January 25th 2020

Chapter 25
Their Haunting in the Wings

"Wait, I think this is the wrong classroom…"

"Rosa…"

"Oh, no, wait, there he is, I see him! Oh!"

"What?"

"That was a bit louder than I thought it'd be, everyone looked at the door, I had to duck out of the way a little bit," Rosa whispered.

"He's definitely going to know I sent you now…" Maya sighed, leaning back into her chair as she switched her phone from one ear to the other.

"You're just being a good sister."

"Meddling sister," Maya adjusted. "Look, his class should be over in, I want to say, twenty minutes or so. You have the afternoon off, right? You're not just being nice?"

"Doing some of that, too," Rosa pointed out, the grin clear in her voice. "Normally I have a class this afternoon, it was cancelled ahead of time, the professor's talking at some conference in London. So, clearly, I was supposed to be here today, being a discreet non-discreet shadow friend for your little brother while he recovers from the woes of adolescent romance."

"There will be GiGi cookies delivered to you sometime this week," Maya smiled.

The call ended and she set her phone back on her desk with a small sigh. It felt like she'd been doing that all week. The more they inched toward Halloween, everything just got to feel a bit too… too much.

On the one hand, they were making great progress in their party preparations. They had decided to go for a good old zombie apocalypse, and from there they had a solid enough foundation to build from. It was a good thing she had the likes of Lucas and Sam to keep her from going overboard. If it had been up to her, she might have tried to find a way and 'bury' some zombie friends, only to have them spring forth from the ground to scare unsuspecting guests upon arrival. They had this land now, so why not? Lucas had needed to point out the various reasons 'why not,' all of them very good and obvious if she was honest. Burials aside, they really could use the area surrounding the house, so they'd have to come up with something.

As to the guests, it would be easy enough. It wouldn't be the same as it had been in Houston. For one thing, while two of their trio were still in school at the moment, one of them was fifteen and, while he was getting to be more familiar with his classmates, he wasn't looking to invite anyone beyond his own friends. Then, with Lucas, it was entirely up to his classmates whether they wanted to come or not, but some of them did live off in Houston and other places, and going to this party would likely require them to spend the night in Austin, which would make most of them more likely to hit up any parties more local to their respective homes. He did have some locals of his own though, like Robbie and Ramona, who would definitely be there, and he would have his co-workers. As for Maya, she had put the word out around the theater about her party, though she didn't know how that crowd would mix with the rest. They'd have some of their old friends there, those who lived out here, though for the first time in a near handful of years they would be missing some key faces, likely having their own party, back at the Houston house…

And then there would be costumes. She'd been poking her head in with the hair and makeup people, seeing if she might pick up any new skills. It reminded her how they had been the ones to teach her in the first place, back in the days of that haunted house for August's school, on Halloween night eight years before. This had led to her giving Lucas his infamous severed head makeup, and then on that night, after it had all been over and they'd been picking up those discarded candy wrappers…

They'd been coming up with ideas all week, her and Lucas and Sam… or trying to, at least.

Sam was still upset. He played a good game in showing himself to be dealing with this disappointment over losing his shot with Dora, and on the vast whole he was okay. But there were all those spots where he just wasn't really, really okay. He loved the girl, no point denying it, and now it was like as much as he'd understood he liked her… Seeing her essentially move away from him had made him realize this was more than a crush to him… and he'd blown it. He wanted her to be happy, that much was undeniable, and as far as they'd seen so far she was very happy with Adam Anders. As it turned out, being happy for her did not make him un-unhappy for himself.

And now, every time they talked about the party, Maya suspected, every time she and Lucas and Sam talked about costumes, and group costumes… it was like they were only reminding him of this new group, this new pair, and it was taking some of the heart out of him for the party. If things kept up this way, he'd spend the night holed up in his room, or up in the attic with their father's telescope.

So, yes, she had finally decided to meddle… a little. She'd texted Rosa earlier that day and asked if she might go and hang out with Sam a bit if she was available. It would be better than him wallowing in those feelings too long, wouldn't it?

She spent the better part of the afternoon, her and her assistant working with Matilda Hughes, putting the finishing touches on what they hoped to be the sort of… first flutterings of her theater baby, Stage Ready. It was all actually coming together, and by all accounts they'd be on track to start as scheduled, in January. But they needed to get the word out first, that had always been part of the process, and she'd finally had this idea about where to begin. A sort of… proof of concept… They would offer their services to local schools, many of them with shows in the works, in the run up toward the holidays. They'd be taking their workshops 'on the road,' and if all went according to plan, they'd have registrations rolling.

