April 23rd 2020

Chapter 114
Their Transformation Into Spooks

Driving up the lane toward the house, Maya would always love getting to the point where she could see the house in the distance. Right from the start, it had hit her with this feeling like it was simply the most beautiful house she had ever seen. There were bigger houses out there, she had no doubt, bigger and more rich looking, but that did not matter. This one, the home she and Lucas had together, was the best there ever was or would be, with her parents' place, her first small house in Texas, as a close second.

Coming up to it now, the day before Halloween, she could just make out figures standing outside. Getting nearer, she could see Lucas, and Sam, along with Missy Sanderson, her father, and her grandfather, taking the outside of the house from being mildly decorated for fall and Halloween, to the spook central it would be for the following night. This would be their second year here, their second night of games and haunts for the kids in the area and then the party for their friends. The way she saw it, as wonderful as the first year had been, this one would be even better. People had seen what they could do the year before, and now they were about to do it again.

Maya honked the horn as she pulled up, and the decorating 'committee' looked back her way. Missy was the first to come toward her, even as she was climbing out of the minivan.

"I want to be a zombie," the fourteen-year-old informed her.

"Uh, well, I'm sure if we go around the graveyard or something we can find one to take a bite out of you," Maya rolled right along with the statement.

"Not like that," Missy laughed. "For outside, with the kids," she specified. Maya tried not to chuckle over the look on her face which made it clear that she did not consider herself one of those anymore. Maya and Lucas both waited on the day when she would come along and decide she wanted to be called Melissa now, because Missy was for kids or something.

"I thought you were coming in your own costume, don't you want to play the games?" Maya asked, hooking arms with their young neighbor as they walked back toward the house.

"I changed my mind," she shrugged.

"Want to try that again?" Maya gave her a burrowing look. Missy tried so hard to keep a straight face, but eventually she let out a sigh.

"There's this boy in my class…" she started, and Maya stopped them getting any closer to Missy's father and grandfather, guessing she did not want to go talking boys around them.

"And he's really into zombies or just really not into what you were going to be before?"

"Okay, yeah, he's into zombies, but I'm not just doing it for that. See, he's new to my school this year, and the first day, he had to introduce himself, and that was one of the things he said. So, I just sort of… started watching zombie stuff and now I kind of love it, too. I want to be a zombie ballerina, then it's still me under there, you know?"

"Is he coming here tomorrow?" Maya asked, finding Missy genuinely motivated by her new zombie appreciation.

"I don't know. I told him about it, without being too obvious…" she blushed just a bit.

"Alright, then, I'm going to need a few things from you."

A moment later, Missy was bolting back up the road toward her house, as Maya continued over to where Lucas was hauling one of the large decorations into place.

"What's the over under on me objectifying you right now?" she asked, watching him there as he set down the large tombstone and turned to her. The beard was more or less as it would be by the time of the party, and she had to say… she wasn't hating it.

"I think you know," Lucas smirked, moving up to greet her with a kiss before locking his arms around her. "I got a very strange message from my mother earlier today… You wouldn't know what that's about?" Maya bit back a laugh, keeping as much of a straight face as she could.

"I don't know, what did it say?"

"She wanted to know about what I was going to wear for the wedding, like suddenly she had some ideas, which leaves me to think…"

"Alright, okay, she saw the dress," Maya cut in, rather than let it go on. "My mom saw it by accident this morning, so I just decided 'oh, what the hell' and had a bit of a… fashion show over lunch," she explained, ending with a pose.

"Not gonna lie, now I just want to see it, too," Lucas teased.

"Eight months," Maya reminded him, which only made him give a semi exaggerated performance like he could barely hold on for how much he wanted to see it now. "It will be worth the wait," she promised, and he let out a sigh.

"Alright, if I have to," he declared.

"That is very brave of you," she nodded 'seriously' before kissing him once more. "Still need to get used to that," she felt at his growing beard.

"It could be gone in two days' time," he pointed out.

"I have not decided, and this year I'm in charge of the anniversary, so I get the say so on whether it goes away or not," she told him.

"Don't let the power go to your head," Lucas grinned.

"But it's kind of hot," she whispered with a shrug, prodding at his facial hair with curious fingers which finally curled back, following along to the mindset of 'focus now, Halloween.' "How's the decorating going?" she asked, turning toward the house as he released her.

"It's going," Lucas reported. "Some of it won't go up until tomorrow, but we want to get most of the structures in place for today."

"Put me to work, chief," Maya nodded, redoing her ponytail into a quick bun before pushing her sleeves up. "Also, dinner…"

"On its way," Lucas confirmed. On a night like this, take-out was more or less a given, and in this case it turned out to be pizza. "Also, we have that going on," he gestured over to where Sam sat on a bale of hay, applying glow in the dark paint to wooden arrows they'd be staking in the ground.

Maya still wasn't used to seeing her brother with his shorter hair. That had happened after a few shampoos still wouldn't free him of the rainbow happening over his head after his tumble in paint. The attic floor wasn't free of it either, but she had decided that it kind of worked so she wasn't so worried over it anymore. Sam however had not wanted to show up to school looking the way he did, so out had come the clippers and Lucas had gone to work. By the end of it, the sixteen-year-old had very short sandy hair left to cover his head and all the paint was gone.

Right now, the new style only seemed to intensify whatever brooding mood had overtaken him. Maya didn't have to wonder very long over what was the cause of it, and even though Lucas didn't know it for sure either, he was on the same page.

"Want to flip for it?" he asked.

"It's fine, I'll take this one," Maya told him. She walked over to where her brother sat, painting away. "You know, when we're done with these, we could totally use the rest of this paint and make a galaxy on the attic ceiling or something," she noted. When he didn't reply, she resisted the urge to make a joke. "What happened?"

"I told her," Sam replied in a flat voice.

"Right…" Maya breathed, stalling his hand so he'd put down the brush and the arrow. "How'd it go?" She couldn't even put herself in his place if she tried, or Cecilia's place either. She had never had feelings for anyone, not in that way, except for Lucas, and to her knowledge – which was just about guarantee – he had not either. She tried to think of how she'd react if he came and told her he had feelings for someone else, feelings he would ignore because he still wanted her more than anyone else… She couldn't even conjure up how she would ever react to that.

"She said she kind of knew," Sam replied. "She was upset, said she'd been upset for a while but didn't want to let it out or think about it too much, because maybe she was overthinking it."

"But she wasn't," Maya slowly filled in. "Did she end it?"

"Not exactly. She said she needed time to think about it. Is that good?" he looked at her now, with all this fear he had in him at the thought of losing Cecilia. Maya wasn't sure what to tell him, and the pause only fuelled his worries. "She's going to dump me, isn't she?" he bowed his head.

"Hey, come on, Genius," Maya pushed his chin up to make him look at her again. "You don't know that. If it was a done deal it would have been done right when you two talked. If she wants to think it through then let her. Don't push, don't try and sway her, just let her think. Waiting means there's a chance. I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but it's… fifty fifty, you know?"

"Yeah…" he tried to look optimistic. He didn't exactly get there, but he got about as close as he was going to get, with the way he was feeling.

"I like the arrows," Maya commented, looking to the ones he had already finished and left out to dry on a tarp on the ground.

"I'm going to glow in the dark tonight," Sam showed his hands and arms, dotted with paint here and there.

"That should be fun," Maya grinned, before immediately regretting where this thought took her. Going by the smirk which tried to come free from her brother's face, he'd realized it, too. "Forget everything I said and please don't mention it to your mother, between this and your hair I'm at like two strikes on the big sister screw ups and no amount of wedding dress reveals are going to get those off."

"You showed her your dress?" Sam asked, getting back to work. Maya confirmed that she had, relaying the story once again. "Can I see it? I won't say anything," he promised.

"I will think about it," Maya told him with a laugh.

Now that the woes of her young brother had been dealt with about as much as they could be, it was time to get to work. This didn't last very long before the pizza arrived, though once that was done they had all gone back to the Halloween eve preparations. The Sandersons had gone on home in time, leaving Maya, Lucas, and Sam to finish up for the night and finally head back inside. To keep Sam away from his romantic problems, they had piled on to the couch for some scary movies.

"Now he gets to have nightmares about slashers and vampires and zombies like a 'normal' person," Maya air-quoted after Sam had gone upstairs to get ready for bed. Lucas took this statement in stride by dramatically capturing her in his arms, giving off something like a werewolf howl, which soon mixed with her own howling laughter. "Oh, no, save me from the monster!" she declared with a breathy high-pitched voice.

"No saving," the wolf growled, hoisting her into his arms and up the stairs. Maya did her best to play along but mostly couldn't stop laughing. Halloween was officially upon them.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners