October Darlings

by Wendolyn Baird

  Ellis and I are seated at the kitchen table, chewing on the thick brownies Delia claimed were good enough for breakfast. “Muffins are close enough to cake and they’re allowed for breakfast,” she said. “Why not these?”

  Norma and Javi went to open the shop in our place, and Delia sets down her coffee as Sabrina’s queries grow louder. “Now y’all stay put! I’ll go let her in.”

  “Remember to check her eyes!” I yelp. "If they’re—”

  “Blue. Yes darling, I know. Besides do you think The House would let her in if she wasn’t herself?”

  “What are the odds of it attacking during the day?” Ellis asks. “You said it didn’t really do that before.”

  “Yeah, except the day it rained, but there was something weird about that too.” The brownie is sticking to my throat and I need to shower, but the idea of being alone in the bathroom isn’t comforting. Just brushing my teeth was a nightmare.

  “Alright, let’s get everyone cleaned up. I still need to go to work, but I don’t want y’all taking a step off this property, you hear?” Delia bustles back in, Sabrina at her side. “And whatever y’all do, stick in groups of three. I don’t know why but life is calmer that way.”

  Sabrina chucks a small nylon bag at Ellis before throwing herself into a chair and stealing one of the brownies off my plate. “That’s from Owen. He said you owed him, and you need to like, check your phone every now and then.”

  “At least there’s two worries off my plate,” Ellis says. His shoulders relax as he peers into the bag, and it’s clear the restless night is still wearing on him. “Excuse me, but can I borrow one of the bathrooms for a shower?” he asks Delia. Ah, those must be clothes.

  Sipping at my second cup of coffee, I brace myself for the rest of the day. “Why didn’t Owen just drop the stuff over here?” I ask Sabrina after the hot liquid slips down my throat.

  She snorts, rolling her eyes behind what must be new glasses, bright green and leopard printed. “Are you kidding me? Owen’s not that brave! There’s no way that dude would be caught dead in this place. No offense.”

  She glances around uneasily as a cold wind sweeps the room, and I frown at my great aunt who’s now staring her down from over by the stove. Maybe it’s better Sabrina can’t see what I can, because that glare is not pretty.

  “Nice choice of words.”

  "Well, whatever, you know what I mean." She draws her shoulders near her ears and picks a chocolate chip out of her brownie to pop it in her mouth.

  With an empty plate and cup, there's nothing left to postpone the inevitable, so I cajole Sabrina into sitting outside the bathroom door while I jump into my own shower. Delia locks the door behind her, noticing for the first time that the door knocker is missing, and soon enough, we’re ready to brave the cemetery once more.

  “You sure you’re caught up?” I ask Sabrina as we head to the back porch. Ellis chose to fill her in while I tied back my hair, but this venture is too big to take chances with.

  “Totally, completely, a hundred percent positive.” She narrows her eyes and adjusts her glasses for the millionth time. Armed with a saltshaker and a black light lantern, she looks more ready for a Halloween party than ghost hunting in her bright orange jacket and purple tights.

  “Addie, we’re fine,” Ellis insists. “We haven’t run yet, so stop trying to scare us off.” He too, has a saltshaker on hand, but tucked into his pocket, it doesn’t look nearly as conspicuous.

  “I haven’t been trying to scare you off.” I mutter under my breath while pulling my beanie over the tips of my ears. The morning is cool, and a light layer of fog lingers over the yard, not the best circumstances stomping around out here. In the distance, the tips of crosses and praying angels jut out of the fog like beacons, and I curl one hand around my lanyard, feeling for the comforting edge of my camera.

  “You are the most stubborn person I have ever met,” Ellis sighs.

  Sabrina snickers, and scowling at him, I lead the way down the steps. As usual, the iron swings at my approach, and a half dozen cats mill around the fence, not daring to slip a single paw through. You’d think if they were that worried about ghosts, they wouldn’t lounge around the rest of the property.

  “Alright, here’s the deal; we find the statue, look for any markers that have scorpions or quotes about, I guess anything to do ghosts or gifts. After that, we get back inside. This place gives me the creeps.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “OH MAN, I WISH I’D brought some paper with me! These markers are beautiful! Look at the engraving on these things!” Sabrina lets out a squeal as soon as we're through the gate, as excited as she is nervous.

  Following her lead, I angle around the burial sites, shining my flashlight through the thick mist that curls around the stones.

  Ellis catches up to me, peering anxiously into my face. “Are you okay?”

  It feels like there’s a block of ice in my chest and my cheek is so swollen that my eye is half closed, but besides that and searching for the phantom serial killer that murdered my mom and is after me, sure, I’m good.

  “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with, I think your statue is near the back.”

  A few feet away from us, Sabrina is absorbed in inspecting the stones. “The dates on this marker are only a few days off from the rest of this row. It looks like this entire group died in the same month and year.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Ellis and I both squat down beside her, moving slowly along the line as we compare the dates. Not only are they in the same month and year, they’re also mainly women. Children even. My fingers skim across the faded words and I move spare strands of mint away from the names. In any case, the stones are very, very old.

  “What do you think happened to them?” he whispers.

  Sabrina shrugs, wiping the dirt from her hands and using a tombstone to haul herself to her feet. “Maybe a bad flu that year, maybe not enough food. One thing’s for sure though, all of them passed in October.”

  My palms brush against the cool stone again and Frank lifts his head slightly, straining towards the markers as though he’s about to crawl down my hand. I freeze in place, fingertips pressed to a small white stone set into the gravestone. The same tingling sensation I experienced in the house when I pressed against the windowsill shoots up my arm, like a light electric current humming through my marrow.

  A ray of sun manages to cut through the fog, and with it, a thousand fiery shades sparkle beneath my hand, as brilliant and entrancing as the opaque on the iron scorpions in the gate around me.

  “Opal,” I whisper. “They all have opals above the dates.”

  “I’ve never seen that before,” Sabrina squints. “I wonder what it means.”

  An icy chill shoots down my spine, cementing me where I kneel. “It’s my birthstone. It’s the stone for October.”

  “But they weren’t born in October,” Sabrina points out. “They died in October.”

  “Hey guys?” Ellis calls us from the end of the row, hesitation floating up through his words. “I found the statue.” He’s got one hand on a stone figure; a woman with her head bowed and her face covered in moss. The heavy granite has been worn down with weather and her features are all but lost, save for the mournful downturn of her mouth.

  Sabrina pats me on the arm as she passes, completely focused on the figure now. “I’ve seen that before. Who is she?”

  I hesitate, running my hands over the opal marked graves for another moment. Their deaths are picking at me along with all the other questions gnawing at the back of my head. But Ellis and Sabrina are so drawn in by the stone woman, so adamant about seeing it before, that I have no choice but to join them.

  “I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?” I ask, trudging over to them. From a distance, there’s nothing extraordinary about her, but as I lay my eyes on the worn granite, her faded expression stops me still.

  As broken down as the statue is, she’s breathtaking in a w
ay that draws the oxygen from my lungs, as I stare upon an eternal expression of heartache. Everything about her radiates grief, and it’s difficult to imagine what agony the sculptor must have endured before forming her.

  “There’s another one of these?”

  “Yeah,” Ellis murmurs. “I remember being scared of her as a kid and tossing pennies into a well.”

  “That’s right!” Sabrina grabs his arm in a burst of excitement. “Come on, I think I know where we need to go!”

  “Sabrina, no! We’re supposed to stay here!”

  It’s no use, she races down the side of the house, staying just out of range as both Ellis and I reach for the back of her jacket.

  “Wait up!” Ellis pants. “It’s not safe to go running off!”

  “Says who?” She pauses by the gate, challenging us. An orange tabby hisses at her heels and darts away to the garage, and off in the distance I can hear the howling of the neighbor’s dogs. “If it really isn’t safe out there, why didn’t you call your brother and make him come over? Or anyone else? And Addie, what if this is related to your shadow problem?”

