A/N: [October 8th 2024]

October 8th 2023

Chapter 281
We Aim to Spook

The fall festival was not completely closed out for the year that talk of Halloween and decorations had begun. All Maya and Lucas could do to hold the patience of all their daughters in check - and their own as well - was to set a date for deco day and hope that it would work. The closer they came to that day, the clearer it was that several of them had been seeing their minds bombarded with ideas and thoughts, which had been left to accumulate, piling up until there was barely space for anything else.

But now the day had come at last, and the excitement was at an all-time high. This was the Friars' favorite time of the year, Halloween, Christmas... and they had finally made it. The girls were a bit disappointed at the fact that their big sister and her family wouldn't make it for this deco day, but there was some consolation. Not only did they have the Clutterbuckets, but it was Shonagh's first big holiday in Texas, and it was also little brother Ezra's very first Halloween, his first presence in this grand tradition of his family. How they couldn't wait to involve him, even if he couldn't do much as of yet.

There was no chance of the day finally coming along and them getting to sleep in very much longer than they did on most days. There had been little more than hellos, one kiss and another, and then there were several blond girls barging in, the better to approach the crib where Ezra had been quietly awake for no more than a minute himself. He didn't know where he was going, but his sisters were looking very eager, and that was really all that he needed to know in order to bloom with a great big smile.

After a quick breakfast - because they HAD to hurry up and go already - everyone was made ready and they went off to the ranch, there to be united to the rest of their decorating team. What patience was left in the children was spent as they all figured out their plan of action, everyone splitting off to do this thing or that one. The most focus they got out of the children in that one was due to everyone wanting to make sure that they would get to do the things that they personally wanted to do. It was difficult in some places, but they got there in the end without too many tears and tantrums.

"Look, look," Marianne tapped Shonagh's arm, showing her a box full of small dolls, dressed as witches. "Grangie made them," she pointed back to the woman already smiling to see her great granddaughter so excited. "There's one for each of us girls. This one's mine, that's Lucy's, and Aubrey's... Mack's one keeps losing her hat, and Mom says that's because she didn't like hats when she was a baby."

"I'm telling you, that doll knows," Maya nodded confidently, turning to her grandparents, both of them agreeing. "See?"

"They go in Dad's office," Marianne told Shonagh, then turning to Angela, "Ezra needs one, too, doesn't he?"

"It's almost ready," she assured her, and Marianne beamed with renewed giddiness.

"Are you looking forward to Halloween, Miss Shonagh?" Tanner asked the girl while they continued to sort out the main building's decorations. It made her happy to be called that, she'd told them, because her own grandfather called her this, and it felt like having him here. He was one of the people she missed the most.

"Oh, yes," she brightened at the question now. "I can't wait to see everything Annie's told me about. We're making our costumes together, me and her."

"Yes, I've been hearing about you being pretty good with a needle and thread," Angela laughed. Shonagh nodded.

"Our neighbor is who showed me. She's like my gran. I never made anything from scratch before," she confessed.

"It's going to be so good," Marianne jumped in here, and her praise went a long way to boost her new friend and guest to feel the same. "I can't wait to show you guys when we're done."

While Marianne was busy showing her guest her favorite things about Halloween at Sullivan Stables, her little sisters were doing a lot of the same with their baby brother. They were all off with their father, making the most of their garlands of many spooky standards, which was not always so easy to do with Ezra, as the ten-month-old found it near irresistible to try and put one of the little bats, pumpkins, ghosts, witches, and other creatures into his mouth. Lucas kept feeling like he would turn for one second and his son would have the garland stuck around his little neck.

So, for that, stories were the best means of distraction. With a family like theirs, stories were a favored currency from the start.

Mackenzie and Aubrey had less of those in mind when it came to Halloween specifically, although the more they grew, the easier it got. For now, they were very happy to listen to the tales told by the triplets, not so much woven but braided, one might say, as each had her own strand to twist with the others'. The little sisters listened with great interest, as did Ezra... when the draw of those plastic garlands didn't pull his attention all over again. The important part was that, in due time, all the garlands were hung in their places, and the children were happy to stand back and see the results.

"When is he going to remember?" Remy asked, as Kacey now hoisted up Ezra, while Lucy made funny faces at him.

"He might not remember everything, not for a while, but he's making memories, right now, here with all of you," Lucas promised. The girls smiled. That was all that they needed to hear.

As much as they all loved the rest of their decorating, there was no hiding that what a lot of them had been looking forward to the most was the moment where they would go about hiding the small, numbered figurines, the better to hunt for them later on. As they had done in the past, each of them would have a set of figurines to hide, the better to allow them all to participate in the hunt itself. The only ones who would so valiantly exclude themselves from that hunt, the better to keep track of where all the small things would be hidden and make sure none of them became lost to the years, would be Lucas and Maya. They would set out, this time with the group of their children they had not accompanied before, keeping note of all their hiding spots as they were chosen.

It was not the easiest thing not to allow any of the hiding to betray locations to any of the future seekers, but if anyone was going to have a handle on making sure those kids didn't notice anything ahead of time, it would be the two of them.

"Mom! Mommy! Mom, I have an idea! I have an idea," Mackenzie came and clamped on to Maya's arm, even as the other was holding Ezra up.

"You do, huh?" Maya chuckled, and her daughter nodded. "Okay, what's the idea?"

"Here," Mackenzie held up a little witch with the number twelve underneath it, not to Maya but to Ezra, who reached his little hands out to grab at it at once, even as Maya carefully turned away. Ezra squealed with sudden confusion.

"It's not for eating, okay, bud? Just holding," Maya gently told her son before allowing the witch to be passed into his hands.

"What if, what if he hides that one, and we don't know where it is," Mackenzie went on sharing her idea, watching Ezra along with her sisters. "And if we find it, there's a prize."

"Do I get to know where it is?" Maya asked with a smirk. Mackenzie nodded. "Alright, that sounds like a plan. But you won't know when he hides it. Might be today, might be another day. You'll just have to wait and see."

That was fine by all of them. The only one who might have something to say about parting with the little witch was Ezra. He held on to that thing – with his hands, not his mouth – all through their time at the ranch that day, and any moment where he might have perceived the thing to be taken from him translated into momentary panic across his face. So, the witch remained in his keep while his sisters ran this way and that, hiding their own loot of figurines while their mother took note of everything and moved along with him, casually checking in the 'grand prize' figurine's continued visibility.

Out on their end of the task, while Lucas took his own notes, his ears were locked on to what Marianne and Shonagh were discussing, mainly the tale of the lost figurines, the previous incarnations of the ones they were hiding now, back when they weren't numbered and carefully tracked. Marianne had still been little when the last of those had been found, but what she did not remember for herself had come by her in the form of stories, from her parents, from her aunts and their boyfriends… She told her friend how she almost wished that some of them did get lost again, so that she would get to find them like they'd done, hunting them down and looking in every possible place, logical or not. This led Shonagh sharing tales of how she'd once been playing with a thing of her mother's when she wasn't supposed to, and she'd hid it so it wouldn't be known… and then she'd forgotten where she'd put it.

"Didn't find it again for weeks. She was mad," Shonagh shook her head while Marianne covered her mouth with her hand to hold a gasp.

"I'm really glad we get to hunt the figurines together this year," she eventually told Shonagh, in a voice Lucas knew as her 'I see that you feel bad, let me try and cheer you up' voice. A shy smile blooming on the Irish girl's face was enough for them to go on. While Lucas and the Clutterbuckets trailed slowly along, they would see the two girls zooming along, stopping over to tell their notetaker about their latest hiding spot for the list before carrying on, and it would be all the entertainment they needed.

"Couple of little fairies there," Tanner commented in his deep voice. "No monsters around."

When all was said and done that day and they could all take a look at what they had done, they could only smile and look forward to the rest of the month as it would unfold before them. The girls were so looking forward to the figurine hunt that, left to their own devices, they might have started it that very day already. Lucas convinced them to hold steady and wait, but it took some effort doing, ending with the promise of ice cream. Plus, now that they had done the ranch, they could not wait to get started on the house itself. This would come, and it would come soon, their parents promised, but it wouldn't be on this day.

"We could get talking about all your costumes some more…" Maya suggested, and she only had to see the smirk on her husband's face to know that he was just as aware as she was of the effect this would have as she was. Before long, they were all packed up in the minivan and setting off from Sullivan Stables. They could see it all so much better as they did so, the whole picture rather than small snapshots, and it thrilled them with the reminder that one of their favorite days was fast approaching.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners