“Would you ever have told me, if this hadn’t started happening?”
“Well, I would have had to, I guess. In about twenty years when I still wasn’t ageing.”
Cassandra smirked and pushed him. “Jerk.”
“I’m sorry! I don’t know when I would have told you. I was scared to.” He looked away, shoulders slumped. “I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”
Cassandra frowned. He was still Aidan. He’d never been anything different than what he was. She just hadn’t known. And she did understand why he would lie. It wasn’t the sort of thing you printed up on a t-shirt. There wasn’t really anything to forgive. “I just … have to get used to it.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “What about Andie and Henry? Will they get used to it?”
Andie and Henry. They talked to him, but with strange looks on their faces. Sometimes there was so much sheer concentration on Henry’s face, she thought he was going to pop something.
“I think so.”
“What? What are you thinking?”
“I’m just wondering, about my—” She gestured toward her head.
“Your prophecy?”
“Yeah.”
“What about it?”
She hesitated. “Do you … Do you know anything more about it? Why it’s there?”
Aidan smiled. “No. I just like it, that’s all. It makes you special. And don’t ask if it’s the only thing that makes you special. You know it’s not.”
“It’s just—you’ve always been so proud of it—”
“I haven’t been proud of it. I’ve been proud of you.”
She blinked. He’d cut her off so fast, almost like he was offended. “It’s just brought up a lot of questions. About everything.” Her teeth clenched. “And I don’t want you to be proud of it anymore. It’s a curse. That’s all it ever has been.” She stared at him, hard. She shouldn’t feel guilty for saying that. Even if his face looked like she’d just broken his favorite toy.
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just promise that this is the only secret you have. You’re not also a secret agent, or married, or actually my great-great-grandfather.”
He looked into her eyes. “I promise.”
* * *
Blood coated the entire chest and collar of her shirt. It came from a gaping wound that wrapped around her neck in a grotesque second mouth. Blood spilled out from it, running in thick drops over her white button-up and down the front of the maroon waist-apron that had been part of her uniform at the Java Joint coffee house that summer.
Cassandra stared into the mirror at her dead reflection. Her face was powdered pale to the point of being tinged blue. She touched her hair and her fingers stuck to it and came away streaked with red.
“I told you I didn’t want a head wound.”
“Don’t whine,” Andie said from behind her. “It’ll dry, and it’ll all wash out.” Andie fussed at the blood and squirted more of it into Cassandra’s hair, then down the front of herself. The two-ounce squeeze bottle of FX blood was almost empty. About time too. They were already late to Sam’s annual Halloween party.
“Do my guts look okay?”
Cassandra turned. Andie wore a dark blue corseted dress. A pile of intestines and other inner organs lay across her lower midsection. She’d squirted some of the fake blood over the top of it and smeared it around so it looked sickly real. She was dressed as Mary Kelly, the last prostitute dissected by Jack the Ripper.
“I think they still look like rubber.” Andie sighed and tugged at the edges of her dress, trying to make it seem like the intestines were coming from inside, rather than lying on top.
“They look good.” Cassandra wiped blood spatters from the sink with one of the dye-stained towels they used when they tried to put highlights in their hair. Mary Kelly was supposed to have been her costume, but she didn’t have the stomach for so much intestine. It was gross, even on Andie. And all the makeup had a sour, faintly medicinal smell. It was weaker than the smell inside of a rubber mask, but worse, because you couldn’t take it off to get away for a minute.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t have just gotten the Slutty Bo Peep and Slutty Cleopatra costumes like I wanted.”
“Because Halloween is for guts. It’s not a fricken Victoria’s Secret audition.”
“This from someone whose dress is pushing her cleavage up into her chin. You’re not historically accurate, you know. I’m pretty sure when they found Mary Kelly, Jack had sliced both of her boobs off.”
Andie looked horrified. “Sick.”
“Well, yeah. He was Jack the Ripper.”
