Always October

by Bruce Coville

I heard a little howl, a high-pitched sound that sent shivers down my spine. “Was that LD?” I asked when it stopped.

  “Yeah, he woke up when I took him off the bed. Boy, my mother is kind of a slob. There’s nowhere in here to sit. I’m going back to my room.”

  “Can you take the phone with you?” I asked, afraid he was going to end the call.

  “I’ll try. I’m not sure how much range it has. All right, I’m in the hall. Can you still hear me?”

  “Yep. You should be out of the moonlight now. Any change in the baby?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe you have to give it a few minutes.”

  Another pause, then, “I’m back in my room now. Hey, LD’s ears are smaller. He’s turning back!”

  “Excellent! Man, I wish we had cell phones so you could send me a picture. Is he still changing?”

  “No,” said Jacob with a moan. “It’s stopped. He’s still all furry.”

  I thought fast. “Maybe you need complete darkness. Try taking him into a closet. Make sure you leave the light off!”

  “Lily, I am not getting into a pitch-black closet with a baby monster. Who knows what he might do to me?”

  “Why, Juliet, you’re not afraid of a little baby, are you?”

  I felt bad saying it, because I knew Jake hated that kind of argument (mostly because he was doomed to lose). But we didn’t have time for a discussion. I was afraid Gramps might yell for me to get off the phone at any minute, and I had to know how this turned out.

  “All right,” he grumped, “I’ll give it a try.”

  Though I was glad Jacob had called to ask for advice, the situation was driving me nuts. I wanted to be there so badly it hurt.

  Of course, that assumed it was really happening … which I hoped it was, because otherwise I would have to have a huge fight with Jacob and then never talk to him again as long as I lived.

  “All right, I’m in the closet.”

  “Is the dark having any effect?”

  “How should I know? I can’t see a thing. Anyway, I don’t think—”

  I was starting to explain that he should use his sense of touch when a sudden crackle of static burst against my ear.

  “Juliet? Juliet?”

  Nothing.

  I stared at the phone in horror.

  Had we simply lost the connection?

  Was Jacob playing with my head?

  Or had something much worse just happened?

  8

  (Jacob)

  A VOICE IN THE DARK

  When the phone went dead, my first thought was that I had gone out of range.

  Then I heard a crackle—not from the phone, but from the darkness around me.

  Even worse, the closet suddenly smelled wrong. The familiar odor of dirty socks was gone, replaced by something damp, wild, and disturbing.

  Scary as that was, I didn’t actually scream until a deep, raspy voice said, “Ah, good—we have made contact!”

  Then I let out a shriek that made the baby howl too.

  I groped frantically for the doorknob, found it, discovered it would not turn.

  “Do not be afraid,” said the voice, which seemed to come from a great distance. “We will not hurt you. We can’t even reach you yet.”

  Part of me thought, Well, that’s a relief.

  Another part thought, Yet?!?

  And still another part thought, WE???

  “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want?”

  “My name is unimportant. What I want is for you to promise to take care of the baby.”

  “I’m doing that already!”

  “Good, I am glad to know that. Guard him well. But remember, he is not yours! I will be back next month.”

  “What?”

  But the voice was gone. Suddenly the doorknob, which I was still clutching, turned in my hand. The door swung open and I bounded out of the closet. My stomach clenched as I realized I hadn’t touched the door three times before I opened it! I started back inside so I could fix that mistake, then decided that was insane. A pain in the gut from skipping the ritual was better than getting back in that closet! I was already shaking so violently, you could have used me to mix paint.

  A pudgy hand patted my face. I looked down and realized LD was now totally human. He rested his head on my shoulder. For some reason that calmed me a little. Patting his back, crooning wordlessly, I carried him to his room. The moon was still shining through the window, so I put him in the rocker, then pulled the crib out of the light. For good measure, I drew the curtains, too.

  As I did all this, I was struck with a new thought: I should have waited until Mom got home to turn LD back! She’s never going to believe me if I tell her what just happened.

  Of course, when Lily had been giving me advice, I wasn’t thinking about what came next. I just wanted to get the baby back into his normal form. My thoughts shifted. What about that voice? Where had it come from?

  I was at the kitchen table, trying to work this through, when the front door opened and Mom called, “How did it go, sweetie?”

  “Fine,” I replied, tugging my earlobe and cursing myself for fibbing. But what could I tell her? That the baby had turned into a monster? She’d think I had lost my mind. Suddenly I wondered if I could make it happen again. But how? I couldn’t just say, “Let’s put the baby in the moonlight so you can see what happens.”

  “The baby slept all right?” asked Mom, coming into the kitchen.

  Time to get creative. Trying to call up some of my grandfather’s ability to spin a yarn, I said, “Well, he did stir a little when the moon rose. I went in to check on him. Gosh, you should have seen him, Mom. He was so cute in the moonlight!”

