January 8th 2023

Chapter 8
We Expand Our Colors

If it was possible for two people who had never met in life nor shared a single strand of DNA between them to share traits, then Lucas would say that Marianne had inherited his Grandpa Jax Murphy's... decoration haste. Alright, maybe it had more to do with how she'd been raised in such a thriving Halloween... Hallowannie spirit all her life, and that she'd heard the stories about her great grandmother's second husband's digging out the boxes in the last days of September. Whatever it was, as they had drawn nearer and nearer to the turn of the calendar page, Lucas and Maya had been spying their firstborn attempting to get at their stock of Halloween decorations, both at home and up at the ranch. In both places, she had been told - kindly and repeatedly - that she needed to wait just a little while longer. And so, she did, begrudgingly so.

Finally, the day had come. They were doing both places today and it was enough that they had made her promise not to get up before dawn to start while they still slept. Oh, how that promise looked to have messed with her plans... Her parents had to will themselves not to laugh at her little frustrated face.

"Alright, pumpkin, where first, here or there?" Lucas asked when he went and peered into the green room to find Marianne sitting up in her bed, sketchbook in her lap and several colored pencils grasped in one hand while she drew with the other. Mackenzie sat on her knees next to her, looking on, while Aubrey stood in her crib, looking like she was either doing stretches or dancing or trying to propel herself to freedom. Lucas went ahead and lifted her out and down to the ground before it got to that.

"There," Marianne declared before flipping a few pages back in her book and turning it around to show him. Lucas came and took the book, careful to keep it just out of reach from little grabbing hands.

"Alright, sounds good. Better get down to breakfast so we can get started, yeah?" She didn't have to be told twice. She was out of bed in no time, Mackenzie at her heels. "No need to rush, huh? We're good," Lucas told Aubrey, kissing her squishy cheek, and smiling at the way she squirmed but laughed and attempted to stick her face against his again, so he'd give it another go. Like his firstborn, he didn't have to be told twice.

Their great decorating masses were fed, and dressed, and then they were off to Sullivan Stables. Michael and Keith arrived just as they did, with Lydia and Leyton. Lea would be along shortly, she and Ella driving in from Houston for the day, but it would be the first year in some time where Lara wouldn't be there, unable to make it home from college for the tradition. They all got started by getting the boxes out of storage, sorting out what would go where and figuring out who would do what. Marianne had chosen her spots already, as was made evident by her sketches, so that was what she did.

"I thought you'd want to hide the figurines," Maya told her as they moved toward the house, the bed and breakfast. They could see Lydia and Leyton walking off together, the sophomore holding the box and the clipboard while her six-year-old brother zoomed around her with energy waiting to be spent. They were soon joined by Mila and Misha Makovetsky. The two XCs had heard all about the ranch and its Halloween transformation and they had been invited to participate; they had happily accepted.

"If I do, then I'll know where they all are," Marianne pointed out.

"Ah, so you want to look for them this year?" Maya smirked. She nodded.

"I can, right? Even if Daddy's the boss?"

"I..." Maya blinked, then caught herself before she could start and laugh. She could have a point. Kind of? "Tell you what. You hunt for them, instead of bringing them back though, just write down where you found them, or... or you can take a picture. I can give you one of my old cameras." Oh, this was intriguing... very intriguing.

"What if I find them all?"

"You let me worry about that. Deal?" she held out her hand, and Marianne clasped it at once, shook on it.

They couldn't well do what they had done last year, where Marianne Sullivan's former home, Juliet Stapleton's former home, had been empty and a prime spot for a haunted house. It was Mel's B&B now, very much alive, and devoid of ghosts. It was the home of Cristina Vega and her son Rafa and, presently, a handful of guests. So, no haunted house, but they could still see to it that this place would fit in with the rest of the property and stand like a great... pillar of spookiness...

Rafa tried to jump out and scare them and was disappointed to find that neither of them flinched. Maya laughed apologetically. Marianne was just so notoriously unflappable with things like this, while she had grown to feel like she had eyes and ears in all directions by now. The disappointment was brief. They all had a lot to do, and Rafa was looking forward to it, too.

"Mom says she doesn't want me to do that with the guests," he told Maya as they worked on the outside of the house. "The jump scares?"

"Probably a good idea to listen to her then," Maya nodded. She could have said to use his judgment as to who would be receptive to a fun little scare, but she would never contradict another parent's rules. "This is your first year, you know. Maybe next time there'll be space for... compromise?" That worked.

When the house was seen to, they made their way to the dog retreat, there to find both Wyatt and Maisie Hart-Lane. Of course, Wyatt was going to help today, and there was no way that his little sister would be left behind. She'd been looking forward to this about as much as her nieces, though from the looks of things, she'd been sidetracked by the trio presently residing at the retreat.

The ten-year-old girl had one of them sleeping soundly in her lap even as she played with the second. She'd had to tie her long braids on top of her head to keep him from trying to bite and tug at them, as she told her big sister, but even then, the dog was not deterred, so distraction was all she had. The third was keeping back, watching without participating.

"How many is she trying to bring home?" Maya whispered to Wyatt.

"Oh, all of them," he confirmed what she'd assumed. It wasn't hard to guess where all their heads would be whenever a new dog would come along. They were all big dog lovers. Just now, Marianne was crouching in front of number three, who observed her but didn't move. She wouldn't force the pup to come to her; given enough time, trust would form, and then she'd get that face, the 'can we, please?' face that was a nightmare to ignore.

"Bishop, you'll come check out the house, yeah?" Rafa told the man as he worked with them to decorate the retreat.

"You bet," Bishop smirked, and Maya knew he caught her snorting to herself. She didn't have to do a thing about her 'vibe' on him and Cristina, not when Rafa clearly had his own plan in motion to pair them up.

When the ranch was truly and properly 'spookified,' the team moved their decoration efforts to the Friar house. They had the whole process down by now, though they did do their best to change some things from year to year. This year was maybe the biggest change in that, while they would still be raising their hay maze across the way from the house, on what had been the Oswalds' land, it was not the Oswalds' land anymore but the Hart-Lanes', and that gave them opportunities that both families were eager to exploit.

Year to year, the games and the costume contest had gained in popularity, bringing with them an increase in visitors. The Friars wanted to be able to receive them all, but they had to be realistic and not let everything get too crowded at once. But with their new neighbors across the road... oh, they could work with that and make it great, better than ever. Or they would, at the end of the month. Right now, they had to see to the decorations, which they wanted to ensure would make it clear that the two houses were connected, one big spooky family.

"Auntie! Auntie!" a little voice made Maya's face brighten anew and she turned from where she'd been watching Lucas in 'serious' conference with four of their girls, contemplating the front of the house. Felix Arroyo was on the whole a quiet child, but he found his voice when he needed it, and letting his Auntie Maya know that he had arrived was very important to the two and a half-year-old boy.

"Hey, bud!" Maya laughed and crouched at the ready to receive him. "Came all on your own, huh?" she joked, and he shook his head. He looked so much like his father, but then he'd smile, and he would radiate the Cara in him.

"Nuh-uh, look," he pointed back to where Cara and Mateo had been intercepted by Tori and Mackenzie.

"Ah, that makes sense, oh..." she laughed as he pressed his cheek to hers, and locked his arms around her neck, her little cuddlebug. He'd stay right there, like that, as long as he wanted to, and she wasn't going to shift him for anything. It would make it just a bit harder to confer with her sister with discretion. "Look who I found."

"Please, he was tracking you from all the way in the car," Cara snorted.

"Yeah, well, he knows what's up," Maya grinned, tipping her eyes so they might find the toddler's. His hold was steady as ever. "That's right," she gave him a light squeeze. "So… about what we talked about last week, is that still…"

"Oh, shouldn't be long now," Cara replied, matching her older sister, one knowing smirk to another.

The number of people who knew what they were talking about extended only so far as their husbands beyond the two of them. Cara had shown up at school one day at lunch with news burning at the tip of her tongue, wanting out, and so she'd turned to her sister to get it out of her system – happily received – and let her know that she was expecting her second child. She would go on to tell Mateo, giving him a good and memorable reveal, just as Maya would get to share her own excitement with Lucas, and there it would stop until they decided to tell everyone else.

"Good, because Auntie Maya here can't keep this in much longer," she whispered and, going by Cara's quiet laugh, her discreet gesture was perfectly interpreted as 'now I get one more cuddlebug for the other cheek.' "And… everything's good?" she went on, quietly.

"Mornings have been… you know…" Cara explained, and Maya nodded. "Other than that, everything's great." That was all she needed to hear. Now it only had to stay that way through to spring when the month of March would bring a new Arroyo into the world. "Oh, so, this guy's got ideas for his Halloween costume," Cara let her sister know as she smiled at her son. Maya gave the appropriate gasp, jostling her nephew.

"He does? You do?" she asked him.

"Yeah!" Felix told her. "I'm-a be a… a…"

"Slowly, you got it," Cara instructed, nodding along.

"Ast… ast… Spaceman!" he finally declared, and Maya beamed. Later, Cara would tell her how he didn't usually make it to adding on a 't' in his attempts to say the word 'astronaut,' and could not understand why his parents would laugh and tell him to stop all at once.

"You're going to look amazing," Maya told him, and Felix nodded. He thought so, too.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners