Unbroken Vows

by Christine Pope

  It seemed Audrey wasn’t quite convinced, either, because she only said, “Maybe,” and left it there. They didn’t have the time to get into it any more than that, because one o’clock was almost upon them, and Rosemary needed to unlock the door and take the “be back in” sign down.

  After saying that she and Michael would be at the shop a little before five, Audrey hung up. Rosemary threw the wrapper from her sandwich in the trash and reopened the store, although she didn’t expect to get too many customers. The lead-up to Halloween was busy, but once the day itself arrived, things tended to quiet down. Fine by her; she already had a sign in the window that said, “closing at 4:30 on Halloween,” so would-be customers would know what to expect. She hadn’t dressed up that day since there weren’t any events in the downtown area itself, and she needed that extra time to change. Will planned to get into his costume at the house; it wasn’t that far out of the way, and dressing up in advance would simplify things for everyone.

  Four-thirty rolled around, and Rosemary turned the “closed” sign around and locked the door, then headed back to the bathroom so she could get changed into her costume. Because Halloween itself was quiet, Isabel hadn’t worked that day, and instead planned to come by a little before five.

  It felt kind of strange to climb out of her clothes and into her costume, knowing she was all alone in the place, and so Rosemary got dressed as quickly as she could, fingers flying up the metal clasps on the front of her corset. Once she was fully dressed — or as dressed as she could be, in that kind of getup — she worked on darkening her makeup, pulling her hair up and fastening the feather to one side with its jeweled clip.

  All that done, she folded her street clothes and put them in the little overnight bag she’d used to carry some of her costume bits and pieces, then stowed it on a spare stretch of shelf in the storage room.

  When she turned around, she saw Madeline Nash standing in front of her.

  A gasp escaped her lips. “M-madeline,” she stammered. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d moved on.”

  The ghost stared at her with blank, dark eyes. “You didn’t keep it safe.”

  “What?” Rosemary asked. “Keep what safe?”

  “The footage,” Madeline whispered. “They took it, and it’s everywhere.”

  Guilt assailed her, even though Rosemary knew she and Will and everyone else had done their best to keep Colin’s files out of the demons’ hands. “I know,” she said sadly. “We tried, Madeline. We didn’t know that they’d made a copy. But it will be okay — people forget about this stuff when the next shiny thing comes along. We just have to be patient.”

  “You don’t understand,” the ghost said. “It’s out, and so is its power. You can’t stop that.”

  “What power?” Rosemary tried to sound calm, but that comment about the footage’s “power” had made an uneasy chill shudder its way down her neck. “What are you talking about?”

  But the ghost was already growing dim. “Can’t…stop…it….”

  And then she was gone.

  Rosemary stared at the spot where Madeline’s ghost had been standing — floating, really — but there was no trace of her.

  Three knocks sounded on the back door, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she realized it had to be Will, showing up right when he’d said he would. With shaking fingers, she unlocked the door and opened it. He stood outside, almost impossibly gorgeous in his Wild West getup, but she found she wasn’t quite as thrilled by the sight as she knew she should be.

  “Hi, Rosemary,” he began, then stopped as he appeared to get a better look at her. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She gave him a humorless grin. “I have.”

  “What?”

  Rosemary closed the door and locked it, saying, “Madeline Nash was here just a minute ago.”

  Will glanced around, as if expecting to see some trace of the ghostly visitor. “I thought she’d moved on,” he said, his voice troubled.

  “So did I. But apparently, she had different ideas.” Now that Will was here, Rosemary realized that her hands were shaking. She clenched them as she went on, “It seems she isn’t too happy with us for letting the demons release the footage.”

  “We didn’t exactly ‘let’ them,” he said.

  “I know. I tried to tell her that. Anyway, she said something about the power in them being ‘out’ and how we couldn’t stop it now.”

