It's time, it's time! Halloween time, of course!
October. Cooling air, colorful leaves blowing around, and the sound of bare branches scratching against windows in the night…
I love this time of year. So here we go, Halloween! Twilight and all its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. I like to play in the world she's created.
Halloween Card
Chapter 1 – Romantic Delusions
OK, guys. This one is a bit spookier. The Cullens are more like the vampires of our nightmares.
The wind swept down the dark streets of Forks, rustling scattered leaves along a sidewalk. The few people still out scurried toward warmth and light in the wee hours of October 28th. Dark shadows slipped into the forest.
The next morning, Bella made her weekly shopping trip to Forks Outfitters. After grabbing a few more bags of Charlie's favorite Halloween candy, she stopped in front of the rack of greeting cards and picked up a Halloween card. It was cute. A cartoon black cat with a fluffy fat feather for a tail, silhouetted against a full moon with a purple sky background.
Too bad she didn't have anyone to give a card to.
Sure, she could give one to Charlie, but what was the point? She could picture the scene now. He would raise an eyebrow and say, "Well, thanks, Bella. I hope you have a nice day too."
Though she was comfortable with the quiet father-daughter relationship they had, it wasn't one where either expressed emotion or chatted about their feelings.
Jessica, for all her faults, could talk. And talk. Sometimes Bella wished she could be more like Jessica. Maybe then she would have a boyfriend, someone she could talk to. Or not talk to. Argue with on the phone. Take long walks or drives with. All that gushy and not-so gushy stuff that seems the mainstay of relationships.
Bella put the cad back and pulled out another. Now here was a romantic one, featuring a sexy witch. It was cute. The card had all the necessary witchy elements: she had a broom, cat, and cleavage revealing outfit.
Bella drifted back to her boyfriend haze. Giving a card would require a real boyfriend, someone besides Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. And after all, he wasn't exactly available to her, devoted as he was to the long-dead Cathy. And he wasn't exactly a great person as an adult, though the couple seemed to have had a great time playing on the moors as children.
She imagined Heathcliff showing up at the Forks Coffee Shop. Nope, with her luck, Charlie would probably run into him first, consider him a suspicious character, and try to escort him out of town.
What would intense devotion to a dead person be like, the kind that could warp the physical worlds of time and space, keeping the beloved close after death?
What would any loss be like? Not that Bella had ever loved like that. This lack of love caused a hole in her life, an emptiness and yearning she could not hide from. Sometimes she wanted to double over from it, the aching and yearning for connection and meaning.
She rubbed her chest, feeling the ache of this hole, then recalled herself to her surroundings. She was standing in the greeting card aisle of a grocery store with people were passing by. She squared her shoulders and marched to the meat section to grab some steak for Charlie, the man in her life.
The only man in her life.
Halloween night.
Jessica had invites for both of them her to the Markowitz's Halloween party. She found a classical vampire opera cape, black with a red lining, at Forks Outfitter, and put it over a black sweater and black jeans. Instant vampire, easy-peasy. She brought a pair of fangs from the local hamburger stand, Sully's, but they didn't allow for much talking or drinking, so she left them in her pocket most of the night.
The party had been a bit of a drag. She had stayed for a while, mostly to please Jessica, and fought off underage guys, those her own age, who had staggered around the house with beer-filled red Solo cups. There had been too-loud music, floors slippery with spilled beer, and some freshman had tried to hit on her. She ended up pouring her drink in his lap, and even that didn't dissuade him.
Around 11:00, Bella said her good-byes to Jessica, who was surrounded by admirers, and left, glad she had insisted on driving separately.
She thought it might be fun to run out to Ruby Beach, look at the moon over the ocean. It seemed a fitting way to end a Halloween night. So she went out into the night and headed out to the beach. The pines on either side of the road were a ghostly presence, seeming to absorb the limited light coming from the sky.
The new moon had been on October 30th, so it was really dark, even with the stars. The October full moon had been the Hunter's Moon, and it had lit up the sky weeks earlier. She wondered if the Hunter's Moon lasted the full lunar cycle. Who was hunting out there right now?
When she turned off at Ruby Beach, the ocean was black under the new moon. The surf was steady, but sounded like it was battling the beach, tearing it away, not the reassuring sound she usually associated with the ocean. She parked the truck under a parking lot light that flicked off the second she opened the cab door. She waited a second and it flicked back on, emitting a buzzing sound. Great.
But it was OK, right? Made it feel more like Halloween. She would stay just a few minutes. Just look at the ocean and go. Bella walked to the railing and peered over the edge at the ocean. Black water, tipped with white flowed and ebbed beneath her feet.
She heard a sound and turned around to see someone not far behind her. Whoever they were, they were between Bella and her truck. She froze, realizing that coming here alone after dark might have been a terrible idea.
Then the stranger was standing right next to her. From the hair, she appeared to be a girl, as it stuck out in all directions, moussed to the max. And she was short, quite short. That she was dressed entirely in black made her almost melt into the darkness.
"Hi," said a soft voice, impossibly musical.
Just at the moment, the parking lot light flicked back on. If the stranger's teeth hadn't flashed under the lights so brightly, Bella might have been more reassured.
"Um, hi," Bella said as she turned back to her truck. Under the flickering light, she could see that her driver's side front tire was flat. How had that happened? Sure, the drive in had been a bit bumpy, but had she been driving on a flat?
Could she get back to Forks on that?
The pixie moved next to her. "Wow, that looks flat," she said.
Bella turned. "Yeah, but maybe I can get home on it," she replied, feeling a pang of unease, even though this was a girl, and a small girl at that. Like a pixie, she thought, trying to make the stranger less frightening. A pixie dressed in black who appeared out of the darkness on Halloween…no, don't go there.
"Do you want a lift?" the stranger asked. "Which way are you going?"
Bella leaned in slightly, despite a feeling of discomfort. No scent of alcohol, but man she smelled good. Almost intoxicating.
Someone else appeared next to her, moving so silently Bella barely sensed a movement before seeing her. With uncanny timing, the light flicked back on, revealing an attractive woman with a quiet, lady-like appearance, like a 1930's movie actress. When she smiled, though, a sense of uneasiness pervaded Bella.
"Hi," Bella said to this second stranger.
The woman smiled back and reached out, touching Bella's hair. "Nice hunting," she said to the demon pixie.
Bella pushed the woman's hand back. It was hard and cold, like touching a statue.
Who were these people?
Xxx
Please leave a review. They make my pumpkins (since they weren't carved, they're still on the porch) smile.
I will send a preview of the next chapter to all reviewers.
