January 28th 2024

Chapter 28
The Surprise in the Dark

Haley had already announced her visit coming a day early, saying that she wanted to come and spend Thursday night at the Friar house so she could be with the rest of them for all of that, too, without having to head back home afterward. As she pointed out, she would get to school just fine on Friday morning, seeing as her sister worked there. Everyone was alright with this, so it was set. She didn't wait for her sister when they left the school, though she was already at the house by the time Maya arrived. She could see her outside the house, her and several others already working to set things up ahead of the evening's games and contest. She'd recruited friend and former boyfriend Rafa into this. They continued to work very well together, which was good to see.

The Hunter and Davis twins were on the job, too, and ever since it had become known that Nellie was pregnant, those four together were never not hilariously sweet to see. Bobby of course would be very tuned in to his girlfriend's needs and those of their unborn child, knowing full well that his hovering would only set her off but also that deep down she would understand why he had to do it. Then there would be Gracie, doing a lot of the same toward her twin sister, though here it would be received a lot gentler than when it came from Bobby, something he couldn't even be too confused about because he would be the same with his brother. As for that twin brother of his, Ethan was maybe the funniest of all to see. This wasn't his girlfriend who was pregnant, but they were identical, too, and ever since Nellie had started to physically change, it was like he couldn't help but be confused whenever he'd look at her and have to remind himself that this wasn't Gracie.

"Hi! Hi, hi!" Finneas came dashing at his aunt and was picked up at once.

"Oh, hey, I got you," Maya laughed. He was still little, but not so little as he used to be. It didn't matter to her, no. She would hold him in her arms for as long as she could and as long as he wanted her to, whichever one stopped happening first. "You're excited for Halloween tonight? Gonna go trick or treating?"

"Yeah-huh!" he hollered, making her laugh even more. "Getting all the candy, Auntie!"

"Good. You know which ones are my favorites," she whispered, and he nodded with great conspiracy and a perfect twinkle in his eye. He looked so much like his father these days, and she loved to see it every time. Wyatt felt it, too. He continued to put everything he had to give toward giving his son the best life, and Maya was so proud of him for it. He had plenty of fortune in his misfortune, with all of them there to help him, but he never took it for granted.

Everyone already running in and out of the house was already a lot, but before long there were more of them as friends and family arrived for Marianne's traditional birthday dinner ahead of the evening. The birthday girl had already been having a great day at school, so this only took her to another level. She told everyone about how her teacher had challenged the class to - within reason - spend the last part of the afternoon pretending as though they were whoever or whatever they had dressed up as, and she had loved the exercise of embodying her character. She'd made several of her classmates laugh, and those of them who'd been kind of shy about it all became more and more motivated to get into it with their own costumes as she interacted with them.

Even before that, she'd been so happy to spend the day in her costume. Gym class could have been tricky, but their teacher had decided to put a movie on for them, complete with snacks, so they had been fine. The more Marianne and her classmates had been growing, it was easy to see how some of them were evolving toward their teenage selves, for good or ill. But Marianne was holding steady, not letting it change her, not letting it bother her.

As soon as Haru had arrived, missing dinner and feeling bad about it, Marianne approached him at once in character, just as she would have done at school. She didn't tell him any of this, but he immediately responded in kind, adopting his own costume's character, which in itself was nearly enough to make Marianne break character, but she pulled her smile back in before it could show itself in full, even if they'd all known it was there for the half a second it had started to slip over her face.

This play-acting continued and would likely continue all evening. First and foremost, they set themselves to putting the finishing touches on the game that they had created together, getting it set up outside with the rest of the games. They had given it a spot where it would be sure to get a lot of visitors, which wasn't to say that the others would not, but still. New games tended to bring in a lot of their regulars, who would see it and go 'oh, what's this?' Even as they continued to stay in character, Marianne and Haru both showed some hesitation about whether they would go trick or treating with the younger kids. They wanted to go, they genuinely did, but then if they went they wouldn't be there to see when the people would start showing up, and playing their game… Lucas offered to record as much as he could for the two young heroes when they returned from their quest, and this was deemed a satisfactory alternative. So, they went along to see about getting their hands on candy with the children.

It was really not too long after they left that the people started to arrive. The number of visitors continued to be as high ever, the exact number tracking roughly around the same mark each year, as someone was always in charge of the headcount, the better not to get overcrowded. They had regulars, and the best part would always be to see how the kids grew. They also had newcomers, which were often easy to spot by the amazed looks on their faces. Those were kind of wonderful to note, too.

This year, they might have had another look on them, too, new or not, if they'd spotted one of their own regulars, the ones who watched over the games, the tables, the candy, the maze… but she was so well disguised that no one would have recognized her, not even her friends, if she hadn't identified herself to them.

"Interesting costume," Maya told her. She didn't know what else to say. She'd had one thought when she'd realized it was her, that she didn't want people to swarm around her and ask about her rescue back in September, and by the look on Chiara and Giulia's faces, as they'd been with her upon arrival, that was exactly the reason, and they had definitely not been on board with it, but they went along with it for Sophie's sake.

"Hey, Mrs. Friar!" Katie Willows was the first of her students she saw - aside from those she was related to - and Maya was happy to see her at once, especially when she noticed she hadn't come alone. The girl at her side, though much quieter compared to her, bore enough of a resemblance that there was no doubt who she was.

"You must be Lexie," Maya smiled at her, and the girl nodded. "Between your sister here and Marianne, I've heard a lot about you," she told her. The way she responded to the name with an instant smile, Maya was willing to bet that this was one of the kids who had been helped into playing her costume character by Marianne back in class.

"I've been wanting to bring her out here before," Katie explained, not going any further nor needing to. Her sister was very shy, and that was fine. Now she was trying this out, and hopefully she would enjoy herself enough that she'd want to come back next year.

"That looks like trouble… or drama… I'm not sure yet," Lucas declared as he came to join Maya after the Willows sister had moved on. She looked at him, then to where he pointed, and her curiosity turned to a calm smile.

"If he'd come alone, I might say trouble. With her? Fifty-fifty chance on the drama," she wagered. He received this information with a pause for consideration before guessing.

"Logan and Demi?"

"Logan and Demi," she nodded.

The relationship between those two was at once the strangest and most intriguing of the year. There had been an immediate challenge between the two of them, sitting across from one another in her post-lunch freshman class. He had all the potential in him for disruption, for 'trouble' when he was on his own. But then there she was, making it very clear that she would take none of that, and rather than dismissing her, her commanding look seemed to work on him. From that, they had developed this start of a friendship, and it really was so strange to see, but to Maya it felt like they both needed this connection between them, and it could be good for them, so she let it be.

The XCs and their hosts had made a party of their stop at the Friar house, the eight of them coming as a group. Himari and Amy, Deanne and Angie Anna, Sophia and Kennedy, and Calvin and Mosi, all of them had come, each pair dressed in what had to have been collectively decided, with the four XCs looking decidedly… Texan… and the hosts reflecting wherever their guests were from. They all looked happy to be there together, which confirmed what Maya had already known in part, having seen half the group at school that day. They were all very happy with the exercise of essentially designing their buddy's costume, putting a touch of themselves into it.

"I don't think I've seen her smile this much in the last two months," Lucas told Maya as they watched Deanne and Angie Anna playing at the new game. He sounded so relieved, and Maya looped her arm with his, leaning her head to his shoulder. He'd been so concerned for her, they all had, and there'd been no push from any of them to make her recover from her grief any faster than she was able to, all of them only able to look on, to be there for her where they could. To look at her here and now, there was some hope that this night would be the start of a turn for her, that she'd be able to look back on Halloween as something that had helped her happiness find its way back to her, something to wake up what had been left dormant since losing her mother.

"Then that's a start," Maya told Lucas. They debated taking pictures, or a video, to send back to her father, but they decided it was something that belonged to her. They imagined her calling him that night, getting back to the Bowles house, and that was how it needed to go.

"Hey, Mrs. Friar," the call found her again, as it would, and it made her smile, as it always would. Coming from the twinned voices, she had a good guess of who she'd find. The Yoon sisters came toward her, in costume now where they had not been in class. It took her a moment to realize why they looked so distinctively different now, beyond the clothes, the costumes altogether. Clare was the same, only done up for Halloween, while Cait…

"You cut your hair," she noted, and Cait nodded, smiling. "It looks great on you," she went on.

"Thank you, Mrs. Friar," Cait replied, reaching to the back of her head, her neck clear where it hadn't been just a few hours ago. Maya could imagine she'd be running her fingers at the shaved bits, enjoying the prickly feeling, the way the girls would do after Lucas got a haircut.

Clare was giving her sister a look, and the way they kept looking at each other, Maya could imagine a conversation was happening, no words needed between them. She didn't know what it was about, but as best she could guess, Clare was trying to convince her sister to say something, and Cait was unsure, or nervous, or…

"I…" Cait spoke, and her face took on a slight panic, like she'd opened the door and she couldn't shut it again because that one very little word was holding it open. After a moment, the thought seemed to become that there was nothing to worry about, so she might as well… "Non-binary," the word came, and when it was received with a smile, Cait breathed out. "I'm non-binary." There, it was said.

"Good to know," Maya nodded, asking with a questioning look…

"They/them," Cait quickly told her, and Maya nodded again. "I wanted to say it today, to be dressed up like the others, but I didn't want them all to think it wasn't real, that it was just a Halloween thing." They looked like they were thinking about the next day now, Halloween over, and the change very much not a costume, everyone reacting…

"Let me know if you need me, okay?" Maya asked them, and they nodded in thanks.

As the Yoon siblings went to check out the maze, the trick or treaters made their return. The candy haul was out of control, and they had definitely started digging into it on the way back, going by the candy rush glint in some of their eyes. Maya and Lucas both hoped - for the kids' sake as much as theirs - that this glint wouldn't turn to anything else, as they'd seen happen when any of the girls had had too much in previous years.

The stories were all over the place, spoken over one another, and they would likely take until the next day and beyond to be unraveled. For now, they were quick to put their candy in a safe place and enjoying what remained of their evening before bed, playing the games outside their house.

Haru had been dropped off back at his aunt and uncle's house before the rest of them came home, as had been the plan, but even so, this didn't feel like it would be cause enough for the mopey look they found on Marianne's face. Not even the character acting could have done it. That was gone, this was just her, and she was coming along like the unhappiest birthday girl, unlike the last time they'd seen her.

"Hey, come here, come here…" Lucas only touched her shoulder and she spun right into his arms, burying her face in his chest, costume makeup be damned. This was enough to make her father close his arms around her, the most protective of papa bears, even as Maya came and closed the embrace around her daughter, so she had them both there to support her.

"What happened?" she asked, her cheek coming to press against Marianne's and finding it wet with tears. She didn't respond right away, and they waited, eventually catching a word mid sniffle. "What was that?" Maya asked.

"Japan," she repeated, and they heard this time.

"What about it?" Lucas asked.

"He's moving there, with his parents. After they leave, in a few days. That's why they came here, to see the Farrells for a bit before they went, because they might not be back around here for… he doesn't know how long."

They hadn't known. In all the planning for the surprise visit, no one had mentioned this part of it, and now that they knew, they wished they might have had a say in how it all came out, so their girl wouldn't be left surprised this way, on her birthday…

"Pumpkin…" Maya breathed.

"He said… he didn't want to tell me on the phone, or on the computer," she continued to speak in that same quiet, faraway voice, like her mind was still trying to make sense of it all. It was one thing when he was in another state, but this… This was going to change everything for them, for their friendship and… whatever it might have become. Now with him gone like this, with no vision of when they might see each other again… Suddenly, this funny little wager on a first kiss felt insignificant, and whether or not it had happened that night, it no longer mattered. Their girl was hurting, and that was all they cared about, that and helping her feel okay again.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners