Alex has absolutely no idea what to do now... so she does what she usually does. Which is to sit here, and wait for Justin to come up with a plan. For a little while, they do that: they sit on the dressing-room floor together, backs against the wall. At least the lights aren't all out... not quite. Aside from the green-glowing EXIT signs, the nighttime settings must have kicked on, because the Russos are bathed in blacklight seeping past the curtain.
Out of nowhere, Alex looks at him and laughs. It makes Justin glower at her, not that she cares. "Woah, Dude... you''re glowing!"
"What?" Her brother looks at himself. No, I'm..." the word 'not' dies in his mouth. Because he totally is, undershirt picking up the phosphorescent glow and lighting him up like a candle. "I guess I am." He looks back up at his sister, and she grins.
"At least you won't get lost!"
"Ha-ha, Alex. I'm glad our situation is so amusing to you."
She doesn't say anything to that, folding her arms to sulk. The pieces of mirror glisten between them, shining blackly, like water at night. Justin bounces to his feet. He holds out his hand. "Come on."
He's got a plan, huh? Took him long enough. But she protests, because they have to do things by the rules, after all. "Where are we going, genius? We're kindof trapped in here, in case you forgot?" Alex regards him with suspicion, but she takes his hand anyway, lets herself be hauled up, protesting the entire time.
(It's just a dance.)
(And they're only dancing.)
Glowing or not, she shouldn't be able to see his eyes sparkle with excitement in the faint light... but she's pretty sure she can. "Just come on... I have an idea!"
Justin pulls her by the hand, taking special care that she not step on any of the broken glass... (as if she would?)... like she's freaking five years old. He practically drags her out past the curtain, almost exactly the way that she brought him in.
Justin keeps hold of her hand small hand, folding it into his big warm ones, as if for safekeeping. Alex doesn't make him give it back, though. After all, it's not like there's anyone watching.
(And they're braver, in the dark.)
Outside the dressing warren of dressing rooms, the store is alive. The machinery of Halloween cackles and moans as a half-dozen large displays competing in the empty store, while a banked row of blacklights in the far wall drapes them in its lonely deep-purple glow. It's not until they've passed the skeletons, braved the gargoyles, and stared down a half-dozen lurching ghouls that Alex understand where they're headed. The path of fluttering paper torches looms.
"Justin, no," Alex groans. But he doesn't even slow down.
To be honest, Alex has to admit that it isn't the worst idea. After all, the gingerbread house is the closest thing to a room, a bed, or even tent that either of them is likely to come up with. Plus, it's just cool, and she's always kind of wanted to live in a fairy tale. (She was also planning to take the role of Evil Queen in Charge rather than that of Little Child Lost in the Woods, but hey. You take what you can get.)
While Justin paces, frets about what they'll do when they're caught in the morning (apparently he used up all his courage to think up the campout idea... and to get her over the super-dangerous broken mirror, let's not forget that), Alex excuses herself, over Justin's protest, to gather supplies.
He claims it's shoplifting. Or, at the very least, "Inappropriate use of the inventory, Alex!" she's is pretty sure he just doesn't want to be left in the dark.
She doesn't disappear down the dark aisles for long, but when she returns, arms laden down with Halloween banners, a flaring electric "cauldron" that throws more light the row of tiny torches, and a bag stuffed with candy, he's starting to look more than a little creeped out... he's such a big baby. She's just sorry she didn't sneak up on him, so she could jump out and yell. Justin's really funny when he screams like a girl.
It IS a little spooky in here. Grinning, she drops the bags and picks up glowing cauldron, holding it beneath her chin to light her face with its dancing shadows. "Toil and trouble…" She whispers, making her eyes big and glassy.
Justin snatches it away from her with a look of terror that's incredibly gratifying, and a high-pitched "Stop that! You- you'll break it!" His reaction makes Alex chuckle deep in her throat, low and dirty. He's such a puss, her big brother. He's so easy. She loves him so much.
(Not that she'd want to admit it out loud, or anything.)
After a moment, he says, "Shakespeare?" And Alex shrugs.
"It's amazing what I retain, right?"
As Alex unpacks a banner, Justin reverts to his normal old-lady self, fussing "We're going to have to pay for all that, you know," at her.
His sister shrugs, fishing out a tootsie roll to unwrap and pop between her lips. She unpackages two huge halloween banners, the kind that might be hung from the rafters at a large house party. "Yeah, or make a run for it." At his shocked look, she tells him, "Jesus, I'm kidding," around the candy rapidly staining her lips purple.
She pushes past him to duck into the tiny "door" of the bounce house, then tucks the banner, around the edges of the inflatable "floor" like a sheet on a bed. A big, unstable, bounce-bed. The banner is a big, gaudy orange-and-black affair made to look like an enormous pumpkin with glowing eyes and mouth. "You have no sense of fun, you know that?"
"Fun! Is that what you call it! Breaking into... into inventory, getting locked in an empty store overnight... disrupting my class... making things explode?" It's hard to tell in the dark, but she thinks he's getting a little red in the face.
Aaaand there it is. The thing they weren't going to talk about. So they're doing this, then. Alex puts the second banner down, smoothes it out, and comes back to the fire. Er, the cauldron.
Carefully, she sits down by Justin, criss-cross applesauce facing him, with the cauldron's flames dancing between them. It throws flickering shadows on their faces like a campfire. Justin stares into it as if he wishes it were one. Or as if he wishes it were one, and he could toss his meddlesome little sister into it, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.
He's quiet for a long time. Alex can't take much quiet, and she whispers, "Justin?" He doesn't respond, and she touches his arm. "Justin."
He looks up at her, eyes big and dark in the haunted air. "Justin, I'm sorry," she says quietly, whispering the words as if that will make them hurt her less. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry that I had to ask you for help with the Masquerade." She waits, but he doesn't forgive her yet, knitting his brows as he studies her face. "I'm sorry that I interrupted your lecture even though they weren't really listening to you anyway," she goes on. "I'm sorry I won the wizard competition," (Woah, what? But she can't stop; it's like she's not in control. The words come fast and rushing, like a torrent she's been holding back for too long. Or maybe like a freaky green fire. Whatever; it's too late is the point, so she keeps going, faster and faster, feeling her heart ache in her chest. "I'm sorry I trapped us in this stupid store... I'm sorry the spell-thingy exploded... I'm sorry I made you wear a mask... I'm sorry I went out with Olaf... and Zane, and Claudia, and..."
But there isn't any more. Or rather there is, but she can't get anything else out, past the tears (and let's face it, the snot) clogging her voice, because she's crying hard now. She's not sure when that happened. She's not sure why she said all that stuff. She wishes she were anywhere else in the world than here, and right now.
And then Justin folds her into his arms, his flash of anger apparently forgotten, washed away by her hurt because that's who he is, and that just makes her cry harder.
"It's okay," he says, by the light of the false fire. He holds her against him, rocking a little, like she was small again, being comforted by her big brother Justin, who was always better at it than anybody else. Not even her parents could make it better the way Justin could. Guess she fell into the fairy tale after all. Even if it was the wrong one.
He strokes her hair, tucking his chin against the top of her head as she cries and cries and tries to stop. "It's okay, Alex. It's okay. It's okay."
And for a little while, it is.
...Alex must have fallen asleep, because when she wakes again she's curled up by the fire...no, the cauldron... and Justin's jacket is folded under her head. He's unpacking the contents of the pilfered treat bags. Alex sits up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. (And surreptitiously, on Justin's jacket, the leakage from her nose. What, like she was gonna wipe it on her own shirt?.)
"I got apples," she says, her voice still small. "You like healthy stuff. That's healthy."
Justin pulls one out by its stick. The "apples" are covered in a thick layer of caramel each, dotted with chopped nuts, and laced with white and dark chocolate. He raises his eyebrows, and Alex smiles happily. "Yeah, those."
"Seriously?" Justin passes her a caramel apple and a soda, eyeing the goods with one of those grumpy schoolteacher looks of his.
She takes their scavenged dinner from his hands and goes to work on the cellophane around the apple. "What? It's not like they had bottled water, Justin!"
It takes them a while to get apples unwrapped, because the caramel sticks to the cellophane. While Justin picks the nuts from his one by one, eating them first, Alex digs her teeth into the thick caramel coating, smearing her lips and chin with sticky stuff, taking a bite so big that she has to chew it with her mouth open. No one mentions Alex's outburst. But there's still the other thing.
With her mouth is still full of caramel and apple bits, Alex wipes her chin with the heel of her hand and asks, "So did you figure it out?"
Justin doesn't look up. "Figure what out?"
Alex puts her soda can down too hard. "Uh, the freaky green fire thing that burned a big hole in the wall and wrote words on it? Come on, Justin, stupid and evasive is MY thing. Don't think you can start stealing my stuff just because I cried all over you a minute ago."
That, at least, pulls a smile out of him. "Evasive?"
She grins, "I know, right?" When the smile doesn't fade, she super-sizes it with, "I know some bigger words too. If you're nice to me, I might say them to you later," and wiggles her eyebrows.
Justin blushes, which means things are back to the way they should be. Until he says, softly "It's part of an ancient spell. The stuff on the wall, I mean. I only figured out part of it."
Alex is trying to gnaw the chocolate coating off the top of her apple, but half of it drops into her lap. She fishes it out of the folds of her shirt and tosses it into the cardboard cagebox next to the bounce-house, earning a stern look from her brother. But they're inside; it's not even littering. "Serious? Mr. Smartest-guy-in-the-world, you had almost 24 hours and you only figured out part of it?"
Justin scoots closer to give her his napkin, (she doesn't bother to ask where the hell he found a napkin. He probably keeps them on him; that'd be so Justin of him), and tell her "Alchemy is complicated stuff," while motioning to indicate she should wipe her cheeks... well, her mouth...her nose... she's just a mess, really.
Alex rubs at herself, wishing she had a mirror. Well, there are the dressing rooms... but that's a long walk, and a little caramel coating never hurt anybody. "Al who?" Justin takes his napkin back, and leans in to wipe the tip of her nose with it.
"Alchemy, Alex. "
"Whatever. What does it mean, Professor smart-guy?"
He sighs. "Alchemy is... well, it's an ancient philosophical and magical tradition, that..." He frowns, looking up at her to crumple his napkin in his fist, obviously trying to think of small words for his benefit. She lets him think, and her eyes wander across his face while he zones. After a minute, things seem to click into place again.
"Alchemy is about changing things. It's a transformative art. Magical and material, spiritual and real. Even the most knowledgeable Wizards aren't sure how much of it is real and how much is made up, and humans all think it's most a myth. Like fairy tales." He gestures around them. "Like this. Made up."
"Uh huh." She's only half listening to him. He's still sitting too close, and her gaze without her sayso, drops to his mouth. "You have a little bit of-" She gestures, and Justin rubs his mouth with a knuckle, looking away.
He swallows hard. "Um, anyway, alchemy. The people- the Wizards who believe in it think that certain magical formula and substances, combined with a pure faith, can transmute... " she's still looking at his mouth. He backs up a bit.
Alex bites her lip, and goes back to her apple, eating a little more carefully this time around, because there's probably not another napkin.
"...change metal into gold. Or change other things."
She nibbles at the candy stuck to her thumb. "What other things?"
He swallows. "Spiritual stuff, Alex. You wouldn't be interested." He bites into his own apple, not looking at her.
"I am interested," she insists, intrigued by his avoidance of the subject.
"Well..."
"Jesus Christ, Justin! What did we do in the lab yesterday?!"
"We didn't do anything! It was just a crazy chemical reaction!" he erupts. "Some people think that the ancient alchemical spells can transform matter and immaterial substance, okay? Okay?! Thought! Spirit! The... the human heart!"
Alex has a funny feeling in her chest. She wants to make a joke about that, about hearts and alchemy and something about apples, but she's fresh out of jokes. "Transform them how? From what into what?"
"It... purifies them, I guess. Makes them find their truest, highest form."
"How?"
"With fire."
"Like, green fire?"
Justin puts his apple aside, half-eaten, and begins to toy with his soda can, picking the tab off.
"Yeah, alchemical fire is the reaction. But you need certain things to activate it. You need a catalyst," he says, and Alex thinks of the yellow stuff in the vial she smashed by accident, "...a base elemental spell," and that would be the inky blue junk in the cauldron, "...and an...immaterial element."
"Immaterial element?"
"Yeah. Immaterial means-"
"I know what it means! Justin, why are you being so evasive?" This time, even the big word doesn't pull a smile or a joke from him.
"Well, the other thing you need for that particular spell... I looked it up... I mean, if it even works..."
"Justin, for the love of Peace and Justice!"
"...true love."
"True...?" She stares at him.
"I-it's probably not even real, Alex," Justin snaps. But he won't meet her eyes.
(They don't talk anymore, after that.)
(Alchemy is probably made up, anyway)
(Isn't it?)
Justin won't allow Alex to liberate any of the inflatable children for use as pillow substitutes, instead balling up his jacket for both of them to use as a pillow (lame) but she does unfold a huge and ugly purple HAPPY TRICKS OR TREATS banner from its throwing it over both of them like a blanket. It's surprisingly comfortable, considering.
Alex nestles up against her big brother, takes most of his crappy "pillow", and closes her eyes. He pretends not to like it, pushing at her with his bony elbow.
"Get off, Alex."
But her only real response is to nuzzle in tighter - hey, it's cold in here, okay, and there are still the haunting cackles of the witches reverberating through the room . When he pushes her away, weakly at best, the fat roll of plastic or rubber or whatever it is pushes her right back into him.
"It's this weird floor," she mumbles into his neck, her voice already thick. "Nah' mfault." If her warm breath makes him shiver, she doesn't notice.
She knows he's pretending not to notice. Not to like it. Not to be okay with it, whatever that means, when she's curled up against him in the dark.
All around them, the sounds of Halloween hoot and snarl and laugh ghoulishly. Tiny voices make wicked promises. Strobe lights flash, and mechanical lanterns flicker. But safe in the candy house, the children sleep.