Defying their wishes was yet another minefield best avoided as public opinion and local press soured by the day.
Meanwhile, Buncombe County’s planners had no qualms about taking advantage of Cronus County’s bad luck to bolster their own burgeoning Thanksgiving-Christmas hullabaloo. Sponsors and participants were defecting to the new deal in droves, leaving less mobile parade route businesses in the lurch.
It wasn’t Mayor Stuyvesant’s fault, of course. But it was her responsibility. Now that it no longer took care of itself, her amusing foray into local politics as a supplement to the family’s vast local realty holdings had become one monstrous headache. And while it was tempting to cast blame elsewhere as she had seen colleagues do, that was less accepted among Saint Saturn’s pragmatic blue-collar folk than on a state or national level.
In simple terms, if she didn’t salvage the Pumpkin Parade, her chances of re-election were as dead as the leaves on the ground outside her office window.
* * * *
“Oh. Wait,” DeShaun said, hopping off his bike before they had even left his driveway.
He left it parked at the edge of the street and ran back into the garage, his gangly legs an inch too long for the jeans purchased new for the school year.
Stuart watched his friend, noting how he had grown at least two and a half inches since the previous October’s Pumpkin Parade Disaster, for this was how the passing of time was measured in Ember Hollow now.
DeShaun’s voice had started changing as well, sounding more like his father Hudson’s booming Jim Brown baritone.
They were both amused by this the first few times. DeShaun would exaggerate his own cracking pitch to draw a laugh from Stuart. This, Stuart knew, was a sign of confidence.
DeShaun trotted back with a bike tool. When he crouched to raise his seat, Stuart noted how bunched-up his body was, all folded in on itself, mostly so he could get to the seat clamp without having to bend over and risk the inevitable derriere punt such a posture rightfully called for.
Stuart had figured his own growth spurt would begin shortly after DeShaun’s, as he was a couple of months older. However, most of his classmates had soon passed him by. Compared to most boys his age, Stuart appeared a grade younger. The girls’ changes left him feeling like a small child. He feared he would soon find himself outside the dating pool. Specifically, he feared he would fall outside of Candace Geelens’s league, and that was the greatest tragedy he could imagine this side of his father’s death.
There was something else Stuart had told no one, not even DeShaun, not even when they decompressed about the Terrible Pumpkin Parade Calamity and its aftermath. Hell, his own brother Dennis had only found out by accident.
Only Ma knew intimately of his bedwetting incidents. Patient and loving as she was, Stuart was never less than embarrassed that she knew why he was darting into the bathroom to shower at 3 a.m.
And, oh Holy God in his Cotton Candy Heaven—what if Candace somehow found out!?
He both anticipated and dreaded her eventual visit to Ember Hollow. The thought of Candace looking more and more like a woman while he remained a twerp of a kid terrified him. He feared being the ugly little duckling to her, in the shadow of confident and manly DeShaun.
Stuart, the third wheel. The little boy with the dirty shameful secret.
He imagined tagging along behind the two attractive tweens who seemed like they might make “such a cute couple! Especially given all they’ve been through together…”
Already, girls were asking Stuart about DeShaun’s relationship status. So maybe there was that. With Candace in a foster home several school districts away, maybe DeShaun would get a girlfriend before she could come and fall helplessly smitten at his ever-growing feet.
But then, that would mean losing DeShaun, wouldn’t it?
Growing up often seemed like a losing game. Stuart’s position on the gameboard had him feeling more like The Incredible Shrinking Man, day by day.
“You’re gonna have to get a new bike,” he told DeShaun, as the other boy finished raising the seat. Then they took off to go nowhere particular; just to goof off, like any other time.
Stuart glanced at his friend and saw him make a very mature expression as the wind caught his face. He knew it would be a car or motorcycle DeShaun would be driving soon. The bigger boy would zoom by on his way to pick up a girl for a date, leaving Stuart to meander along aimlessly on his kiddie bike.
DeShaun would at least spare him a cool nod, though. And if he was lucky, Candace would give him an adoring head pat at church, between conversations with real young men—if Reverend McGlazer succeeded in adopting her, that is.
Adolescence is a crap shoot, a far from reliable predictor of adulthood. His brother Dennis had been so skinny, other rocker kids had called him “Ocasek.” These days, Dennis wasn’t a beefcake like Pedro, but he filled his blacks nicely enough, or so said Jill—back when she was still his squeeze.
The terrors of the Pumpkin Parade Calamity had at least given him a sense of perspective. Right now, he was grateful for long days with DeShaun and for the weirdly wonderful longing he felt for Candace. A year after nearly dying in horrifically spectacular fashion, Stuart knew he had a hell of a lot. And he wasn’t going to waste his time whining like some soap opera square. Not right now.
The blast of autumn air in his face brought the same old exhilaration as always. Stuart rode up beside his best friend and fellow massacre survivor and tried to be okay with still being a kid.
* * * *
Stella arrived at Saint Saturn’s early as usual, surprised to find McGlazer’s car already in the lot—he was usually at least a half hour behind her. Perhaps the stress of the adoption matter had made him restless.
Inside, other things were different too. She recalled the early signs of the previous October’s “haunting,” manifested as cold spots, errant piano notes and a general feeling of unease. As a sensitive, Stella often picked up on changes in the feel of a given place, seemingly more so since that Halloween night.
She made her rounds, switching on lights and unlocking public doors, expecting to find McGlazer in his office. Instead, he was in one of the daycare rooms, contemplating a print of Nathan Greene’s The Rescue. The painting depicted a Caucasian Jesus with shepherd’s staff, stooping to reach for a dark-coated lamb as it struggles to clamber over the roots of a fallen tree on a steep incline.
Stella remembered how McGlazer had furrowed his brow upon receiving the print from a parishioner. He found it to be a simplistic depiction of the messiah and His compassion, but it was for the children after all, so…
He greeted her with his usual “Morning, morning, morning!” but in something like an odd lilt, as if he were imitating the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Then he ogled her from head to toe with an expression of smug approval. He had never been one to treat women as eye candy. But that was how his gaze made her feel now. Like McGlazer had assumed an antiquated, even disdainful view of women somehow during the night.
When she saw the state of his hair and eyes, she realized he must have spent the night there.
“You seem lively,” she offered, wondering if he had fallen off the wagon.
“I’m a different person today!”
Something about Abe’s voice was disconcerting. The accent was gone, mostly, but an undercurrent of elvish mischief remained.
“Anything I should know?” she asked.
“Only that you’re as fetching a lass as there ever was!”
She blinked at him.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry Stella. Please forgive me. That was rude.”
She relaxed. It was his frustration with the adoption matter. He had understandably lashed out, belittling her as he had surely felt belittled when she’d offered to take over a commitment for which he had been deemed unfit, unworthy. She stepped closer and to
uched his shoulder. “Do you need an ear?”
“I think what I need, is some rest.”
“Can I drive you home?”
“If you’ll just call and postpone my appointments, we can both take the rest of the day off.”
“Of course.”
“I just want to sit and meditate for a bit first.” He squeezed her hand. “Please forgive me, Stella.” Where the salacious leer had been icky, the squeeze was appealing. Something was in it besides gratitude.
Chapter 8
Dog Soldiers
The quartet of Fireheads waited in their stolen jeep a few dozen yards from the gates of Cronus County Municipal Memorial Grounds, smoking various substances and laughing at WICH’s goofy deejays to pass the time. After the caretaker left for lunch, they hopped the fence.
The clumsily-named cemetery served as the default resting place for the county’s dead who had no estate or family to pay for a funeral.
Nico, Jiggy and Aura followed Pipsqueak to a remote corner of the sprawling grounds. Unlike Saint Saturn, this newer graveyard was mostly flat, with clearly marked plots.
Pipsqueak poked at a map he had printed off in the Ember Hollow library, then to a pair of tin markers in the ground. “Here we go, Chief.”
The remains of infamous mass murderess “Ragdoll Ruth” reposed here, alongside those of Everett Geelens—her contemporary and, ironically, her killer. Side by side they lay, in a remote corner of the park, under the limbs of a diseased walnut tree that had recently rained its ugly black fruit all around the two block-letter tin plates, like eggs hurled by Devil’s Night tricksters at the mean old woman who kept any basketballs that rolled into her yard.
Nico and his disciples formed a somber crescent around the two markers, as even the wind seemed to respectfully quiet down.
Nico’s breathing grew less steady, his tattooed shoulders rising just a millimeter higher with each exhale. Everyone knew not to speak again until he did.
“Bastards tossed her out like garbage,” Nico said through gritted teeth. “Right beside that dickhead retard that ganked her.” Nico pointed to Everett’s grave but only stared at Ruth’s.
He fell to his knees and rubbed his hand across the marker stamped with her name, stroking it, tracing all the letters and lines. “I’m so sorry, babe.” His voice cracked. The other bikers lowered their heads and closed their eyes, refusing to behold their leader in his weakness.
“I wish I coulda been there. Coulda showed you how to do it right.” He hunkered over and covered the tin plate with his body, shivering as a wail of agony escaped him. Jiggy doffed his leather cap and held it over his heart.
“I wish I coulda screwed you right in the blood of all those assholes,” Nico sobbed, rocking in his child pose, tearing grass away from around the plate, as he trembled. “But I’m gonna make it up to you, Ruthie.”
Aura had to walk away, overwhelmed with sympathy.
“Aaaaagghh! Wait till you see what I got in mind, Ruthie!” Nico fell to his side, hugging himself. “It’ll be all right, Babydoll,” he murmured. “You’ll see.”
Pipsqueak, Jiggy and Aura waited in silence for ten, fifteen minutes, no coughing or throat-clearing, no shifting of feet, no scratching of ears or rubbing of eyes, until Nico had finished.
Nico rose and dusted himself off, accepting a proffered bandana to wipe his eyes and nose. He tossed it to the side, took a deep breath and said, “Get the shovels.”
* * * *
Deep in trance, Matilda danced and muttered to Pan. She waved her athame at the monstrous pumpkin before which she cavorted in Ned Winchell’s pasture just a dozen yards from her barn, across a barbed wire fence laced with scrubby vine.
This particular super squash, nearly ready for harvest and transport to the Thanksgiving Festival in Buncombe County, had reached more than six feet in circumference.
The festival was a long-standing attempt by the Buncombe folk to compete with Cronus County’s Pumpkin Parade, and with the status of the parade unsettled at this late hour, the Buncombe planners hoped to accomplish exactly that. Regardless, the pumpkin promised a nice payday for both Matilda and Winchell. He had promised to give her half the grand prize if she produced a winner—ten thousand dollars.
Growing massive pumpkins was serious business for Winchell. He had an endorsement deal with a seed distributor and regularly contributed articles with growing tips to agriculture journals. He had won growing contests around the south, but as his fame grew so had his competition. He needed an edge.
When he approached Matilda with his proposition, she never hesitated. She’d done far worse than rigging pumpkin contests after all, and five grand could go far for a witch trying to lead a simple life. If only the other entrants and the agriculture journals and the seed folk knew about Farmer Winchell’s real secret, known only to Winchell, Matilda and her good old black magic.
Well…blackish.
The prize pumpkin itself was grown from a seed that Stella and Winchell had selected from a jar, which Winchell had filled with the plumpest spores he could find in the guts of previous winners. The two of them spread out the seeds and examined them the way they would rare coins or stamps, on a black cloth, under a bare one-hundred-watt bulb. Winchell, armed with a magnifying glass and a spritzer, gingerly aligned his tiny ovoid troops. Matilda peered into the heart of each one, rocking as she whispered to Pan (Winchell did not ask) until she felt the right vibrations rising to meet her hovering palm.
Matilda put her pinky finger on The One and slid it to the side. “There.”
Winchell nodded solemnly, convinced by her confidence. She placed it on a square of linen she had already blessed, then held it to her heart as he drove her around in his F-150. Despite being a work vehicle, it was kept showroom immaculate, as were Winchell’s fields, equipment and home.
Spotting her own barn near the fence, she pointed to a spot as much out of convenience as divine guidance, which could sometimes be the same thing after all.
The pumpkin had become a child to her, like her goats. She tended it every day and caressed its leaves and fattening girth, chasing away beetles with a mere whispered threat.
That had been mid-August.
Now, immersed in the flow of pure intention, she did not hear the Jeep driving up until after the goats had reacted by perking their heads up high and flicking their ears at the distant rumble. Whoever was driving—likely the one called Pipsqueak—treated the vehicle like it was disposable, attacking more than negotiating the rutted driveway to her two-story ranch house. Nugent burst from its cheap speakers.
“Dammit!” She scrambled to the fence line and climbed through, grateful for the line of scrubby growth of blackberry bushes that blocked view of the giant pumpkin, and the hulk of her big barn that hid her panicked clambering. “Make us move, Great Pan!”
The bikers likely had no interest in mundane agricultural projects, but their impulsive nature—something any follower of the impetuous Pan knew to expect—had her on guard nonetheless.
She stuffed the athame in the pocket of her long gray sweater and held the barbed wire apart for Argyle and Amos, for if she were to gain eight or so feet on them, the goats would go apoplectic, bleating like infants and likely shredding themselves to ribbons to get to her.
She waved as the Jeep parked, recognizing its occupants by their energy. There was a new feel though—one that deepened her unease.
Pipsqueak stepped from the driver side, essaying a broad wave that somehow carried the same sarcasm as his speech and gait.
The new one lit a cigarette with a shiny zippo as he came around from the passenger side. Leather vest over taut tattooed muscles, flowing brown beard and hair—he didn’t come off that different from any other biker. But Matilda knew that even for bikers, the Fireheads were hardly average. She knew exactly who this newcomer was, in fact.
“
Yo, Tilda May!” called Pipsqueak, spreading his arms like some denim-jacketed smart-ass Christ. “I brought somebody to meetcha!”
The gang had already set the table, making the newcomer sound like a rock star or Hollywood actor. Matilda pulled her sweater closed around her neck, as the man named Nico Rizzoli regarded her through cigarette haze and mirrored sunglasses.
“Chief, this is our new old pal Matilda, wicked witch of the south!”
Matilda hated that Pipsqueak’s smarmy description of her was so true.
“I’m Nico,” said the gang leader, with an expulsion of fragrant tobacco. “Thanks for all your good work.”
Matilda acknowledged to herself that nothing she did for these people would ever be considered “good,” but it was too late. She had done their bidding. Yet seeing and feeling Nico Rizzoli in the flesh, was like seeing the torn bodies in his wake.
Despite his outward icy demeanor, this was undoubtedly a man of fierce passions, violence chief among them.
She greeted him, trying to stand still against the goats jostling against her from behind, begging for shelter from the two-legged predators.
“Hey li’l fellas!” called Aura, squatting and extending her hand to the recoiling goats.
Jiggy, apparently the designated lookout, stood near the jeep and kept constant watch of the grounds and treeline.
“Got a little bonus for you,” said Rizzoli, as he extracted an inch-thick slab of cash from his inner vest pocket. He riffled the paper brick and handed it to her, showing clenched teeth in a way that could almost be a smile.
Matilda took it, faster than she was proud of, her eyes wider than she wished. “Well…thank you.” At least she was able to keep the excitement out of her voice. Argyle stuck her head around long enough to snuffle at the cash, while Amos nibbled her calf muscle, scolding.
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