Val shed her trench coat and hung it on a hook near the back door.
“I thought you would be in costume too,” Bethany said.
“I am.” Val wore a black jacket cinched at the waist, a matching A-line skirt, and a long scarf. She put one hand on her hip, bent forward from the waist, whipped a magnifying glass from her jacket pocket, and held it a foot away from her eye.
Bethany’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Got it! Nancy Drew in silhouette.”
“I thought it was appropriate. A sheriff’s deputy once accused me of playing Nancy Drew. He meant it as an insult. For me it’s a badge of honor.”
“You’ve earned it after solving five murders.”
“I can’t take full credit for the last one. It was a group effort, and you were part of it.” Val pointed to a glass drink dispenser with spider stickers on the outside and an amber liquid inside. “What’s in there?”
“Spider cider. Bram comes in and replenishes the cider from gallon jugs.”
Val unloaded a cooler. “I haven’t met him yet. What does he look like?”
“Count Dracula.”
“Not real attractive, huh?”
“I didn’t say that.” Bethany rolled up the paper tablecloth. “He might be good-looking when he gets rid of the black chalk circles around his eyes and the blood dripping from his mouth. He’s a bit hyper, but charming.”
“So was Count Dracula.” Val had pictured Dorothy’s son as fussy and condescending. Maybe he was scary too. “Don’t fall for a vampire, no matter how charming.”
“I won’t. I’m involved with the baritone in my chorale.” Bethany pointed at her. “You aren’t involved with anyone because you’re haunted by ghosts of boyfriends past. A fling with Bram might be just what you need to move on.”
Val wasn’t haunted by either of her exes, but by a fear of commitment after two mistakes. “If I wanted a fling, Bram wouldn’t be high on my list.”
“You haven’t even met him.”
“People choose costumes that mirror their personalities and their hidden desires. You identify with the vivacious teacher, Ms. Frizzle. I have an affinity for Nancy Drew. When a man dresses up as Dracula, that tells you something.”
“It tells me that it’s Halloween.” Bethany unpinned the lizard from her shoulder.
Val stored her empty cooler under the sink. “Are you entering the costume contest?”
“It wouldn’t be right for someone working at the shop to compete.” Bethany peered at the pastries Val was arranging on a large platter. “The little mummies with raisin eyes are cute. Are you serving them on plates?”
Val shook her head. “In a pastry bag. Then people can hold them without getting their fingers greasy. I’m making crêpes Suzette. They’ll go into paper food boats, like the ones we used for sandwiches at the festival last fall. The containers will look like coffins holding shrouded bodies in a crypt.”
“Cool.” Bethany frowned. “It’s weird how we poke fun at corpses and crypts around Halloween and shudder at them the rest of the year.”
Dorothy held the curtains aside and stepped into the room. After greeting Val, she gushed over Bethany. “You make a terrific Ms. Frizzle. I sold out of the Magic School Bus books and took orders for more.”
Val tucked the empty cooler under the sink. “Maybe the costume contestants this evening will boost sales of the books their characters appear in.”
Dorothy crossed her fingers. “Bram said the same thing. If you need anything, let him know. He’ll be roaming around the shop. Thank you again, Bethany.” Her tall, pointed hat fell off as she slipped through the curtained entrance. She stooped to pick it up. “I don’t know how Minerva could stand to wear such a ridiculous hat.”
As Bethany was about to leave, she pointed to a poster advertising the Bayport haunted house with an image of a creepy mansion and bats flying around it. “Don’t forget that we’re going to the haunted house on Halloween, Val.”
Judging by Bethany’s reaction to the haunted corn maze last year, Val expected her friend to run shrieking from the house before getting far into it.
Val brewed regular and decaf in the dual-carafe coffeemaker while Bethany cleaned up the evidence of cookie decorating on the chairs and the floor—orange sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, and blobs of icing. Then she left to meet her baritone for dinner. At six o’clock Val pulled back the curtains covering the entrance to the room and removed the sign that said the CAT Corner was closed. As she warmed the orange sauce and crêpes, customers began trickling in.
She’d just served mummy’s apple pies to a middle-aged couple when Count Dracula arrived. He had a high forehead, short black hair, and a pronounced widow’s peak. As Bethany had said, it was hard to tell what he really looked like beneath the pasty face makeup, black-rimmed eyes, and dribbles of fake blood.
He grinned, showing enlarged vampire teeth with fangs. “Hello. I came in for a bite.” His words sounded slurred, possibly because of the fangs.
Val forced herself to smile at the vampire pun. She thrust out her hand to shake his. “Hi. I’m Val.”
His dark brown eyes warmed up like a puppy’s. He held her hand a bit longer than necessary. “Hello, there. I’m Nick.”
Nick? So Bram wasn’t the only bookshop vampire tonight. How many more were there? “Would you like a bite of mummy’s apple pie? Or, as a vampire, you might prefer the crypt Suzette.”
“The crypt appeals to me.” He snapped off the false teeth that had turned his canines into fangs.
“Help yourself to coffee or spider cider.” She pointed to the carafes and drink dispenser. “Have a seat, and I’ll bring the crypt to your table.”
He poured a coffee and ignored her suggestion to sit, standing instead near the serving counter. After she gave him a crêpe and a plastic fork, a pair of teenagers came in for treats, followed a minute later by a family of four. Val didn’t introduce herself or shake hands with any of them, as she had with Nick. He must have taken her warmer welcome for him as a come-on.
Nick lingered long after he’d finished his crêpe. Any moment she wasn’t busy, he peppered her with questions. Was working at the bookshop her full-time job? No, she ran a café at a fitness club. Are you from around here originally? I didn’t grow up in Bayport. How long have you lived here? Almost two years. She continued to give curt answers to his personal questions. Finally, he took the hint and left the CAT Corner for the front of the shop.
Ten minutes later, another vampire arrived. He was taller than Nick and had medium brown wavy hair. He wore a stiff-collared jacket and a black cape covering his broad shoulders. The sides of the cape, attached to the cuffs of his white shirt, fanned out into batwings when he moved his arms.
He marched up to her and stuck out his hand. “Bram Muir.”
His handshake was firm and his manner businesslike for a man with fluttering batwings.
At least he didn’t have fangs.
Val had planned to be friendly, despite overhearing him diss her. She changed her mind, took her cue from his terse, unsmiling manner, and said, “Val Deniston.”
“Everything going okay in here?”
She glanced at the drink dispenser Bethany had said he would refill. “We have enough cider and snacks to last the rest of the evening.”
“In half an hour we’ll cut off the snacks, close the curtains, and have the contestants gather here.”
“How many contestants are you expecting?”
“A dozen people signed up. I told them to come in the back way.” He crossed the room and unlocked the door to the outside.
“You want me to stay here while the contest is going on?”
“That’s up to you. The contestants will go out one by one from behind the curtain to the sales floor, talk about their character, and walk down the center aisle so everyone can see their costumes. Once I announce the winner, we’ll open this room again for snacks. I’d like you back here by then. You’re staying until we close the bookshop, ar
en’t you?”
Yes, Lord Dracula. Was that the correct form of address for a Romanian count? “I contracted with your mother to stay until nine. Will the audience vote on the best costume?”
“No. They might favor their friends. I’m going to judge the contest. I don’t know anyone here, so I can’t be biased.”
Not true. He’d been biased against Val without having met her. She noticed him eyeing the snacks. “Care to sample a mummy’s apple pie or a crypt Suzette?”
He shook his head. “No time.” He rushed out of the CAT Corner. As Bethany had said, he was hyper. She’d also said he was charming, but he hadn’t been to Val. She kept her eye on her watch to make sure she stopped serving snacks when he’d told her to. She didn’t want to give him an excuse to complain.
She’d just pulled the curtains closed when Suzette came in the back door, wearing a green plastic poncho. Her hair, parted in the middle, hung down loose. Another woman arrived at the same time. Her black cloak reached to her ankles and its hood overwhelmed her small, pale face. She looked to be a few years older than Suzette and three inches shorter, about Val’s height.
“Hi, Suzette.” Val pointed to the poncho. “Is that your costume?”
“No. The weather forecast said there was a chance of rain. I came prepared. I’ll take the poncho off for the contest.” She held up a plastic trash bag. “The rest of my costume’s in here.”
The black-cloaked woman said, “She won’t tell me what character she’s going to be. So I won’t say who my character is either.”
“But I’ll tell Val who you really are. This is Morgan Roux,” Suzette said. “We’re in a creative writing group together, the Fictionistas. Morgan, this is Val. She runs the café at an athletic club and made the snacks for tonight.”
“Nice to meet you, Morgan. Would you two like anything to eat before the contest?”
Morgan took a mummy’s apple pie, but Suzette said she was too nervous to eat. The two women sat at a table near the serving counter. The next arrival, a lanky man with thinning sandy hair, joined them at the table. He had a head like an upside-down pear, a broad high forehead tapering to a narrow mouth and chin. Like the vampires Val had met this evening, the man wore a black cape, but his was shorter, hanging from his narrow shoulders and ending at his hips. Under the cape he wore a maroon brocade vest, a dress shirt, and a bow tie.
Morgan looked askance at him. “Casper! I was convinced you’d cover yourself in a sheet and play Casper the Friendly Ghost. Who are you supposed to be?”
He chose to show instead of tell. He took a rigid white plastic mask from the canvas bag and put it on. It hid most of his forehead and angled down his face, covering one eye, half his nose, and none of his mouth.
Suzette clapped. “The Phantom of the Opera.”
A man who’d just come into the room approached them. He wore a huge tattered and blood-stained white shirt. He must have bought it in the big-and-tall department, and he was neither.
He eyed Casper. “Half of your face looks good, the part covered by the mask.” He took the fourth seat at the table.
Casper glared at him. Morgan laughed.
Val watched the foursome from behind the counter.
Morgan surveyed the newcomer. “No part of you looks any good, Wilson.”
Val disagreed. The shirt was hideous, but the thirtyish man wearing it was handsome. He had blond curls, full lips, and straight, gleaming teeth that belonged in an orthodontist’s ad.
Wilson pointed to his grungy shirt. “You think this is bad? Wait till you see the rest of my costume.” He extracted a pliable mask from a pocket in his tunic and held it in front of his face. The eyes were sunken like empty sockets, the lips black, and the cheeks bloody and half eaten away.
Casper flicked his wrist. “You shouldn’t have bothered with the mask. It’s not much different from your real mug. You’re supposed to be a character in a book, not a horror movie.” He shrugged. “Not that you know much about books.”
“I’m from a book you haven’t read, dude.” Wilson poked his index finger at Casper. “You come from a musical.”
“Knock it off,” Suzette said. “You’re behaving like schoolboys.”
And vying for her favor, Val suspected. If they were trying to impress Suzette, they were failing at it.
Casper took his mask off and held it up like a piece of evidence. “For your information, Wilson, The Phantom of the Opera was a book before it was a musical.”
Morgan nodded. “By Gaston Leroux.”
Suzette beckoned Val and introduced the two men, Casper Crane and Wilson McWilliams, as fellow Fictionistas.
Granddad had been wrong about Suzette not knowing people in the area. She’d spread the news about the costume contest to her writing buddies.
“None of us has published fiction yet,” she said. “We’re all trying our hand at writing novels.”
“How many in your group?” Val said as a scarecrow and a pirate came in the door.
Wilson said, “The four of us and my aunt Ruth, who’ll be here soon. She was putting the finishing touches on her costume when I left.”
Morgan glared at him. “You should have waited for her instead of using two cars. She’ll drive here in her gas guzzler. While we’re on the subject”—she turned to Casper—“I saw you parking your old clunker. It’s time you replaced it with a car that pollutes less.”
“It’s time you stopped preaching,” Wilson muttered.
Casper nodded. “Yeah, and not everyone likes to get off the road to recharge.”
Good thing Morgan didn’t know how old Val’s car was. Morgan hadn’t done the environment any good by scolding Wilson and Casper, but she’d turned the two men who’d insulted each other a minute ago into allies against her.