  His brows drew together as he appeared to puzzle through that remark. Then his expression grew even grimmer. “I wonder if she was talking about what I’ve been seeing — people’s faith being challenged by all this.”

  “It’s not that bad, is it?” Rosemary put a hand on Will’s arm, trying to reassure herself with the sense of strength she got from that touch. “I mean — it’s just some viral videos. This sort of stuff always peaks and then gives way to the next big thing.”

  “Except most viral videos don’t make people question their beliefs about God and the universe,” he replied, crystalline eyes cloudy with worry.

  No, she supposed not. But since there wasn’t much any of them could do about it, she tried to reassure herself that Madeline appearing now wasn’t the dark portent it appeared to be. “I still think you’re overestimating people’s attention spans,” she said lightly, and he seemed to relax a little.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Another knock on the back door. This time, it was Isabel outside, back in her Professor McGonagall costume. She looked at her sister and said at once, “What’s the matter?”

  Rosemary glanced at Will, and he gave a barely imperceptible lift of his shoulders.

  But because it was Izzie — who would be able to tell right away if her sister was trying to keep something from her — Rosemary explained what had happened.

  Isabel shook her head. “This isn’t good.”

  “I know that, but, as I was just telling Will, I don’t know if there’s much we can do about it.”

  “Maybe not, but…we should all be careful tonight.”

  “Already planning on it,” Will said, hands resting on his hips. No, he wasn’t wearing even fake guns as part of his costume, but something about the way he stood seemed to indicate he was mentally preparing for a different kind of battle than the one that had gone down at the OK Corral.

  Isabel gave a nod, although her expression was still troubled, as if she wasn’t sure whether any of them were prepared for what might be looming on this particular Halloween. Before she could speak, though, there was yet another knock at the back door.

  Michael and Audrey this time…and with Fred Peñasco accompanying them, although it took Rosemary a second or two to recognize him. She had absolutely no idea where he’d managed to dig up the costume, but he was dressed as Professor Snape from the Harry Potter movies, right down to the shaggy black hair.

  “I thought Isabel and I should be a matched set, since the rest of you are,” he explained as the group entered the receiving area at the back of the store. “So, I found myself a Snape costume.”

  “How do you just ‘find’ a Snape costume?” Rosemary inquired, surprised enough by his appearance to momentarily forget about her encounter with Madeline’s ghost.

  “Well, if you’re Fred, you dig around on the internet,” Audrey said. “And then you pull in a few favors.”

  Fred gave a modest shrug, a gesture that looked vaguely ludicrous under all those heavy, sweeping robes. “I knew somebody who knew somebody. They tracked the costume down for me. And here we are.”

  “You look wonderful,” Isabel said.

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Even with this hair?”

  The question elicited a smile. “Even with that hair.” She looked away from Fred, over at her sister, and Rosemary gave the faintest shake of her head. Maybe it was foolish not to tell Michael and Audrey and Fred what had just happened with Madeline’s ghost, but Rosemary didn’t see the point in upsetting everyon
e. They were going to have a good time tonight, even if it killed her.

  “Well,” she said briskly, “we might as well head over to Finkbiner Park. I was going to suggest we walk, but if we’re going to go up to Rubel Castle immediately afterward, then it doesn’t make much sense to do that. Maybe we should carpool?”

  “Two cars, though,” Michael replied. “None of our cars are big enough to cram all six of us in.”

  Which was true, especially with several of them wearing bulky costumes.

  “Well, the four of you can go in Audrey’s car,” Will suggested. “And Rosemary and I can take mine. We’ll collect her car from the parking lot here at the end of the night. It’ll be safe, won’t it?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “I’ve left it overnight here once or twice.”

  “And I walked, so I don’t have a car,” Isabel put in. “So that makes it that much easier. My mother went with Celeste and Kevin because she wanted to see Tyler in the costume contest.”

  “Sounds like it’s all handled, then,” Will said. “What time is the contest?”

  “Oh, not until six,” Isabel replied. “We have time.”

