by Meg Muldoon
“And Aileen, do you take Warren to be your husband?”
“With my whole heart and then some,” she said.
“Then, by the power invested in me by God, I now pronounce you man and wife,” he said, unenthusiastically.
Warren reached for his bride and gave her a sweet, tender kiss. The crowd burst into a round of happy applause.
If the hot ovens hadn’t already melted away my makeup, then the tears finished the job.
Good old Warren was happier than I’d ever seen him.
And there was nobody else on earth who deserved that joy more than the old-timer.
Chapter 4
The house looked as if it had been hit by a level-five hurricane.
Dirty dishes were strewn nearly everywhere. Someone, who I suspected to be Harold, had spilled pumpkin beer all over the new rug in the living room. Someone else, who I also strongly suspected to be Harold, had knocked over several champagne glasses in the kitchen, and while I had done my best to clean up the shattered remnants, small shards had embedded themselves in the most unsuspecting places.
Meanwhile, the spice and cream-colored wedding decorations, which had so elegantly adorned the entirety of the house only a few hours before, were in complete ruins, most of them now scattered on the floor in heaps.
Empty beer bottles and half-eaten food and mud tracks seemed to be everywhere I turned.
Maybe, just maybe, hosting a wedding in our backyard and the subsequent reception in our house might not have been the soundest decision.
“Hindsight’s always 20/20, isn’t it?” Daniel said, coming up next to me and rubbing my shoulders.
He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.
“Unless of course, you’re Harold,” I quipped. “In which 20/20 vision of any kind will always elude you.”
I shook my head, eyeing the large stain on the rug where Harold had spilled his beer.
I swear. The Pine Needle Tavern bartender was practically a menace.
I stood in silence for a moment longer, surveying the mess that had once been our house. Then I let out a defeated grumble.
“Well, I guess at least it was worth it, right?” I said. “Everybody had a good time, don’t you think?”
“Warren and Aileen certainly did,” Daniel said. “The two of them were acting like teenagers the whole evening.”
The newlyweds had been on cloud nine for the entire reception. Warren especially. The evening had all his favorite things: his new bride, his family, his friends, copious amounts of Northwest-brewed beer, and of course, plenty of freshly-baked autumn pie.
“Well, that’s what matters the most,” I said, letting out a sigh. “Not all the wreckage left behind.”
I tilted my head back to look at Daniel.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked.
“‘Course I did,” he said, smiling. “But to tell you the truth, I’ve been looking forward to the, uh, quiet part of the night. You know, having it be just you and me.”
He shook his head.
“I tell you, I probably heard that old story about Warren jumping off of that tire swing when he was a kid at least ten times tonight from all of the old man’s pals.”
I chuckled.
I knew Warren’s group of buddies to have many qualities: loyalty, humor, and kindness, among other attributes. Short-term memory, however, wasn’t exactly their strong suit.
“Well, I guess this place isn’t going to clean itself,” I said, reaching for a few dishes in front of me that held the remains of the pumpkin pie.
But just as I did, Daniel reached for my arm and abruptly pulled me to him. A moment later, we were face to face, with his arms resting on my hips.
His green eyes were bright and full of devilment.
“Hey, I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “What do you say we leave this mess be for a while?”
I glanced around, making a face. Then I looked back up at him.
“And what do you propose we do instead?”
“I say we get out of these clothes and into some comfortable ones. I say we get the dogs, and we all take a nice little neighborhood stroll.”
“Aw, I thought you were going to say something else there for a moment,” I said, smiling wryly.
“All in good time, Mrs. Brightman,” he said. “I’ve got other plans for the rest of the night, too. And not a single one of them involves dishwashers or vacuums or scrubbing Harold’s beer off the rug.”
I looked around the living room one last time, thinking about the disarray and how badly my feet already hurt from the long evening.
I didn’t know if I had a stroll in me after the events and emotions of the day. And I was just about to say so, but then a thought struck me.
I felt my lips curl up.
“I see right through you, Daniel Brightman.”
His eyebrows drew together in confusion, but it didn’t fool me none.
“You just want to go down to Santa’s Nightmare Lane, don’t you?”
He smiled, and then shrugged nonchalantly at the accusation.
“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
There was a hint of mischief in his eyes that said that it had.
Santa’s Nightmare Lane was a street in Christmas River’s oldest neighborhood and about half a mile away from our house. The street’s real name was Lavender Lane, but nobody around here called it that anymore. Because every year in October, folks in that neighborhood would go all out on a Halloween-meets-Christmas-inspired theme, decorating their houses and lawns to the hilt with spooky ghosts and goblins in Santa hats and elf costumes. The tradition had been in place for as long as anybody could remember, and many folks around here thought that Tim Burton had somehow caught wind of it back in the 1990s, and had come up with The Nightmare Before Christmas based on Christmas River’s premiere Halloween street.
“You’ve got the whole town fooled, don’t you?” I said, leaning in closer to Daniel. “They all think you’re this tough, no-nonsense lawman, when in reality, underneath the badge and the cowboy hat, you’re just a grown-up kid who wishes he could still go trick-or-treating.”
He shrugged again and smiled.
“You know me too well, Cin,” he said, planting a quick kiss on the bridge of my nose. “Now let’s hurry up. I want to get there before it gets too late and they turn the lights off for the night.”
He headed for the dogs’ leashes in the foyer.
I glanced around the living room one last time.
I didn’t suppose leaving it for an hour more could make the mess any worse than it already was.
Chapter 5
A skeletal Santa Claus waved a bony hand from atop a third story chimney, singing a little ditty about boiling the bones of bad boys and girls and eating them for a midnight snack. Meanwhile, his skeleton reindeer fleet moved their sharp antlers in unison to the catchy jingle, their eyes glowing red in the velvety night sky.
Daniel’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open slightly as he gazed up at the spectacle. For a moment, he looked no older than ten.
I chuckled, finding more entertainment in my husband’s child-like expression than I did in the skeleton Santa Claus and his reindeer fleet.
“Just like I thought,” I said. “Beneath that badge, you’re just a kid who never grew up.”
He grinned.
“This time of year I am, anyway.”
After a few more moments of gawking, he finally pulled away from the house, and we strolled on down to the next one, Huckleberry and Chadwick leading the way. The night was autumn in a jar: crisp, cool, smoke-tinged air, dry leaves dancing in the wind, and a full moon that glowed like an electrified grapefruit near the horizon.
While I joked with Daniel about his love for Halloween and all its decorations, I also knew that his obsession with the holiday was rooted in the same kind of place that my own obsession with the annual Gingerbread Junction Competition came from. As a kid, Halloween and its festivities had be
en a distraction for him, something that helped take his mind away from his family’s troubles: from the fact that his mom had left. And from the fact that he didn’t get along with his dad.
And while the pain from those troubles had lessened somewhat with the passing years, his love for Halloween hadn’t. If anything, he’d become more obsessed with the holiday.
The dogs stopped walking for a moment, intrigued by a Styrofoam grave with the inscription Here Lies Lester Moore, No Less, No More. We paused, letting them have their fun.
“How much do you think these folks spend around here on all these decorations?” Daniel asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his buffalo plaid coat.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably several hundred at least, if I were to guess. Why?”
Daniel shrugged.
“I’m thinking about investing in some serious Halloween décor is all,” he said. “Just wondering what it might cost to compete with the houses around here.”
He looked over at me, raising his eyebrows. He spoke like he was just making idle chit-chat, but we’d been together long enough for me to figure out what he was really doing.
It was his way of running the idea past me to see how I felt about it.
Money wasn’t growing from trees lately. And while business at the pie shop had been booming, costs for its much-needed renovations and for the upcoming expansion plans had been hefty. Alex Rosell, an investor who had approached me in August, was helping with a large chunk of it, but I was still fronting a good portion.
Being Sheriff, Daniel, of course, was doing well in terms of income. But we’d both decided to save money to pay off some credit card debt we’d acquired when times had been tighter, and Halloween decorations didn’t exactly fall into that category.
Many women might have been put out by the notion of their husbands spending several hundred on decorations that only came out once a year.
But I guess when it came to celebrating holidays, I was a sucker myself for spending big.
“I think that’s a grand idea,” I said.
Daniel raised his eyebrows again.
“Really?” he said, surprise in his voice.
I looked over and smiled as Huckleberry and Chadwick started walking again.
“Really,” I said. “I mean, I think it’s a matter of principle for the Sheriff of Pohly County to have the best Halloween decorations in town, don’t you?”
He grinned.
“I’d never thought of it that way before, Cin.”
“And while we don’t live on Santa’s Nightmare Lane, I’m pretty sure we can still compete with these houses here, don’t you think?” I added.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” he said, his grin growing brighter. “But I will say I’ll do my best.”
“That’s always been more than good enough for me.”
He placed an arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.
“How’d I ever get so lucky to catch you?” he said.
“It’s a question for the ages,” I teased.
Normally, he would have made me pay for that little comment: either by running his fingers across the ticklish spot on my abdomen, or by feigning a crazy look in his eye and chasing me. But his attention was already on the next spooky house by then, ogling the over-the-top decorations the way Huckleberry might ogle a slice of warm Marionberry pie.
I smiled and shook my head to myself once again.
Even after being together for this long, Daniel Brightman never failed to amuse me.
Chapter 6
I knew we had gone too far when Huckleberry let out a soft whimper.
But, as if lost in some sort of hypnotized dream, I found that all I could do was stand there, staring up at the decrepit house like it was a five car pile-up I had just narrowly missed being part of.
