A Pocketful of Stardust

by J P Barnaby

  Noah paid for his haul, already half price in anticipation of the overstock the store was going to carry into the next year. It surprised him that he’d thought of it in such business terms. He’d never thought about things like inventory warehousing. Kyle followed him out of the store and stayed quiet as they left the parking lot and headed back toward Aster.

  Noah parked in a spot surprisingly far from the front door of the grocery store, given that it was the middle of a Wednesday. He started to get out but noticed Kyle hadn’t moved. He closed the door and turned in his seat.

  “You didn’t have trick-or-treaters in Chicago?” Noah asked quietly.

  “No. Aunt Mary said they drove her nuts, so we always went to the movies. I saw the little kids wandering around in their little costumes.”

  “But you’ve never done it?”

  “Is it normal?” Kyle asked suddenly.

  “Is what normal? Trick-or-treating?”

  “Yeah. Is it something that everybody does?”

  “Sure, most people. All of my friends did, growing up. It was something we looked forward to every year. We liked getting to pretend to be someone else. Mostly we just liked collecting all the candy we could get. When I was younger, we could go for as long as people had lights on. But now you only get two hours,” Noah lamented.

  “And no one thinks it’s against God?”

  “I don’t think so. Even the preacher has something at the church for the kids.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I grew up on an alien planet.” Kyle opened the door and swung out of the car. Noah wanted to press, wanted to know why Kyle’s life had been so different from his own. Didn’t most kids dress up for Halloween?

  They picked up fifteen bags of candy, everything from Hershey bars to Jolly Ranchers. Noah didn’t think he’d need that many but didn’t want to run out. They could always put a candy bowl on the counter. Who didn’t like a free piece of candy with their coffee and book?

  Jake jumped up to greet him when he and Kyle walked into his father’s house.

  “Hey, buddy,” Noah said, rubbing the dog behind the ears. “I think we’ll take you back with us tonight. You’ll like seeing all the kids, huh?” Jake nuzzled into his hand and gave a deep, happy bark.

  “I’m going to go upstairs and change. I think the white shirt and black pants I wore to the funeral will work under the cape,” Noah noted. Kyle wandered into the kitchen and Jake followed, assuming that meant some kind of food for the puppy.

  Noah got dressed and even found a little beanie Hedwig hiding among his childhood things. He used Krazy Glue to attach the little bird to his cheap cape and laughed at his reflection in the mirror. It had been a long time since he’d felt this young.

  Kyle stared at him when he made his way back down to the kitchen.

  “You don’t look like a wizard.”

  “Why, how do wizards look?” Noah asked, cocking his head before realizing there was a bird in the way.

  “Evil.”

  “Nope. I’m a good wizard. Come on, Jake!” Noah patted his leg and the big dog followed. He noticed Jake’s treats had made it from the top of the fridge to the table.

  “Why don’t you bring those along?” he asked Kyle, nodding toward the treats. “Just in case he needs a little coaxing later.”

  Kyle grabbed the bag and they all headed back out to the truck.

  MAYHEM ENSUED once the clock hands on his father’s mantelpiece pointed to five. Thad hadn’t been kidding about the turnout. It seemed that most of the kids started here on the main street before venturing off into the neighborhoods. When Noah was a kid, he and his dad would start at Miss Edna’s house and keep working their way through the blocks systematically until either Noah was too tired to carry on or hours ended.

  He found a big black bowl in one of the displays, almost large enough to be a small cauldron, and moved it out in front of the store. Thad and Ananda were sitting in front of their stores with similar containers. Ananda’s actually was a cauldron, and she was rocking that haunted witch costume. He could see the wart from two doors down. Thad had some kind of copper pot to hold his candy, sticking with the antique theme—though he was having a hell of a time trying to sit his cubic self down.

  As far as Noah could see, there were lights and kids and an atmosphere of fun excitement. Cooper whooped his siren as he passed, lights flashing as he kept an eye on their town’s children. Mr. Barnes from the pet store across the street sat outside with a puppy and a bowl of candy. He wasn’t in costume, but he smiled and chatted with people as they came to see him.

  “Hi, Noah!”

  Fred the mailman stood there at his makeshift cauldron with two small kids, a boy and a girl dressed as superheroes. Noah reached into the bowl and grabbed a couple of pieces each and dropped them into the waiting, open bags. Jake woofed as the little girl petted him. He seemed happy for all the attention. Noah had left him home a lot lately. He’d have to bring him more often so Jake could hang out.

  “Hi, Fred. Are these your kids?”

  “Yep, Melissa—oh, I’m sorry,” he amended when she glared at him with her little girl eyes. “Wonder Woman here is six, and Captain America is ten.”

  “Dad, I’m not really Captain America, it’s just a—”

  “I can’t win,” Fred lamented.

  Noah laughed and gave them both another piece of candy. He expected them to wander off, but the little boy was looking in through the bookstore window.

  “Mr. Noah, you have a ghost,” he said matter-of-factly. His sister ran over to the door and peered inside next to her brother. Noah stood up, alarmed, and followed their gaze. Sure enough, Henry was roaming around the classics section in full view of the street.

  “Oh, he’s… is he scary?” Noah asked.

  “No, he looks kind of like a librarian,” Captain America said, his voice excited.

  “Want to go in and see him?” Noah asked, and both kids nodded rapidly. He opened the door and they took off. Fred looked at him.

  “He’s a hologram. There’s a projector in the ceiling,” Noah lied and followed them into the store. The kids were standing beneath Henry, who looked down at them, bemused. Then he did a flip midair and the children gasped with delight. He moved down to the end of the row and then flew past them, then up the next aisle. They laughed and followed.

  “Guys, don’t you want more candy?” Fred yelled and saw two excited faces peek at him from the end of the aisle.

  “We want to play with the ghost!” Wonder Woman called, but Fred walked up and took her hand. Her brother followed, looking sullen.

  “Bye, Mr. Ghost!” the little girl called, and Henry waved at them, grinning.

  “How imaginative children are,” Henry remarked, sinking to where Noah stood at the head of the aisle.

  “They thought you were amazing.”

  “And they were correct,” Henry said with a smirk. “What did you tell the father? Adults aren’t so easily fooled.”

  “That there’s a projector in the ceiling.”

  “That was fun,” Henry admitted.

  “Feel free to float around all you want tonight. I think a haunted bookstore has a little charm,” Noah laughed and headed back outside. The cluster of children was still going strong when he sat back down in his seat. He gave treats to a group of young teens dressed in coordinating video game character costumes, and then tiny kids dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. He thought maybe he liked their costumes best of all.

  They all wandered off toward Ananda’s store next.

  “Your dad would be real proud seeing you out here carrying on tradition.”

  Noah looked up to see Miss Norma shuffling up to where he sat with Jake. She wasn’t in costume but a simple flowy fall-colored dress. Immediately he vacated his chair and held a hand out for her.

  “Ma’am,” he said, and she smiled at him.

  “You’re such a good boy. Your daddy did right by you,” she said with a warm smile and perched herself ligh
tly on the edge of the chair. Noah dropped candy into the pillowcases of a few more trick-or-treaters as they passed.

  “That he did, Miss Norma.”

  “You must miss him terribly,” she said, and he barely heard her over the din of the milling people grabbing treats up and down the sidewalks.

  “I do. He always seemed to know what to do, no matter what bad thing happened. I don’t seem to ever know what to do,” Noah admitted.

  He was surprised when she laughed, a quiet tinkle of sound. “You’d be surprised how much old folks like us wing it. He prolly had no good idea what to do either. He was good at not lettin’ people see.” She put a hand on his arm. “This was a good idea right here, letting people see that you belong in the community, that you care about what’s happenin’ round here. And if they offer help, you let ’em. You hear me?” Her voice had taken on that take-charge Southern woman quality he’d heard all his life.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Noah looked in through the window at Kyle, who manned the empty coffee station like the last sentry of a fallen castle, his expression just as puzzled and sad. He stood with his elbows on the counter and his chin resting on his hands. Noah wanted to hug him.

