Fire With Fire (8 page)

want to get your coat dirty.”
“I’ve got it,” she insists, and he tries to take it from her, and
they both laugh because she almost drops it. “You have to get
to practice.”
“Give it to me,” he says, but in a sweet way. Lillia finally lets
the box go. I think Alex is surprised at how heavy it is. It almost
falls out of his hands, but he adjusts his grip before it can.
Meanwhile, Lillia scans the parking lot. I step forward
and smile, but she waves her hand, like I don’t have to worry
about it.
“Thank you,” she says breathlessly, when Alex lifts his head.
“There are only three more inside.” She turns to go back into
the theater door, but Alex stops her.
“Wait here. I’ll get them.”
Lillia leans against the car. The wind has picked up, and her
hair is blowing around her face. “I owe you one, Lindy!” she
calls out. “Thank you so much!”
I start to back away, and that’s when I notice it—about fifteen
feet away to my left, Reeve, pulling up in his truck. He’s seen
them too. He has a scowl on his face, and he puts the truck in
reverse. He’s gone before they even notice.

I’ve been meaning to have a conversation about her with
my parents, but it’s scary. My mom is Aunt Bette’s sister, after
all. I don’t want to get her mad, or have her confronting Aunt
Bette over what I’d say. I wish I could tell someone about
how strangely Aunt Bette’s been acting. I’ve never been afraid
of my aunt. I’m still not. I’m just . . . worried about her.

I set my book bag down in the kitchen and head upstairs,
calling her name a few times in case she’s home. She’s so easily
startled lately. I’ve been trying to be careful with her, give her
space. I don’t want to make things worse.

At the top of the stairs, I notice Aunt Bette’s bedroom door
is open the skinniest crack. She’s been keeping it closed. I walk
up slowly and peek inside.

There are books all over the floor. At least a hundred of them,
piled in teetering stacks on top of Aunt Bette’s Moroccan rug.
Musty, cloth-covered books. The kind that sit and gather dust at
the library. The kind that you find at a garage sale.

I step inside, careful not to touch anything, because I have a
pretty good feeling that Aunt Bette would lose her mind if she
knew I was poking around her room. I crouch down and try to
read some of the spines, but most of the titles aren’t written in
English. It looks like maybe Latin. And some Spanish, which
reminds me that I am so far behind in Señor Tremont’s class it’s
not even funny. There are a few books split open, but to pages
that don’t have any words. Only, like, hieroglyphics. Symbols
and numbers that make no sense to me.

Aunt Bette’s Volvo putters into the driveway. I jump up and
turn to head out the bedroom door. That’s when I notice the
shared wall that separates Aunt’s Bette’s bedroom from mine.
The one to the right of her bed.

It used to be a wall full of art. Pictures. Paintings. Photographs.
But everything’s been taken down, except for the tiny nails left
in the wall. Even Aunt Bette’s dresser, the low four-drawer one
that sat against the wall, has been pushed aside.

The whole thing is stripped bare.
Or at least I think it is. But when I take a step closer, I see
that Aunt Bette has laced string, string the very same color as
the eggshell wall paint, around the picture nails. I think it might
even be the same stuff she used to wrap those smudge bundles.
She’s woven them into some kind of pattern. Like a lopsided,
crooked star.
The same star that’s in one of the pages of her opened books.
Oh God. What’s going on?
I dart out of her bedroom and into my own. Aunt Bette
opens the back door and calls for me.
“Up here!” I say in a voice that I hope sounds normal. Then
I hold my breath and pray she won’t come upstairs. Thankfully,
she doesn’t. I hear the faucet come on, probably for her teakettle.
I take careful steps over to my bed and sit on the mattress.
It’s pushed up against that shared wall. I reach out and touch it,
feeling for I don’t know what. Energy. Heat. Something coming
through from the other side.
Has Aunt Bette been putting spells on me?
I don’t think she’d try to hurt me, but I can’t say I feel totally
safe. Especially when I don’t know how long that thing in her
room has been up. And what it might be doing to me.
But there’s nothing coming through, nothing to feel besides
a wall. A plain old wall.
Of course. What else would it be?
I guess when you live with a crazy person, it’s hard not to feel
crazy sometimes too.
CHAP
TER ELEVEN

