by P. J. Night
Just then Danielle and Stephanie caught up to them, and Ashley sent Mary Beth a desperate signal with her eyes that said please don’t say anything.
And from Mary Beth’s smile, kind and reassuring, Ashley knew that she wouldn’t.
“Hey,” Mary Beth said. “It’s almost time for the cake auction! Let’s go check it out!”
She led the other girls into the auditorium, which was almost full. “I can’t believe all these people showed up just to bid on cakes,” Ashley said with a giggle.
“You’d be surprised,” Stephanie replied. “The people in Heaton Corners really love cake.”
“Like, really love cake,” Danielle added. “The auction can get a little wild.”
“Wild?” Ashley repeated. “A wild cake auction?”
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” Mary Beth told her.
Just then Ashley spotted her mom in the audience, waving at her. Ashley grimaced before giving her mom a little wave, hoping that her mom would get the hint and stop making such a scene. Luckily for Ashley, Mrs. Medina took the stage, and the cake auction began. Ashley soon realized that her friends had been right: People were jumping out of their seats, shouting their bids, and flailing their arms in the air. Ashley waited expectantly as, one by one, the cakes she’d seen that morning were auctioned off to the highest bidder. After each one, she figured that surely the haunted-cemetery cake she and her mom had decorated would come next.
Then Mrs. Medina said something that made Ashley’s heart start to race.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “you know I hate to play favorites, but this year we have truly saved the best cake for last.”
Oh, wow! Ashley thought, the butterflies churning in her stomach. She’s talking about our cake! Our cake!
Across the auditorium, Mrs. McDowell caught Ashley’s eye. She had the biggest smile on her face—the kind that made her nose go all crinkly.
“So without further ado, allow me to present,” Mrs. Medina continued, pausing for dramatic effect, “Margaret Pierce’s coconut cake with pineapple filling! This tropical treat will send your taste buds on vacation. The whipped cream frosting is . . . ”
Mrs. Medina kept describing the cake, but Ashley had already tuned her out. She was trying to understand what, exactly, had just happened. The last cake was being auctioned off . . . but where was the cake Ashley had decorated with her mom?
As the sound of applause thundered in her ears, Ashley realized that the auction was over. She glanced at her mom. Mrs. McDowell kept a big smile on her face, but Ashley could tell from the tightness around her eyes that she was disappointed . . . and embarrassed. A flash of indignation burned in Ashley’s chest. It’s not right, she thought. We went to a lot of trouble to make that cake.
“I’ll be right back,” Ashley said to Mary Beth.
Then she marched over to Mrs. Medina.
“Mrs. Medina?” she said. “Um, excuse me, Mrs. Medina . . . ma’am?”
“Yes, Ashley?” Mrs. Medina asked.
“I, um, I didn’t see my mom’s cake in the auction,” Ashley said. “What happened?”
“Oh, that? There was a cake accident,” Mrs. Medina said. “I’m afraid we couldn’t auction off the cake you . . . decorated. But we surely do appreciate your efforts.”
“A cake accident?” Ashley repeated.
“Yes. You know. These things happen,” Mrs. Medina replied, waving her hand in the air like it didn’t matter at all. Then she turned away to talk to someone else.
Ashley realized that Mrs. Medina had nothing more to say on the subject. But she couldn’t shake the feeling there was something important that Mrs. Medina was leaving out. And it made Ashley begin to suspect there was something not quite right about Heaton Corners—and the people who called it home.
“They must have tasted it,” Ashley’s mom blurted out in the car later that afternoon. “They must have figured out that we bought the cake.”
Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know, Mom. From what Mrs. Medina said, I got the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me. I’m starting to think Heaton Corners is kinda weird.”
Ashley’s mom moaned. “No, the only thing that’s weird is that the people here are very polite—too polite to say anything rude about my shortcut. After all, look how hard they worked on their cakes!”
Ashley’s dad smiled reassuringly. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m sure everyone will forget about it, and by next year your cake will be the star of their silly auction.”
Mrs. McDowell sighed. “I’m so embarrassed. Just don’t say anything to Mary Beth about it, okay, Ash?”
Ashley nodded, but she wasn’t convinced by what her mom had said. Mrs. Medina seemed like a woman who always said what was on her mind. There had to be something she was keeping secret . . . something Ashley was determined to find out.
But as October hurried on, the cake incident slipped from Ashley’s mind. Between homework, tests, unpacking her room, and hanging out with her new friends, it wasn’t long before the end of the month came around.
“You know what happens in five days?” Ashley asked her friends at lunch one afternoon.
“Halloween!” replied Mary Beth. “I’ve been counting down the days, ever since the Harvest Days Festival!”
“I know!” Ashley replied. “I can’t believe it’s so soon. I still haven’t figured out what to wear for my costume!”
Danielle and Stephanie exchanged a glance that was impossible for Ashley to miss.
“We’re on for trick-or-treating, right?” Ashley asked.
Danielle looked down. “It definitely sounds like fun, but nobody really celebrates Halloween here, so what’s the point of going trick-or-treating?”
“Almost nobody,” Mary Beth added, and the other girls turned to look at her. She shrugged. “What? Haven’t you ever looked out your window on Halloween night? I’ve seen . . . what do you call them, Ashley? Tricky treaters?”
“Trick-or-treaters,” Ashley corrected her.
Mary Beth continued, “Well, whatever you call them, I’ve seen them out my window. It looks like fun—it’s too bad my mom never lets me leave the house to join them. Well, this year will be different. Count me in, Ash.”
Ashley turned to Stephanie and Danielle. “Come on! We’ll have the best time . . . and who knows, maybe people will start celebrating Halloween in Heaton Corners after we show them how much fun it is.”
Ashley grinned as Danielle and Stephanie began to nod. Mary Beth clapped her hands together in delight. “Awesome! I can’t wait. Now we just need to figure out a way to convince our parents to let us go trick-or-treating!”
Since Ashley’s parents were spending the afternoon at a tractor show in Walthrop, she decided to start her homework in the library after school. She would never admit it, but she wasn’t quite comfortable staying alone in the creaky old farmhouse yet. By the time Ashley finished her science homework, the sun was starting to set, and she knew she’d better hurry before it was too dark to see the path home.
As she packed up her books, Ashley’s stomach started to growl. She searched her backpack for a granola bar to snack on while she walked, but all she found was a piece of cinnamon-flavored gum.
Then Ashley remembered the small corner store that was a block and a half from school. It was out of her way, but if she hurried, she could buy a candy bar for the walk home. Maybe they’ll have those awesome chocolate-dipped marshmallow pumpkins, Ashley thought hopefully. It was just her luck that her favorite kind of candy in the whole world was only available for a couple of weeks a year.
A dry, dusty wind swirled around Ashley as she started down the steps of the school; instinctively, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered inside her green corduroy jacket. In a few minutes she reached the corner store. A hand-painted sign in the window read:
HEATON CORNERS
GROCERY AND DRY GOODS
A tiny cluster of bells tinkled as Ashley opened th
e door. It was a small store, with four narrow aisles and an ancient-looking refrigerator case along the back wall. Ashley prowled the aisles looking for a display of Halloween candy, but within moments she realized that the store didn’t have one. In fact, it didn’t seem to have any Halloween candy at all.
“Help you?” someone with a scratchy voice called out.
Ashley jumped; she hadn’t seen anyone when she’d walked in, but now she realized that an old woman—easily the oldest woman she’d seen in Heaton Corners—was sitting behind the scratched glass counter at the front of the store. Her hair was the color of wet ashes and so snarled and unkempt that it looked like she hadn’t brushed it in weeks—maybe months. The woman sat hunched over on a tall wooden stool, stroking a cat with fur so black that it blended right into the loose tunic the woman wore.
“Oh!” Ashley cried in surprise. Then she smiled. “Your cat is so beautiful! May I pet it? Is it friendly?”
“Which one?” the woman asked, and let out an almost growling sound from the very back of her throat. To Ashley’s delight, three more cats—each one black as ink—suddenly appeared from different corners of the store. They hopped up onto the counter, purring loudly as the woman scratched their chins and rubbed behind their ears.
“Oh, they’re so sweet,” Ashley said longingly. She’d always wanted a cat. I have to remember to ask Mom and Dad about that, she thought. Aren’t cats supposed to be really useful on farms?
“What’s your name, dearie? I haven’t seen you in here before,” the woman said.
“I’m Ashley. We just moved here a few weeks ago.”
“You can call me Miss Bernice.”
“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” Ashley said, marveling at how much she sounded like Mary Beth just then.
Miss Bernice nodded, pleased. “My cats know you’re a good person,” she said, shaking a gnarled finger in Ashley’s direction. “I never meet a person until my cats size them up first, you know. I won’t waste my time on someone if my cats won’t waste theirs.”
Ashley smiled as one of the cats nuzzled against her shoulder. The lady was pretty eccentric, but she seemed harmless enough.
“Was there something in particular you were looking for?” Miss Bernice asked.
“Yeah, kind of,” Ashley replied. “Do you have chocolate-dipped marshmallow pumpkins? The kind they make for Halloween?”
Miss Bernice’s mouth transformed from a smile to a snarl, and her lips curled back to reveal teeth so yellowed and wide set, they looked like whittled chunks of wood. “You think I’d sell Halloween candy here?” she asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
“I’m sorry?” Ashley asked in confusion.
“I would never do that!” Miss Bernice cried. “I never would! Never, never, never!”
Each time she said the word “never,” the volume and pitch of Miss Bernice’s voice rose. Then she slammed her hands on the counter so hard that Ashley jumped. So did the cats—and one of them knocked over a display of glass soda bottles. A dozen bottles crashed to the floor and shattered, spilling a pool of dark, carbonated liquid over the dingy tiles.
“Oh, Clatter!” Miss Bernice shrieked at the cat. “Look at what you’ve done!” She shuffled around the counter and slowly lowered herself to the floor, as if it hurt to bend her knees.
Even though Ashley was totally freaked out by Miss Bernice’s outburst, she knew she couldn’t leave the elderly lady to clean up the mess all by herself. “Here, I can help,” she said awkwardly. “Do you have a sponge or a, uh, mop or something?”
“Back corner,” Miss Bernice replied. “There are cleaning supplies in the bathroom.”
Ashley scurried off to the far corner of the store, where she found a door that led to a bathroom. A variety of brooms and mops were stacked against one wall of the clean yet cramped room. As Ashley sorted through the mops, she realized that they weren’t leaning on the wall.
They were propped against a narrow wooden door.
As her hand brushed against the cold brass doorknob, Ashley took a closer look. There, scratched into the wood of the door, was a sideways figure eight.
It looked exactly like the symbol that someone had drawn on the McDowells’ fence right after they had moved in.
Ashley sneaked a fast glance over her shoulder, but she was confident that Miss Bernice hadn’t followed her back here—not after the way she’d moved so slowly and gingerly when the spill had happened.
You shouldn’t open that door, Ashley told herself, remembering all the times her mother had told her not to poke around behind closed doors. Don’t be nosy.
And yet, it seemed impossible to walk away.
Maybe it’s a broom closet, Ashley suddenly thought. Maybe there’s spray cleaner and sponges and stuff in there.
But she had a funny feeling, deep inside, that that wouldn’t be the case.
She rested her hand on the doorknob, took a breath, and slowly turned it. Then she eased the door open, waiting for the telltale creak of rusty hinges that would announce to Miss Bernice that she was snooping around.
The door, however, swung open easily, silently, as if it was often used. Without wasting another moment, Ashley slipped inside and snapped on the light.
It was a small room, without any furniture or windows. The walls were covered with faded, yellowing wallpaper and dozens of names written on slips of paper, each one tacked to the wall in a random pattern.
Are these nothing more than the delusions of a crazy woman, Ashley asked herself, or is this “list” something more?
Then she felt a faint breath of air on her neck, as if someone, hovering just behind her, had sighed, softly and sadly.
Ashley spun around, sure that Miss Bernice had followed her after all, bracing for the scolding.
But no one was there.
Ashley didn’t waste another moment in that tiny, secret room. She shut the door, wishing that she could shut away her memory of those scrawled names as easily. Then she grabbed a mop and hurried back to the front of the store.
As the strands of the mop soaked up the spilled soda, Ashley couldn’t help worrying that somehow Miss Bernice would know she had seen what was hidden behind the marked door. But if Miss Bernice had any idea that Ashley had been poking around back there, she didn’t mention it.
“Sorry about the spill,” Ashley mumbled when she was finished with the mop—even though it hadn’t been her fault. When she put the mop away, she didn’t even glance at the door behind the cleaning supplies.
Just as Ashley was about to leave, Miss Bernice thrust out a wrinkled hand and grabbed Ashley’s wrist. She held on so tightly that Ashley could feel Miss Bernice’s stiffened finger bones right though the thick corduroy of her coat.
“You don’t go trick-or-treating in this town, Ashley McDowell,” Miss Bernice told her. It was not a command, or a suggestion, but a warning. “It’s dangerous to do so. Nobody trick-or-treats in Heaton Corners. You’d be wise to heed what I’m telling you. Are you listening to me? Do you hear what I’m saying to you? You don’t go trick-or-treating in Heaton Corners!”
Ashley yanked her arm away from Miss Bernice’s grasp and ran out into the twilight.
She was halfway home before she remembered that she hadn’t told Miss Bernice her last name.
CHAPTER 5
Bliiip!
Ashley grinned at the monitor as she accepted the incoming video chat. “Maya-oh-Maya!” she trilled.
“Hey, sis!” Ashley’s big sister, Maya, said, grinning back at her.
After a few weeks of spotty Internet, Ashley’s computer was finally connecting quickly enough for her to chat with Maya. It was the longest they’d ever gone without seeing each other. As soon as Ashley saw Maya’s face, she felt at home—for the first time—in Heaton Corners.
“How are you? I’ve been missing you like crazy!” Ashley said.
“Me? Oh, I’m just drowning in homework, no big,” Maya replied, widening her eyes. “Seriously, I was up until
four a.m. last night reading.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ashley gasped.
“Well, it probably wouldn’t have been quite so late, but my roommate and I started watching movies at midnight,” Maya admitted. “So. You know.”
“College sounds awesome,” Ashley said.
“It is. A lot of work, though,” Maya said. “But enough about my boring life. How’s the new house? The new town? Tell me everything.”
“It’s not bad,” Ashley told her sister. “I mean, it’s still kind of weird. Do you know where Mom and Dad went yesterday? A tractor show. No lie.”
Maya started to crack up. “So they’re really doing this whole farmer thing, huh? Old McDowell had a farm, e-i-e-i-o!”
“They seem really happy here,” Ashley said.
“And what about you?” Maya asked. “Are you happy in Heaton Corners?”
“I’m getting used to it,” Ashley replied. “The people here are incredibly nice. I already made a ton of friends at school.”
“Go you!” Maya said. “Miss Popularity, huh?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Ashley replied. Then she paused, trying to figure out if she should tell Maya about some of the stranger things about Heaton Corners. Of course, Maya knew her well enough that the moment Ashley hesitated, she could tell that something was going on.
“What?” Maya asked in a voice that told Ashley she could spill it all.
“Here’s something crazy,” Ashley finally said. “They, like, don’t have Halloween here.”
“Huh?” Maya asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means that nobody celebrates Halloween,” Ashley tried to explain.
Maya looked like she was having a hard time believing her. “For real? That is just bizarre.”
“Right?” said Ashley. “I went to this store, and they don’t even sell Halloween candy. This old lady practically freaked out at me when I asked for some.” Ashley didn’t mention the secret room or all the spooky names plastered on its yellowed walls.