"Isn't that your brother?" Matilda asked as she, Maya, and Lily, were cutting through the theater on their way back toward her mother's office. Maya stalled at once, looking where Matilda had pointed.

"Yeah…" she blinked. "Be right back," she passed her laptop over to Lily, already reaching to get it from her. As she went out to find Sam, sitting out on the edge of the stage, Maya saw that he wasn't alone.

"He wanted to come here," Rosa told her, like she felt she had failed and needed to apologize. "I didn't know what else to do, so here we are…"

"Right. I'll take it from here," she gave Rosa's arm a squeeze, smiling to her friend and bandmate before approaching her brother. "Good afternoon," she crouched and sat next to Sam. "Did I overstep with Rosa?" she asked, pointing off to the retreating form of her hired shadow.

"What? No, I kind of figured you'd do it eventually, either her or Dylan," he shrugged.

"I'm nothing if not predictable?" Maya offered with a slight cringe. Sam smiled. "Alright, so if you're not here to bust me, what's going on?"

"I just didn't have any other classes today, and I needed to talk to you, so I came. I should have called, you're working…"

"I've been going non-stop since lunch, I'm due a break anyway," she reassured him. "Talk," she nodded, trying not to look too happy at the notion of her little brother seeking out her advice this way. After all this time, it still felt new to her.

"Josiah and Deanna found out about Dora's boyfriend a couple days ago, and how I invited him to the party. They think I should bring someone, too, to… even things out."

"Well, that doesn't exactly sound…" Maya frowned.

"Nothing weird," Sam cut her off, shaking his head. "I think they just feel bad and they want me to just kind of clear my head or something, to see that there's other girls out there. It's like you said, that I shouldn't tie myself down to something that might never happen."

"I did kind of say that, yeah, but don't you think it's too soon?"

"Oh, I know it is," Sam promised, and she let out a breath with a nod. "And I told them that. Except it turned out they weren't just suggesting it out of the blue, they wanted me to talk to this girl…"

"At the university?" Maya cut him off now. As far as she knew, from him, there was no other student his age in his vicinity, so who was this girl?

"Yes and no," Sam explained. "She doesn't go there, but her father's a professor and she hangs around the university to do her homework and wait for him. Deanna's seen her around a lot, that's how she knew about her. They sort of ambushed me and then I ended up having to talk to her."

"Had to?" Maya asked, but then she remembered this was Sam she was talking to, and if he found himself put on the spot he wouldn't just cut and run, he'd feel he had to at least be polite for the unsuspecting girl's sake. "Right, never mind. So, what happened with…"

"Cecilia," Sam filled in. "She's fourteen, going to be fifteen in December. She lost her mom last year. I told her how I lost my dad, and we kind of went from there, talked for a while." Maya felt a strong urge to hug him here, but she resisted and let him finish instead. "I don't want to… to ask her out for a date or anything, I still…"

"I know," Maya promised.

"But she's really lonely. I can see it, I know what it looks like to carry… that…" The loss of a parent… Yeah, she knew how that went, too. "I think I could be a good friend for her. It's not what the twins had in mind, but it could be better, I think, for all of us."

"I think so, too," she smiled. Sam looked out to the empty seats out ahead of them for a beat before turning to her.

"So, I was thinking she might have fun at the Halloween party, and maybe I would invite her."

"Yeah, go for it. Do you have…"

"She gave me her number," he nodded, and she hated that her brain immediately wanted her to tease him for getting a girl's phone number. At least she hadn't said anything out loud. "But what about Dora? If Cecilia's there…"

"Sam… She has a boyfriend. She didn't need to ask you permission for that, and you don't need to either, to invite a friend to a party."

"I know…" He might have known, yeah, but some part of him still clung to the hope that something might change, that they'd had some eleventh hour reprieve.

"Hey, want to stick around until I'm done here tonight? I could use your help as a recent high school student."

"Sure, okay," he shrugged.

"That's the spirit," she tapped his knee and moved to rise, offering her hand to help him up. "If I finish early enough, we can stop by and see the makeup department, we can see what you look like as a zombie."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners