side of the gazebo, near where Lucy and Talia were sitting. Linus lifted up one of the blankets. There, underneath, were rows of frozen ice packs, each about six inches wide, nearly a foot long. The blanket had a zipper along the side, and when Linus opened it so David could see the interior, more ice packs jutted out.
David reached out and touched the corner of one of the ice packs.
“I know you can make your own ice,” Linus said. “But I thought I’d help out a little in case you were tired. If you need something, all you have to do is ask.”
“Except if it’s a chainsaw,” Lucy said, lying on his back, kicking his feet above him.
Arthur said, “Children, that’s enough chatter. Settle in, and we’ll see whose turn it is to tell a story.”
“It’s mine!” Chauncey yelled, eyes poking up through a pile of blankets he was hidden under. “I didn’t get to do it last time because Lucy took too long reenacting his favorite exorcisms.”
Arthur shook his head. “By my count, it’s actually Phee’s turn. Chauncey, last time, you told the devastatingly beautiful story of how you fell in love, only to realize your affections weren’t returned because the object of said affections was a rock.”
“Rocky Stonesworth,” Chauncey said sadly.
“So,” Arthur continued, “it’s up to Phee to send us off into dreamland. Let’s give her our undivided attention, and as a reminder to the more vocal members of the audience, commentary is frowned upon, even if you think it’s amusing.”
“He’s talking about you,” Talia said, shoving Lucy.
He shoved her back. “He is not. I bet I can be quieter longer than you can.”
Talia and Lucy settled down with the rest of the children—save Phee, who stood above them, the sun finally dipping below the horizon. Her wings glittered in the semidarkness, her hair hanging loosely on her shoulders. She waited until she had their undivided attention before nodding. “And now,” she said in an ominous voice, fingers crooked like claws, “I will tell you a tale most foul. A story that’ll haunt your dreams and follow you into your waking hours. A fable of the folly of men, and the lengths they go to in order to escape their own mortality. And every single word of it is true.”
“Oh no,” Chauncey whispered. “True stories are real.”
“It begins on an unseasonably cool April morning. Our heroine—an amazing forest sprite who is good at pretty much everything she does—wakes up, not knowing that today is the day when everything will change, and all good feelings will be gone from the world as darkness spreads. Because today is the day that Linus Baker decides he wants to grow a mustache.”
“Boo!” all the children hissed.
“It was fine,” Linus retorted. “I happen to think I looked dashing.”
“Yeah, like you were dashing right toward us to kidnap us,” Lucy said.