“To get back to Val’s question about our group,” Suzette said, “we also have a group leader, Gillian Holroyd. She’s published a lot of books. We took a fiction-writing class with her in the summer and bribed her to mentor us and—” She broke off and smiled broadly. “Wow, it’s Professor Dumbledore!” She pointed to the curtained entrance.
Val turned to see Granddad in a round velour hat with a gold tassel and a long gray bathrobe, a gift he’d received last Christmas from her cousin, Monique. He’d never worn it until now, but after his recent obsession with Harry Potter books, he’d found a use for it. Now he looked the part of the white-bearded headmaster of Harry Potter’s school.
Granddad grinned. “I’m glad you recognized me. Some teenager from the costume police gave me a hard time because my hair’s short and my beard’s not as thick as Dumbledore’s.”
Val was surprised to see him dressed for Halloween. He hadn’t done it last year. “I didn’t know you were going to be in the costume contest.”
“I’m helping out, not competing.” He cleared his throat and addressed the contestants assembled in the room. “I’ll be standing by the curtain and telling each of you when it’s your turn to come out and say your piece. Can anyone guess why I got the job of doorman?” When no one answered, he said, “Because I’m Dumble-door.”
His pun produced a few chuckles and a lot of groans in the room. Suzette called him over to the table and introduced her fellow writers to him.
Val chatted with some of the other competitors. Two of her regular customers at the athletic club café were competing, one dressed like the scarecrow from Oz, the other like Captain Hook. The owner of the vintage clothing shop wore a flapper dress as Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby. Isis came in, inspected each contestant, and then curled up on the windowsill.
The last contestant to show up was Wilson’s aunt Ruth McWilliams. She swept into the room in a long red brocade dress with gold braid trim and an elaborate headdress. Val didn’t get a chance to talk to her because Granddad announced the order in which the dozen contestants would go out. As they lined up behind the curtain, Val sank into a chair near the serving counter. She needed a minute off her feet.
When sh
e stood up, the costume contest was underway. The curtain separating the CAT Corner from the sales floor served as a stage curtain. The only way she could watch the contestants perform was to go out the back door and walk around to the front of the shop.
As Val left, she noticed that Suzette still hadn’t removed her poncho. As the last contestant on Granddad’s list, she had time to get ready before her turn came.
Val joined the crowd in the bookshop just in time to catch the tail end of Ruth’s performance as Lady Macbeth.
She rubbed her hands and cried, “ ‘Out, damn’d spot! out, I say! . . . Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’ ” She then held up a bloody hand.
The audience applauded this Halloween gesture, though someone muttered that Lady Macbeth only imagines blood on her hands in Shakespeare’s play. Tough crowd.
A pirate emerged from behind the curtain, brandished his hooked hand, and vowed revenge on Peter Pan. Then Casper came out as a deformed conjurer hopelessly in love with a beautiful opera singer.
Wilson was next. He apologized for his appearance, saying he wasn’t always a zombie. He took off his mask, reached for the hem of his knee-length tunic, and pulled it up over his head, revealing a formal jacket with tails, a high-collared white shirt, and snug breeches. “A zombie attack transformed me from one of the most eligible bachelors in the county into a wretch who preys on others in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
The audience laughed and clapped.
Morgan came out from behind the curtain, her face largely hidden under the hood of her cloak. She traced the history of Morgan le Fay, a powerful healer in some legends and a spiteful sorceress in others. She plots revenge against her brother, King Arthur, while pretending devotion to him. In recent books, Morgan appears as a librarian-mentor to children in the Magic Tree House series.
The presentation, basically a lecture, ended as Morgan proclaimed her namesake the ultimate shape-shifter. While Val enjoyed Morgan’s talk, it lasted twice as long as anyone else’s and made the audience restless. The applause was lukewarm.
When Bram announced the final contestant, a moan came from the CAT Corner. No one emerged from behind the curtains. Then there was an even louder and longer moan. The audience murmured. Val started to move toward the entrance to the CAT Corner, afraid Suzette or Granddad needed help.
Crypt Suzette Page 3