  Even so, they all trooped out of the store then, Rosemary pausing to lock up and turn on the alarm as she went. She waved at the other two couples as they got into Audrey’s CR-V, then gingerly climbed into Will’s Dodge Challenger — a feat that wasn’t as easy as it looked, what with her floofy skirts and feather in her hair, not to mention the corset. It was a real one with metal bones, made for reenactors, and bending over in the thing was kind of a challenge.

  “I don’t know how women managed back in the day,” she remarked as Will helped her with the seatbelt, since she wasn’t very bendable.

  “I kind of doubt they were getting in and out of muscle cars,” he replied, smiling a little. “And also, they were used to wearing those things.”

  She supposed so. Well, at least after this evening, she wouldn’t have to wear the corset again until next Halloween…unless Will asked nicely, of course.

  The thought made her smile to herself, an expression he obviously caught, even though she’d thought his attention was on the road, since they’d just pulled out of the parking lot and onto Meda Avenue.

  “Looking forward to partying at Rubel Castle?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Rosemary replied. It was probably better not to mention what she’d really been thinking about. “I can’t wait for everyone to see the place. It’s really amazing. But also…I suppose I was thinking about how nice it was to have all of us together in one place, being able to go out and do something social. I doubt that Michael and Audrey were visualizing this sort of outing when they came back to California.”

  “No, probably not,” Will agreed. A small hesitation before he went on, “It seems like Fred is pretty taken with your sister. I doubt he would have put that much effort into hunting down that Snape costume if he wasn’t interested in her.”

  Rosemary had been thinking much the same thing, so she nodded. “That was really sweet of him. And it looks to me like Isabel is actually receptive, too, which is surprising. Not that Fred isn’t worthy of her or anything, but just that she’s been so down on the whole dating thing for the past few years that we all sort of decided she’d given up on men.”

  Will’s brows lifted slightly. “It doesn’t look that way to me.”

  “No, me neither. And Fred isn’t so far away that the two of them dating is totally out of the question. Michael said he lives in Redlands, right?”

  “I think so,” Will replied, although his attention was obviously fixed on the road ahead of them, since they’d already made the short hop to the street where Finkbiner Park was located. It was still a block south of them, but there didn’t seem to be many parking spaces available.

  “Drive another block,” Rosemary instructed him. “We’ll have to walk across the park, but it’s probably not so crowded on Minnesota Avenue.”

  “Got it.”

  He followed her instructions, and just as she’d hoped, there were still spots available on the street that bordered the northwest side of the park. They slid in behind a Ford Explorer and parked the car, then got out. Since it was still early in the evening, daylight lingered, although the shadows grew long and Rosemary knew it would be dark soon enough.

  “That way,” she said, pointing, and headed out across the field toward the area that had been set up for the Halloween carnival. The scent of kettle corn drifted on the air, and she could hear kids laughing and shouting in excitement.

  The event wasn’t actually a full-blown carnival, since there weren’t any actual rides. But there was a haunted house and a hay bale maze, and booths where you could try your hand at winning a stuffed animal, or pause and get your face painted. In the bandstand, a group that looked as if it was made up of local high school kids was playing a revved-up version of “The Monster Mash.”

  And there were Michael and Audrey and Fred and Isabel, walking in from the other direction. It seemed they’d had better luck getting parking than Will and Rosemary had. Isabel waved, and the two of them sped up their pace a little to meet up with the rest of their group.

  “Any sign of Mom and Kevin and Celeste?” Rosemary asked as they approached, and Isabel shook her head.

  “No, but I’m sure we’ll bump into them soon enough. What’s the plan?”

  “Mill about aimlessly until the costume contest starts?” Rosemary suggested, and everyone chuckled.

  “Mill about, it is,” Michael said. “I think I’ll start with the kettle corn.”