  Miss Norma seemed to notice his distraction. “Good boy. Okay, I’m going to take these old bones down the street and keep visitin’. You have a good night, young Mr. Hitchens.”

  “You too, Miss Norma.”

  He gave out candy into the night. It was about an hour past curfew when his bowl ran empty. Then he and Jake sat on the front sidewalk of the store and watched folks checking their haul and heading back home. He’d talked to just about everyone in town tonight. Most remembered him or at least knew who he was because of Charlie. They were friendly and concerned about him, both for the store and for losing his father.

  This old town had touched him in ways he didn’t even understand.

  He could do worse than building a life here in Aster, surrounded by books and kind people.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “FREE PEOPLE of color were pretty common in New Orleans,” Henry said Friday evening, after Kyle had gone off home and he’d closed the store. He lit a ghostly pipe he’d pulled out of his pants pocket and puffed to get it started. “New Orleans was always a different kind of place.”

  “Still is,” Noah observed.

  “Is it? Good. My maman was from there—married my papa right after the Spanish-American War.”

  “Your mama was a dressmaker?”

  “Please. A modiste.” Henry laughed. “Despite being colored, Aster was as solidly middle-class as any town up north. We had good schools with teachers from places like Tuskegee Institute and Clark College, and children went on to colleges throughout the country. Ladies like to buy nice clothes when they can afford it, and maman made nice, nice clothes. There was a dress she’d made from silk and lace made from real gold thread. She had that in a place of honor in her shop—ladies would come in just to look at it and would walk out a few dollars poorer!

  “Things changed a lot after the Great War. There used to be a song that said ‘How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm, now that they’ve seen Paree?’ We not only lost the boys who died in that war, but the ones that came back were changed. They’d seen what it was to be someplace where there wasn’t the prejudice and the Jim Crow laws, where black people were treated like human beings, and while Aster was a good place, it’s still in Georgia. So many of them never did come back here, or came back only to leave again for the North.

  “Same thing happened in Dubya Dubya Two. Lost a bunch of young men in the war, and so many decided not to come home. Some did, though. And you heard of war brides? Well, some of the ones that came back brought wives, and some of them later brought their wives’ families. Of course, Georgia wouldn’t recognize their marriages as legal, but Aster did. So the town became a little more integrated—in the opposite direction.”

  “Mixed-race marriages are legal now,” Noah said. “Heck, same-sex marriages are legal now too.”

  Henry’s eyes grew wide. “You mean two homosexuals can get married?”

  “Yep. It’s only been a few years, and they’re still trying to revoke it, but it’s legal. About damn time.”

  “Well. If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, that’s pretty strange.” Henry sighed. “Lots of things seem pretty strange to me, though, nowadays.” He sucked his pipestem, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his lighter, and lit the pipe again. “Can never keep one of these things going. Spend most of the time trying to light it again.”

  “Probably why people get less cancer from pipes than they do from cigarettes,” Noah said.

  Henry said, “I used to have some good books in my parlor upstairs, but I expect Berenice cleared all that out before she sold the place.”

  Noah blinked. “No, it looks like everything’s just the same. There’s a dressmaker’s dummy and a big wing chair and….”

  Henry’s eyes had gone wide. “It’s still there? Maman’s dress?”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t look like anything’s been touched. Come on, I’ll show you.” Noah led the way up the stairs and opened the door to the sitting room.

  “Oh my.” Henry touched the dress gently. “This brings back memories. And my books….” He turned around, looking at the full bookcases Noah had missed in his panic at finding Henry. “I’ll bet you can find some that are of some value.” He drifted around the room, brushing his fingers over the furniture, the drapes, the knickknacks on the table and shelves. Nothing moved at his touch, but he seemed to feel it, and he smiled.

  “I didn’t want to come up here. I didn’t want to see everything gone, all I’d lost.”

  Noah could understand.

  In one corner he stopped and looked down. “Oh,” he said softly.

  “What is it?”

  “Just a cat bed. My kitty’s. Her name was Persephone. I wonder what happened to her.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know you had a pet.”

  “Cats aren’t pets, Noah. They’re companions. She kept me company after Berenice got married and moved away. She used to sleep on the top of the bookcase there… Persephone?”

  There was a faint mew, and Henry reached up. A moment later a large tortoiseshell calico—as translucent as Henry—was snuggled in his arms. “Oh, Persephone.”

  “That’s a big cat,” Noah observed.

  “I think she’s part Maine Coon. She’s about sixteen pounds, and not an inch of it fat. She’s mostly fur—sheds like crazy.”

  “I somehow don’t think that’ll be an issue. I didn’t know cats had ghosts too. Do dogs?”

  “I have no idea. I never had a dog. But I bet they do. Maybe more so than cats—cats don’t need people as much.” He bent his head and nuzzled the calico. “At least they try to pretend they don’t.”

  The cat reached up and batted at Henry’s nose.

  “Why do some people, or cats, or dogs become ghosts and others don’t? I mean, can you see my dad anywhere?” The hope in his voice hurt coming out, but it was a question he’d wanted to ask for some time.

  “I don’t see anyone here but Miss Persephone and me, son. I’m sorry. And I don’t know why I didn’t go to the great beyond. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t been found. Maybe it’s because I was meant to help you. I don’t know.”

  They were quiet for a long while before Noah spoke again. “I wonder….”

  “What?”

  “Jake is always sitting and staring at the door. I wonder if he sensed she was up here? I didn’t see her when I came up before—when I found you.”

  “You wouldn’t, if she didn’t want you to see her. Cats are like that. But it wouldn’t be a bookstore without a cat.”

  “Will she come downstairs with you?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Henry sank through the floor, the cat still in his arms.

  Noah rolled his eyes and went downstairs the normal way.

  Jake was in the office taking a drink from the dog bowl
on the floor when Noah got down the stairs, but he lifted his head, gave Noah a betrayed look, then hightailed it into the main part of the store. Noah could hear him growling.

  “Jake!” He ran into the store.

  Jake was down on his front legs like he was playing, and his tail was wagging slowly, but he was giving off a low, steady warning sound. Henry stood in front of him, the cat in his arms. “Giving mixed messages, dog,” Henry said mildly.

  Persephone was watching Jake. If she had had eyebrows, one of them would have been raised, Noah thought. No fear, just skepticism. “I don’t think he’ll hurt her.”

  “I don’t think he can hurt her. I don’t know if she can hurt him.”

  “She’s tiny! I mean, compared to Jake.”

  “You’ve not had much experience with cats, have you, son?”

  Persephone leaped gracefully out of Henry’s arms and onto the floor. Casually, her fluffy tail waving leisurely, she approached Jake. His growling deepened.

  Then she reached out, still casually, and swiped her claws across his nose. He yelped and ran for the kitchen.

  Persephone sat down and began washing the paw.

  When Noah went into the kitchen, Jake was seated by the back door. He looked even more betrayed than before. “Okay, let’s see what damage she did,” Noah said and sat down beside his dog.

  But when he looked, there wasn’t so much as a scratch on the dog’s nose. Nothing.

  “I think you’ll live,” he said dryly. “Scared you, did she?”

  Jake crawled into his lap and laid his head on Noah’s thigh, giving a huge sigh.

  Henry came in a moment later, sans cat. “He okay?”

  “Yeah, she didn’t hurt him. Scared him, I think. Where’s she?”

  “Curled up in the window seat, basking in the sunlight.” Henry sat on one of the dinette chairs. “Cats are like that. Never any guilt. Leave that to the dogs. She was just trying to establish that she won’t be pushed around. I’ve known some women like that. Good strong women.”