  I shift my feet, staring around at the creaking branches overhead and the torn screens hanging off the garage windows. Ever since I got here my life has spiraled out of my own control, and it’s like I’ve been daydreaming on the precipice of a crossroads. This entire time, I’ve been dragging my feet and fluctuating between trying to accept myself and trying to hide. I don’t want to do that anymore.

  “At least tell us where we’re going,” I say. “And let me gather a few supplies. We’ll need more than just flashlights if we’re leaving Nix House.”

  “Addie,” Ellis moans. His wonderful mouth is twisted up in a grimace and his golden eyes are so saturated with reluctance, I almost reconsider.

  “No,” I point at him and hold my ground, “this is my problem and how I deal with it is up to me. You can either come along to help, or stay back so you can stay safe, but don’t try to stop me.”

  “That’s my girl,” Sabrina grins. Grabbing my hand, she nods at me, and together, we go back into the house. This time, I’m not retreating; I’m preparing for war.

  “I’VE SAID IT BEFORE, and I’ll say it again.” I complain as we fight our way through heavy brush. “This is a terrible, terrible idea. It could get bad. Y’all really ought to go back. I only said you could come along so y’all wouldn't throw a fit.”

  “You aren’t scaring us off,” Sabrina sings as she forges forward, her slight frame darting into the hazy sunshine before us. With a map in her hand, and the saltshaker in the other, she belongs on the cover of a children’s storybook. I can picture it now, The Fables of Being Too Impulsive.

  We’re back at the side of the woods where Ellis and I crashed just a few weeks ago. There’s no sign of the woman or the dilapidated gate, but I’m not taking the absence of either as a good sign. By my reckoning, the lack of splintered fence probably makes it worse. The twisting tree branches above swing like ghastly hands waiting to reach out and strangle us, and the further into the foliage we go, the cooler the air gets.

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Yeah.” Ellis is as perplexed as I am, but Sabrina keeps on, as determined as ever. There’s not enough shade to cause a temperature drop this bad, and the fog has dissipated enough that we should be able to see further than I currently can.

  Squinting into the mist, my steps falter, and with Ellis by my side, I’m not sure if the unsteady cadence of my heart is from how close he is, or the uncertainty of our goal. His arm brushes against mine as he moves to avoid a turned-up root in his path, and my cheeks blaze with color that I hope the stinging wind can explain away. Ahead of us, Sabrina’s pace slows, and I run to catch up, searching our surroundings for whatever has her attention.

  “What was that?” Sabrina grabs my hand as I reach her side, her glasses slipping halfway down her nose as she comes to an abrupt stop.

  “The air? I don’t know.” Probably a ghost, although if it was, I should be able to see it by now.

  “No, not the air,” Sabrina insists. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Shh,” Ellis commands as he comes up on my other side. He sets one hand on my shoulder, and with the other he grips his saltshaker like it’s a small knife, and not a tiny ceramic rooster. Even the kitchenware Delia keeps makes no sense.

  The noise repeats, and this time I’m able to detect approaching footsteps crashing over fallen twigs. I wait for the telltale prickle at the base of my skull to start, but it never comes. The flapping of wings makes us jump, and the cracking screech of an owl out in the daylight has Sabrina hanging onto my hand so tightly, I can’t feel the tips of my fingers. A branch drops directly in front of us, and then—

  “George?”

  He tumbles out of the wood in front of us, covered head to toe in leaves and looking as though he’s just run a mile.

  “What are you doing out here?” Sabrina yelps, stamping her feet. “You’re going to give someone a heart attack! And you told me you were busy this morning.”

  “I was. Long story,” he pants. “Y’all got anything to drink? I’ve been out here for an hour and I can’t find my car.”

  “You lost your car?” Ellis raises his eyebrows skeptically and leans forward, peering into George’s face. “What were you up to this time?”

  From his spot on the ground, George smirks at us and raises his hands. “You really want to lie for me?”

  “Don’t come another step closer!” I yell. “Ellis, get back!”