  They all ended up getting some, since they wouldn’t be eating any “real” food for another couple of hours. Afterward, they walked around and looked at the various costumes and ate kettle corn, until at last they bumped into Glynis, who was with Kevin.

  “They’re already getting the kids lined up for the costume contest,” she said, explaining why Celeste and Tyler were absent. “But it should be starting in a few more minutes.”

  Rosemary extended her bag of kettle corn toward her mother, offering some, and Glynis shook her head. With a shrug, Rosemary asked, “Are you coming to Rubel Castle with the rest of the gang?”

  “I thought I would, since it sounded like an open invitation. I’ve lived in the San Gabriel Valley my entire life, and yet I somehow never managed to visit the Castle.”

  “Perfect timing, then.”

  A woman wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and a headband with cat ears walked onto the stage that had been set up at one end of the carnival, leaned into the microphone at the side of the stage, and welcomed everyone to the carnival, then announced that the costume contest would be starting in five more minutes.

  Good. While it had been fun to walk around and chat, Rosemary knew she was anxious for the costume contest to start so they could head up to Rubel Castle once the contest was over. And since Celeste and Kevin planned to bring Tyler along, at least for a little bit, it wasn’t as though she’d be abandoning them to go party elsewhere.

  Will leaned in close and murmured, “Do you think Tyler’s going to win?”

  “I don’t see how he couldn’t,” she replied. “I mean, I’ve gotten to see a lot of kids’ costumes between yesterday and today, and I haven’t seen anything that was better than what Celeste made for Tyler. But I guess we’ll just have to see. He’s so young, I don’t think he even really understands what the contest is about, but I know Celeste would like to win — both for bragging rights, and because the grand prize is a hundred-dollar gift card to JoAnn Fabrics. She could do a lot of damage with that.”

  “Like starting on next year’s costume?”

  “Exactly,” Rosemary said with a grin.

  The cat-eared emcee came back and said they were getting started, then announced the first entry, a little girl in a blue dress and a long white wig — Elsa from Frozen. An assortment of monsters, fairy princesses, and other characters marched across the stage after her…and then Tyler came on somewhere in
the middle, accompanied by Kevin, who was pulling the wagon.

  The crowd started cheering loudly, telling Rosemary that they’d just seen their favorite. Some of the other costumes were very well done, including the kid in Mandalorian armor made out of cardboard and papìer maché, but none of them could really compare to Tyler’s gleaming, golden Smaug costume.

  So, it wasn’t all that much of a surprise when Tyler won first place. Celeste came out with him to accept the gift card — and the surprise basket of Halloween candy that went along with it. From the resigned expression on her face, Rosemary guessed her sister could have done without another load of candy in her house, but she supposed Celeste would figure out something to do with it that wouldn’t involve getting her son high on more sugar than he was allowed to eat in a year.

  Afterward, Kevin and Celeste and Tyler met up with the rest of their group and were congratulated all around. Looking triumphant but a little tired — Rosemary had to wonder how much sleep her sister had lost getting that costume done on time — Celeste said, “Are we heading out now? I can tell Tyler is starting to get a little pooped, so I don’t want to keep him up too late.”

  “That was the plan,” Rosemary said. “We’ll carpool and meet there. I know Lena is expecting all of us, so it shouldn’t be a problem if we don’t all arrive at the same time.”

  Celeste nodded. “Good. Okay — see you there.”

  They went their separate ways then, Rosemary and Will headed back to his car, while the rest of the group went in the opposite direction to retrieve their own vehicles. Rosemary explained how to get to the castle, along with alternates for parking if there wasn’t anything available on Live Oak Avenue, the street where Rubel Castle was actually located. The spot in question wasn’t that far from Finkbiner Park, so in less than five minutes, they’d arrived at their destination, getting a spot around the corner on Palm Avenue.

  “Ready?” Rosemary asked, and Will nodded.

  “Yes. You know, this will be my first castle.”

  She grinned. “You’re going to love it.”