Kids are starting to file in with their parents, and my heart
is thrumming in my chest. I’m standing by the entrance in my
ballerina costume, greeting people and passing out raffle tickets. I’m wearing a pink leotard that crosses in the back and
a tutu on top, with sheer pink tights and pink ballet slippers
with ribbons that wind up my legs. My bun is so high and tight
it’s pulling on my scalp, but I don’t dare mess with it because
it took me forever to get it right.

Alex walks in, and he’s got on black framed glasses and a
button-down and khakis.
“What are you?” I ask him. “A nerd?”
Alex wags his finger at me, and then he rips open his shirt
with a flourish, and underneath is a Superman tee. “Clark
Kent, at your service!”
I laugh and clap my hands. Alex used to wear glasses, but he
never does anymore. I like him all geek chic like this. “Alex,
you’re my hero,” I say. Then I point him in the direction of the
apple-bobbing booth and he takes off.
The kids look so cute in their costumes. There are a few
Iron Mans, a Harry Potter, a little boy who is dressed up as a
chef, a girl who is a bottle of ketchup. My favorite is three boys
dressed up as Snap, Crackle, and Pop from the Rice Krispies
cereal box. I’m totally giving them the costume award.
My sister and her friends are setting up the scavenger hunt,
hiding clues around the gym. They’re Santa’s reindeer—Nadia
is Vixen, and she’s got on antlers and a fur shawl of our mom’s
that she never wears and crimson-red lipstick. Alex is dropping more apples into the apple-bobbing pail.
I’m by the food table arranging candy-corn cupcakes
on a big black tray when I see him—Reeve, swinging in
on his crutches and his soft cast. He’s wearing a flannel
shirt and his Jason mask and has a chain saw strapped to
his back. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he showed.
I watch as Reeve sets up a folding chair for himself under
the basketball net. He drags another chair over, plops down,
and props his leg up on the second chair. A bunch of kids run
over to him. “Reeve!” they shriek. “Chase us!”
Reeve shakes his chain saw at them menacingly. But he
doesn’t chase them. He can’t. I watch the kids collectively
deflate when they realize this, and they walk away to the other
booths, and then Reeve’s just sitting there alone. He looks
bummed out, marooned in his chair. All alone.
I can feel a little lump in my throat. I basically harassed him
into coming, and now he doesn’t have anything to do. I head
over, making a show of stopping and checking on the sound
system along the way, so it doesn’t look like I’m coming over
just to say hi.
I stop in front of him. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” Reeve grunts from behind his mask.
I clear my throat. “Um, so . . . I feel bad I made you come
when you can’t really do anything.”
“Which is what I tried to explain to you in the first place,”
he says, pushing his mask on top of his head.
“I know.”
“How am I supposed to run around with the kids here and
then go to a freaking maze with you guys?” Reeve huffs. “My
leg should be elevated pretty much at all times.”
“I know,” I say again.
We stare at each other for a second. And then he says, “Nice
costume.”
I wait for him to make a crack, maybe ask me where my
tiara is, but he doesn’t. He reaches out and touches my tutu. I
can feel my insides heat up.
Then Alex comes up behind me and Reeve’s arm drops.
“Hey, man,” Alex says.
“Hey,” he says.
“It was decent of you to show,” Alex says with a nod. To
me Alex says, “Lil, if you want, I can trade jobs with Reeve
since he can’t run around. I don’t mind. Reeve, for the applebobbing station all you have to do is sit there.”
Reeve stares at him in disbelief. “Jason is
my
thing.”
“I know, man, but the kids want you to chase them around.
It’s not scary if you wave the chain saw at them from your
chair. . . .” Alex’s voice trails off, and he looks at me like he’s
hoping I’ll back him up.
Before I can say anything, Reeve rips the mask off his
head and tosses it at Alex. “Here, take it, then. Have at it.
You won’t do as good a job as me, but whatever.” Jerkily, he
gets up on his crutches. “Go show off for your girl.”
Alex’s face goes red, and I look around the room, pretending like I didn’t hear him.
Reeve stalks off, and at first I think he’s leaving, but he’s
not; he’s moving toward the apple-bobbing booth. Alex leans
in to me and whispers, “I think maybe Reeve’s still channeling
Jason.”
I let out a guilty giggle. “Thanks for everything, Lindy.”
Alex puts on the Jason mask. “You’re welcome,” he says in
a creepy serial-killer voice.
I laugh again, for real this time. Then I walk back over to
the refreshment table and set out the spider cookies I baked
the night before. I arrange it so the good ones are on top and
the broken ones are underneath.
This has actually turned out okay. The kids are having fun,
the booths are more or less running themselves, and some of
the parents stayed behind to help chaperone, so it’s not just me
in charge. I’ll be able to put this on my college application with
pride. And the best part is, I did it without Rennie.
I watch Alex chase a group of girls with the chain saw. He
almost trips but catches himself. Across the room I can hear
Reeve’s guffaw. It echoes throughout the gym.
I bite a piece of candy off my candy bracelet. In an hour
and a half it’ll all be over. I wasn’t going to go to the haunted
maze because I didn’t want to see Rennie, but now I think I
will
go. I have as much right to be there as she does. They’re
my friends too. Look how Reeve and Alex showed up for me
tonight. They’re not in her pocket as much as she thinks.
CHAP
TER T
WEL VE

I don’t think I ever understood the power of a
Halloween costume before tonight. Probably because I never
had a very good one.

When I was a kid, my mom made my costumes herself.
Other kids would buy theirs at the drugstore, the kind that
came with a mask and a plastic suit to put on over your clothes.
Those kids would run around, breaking sticks as Superman or
shooting pretend webs out of their wrists like SpiderMan.

Really, she wanted to make them herself because my grandmother had made costumes for Mom and Aunt Bette when
they were little. My grandmother was a very accomplished
seamstress. We still have a bunch of her quilts in the attic in
a cedar chest. It’s crazy to know that something so perfect
could be made by hand. Mom liked that tradition. “When you
grow up and have a little boy or a little girl, you’ll do the same
for them,” she’d tell me, usually with tears in her eyes.

It was hard to argue with that.
So at the beginning of every October I’d tell Mom what I
wanted to be for Halloween that year—a princess, a gypsy, a
bat. We’d draw up plans together with colored pencils, and
then we’d go to the craft store to get supplies.
The only problem was that Mom wasn’t very good at
sewing. In fact Halloween was the only time of year when
she’d take her sewing machine out of the box. She’d taken a
class in high school, but that was about it. And though the
whole thing started out as a fun endeavor, by the week before
Halloween she’d be upstairs in the attic, working through
the night. Usually she had to go back to the craft store a few
times because she’d cut the fabric wrong or run out of supplies because she kept starting over.
The end result was never what I’d imagined. The seams
were always off. Some places the thing would fit me tight;
some places it would be too loose. Lots of times it wasn’t clear
what I was supposed to be. Like my dragon costume. People
thought I was some kind of beanstalk. I never had that feeling
of actually becoming someone else.
Not like tonight.
I was so happy when Kat invited me out with her. I was
already having nightmares of having to spend the night in
complete darkness, not answering the door, because Aunt
Bette didn’t buy candy for the trick-or-treaters.
So I’m in the bathroom, putting the finishing touches on
my costume, which means adding as many safety pins as I can
before Kat pulls up and beeps the horn for me.
I’m wearing a pair of my cutoff jean shorts. Underneath
that I’ve got on a pair of black tights that I’ve ripped to shreds,
and my black high heels. Up top I’ve got on my one black bra
and a ripped white T-shirt, the one that Aunt Bette sometimes
paints in. It’s got splashes of color all over it.
I teased out my hair so it looks wild and dramatic. I braided
a few strands and clipped in some fake pink streaks.
Last I put on heavy eye makeup. Black eyeliner, sparkly
shadow, and layers and layers of mascara. I’ll probably need
to borrow some turpentine from Aunt Bette to get it off.
I stand in front of the mirror. I don’t look like Mary
tonight. I don’t even feel like Mary tonight, if that makes any
sense. Everything’s completely, utterly different. I feel lit up
from the inside. I feel . . . alive.
When I turn around, Aunt Bette is behind me.
I gasp. “How . . . how long were you standing there?”
“Not more than a minute,” Aunt Bette says. “I didn’t mean
to frighten you.” The corners of her mouth sink.
I look down and realize that I didn’t ask her permission for
the T-shirt. I point at it and say, “This is one of your painting
smocks. I’m sorry. I should have asked first. I can take it off
if you mind.”
Aunt Bette takes a step toward me. With a shaky hand she
reaches out and takes a bit of the fabric between her fingers.
“Please be careful tonight, Mary.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t take candy from strangers. Unless
they’ve got Kit Kats.”
Aunt Bette doesn’t even crack a smile at my joke. Instead
she says somberly, “The line between the living and the dead
is blurred on Halloween.”
I nod, as if I’m taking her seriously, but what I really think
is . . . Aunt Bette needs to quit reading those weird books. She
sounds like a witch! And she’s been looking more and more
like one too. Her hair is so crazy and wiry, her eyes sunken
and dark. If I were a trick-or-treater and she came to the door,
I’d probably run.
It’s a mean thought, and I immediately feel bad for thinking it. Aunt Bette’s so lonely; her life is so sad. She never visits
with friends or gets a night away from the house.
She’s like how I used to be.
That’s when I wonder . . . did something happen to Aunt
Bette? Something traumatic that I don’t know about, that
made her into this person? Maybe it was a fight with my
mom? Maybe she never wanted us to leave Jar Island?
I don’t know what it is, but I step forward and I hug her.
I haven’t done that once since coming back here. Aunt Bette
has never been big on physical displays of affection, but that
doesn’t mean she doesn’t need one every so often.
She feels tense in my arms, like she’s going to fight me, but
then Aunt Bette melts, her head drops, and I feel her squeeze
me back, tenderly. I can see in the mirror that her eyes are
closed.
Kat’s car horn sounds from outside. I peel away from Aunt
Bette and tell her, “Love you. Don’t wait up!” before bounding down the stairs.
“Holy shit. Look at you!” Kat says, flicking her cigarette
butt out of the driver’s-side window.
“I guess we’re opposites tonight,” I say with a laugh as I
climb into her car, because Kat’s got a nun’s outfit on. It’s full
habit that covers everything but her hands and her face, and
a heavy wooden cross around her neck. Kat isn’t wearing any
makeup. I’ve never noticed before, but she has amazing skin
and a couple of teeny-tiny freckles.
“I’m an evil nun,” she clarifies. She twists in her seat and
looks me up and down. “You look hot, girl.”
“I do?” I feel like clapping like a little kid, but I restrain
myself.
Kat gives me a look like I’m crazy. “Hell, yeah, you do.
Good thing Sister DeBrassio brought you a chastity belt.”
I stick my tongue out, buckle my seat belt, and crank Kat’s
car radio up as loud as it will go. She’s got a wild band on, and
I start thrashing my head around, rocking in my seat.
“Dear Lord, please shine your light down on this clunker
and keep it running tonight.” Kat makes the sign of the cross,
lights herself a new cigarette, and then peels out so fast her
tires squeal and smoke. “It’s still early,” she yells above the
music. “Let’s stop by my friend Ricky’s house and bum some
of his booze before we go to the maze.”
I nod and keep dancing. I’ve never drunk before, not even
one sip. I can tell it’s going to be a crazy night. Not bad crazy,
either, thank goodness. Crazy wonderful.