  “Whoa,” George frowns, “what’s up? Is there a snake or something?” Unwittingly, he turns in circles, gawking at the ground for unnoticed reptiles. He’s acting like George alright, but so did Nick’s doppelganger right before it attacked me.

  Brandishing the extra stick of dried sage I’d found tucked into a kitchen drawer besides the birthday candles, I edge forward. Ellis retrieves a lighter from his pocket, and Sabrina shakingly raises her salt.

  “What the hell are y’all doing?” He stares at us with widened eyes, his hands tense at his sides, and his hair sticking up in all directions.

  I release my breath, dropping my arm and falling back against the others. “It’s fine. His eyes are brown, it’s him.”

  “It’s me? Who the hell else would it be? Did y’all try eating some berries or mushrooms out here? Because you’re out of it or something!”

  Ellis stashes the lighter back in his pocket and moves forward to clasp George on the back. “Forget about it. My truck is about half a mile down the road that way,” he points, “if you want to wait in it. Just don’t drive off without us.”

  Sabrina and I shake our heads, and start stumbling through the brush again.

  “Why don’t I just come along with you?” George is wheedling. “These woods are downright weird, to tell you the truth I was starting to get a little freaked out before you came along.”

  “Wait, why? What did you see?”

  “How do you know I saw something?”

  “Just answer her,” Ellis barks. The owl circles back around, and my stomach drops. Goosebumps inch up my arms, and Frank squirms under my jacket sleeve.

  “I thought I saw a kid running around by himself. He was in some kind of costume, really old-fashioned clothes and I thought he was lost, but...”

  “But?” Sabrina prompts him.

  I take a guess and prepare myself for the worst. “He vanished before you could reach him, didn’t he?”

  George raises his gaze to mine, frightened and bewildered as he takes in our serious expressions. “Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.”

  If the dead are willingly showing themselves to the living, we’re on the right path. Whatever this demon wants from me, it’s going to get one hell of a fight. Weighing the pros and cons, we can’t leave George on his own, and Sabrina won’t let us anyway. But walking alongside them as they sheepishly hold hands, creates a dark mirror of my outing last night,
and I’m glad to have Ellis nearby. Even if it does make me feel guilty that Nick never even got an explanation as to why we all bailed on him.

  “I’m sorry about you and Eden,” I murmur as the other two fall behind. “She’s cool, and I know she really liked you.”

  “Yeah, well,” he smiles wistfully, “I just don’t think I could keep up with her brand of chaos. I’m working on getting a scholarship for school next year and I really need to be trying to stay out of trouble.”

  Raising an eyebrow at him, I turn my feet so I can walk sideways, keeping him in my view. “And you think wandering into the woods hunting down an undead being is staying out of trouble?”

  “No, but this is out of necessity, not just for kicks. Besides, nothing we’re doing is technically illegal, or going to make me lose my job so I think I’m good.”

  “As long we survive,” I add bitterly. I am glad not to have to do this alone, but I also wish I could just pack them up in a bubble and keep them safe forever. If any of them die, would I be able to live with myself? Would they haunt me like my relatives in Nix House, or would they slip out of existence like my mom did?

  Ellis throws a glance my way, watching me carefully. The others are whispering, and I’m pretty sure Sabrina is catching George up to speed while attempting to flirt at the same time. Dead leaves break apart as we tread over them, and the brilliant splashes of red remind me of blood.

  “We’ll survive,” he says. “We’ve got you.”

  With Marlowe’s sorrowful face in my mind, I hope he’s right.

  “What is this place?” I ask as we come up to a clearing. “It looks like an old church.”

  Crumbling and covered in graffiti, a small chapel stands alone among the trees that block out the rest of the world. The branches appear to be choking the decrepit structure, pulling it under the earth to embrace it in their roots. As the fog spreads out a foot above the ground, my knees waver, and I draw a deep breath of air to brace myself.

  “It was,” Sabrina nods. “This used to be part of a historical site we took field trips to as kids. The other side is a few miles away and the land’s been cleared out into a park. It opens up to a few old houses that were turned into museums.”