Aidan was going to the party as Jack. He and Cassandra were supposed to be a matched set, but the costume fit Andie just as well. Cassandra glanced at her friend’s corset. Truthfully, Andie had a little bit more up front to fill it out. A knock on the door preceded Henry’s head, clad in a pirate hat.
“What’s taking so long? Aidan’s downstairs already, and if we don’t leave soon we’ll have to walk for blocks.”
“What are you supposed to be?” Andie asked. Henry gave her a look, and so did the stuffed parrot on his shoulder.
“I don’t know what’s going to scare people more,” he said lightly. “Those guts, or the sight of you in a dress.” He ducked out the door just in time to avoid a spray of blood. Cassandra wiped it from the wood.
“Cheer up,” Andie said. “Sam’s Halloween parties are legendary.” Cassandra didn’t know what was so legendary about fog from dry ice and punch with spiders floating in it, but there was always a DJ and an impressive array of food that might or might not be a prank in disguise. And Andie’s expression was so hopeful. Cassandra smiled.
“You are going to surprise a few people in that dress.”
Andie tried to squirt her, but the bottle of blood was empty.
Aidan and Henry waited in the entryway, talking to Cassandra’s mother, who was dressed as an enormous yellow canary. She was Tweety Bird, complete with orange tights and huge orange feet. Her parents were going to a Halloween party of their own, something thrown by the higher-ups at her dad’s marketing firm. Somewhere in the house, a man-sized Sylvester the Cat was lurking.
“Oh.” Cassandra’s mother smiled, her face coming out of the bird’s mouth. “You girls look disgusting.”
“Thanks, Maureen,” said Andie.
“It’s my handiwork,” said Aidan. He wore a long black cape and top hat. A long-bladed fake knife was tucked into his vest.
“You kids are pretty sick,” Maureen said. “Here. Have some Snickers and Milky Ways before you go.” She reached for a Tupperware megabowl filled with fun-sized candy bars. The contents had already dwindled; most of the neighborhood kids had been through earlier that evening, ringing the doorbell in packs of witches and superheroes.
They grabbed their candy and headed for the door. On the way out, Cassandra’s mother caught her arm and whispered, “I’m glad you and Aidan made up.”
“Me too.” Cassandra smiled.
“Have fun. And be careful.” She watched them through the window until they pulled out of the driveway in Henry’s Mustang, then let the curtain drop.
* * *
“For a scrub in a stocking cap, Sam has a really nice house.” Andie whistled through her teeth. Sam’s house was a gigantic stone monstrosity that was basically a mansion. It sat at the top of a pine-covered hill, near the end of a winding street lined with similar stone beast houses. The curve of the horseshoe driveway was already packed with cars and more were parked along the curb. Henry muttered “I told you so” and hunted for an empty space. When he tried to parallel park between two SUVs, he misjudged the distance and braked hard. Andie jerked forward in the passenger seat.
“Watch it. You’re going to wrinkle my intestines.”
“If you hadn’t taken so long with those stupid things, we’d have been able to park in the driveway.”
“And if you had y
our eyes on the road and not on my décolletage, you wouldn’t be trying to park in a space that’s too small.”
Henry blushed. “Just don’t get any of that stupid blood on the seat.”
They found a space and walked. It was cold, and they weren’t wearing coats. The temp had dropped down below freezing and it was threatening to snow. Andie shivered as she tugged at her rubber innards, but she had to be less cold than Kjirsten Miels and Leslie Denton, who ran past dressed as some kind of risqué fairies with yards of exposed skin. As they approached the house, the music pumped bass through the frozen lawn, and screams from cheap scares drifted through the brick. Andie tucked a curl of intestine behind a lobe of plastic liver and knocked on the door. Sam swung it wide, dressed as the Headless Horseman. He had a black stick horse under his arm, and the bloody stump of his neck glistened wetly above his head. He looked them over and his eyes widened.
“Boobs, Andie!”
“Shut up, Sam. You should’ve put your stocking cap on your stump. You look weird without it.” He laughed and let them pass. Something was said to Henry about having a peg leg in his pocket or just being happy to see her, but Andie and Cassandra pretended to not hear.
Sam put an arm around each of them and pointed to the food, the drinks, the DJ. Cassandra looked over her shoulder at Aidan just as the door closed and thought she saw something move in the driveway, a flash of something between a maroon Explorer and a tan Malibu. Aidan caught her eye and smiled. She smiled back and let Sam lead them through the foyer.
The temperature change inside the house was extreme. The proliferation of bodies had heated the rooms far more than the thermostat intended. It felt oddly like walking into their overheated school.
“There’s the punch,” Sam said, preparing to leave them in the kitchen. “If you want anything spiked, let me know.” He mounted his stick horse and spun away.
Andie went to the punch bowl and filled a plastic cup while Cassandra looked suspiciously at a bowl of some kind of pasta salad.
“Think it’s a prank?”
“Yes, I think it’s a prank. Who has pasta salad at a Halloween party? Stick to prepackaged foods.”
Another pirate spotted Henry and yelled. There was a small group of them dressed that way, all eye patches, peg legs, and gold teeth. Beneath the makeup, Cassandra recognized some of the varsity players. Henry waved but didn’t leave.
“You don’t have to stay glued to me all night,” Cassandra said.
Henry glanced at Aidan and smiled. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Cassandra took a deep breath and chewed on a cracker. The kitchen smelled like pizza; three boxes sat on the table. Cassandra went to grab a slice of Canadian bacon and caught a whiff of alcohol. A puddle of something clear dripped onto the floor. She mopped it up with a napkin and sniffed. Vodka.
“Hey, Cassandra.”
“Hey, Megan. Careful, something spilled.” She grabbed the girl’s shoulder when she slid. Megan’s costume was Slutty Bo Peep, her blond hair in pigtails and a cotton bonnet on her head. She used her sheepherding cane to prop herself up and took a slice of pizza.
“I really need to eat something, or I’m going to pass out. Can you hold my sheep?” She handed off the small inflated animal, blue eyes painted onto white plastic. Then she picked up a napkin and walked off, forgetting her livestock entirely. Cassandra set it on the table.
“How can she be that drunk already?” Aidan asked, watching her wobble back to the dance floor.
“How could I have suggested Andie buy that Bo Peep outfit?”
Aidan shrugged. “It would’ve looked nice on you.” He wrapped his cape around her shoulders and stole a bite of pizza.
Getting to the party late was a good idea. They’d missed the awkward start-up, when only a few people were there and the music echoed through the space. Now it was packed, and people danced and crowded the furniture. Not a single chair or sofa arm was unoccupied and the noise stuffed itself into their ears: cackled laughter and constant conversations weaved through the beat of music. It seemed like everyone had come in costume; there were so many masks and layers of makeup it was hard to tell who was who. Girls were mostly flash and glitter, lipstick and sequins. At least five wore fishnet stockings.
Andie stood surrounded by girls from her hockey team. They pulled her toward the back of the house and up the stairs, where Sam had set up a haunted house.
“Aidan! Cassandra! You coming?” She gestured up the stairs.
Cassandra waved her off. Maybe later. Though the haunted portion of the house probably wouldn’t exist later. Whoever was doing the scaring upstairs would get bored, and people would start using the dark rooms to make out.
There was an odd synchronicity to her thoughts as a giant human condom passed by en route to the punch bowl. Cassandra laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. Giant human condom made me laugh.”
Aidan grinned and watched the condom walk away. It was basically a huge square of gold foil with legs.
“I’m glad we came. I missed the sound of you laughing.” He put his hands around her waist and pulled her close.
Color rose into her cheeks, visible even beneath the smear of white makeup. She swallowed. Being touched by him was different now, even if she didn’t want to admit it. The heat in his hands, and the strength, made her heart pound. He kissed her and she forgot where she was and wrapped her arms around him. He lifted her like she weighed nothing. When her feet hit the floor it took an extra second for her brain to catch up.
It’s like he’s never touched me before. Like he was holding back the whole time. And now everything’s different.
“That was hot.”
