Bad Blood

by Carly Anne West

  I draw back on my heels. All the warmth leaves my body as I try to erase Mya’s sleeping pleas, but they’re words I can’t forget. They’re words I’ll never forget.

  The sound of rushing water fills my ears, and all at once, I’m back there.

  Fernweh Welt is electric with chaos.

  Crowds surge like waves, and Mya and I are fighting upstream, up the ramps and up the stairs to the top platform, past the lines of tired and curious patrons, their curiosity turning to wonder, to suspicion, to fear as we climb higher.

  “Something’s gone wrong,” they say.

  Mya’s hand grips mine as I pull her, weaving through bodies and slipping on water. Then from behind, a bigger hand holds mine, a slim one with bony fingers and a comforting softness.

  “It’s okay,” Mom tells us, breathless from racing to catch up. She’s still in her performance costume. She’s still in her dance shoes. The water dripping from the ramps above settles into the soft suede. The hem of her delicate dress is smeared with dirt.

  The hem of her dress is what I’m staring at when the woman’s scream from above slices through the air, tilting every head in line.

  Under the gasps of the people, I pull my mom closer.

  “It’s not okay,” I tell her, and she closes her eyes.

  When I open my eyes, I’m sitting on the floor beside Mya’s bed. Her eyes are still again, her forehead smooth.

  I have no idea where Mya goes when the nightmares stop, but wherever it is, I wish she’d take me with her. I’d give anything to be there, too.

  I go back to my room, steeped in its midnight darkness. I’m so tired, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be awake for the rest of the night. I’ll get to see the nighttime give way to daylight, and I’ll tell myself over and over again that it wasn’t okay in Germany, but maybe there’s still a chance that it will be okay in Raven Brooks. If I can keep all the intrusive questions and prying eyes at bay, maybe I can give us a fighting chance at a normal life here.

  In a night this bleak, that’s the most hope I can muster.

  Halloween on a weekday feels like an unreasonable compromise for a kid to have to make.

  Yes, children, you may wear your costumes to school, but no, you may not enjoy it. Yes, you may eat ten pounds of candy, but you may not behave energetically afterward. Yes, you may wear costume makeup, but no fake blood, excessive glitter, sprayed hair, or dangling eyes, ears, or other body parts. No tripping or slipping hazards, no props.

  No fun.

  By the time we’ve finished out the school day, our Halloween excitement has waned. Trinity—a comic book supervillain of her own creation—looks far less intimidating now that she knows there’ll be an algebra test at the end of the week. Mya, a rabid bunny, looks more or less like a regular bunny thanks to the no fake blood rule. Maritza, thematically the best costume of the bunch as a Golden Apple mystery candy, is less mysterious now that this year’s candy has finally been revealed as perhaps the world’s biggest letdown: peppermint. But she’d already made the costume, handstitched and painted, and it was too late to turn back. Enzo couldn’t wear the shoulder pads with his additional two heads after we determined he wouldn’t fit through any classroom door, so he didn’t bother wearing his costume to school at all. Ditto for me; without the fake blood, Smiley might just look like a deranged beaver.

  “Halloween’s a bust,” pouts Mya. “We should just skip it this year.”

  “What? No way. That’s what they want you to do,” says Enzo, reliably optimistic as ever.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” asks Mya.

  Enzo struggles. “You know … the Man. The ones who make the rules.”

  Mya blinks at him.

  “We have to go trick-or-treating,” says Trinity. “We haven’t gotten to see Enzo’s costume yet.”

  It might be my imagination, but I’d swear I just saw Enzo start to glow.

  “Or Aaron’s,” she adds diplomatically, and Enzo’s shine fades a little.

  “Besides, what about all those peppermint Golden Apples we’d miss out on?” I say, and Maritza gets mad all over again.

  “Of all the flavors,” she rants, for at least the fourth time this week. “How could they mess it up that badly? Peppermint? Why not just call it what it is: Chocolate Toothpaste!”

  Trinity puts a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “You’ll get through this difficult time.”

  “Seven o’clock at the end of our street,” says Enzo. “We’ll meet up there and devise a plan.”

  We all agree, then Trinity makes her way to the bus pickup while the rest of us walk home.

  “It’ll be better once we can all amp up our costumes again,” I reassure Mya, and she seems to perk up when I tell her she can use some of my fake blood.

  When we get home, that enthusiasm fades.

  No one is speaking when we walk through the door, but the air is dense with what’s already been spoken. Or shouted, or cried. Whatever it was, Mom is now in the kitchen aggressively chopping mushrooms for dinner and Dad is in his study moodily ruminating over his designs.

  “Did everyone like your costume, sweetheart?” Mom asks Mya, her happiness so forced it’s like she’s pushing it through her teeth when she smiles.

  Mya nods. It’s not worth telling Mom it was actually lame.

  “Do you have everything ready for yours tonight?” Mom asks me.

  “Yup. Just need to add some finishing touches,” I say.

  Mom starts chopping faster, her knife grinding hard against the cutting board, and I wonder what it is I’ve said.

  “Just like your father.” She laughs, but not really. Her voice is weirdly high. “Never quite done. Never quite good enough.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, I know you didn’t, darling,” she says, marking maybe the first time ever that she’s called me “darling.” She’s acting like Mya and I are guests she has to entertain.

  “Mom, can we, um, help you or anything?” Mya asks, and I’m not sure she means with dinner.

  “Just go on up to your room and finish your homework, kids,” she says, sounding a tiny bit more like herself but still not looking up. “No homework, no Halloween.”

  It isn’t until dinnertime that we return to the land of the nonfighting parents, where everything they say to each other is a not-so-subtle dig, and every question about why they’re fighting is answered with “We’re not fighting; what makes you think we’re fighting?”

  “These mushrooms are interesting,” says Dad, peering at a spoonful swimming in gravy on his spoon.

  “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but okay,” says Mom, pressing her teeth together again.

  Dad lets the mushroom fall from his spoon and splat back into his bowl before raising his eyes to Mom.

  “Have you always put mushrooms in the beef stew?”

  “Have you always had so much interest in mushrooms?” Mom shoots back.

  Game on. It appears they’re tied at the moment.

  Dad takes a bite and grimaces. Mom watches him and slurps her next spoonful with gusto.

  “We’re meeting everyone at seven,” I say, wading into the conversation. This is my only chance to get an extension on our normal curfew.

  “That’s great, hon,” says Mom, even though it’s not great. It’s not anything, really.

  “And we have a lot of ground to cover,” adds Mya.

  “Of course,” says Dad, about as engaged as Mom is, which is to say we could be talking about circus bears right now and they wouldn’t know it. This could work out well, actually.

  “And we were thinking that if we had a little more time, we’d be able to hit another neighborhood. Which would just mean a tiny extension of our curfew to nine, and—”

  “No,” says Dad.

  “But if we—”

  “No.”

  “Dad,” Mya tries, “I’ll be with Aaron, and Trinity is almost twelve, so—”

  “Your father said
‘no,’” says Mom, and on this and this alone, Mom and Dad seem to be aligned.

  “But why not?” I whine.

  “There’s going to be a storm tonight,” Dad says.

  I look outside at the clear skies illuminated by the setting sun.

  “I don’t remember the news saying anything about that,” I say, tempting fate by challenging Dad, but I think I can recognize an excuse when I hear it.

  I immediately regret my bravery when he trains his eyes on me.

  “You have no idea how severe they can get in this area,” he says. “What you saw the other night? That was nothing.”

  I’ve never heard him—heard anyone, really—talk about weather like it’s a boogeyman.

  “Okay,” I say, backing away from the argument with both hands up in surrender. “Got it. We’ll be home before the storm.”

  Dad burns a hole through my head while he stares me in the eyes, the seriousness of his warning completely lost on me. What isn’t lost on me, though, is how much he doesn’t look like my dad. Right in this moment, he doesn’t even look like someone I recognize. That to me is way scarier than any storm.

  “Were the storms bad when you were growing up?” Mya asks Dad. “Were you afraid of them?”

  Dad stiffens. “No.”

  “You seem tense,” Mom says, sounding pretty tense herself. “Why don’t you call up Ike and see if he wants to grab a coffee. It’s been a while since you’ve gotten out.”

  “I didn’t realize I was being monitored,” says Dad.

  Back away, Mom.

  But she doesn’t. “It’s not ‘monitoring’ you if I’m worried about you,” she says pointedly.

  There’s something brewing in Dad’s belly now. I can tell. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the beef stew.

  “Perhaps we can talk about your concerns when we’re not sitting at the dinner table as a family,” Dad grinds out.

  Translation: not in front of the kids, which is a joke considering their fight could be seen from space.

  “What’s wrong with suggesting you spend some time with an old friend?” Mom asks because she’s the only one in this house brave enough to push it this far.

  Just then, I remember someone else who pushed Dad recently: the very same Ike Gershowitz Mom is talking about.

  “Well, thank you for your concern, dear,” says Dad coldly, “but Ike hasn’t seen fit to call me back after our disagreement.”

  “Oh,” says Mom, only embarrassed for a second before she looks worried. “I didn’t realize you’d fought.”

  The knot in my stomach draws tighter as I remember that night, the way Dad had turned so icy toward his oldest friend, just like he’s doing with Mom now. It’s like he’s building this wall around himself, and unless he builds a door, pretty soon it’s going to be impossible to reach him.

  “There’s a lot you don’t realize,” says Dad.

  “I think I’m full,” I say, and Mya rests her spoon in her bowl, too.

  “May we be excused?” she asks, and Mom just nods. She and Dad are locked in a staring contest. I can’t leave the table fast enough.

  When we leave for trick-or-treating—bunny ears and giant tooth and fake blood in place—Mom and Dad have only six parting words for us:

  “Have fun. Be safe. Eight thirty.”

  Mya and I nod silently and walk out of the house, the air outside a relief from whatever that was in our house.

  I wait for Mya to say something, but she seems too deep in her own thoughts, and I can’t help but be glad because I have no idea what I’d say to her anyway.

  Trick-or-treaters are already knocking on doors and darting down the street by the time we meet up with the rest of the gang.

  Enzo looks amazing. I don’t know where he found the football pads, but they hold the papier-mâché heads up perfectly. It’s nearly identical to my sketch, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt prouder. Lucy Yi has joined Maritza, too, and Mya greets her with a hug and a little squeal because Lucy is a T. rex, and a pretty impressive one at that.

  “My mom painted the scales herself,” says Lucy, and I take note of the iridescent skin on the back of her stitched spine all the way to her long tail.

  “Okay, it’s plan time,” says Trinity, getting right down to work.

  “I have some critical data to share,” says Enzo, and we’re all ears.

  He leans in a little closer, dropping his voice. “Okay, nobody react. We don’t want to draw attention. But I have it on good authority that Delwood Heights is handing out FULL-SIZED CANDYBARS.”

  Maritza gasps.

  “Shhhh,” Enzo warns, covering her mouth with his hand. “Be cool!”

  “Sorry, it’s just—”

  “They say that every year. It’s never true,” says Trinity.

  Enzo shakes his head slowly, his eyes deadly serious. “Not this time. My source actually witnessed the purchase of said candy. In bulk.”

  Lucy screws up her face, which is barely visible inside the wide mouth of the dinosaur head. “Who is this source of yours?”

  Enzo guffaws. “I can’t reveal that! It’s code!”

  “What code?”

  “It’s … candy code. Or Halloween code. I don’t know, but it’s not allowed.”

  “How do we know it’s trustworthy intel?” asks Trinity.

  “It is,” says Enzo. “Frankly, I’m beginning to take it a little personally that you’re all so ready to doubt me.”

  “We believe you,” I say, putting a hand on one of Enzo’s heads. “It’s just that Mya and I have to be back by eight thirty.”

  Enzo’s quiet while he thinks it through. His own face creases in concentration while the two on his shoulders stare blankly into the night.

  Then, inspiration strikes. “The woods,” he says.

  “Nope,” says Trinity. “No way.”

  “Wait, you’re not saying we—” I start, but no, that can’t be.

  “Cut through the woods. It’s the only way.”

  “Enzo’s right,” says Maritza. “Delwood Heights is just over the train tracks. There’s no way we’ll make it if we use the roads, but it’s a straight shot past the factory.”

  “Have we all forgotten what happened that last time we decided to go trouncing through the woods?” says Trinity.

  Mya takes an almost imperceptible step closer to me.

  “What about the Forest Protectors?” Lucy says, her voice so tiny inside her fearsome T. rex head, I can barely hear her.

  “There’s no such thing as Forest Protectors,” says Trinity, and boy do I wish I believe that.

  “But you know what does exist?” says Enzo. “Candy. Full-sized, no-fooling, chocolate-covered deliciousness. It’s real, you guys.”

  We’re all quiet as the gravity of Enzo’s words sink in. The thought of everyone else snagging the prized treats—getting more than their share because we were too chicken to cut through the woods—is unbearable. “We’re in,” I say.

  “We are?” says Mya.

  I nod.

  Trinity sighs. “Okay, but everybody sticks together, got it? No repeats of last time.”

  We all agree because Trinity is really the only one among us with the authority to demand that level of obedience.

  We make our way to the alley as inconspicuously as a group of murderers, carnivores, and human-sized candies are able to. I briefly consider telling them there’s an easier way into the forest, but I don’t exactly remember how to get there, and besides, if we’re trying not to get caught, probably best to avoid the place where I know Mr. Gershowitz sometimes patrols.

  Enzo, Maritza, and Lucy all have to remove half of their costumes and pass them through the opening in the fence in order to fit, but eventually, we all make it through.

  “This had better be worth it,” Maritza grumbles as she reaffixes her wrapper headgear.

  “Eyes on the prize, little sis,” says Enzo, and Maritza grumbles something under her breath that sounds vaguely like a curse
.

  We pick our way slowly through the foliage, grateful for the light of a fuller moon this time.

  “Hang on, I’m stuck,” says Lucy from somewhere behind us. “Can someone untangle me?”

  “Just pull the vine,” says Trinity.

  “I can’t reach,” Lucy says, waving her tiny dinosaur arms in front of her.

  We end up freeing Lucy from shrubs at least three more times, and after Mya swears her leg is starting to itch with poison ivy and one of Enzo’s heads falls off and rolls down the same embankment I rolled down, we have all thoroughly had it.

  “My eyes aren’t on the prize,” Maritza says, kicking through dead leaves and dragging her empty candy bag on the ground. “I’ve forgotten what the prize is.”

  “How can you forget?” asks Enzo. “You’re dressed as the prize.”

  Maritza scowls. “You promised chocolate. So help me, if we reach Delwood Heights, and all they have are full-sized Peppermint Golden Apples, I swear I’ll—”

  “I think I see the roof of the factory,” says Trinity, and she may be dressed like a villain, but in this moment she’s a superhero because the factory means we’re close to the other side of the woods. All that stands between us and full-sized goodness after that is a set of train tracks.

  We keep walking, and I tell myself every time I hear a twig snap that it was one of us. It definitely wasn’t somewhere in the distance, in one of the hundred spots of dark nothingness that surrounds us. It definitely wasn’t someone, or something, with talon feet and a bloodthirsty beak following us at a distance.

  “Whoa,” Trinity says, seeing what we can’t see yet up ahead.

  When we arrive by her side, we repeat her response, because let’s face it, there isn’t much else to say.

  There, right in the middle of the woods that feel like they could swallow us whole and no one would ever find us, is a swathe of land so barren and bald, it looks like a mistake.

  Not even a stump remains where there should be hundreds, and all trace of brush and bush has been scooped, rooted, leveled, and smoothed in preparation for what comes next. Farther back than anyone can see, the land that used to be forest waits to be something else.

  According to the sign hanging on a chain-link fence so high no one would dare climb it, the land is waiting to become the Golden Apple Amusement Park. And our dad is waiting to become the name behind the next legendary theme park.