The house, which was close to a century old, looked every bit its age. The paint, which had once been white, had been faded by the sun and was peeling more than a tourist in Hawaii who left his sunscreen on the plane. The porch was rickety and unstable-looking. The lawn was deader than dead: nobody could remember a time when it had been alive. The old-fashioned awnings were falling apart, with large cracks where the years of snow and rainwater had worked at. The decorative copper five-point star, which had hung outside the house’s second story for decades, was old and rusted, and though I couldn’t see it in the dark, I knew it had turned a shade of light green from years of being left out in the sun. There were so many pine needles and aspen leaves resting atop the ancient rooftop, the debris was an entire roof unto itself.
Even in my thirties, it was hard to look at the house and not feel like running down the street, as far away as possible. The structure had a way of making you feel like a child when you stood in its ominous presence.
Not to mention the singular fact that everybody in Christmas River, from ages one to 99, knew about the house.
That a witch lived in it.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
“That house doesn’t get any less sad, does it?”
I rubbed my arms. Though I was wearing a thick down coat that was cozy in temperatures much colder than the ones tonight, I still felt a chill pass through me as I gazed at the house.
“Funny, I never thought of it as sad,” I whispered. “I always just thought of it as… well… creepy as hell.”
The decaying home that stood at the far end of Santa’s Nightmare Lane was the only one in the entire neighborhood that did not put up Halloween decorations. But it didn’t need any – it was by far the spookiest house in the whole of Christmas River. And it had been for as long as I could remember.
Part of that obviously had to do with the neglected state of the structure itself. The other part had to do with Hattie Blaylock, the former piano teacher – now elderly recluse, who inhabited it.
“You know, I saw her today,” I whispered, feeling another chill pass through me at the memory from earlier that day.
In all the hubbub of Warren’s wedding, I had forgotten the old woman standing on the sidewalk, glaring at me.
“Who?” Daniel asked.
I bit my lower lip.
“The Witch,” I said in a voice so low, it was hardly audible.
“Wait, what?” he said, turning toward me. “You’re saying you saw old Hattie today… and that she was outside?”
I nodded and bit my lip.
“Not just anywhere, either,” I rasped. “She was outside the pie shop. She was… she was looking in. At me.”
Daniel rubbed the stubble on his chin. A confounded look came across his face as he gazed up at the old house.
As if on cue, Chadwick let out a short yip that sounded like a coyote howl. I felt another round of goosebumps break out.
“But how did you know it was her? Nobody’s probably gotten a good look at old Hattie in a decade.”
“I don’t know how,” I said, rubbing my arms again. “I just knew it was her.”
Whether or not Hattie Blaylock was actually a witch was a matter of some debate in Christmas River – at least among the adults. No one in the small town could claim to have seen her cast a spell, mix a potion, or give anybody the evil eye. What the townsfolks did know for sure, however, was that Hattie Blaylock did not attend any church in the area. She was hardly ever seen in fact. She lived alone in the old house. People said she had once been married, but that her husband left her shortly after they were wed. Children in the area, at least when I was growing up, had said that he hadn’t really left her at all: that she’d actually turned him into a white cat, renamed him Mr. Adams, and forced him to become her familiar. Other kids said that old Hattie got sick of her husband, and murdered him one night. She hid the crime by chopping up his body and putting it in several pot pies, which she had served at the town’s annual Millworkers Christmas Ball, back when the town had an operating mill.
The tales, of course, were just that: tales. Legends that schoo
l children told and retold and changed depending on the times. An old woman who lived alone and kept to herself was the kind of thing that always drew speculation and rumors, no matter what century it was. And once I’d grown up, I hardly gave any merit to the things kids said about old Hattie Blaylock.
But seeing the old woman out on the street, staring at me this morning… well, it had a way of bringing back all those old feelings and fears.
“You know it’s all just talk, don’t you, Cin? You know that she’s just a sad woman living alone and not really a witch.”
I swallowed hard and realized that a small puddle of sweat had pooled above my upper lip, despite the chilly air.
I had the uneasy sensation that we’d been standing there too long, looking at the house.
That someone might have taken notice.
“I know,” I said, wiping away the sweat with a quick motion. “Just… it’s just those things you hear about when you’re a kid have a way of staying with you.”
Daniel squeezed my shoulder and pulled me closer.
“C’mon,” he said. “There’s no reason for us to be here.”
We turned our backs on the old house, and started walking again, back down to where the homes were bright with lights and decorations.
Compared to Hattie Blaylock’s old house, the rest of the homes on Santa’s Nightmare Lane were just child’s play.
“I’m sure Hattie was just looking in your storefront window earlier because your pies are just so damn tempting,” Daniel said as we got farther away.
“You think?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Hell, if I hadn’t been out of my home in a decade, your pie shop would be the first place I’d go to, too.”
I smiled slightly, but it faded faster than a flame in a downpour.
Because there was one other thing that kids said about old Hattie Blaylock.
That if you did indeed have the bad fortune of seeing her, then you would be the next to die.
Daniel stopped in his tracks and reached for my hand, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Cin, it’s just kids’ stuff,” he repeated. “Kids always make things up like that. It comes with living in a small town. Don’t give it a second thought, all right?”