They looked across the table. Megan stared at them with wide eyes. “Sorry. Forgot my sheep.”
Cassandra giggled into Aidan’s shoulder. “Let’s just … go find Andie.”
* * *
Somehow they managed to snag a corner of sofa in the living room, far enough away from the DJ that they could carry on a conversation. Andie sat on the arm, careful to keep her bloody entrails off of the leather, in case it would stain. A few feet in front of them, the Quentin twins showed off their new matching tattoos. The pulled-down sleeves of their costumes revealed twisting black tribal marks. Amy’s was on her right shoulder, and Angie’s on her left. Standing face-to-face in identical clothing, they were like mirror images.
“They only dress the same on Halloween,” Andie mused. “It’s weird. I wonder if they have a secret twin language.”
“Not every set of twins has weird secret twin languages,” said Aidan. “Artemis and I didn’t. Though I could read her mind sometimes.” He paused and looked down. Andie blinked and basically ignored him. Cassandra squeezed his hand. One day it wouldn’t hurt to talk about Artemis. Or maybe it always would.
Andie went back to studying the tattoos.
“Twin symmetry aside, it’s sort of cool looking. Not something I’d get, though. I don’t think I could get a tattoo. It’d be there forever unless I sprang for the laser treatments. And I hear those hurt like a bitch.”
Cassandra nodded and watched a bunch of werewolves ogle Andie’s chest from across the room. There was no shortage of skin for their eyes to feast on, but Andie’s skin was a surprise. Even Sam had stopped by more than once to put an arm around her and tell her something or other.
“Hey,” Cassandra said. “Boys are staring.”
Andie scowled. “Hey! I’m a murder victim.” She pointed to her exposed guts. The wolf howled and his friends laughed. “Perverts. What kind of sicko gets turned on by a dead girl? I’m going to find your brother.”
Andie walked away, bobbing and dodging through groups of people and dancing bodies. The way some of them were gyrating, you’d think they were trying to turn the party into a bacchanal. Cassandra’s mind slid back to Aidan and the kiss they’d had in the kitchen. She turned and whispered in his ear.
“I think it’s time we checked out the ha
unted house.”
He smiled, and the heat from his body jumped. “Follow me upstairs in a few minutes.” When he got up, his fingers trailed along her leg.
Take a breath. This is bordering on unhealthy.
With Aidan gone, she looked around and tried to be inconspicuous. In the corner of her eye, someone sat in a porcelain mask, dark eyes watching her through the cutouts. But when she turned, there was no one there. Cassandra blinked.
Probably just my imagination.
Everyone seemed to be caught up in their own conversations, and no one had asked her to do the coin trick yet, which was nice. She wasn’t in the mood.
How long had it been since Aidan had left? Long enough to go after him? There weren’t any clocks on the walls and she hadn’t checked her phone for the time. She stood and walked toward the hallway. More than likely she’d stumble into the wrong dark room and get yelled at by some couple. Or she’d open a door and have a skeleton jump up and rattle in her face.
The music changed to some song that sounded like a remix of My Morning Jacket. The closer she got to the music, the more people shouted to be heard, and through the crowd she saw Henry’s face rise up over the other faces like the dorsal fin of a shark. She veered away toward the stairs, so he wouldn’t see her sneaking off to meet Aidan. But then he also didn’t see someone grab her from behind and pull her through an open door. Her yelp of surprise was drowned out by laughter and music, which itself was muted when the door closed in front of her.
“Shh,” a male voice said into her ear. “And don’t struggle or you’ll fall down the stairs.”
She looked down. Her feet balanced precariously on a stone staircase leading to the basement. The light where they were was dim and yellow, thrown from a single blurry bulb. It smelled like stone and was kept cool enough to make her arms prickle. After the heat upstairs, it felt almost good.
“What are you doing?” she asked. It was the first thing she thought to say. After the initial surprise of being grabbed, her heart began to thump its way back to normal. She was at Sam’s house, at a party. Someone had grabbed her to play a prank or something. It was probably someone she knew.
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