  She looked at me oddly.

  “Come on,” I said eagerly. “I’ll show you.”

  “I don’t want to wake him,” she said.

  Luck was with me, because we heard a squawk from upstairs.

  “He knows you’re home,” I said. “He probably wants to see you!”

  Mom looked at me oddly again but followed me up the stairs.

  “You moved the crib,” she said, as soon as we entered the room.

  “I thought the light was disturbing him. But since he’s awake—”

  Before she could say anything, I pushed the crib back where it had been and threw open the curtains. Instantly LD was bathed in silver moonlight.

  “See how cute?” I said, looking for any sign of a change.

  Nothing happened.

  LD stretched out his arms to be picked up.

  Mom reached for him.

  Desperate, I said, “Let’s just admire him for a second, Mom! See how the moonlight makes his eyes sparkle?”

  “Jacob, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course!” I lied. Inside I was crushed. It wasn’t going to happen.

  I didn’t sleep well that night, not well at all.

  Things didn’t look any better the next morning when I got to the cemetery. Lily was waiting for me, and the expression on her face was almost as frightening as a rough voice in a dark closet.

  9

  (Lily)

  I GET TO MEET LD

  Well, duh, Jacob! Was I supposed to be all happy after you just disappeared that way the night before? I was torn between worry and anger all night long.

  Okay, sorry, I should just focus on the story.

  So …

  I was holding both braids and looking serious when Jacob came along the path the next morning.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw me.

  “I don’t know which one to chew! If you were telling me true last night, it will be the thinking braid. But if you made all that up, and then cut off the phone call to leave me hanging, it’s the angry braid for sure. Except first I clobber you. Then I kick you out of my life. And then I take time to chew the angry braid.”

  “Lily, I swear on my grandmother’s grave I was telling the truth.”

  “Let’s see if you
really mean it. Follow me.”

  Jacob sighed; he knew what was coming. A few minutes of walking through the grass, which was still wet with dew, brought us to his mother’s mother’s grave.

  “Okay, put your hand on that tombstone and swear. But remember … if you tell a lie on your grandmother’s grave, the Midnight Terrors will chase you for the rest of your life.”

  Without hesitation, Jacob put his left hand on the stone, his right hand over his heart, and said solemnly, “I swear on my grandmother’s grave that everything I told you last night was true.” Then, clearly trying to get ahead of things, he added, “I also swear that everything I’m going to tell you right now is true too!”

  Excitement bubbled up inside me. “Great galloping zombies, Jacob! This is the most fabulous thing ever!”

  “Easy for you to say. You weren’t there!”

  “Wish I had been. Hey … maybe it will happen again tonight!”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, in a lot of lycanthrope movies the transformation occurs three nights in a row.” (As a fan of the frightening, I prefer the term lycanthrope to the simpler werewolf.)

  Jacob turned pale. “I dunno. Let me tell you what happened next. It was even scarier, but it makes me think I’ve got a month before it happens again.”

  I listened to his story. If he was making this up, he was as good as his grandfather! “That’s really freaky,” I said when he was finished. “I’m glad you didn’t pass out from fear on the spot.”

  “I thought I was going to!”

  “I don’t blame you. Okay, we need to do some research. Um … are you going to tell your mother about this?”

  “Do you think she’d believe me?”

  “I don’t know, since I’ve never met her!”

  This was a dig, and I could tell from the way Jacob blushed that he knew it. See, he had never invited me to his house. Of course, I had never invited him to my house, either. The difference was that his mother didn’t have anything against me, whereas my grandfather really disliked Jacob. We never talked about it, but I had a feeling that the real reason he didn’t ask me over was that he didn’t want to admit to his mother he had a friend who was a girl.

  “You still can’t meet her,” he said now.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she can’t know I told you about LD! But I do want you to see the baby. Maybe you’ll spot something I missed, something that will give me proof. Hmmm … Mom’s teaching Friday night. She’ll be gone from about five thirty to eight o’clock. Can you come over then?”

  I chewed my right braid for a minute, then said, “I’ll have to come up with a good excuse to give Grampa. But I think I can do it.”

  We didn’t spend much time in the cemetery over the next week. Instead we were at the library, using the internet to research monsters. We found some really cool stuff, some other stuff that was pretty terrifying, and some stuff that left me wishing you could buy eyewash for your brain. Unfortunately, none of what we found seemed to apply to baby monsters. And what we found when we searched on baby monsters was a lot of cutesy junk that made me want to yark.

  The one good thing was that we uncovered some useful information on the matter of the full moon. It seems that despite what happens in movies, in reality the moon is only full one night of the month. Actually, it’s only really full for about a minute, since the moment of fullness comes when the moon is exactly opposite the sun. Because the moon is constantly moving, for any given spot true full passes very quickly.

  I guess the reason for three nights is that it makes it easier for Hollywood to pack a lot of action into a film. This annoys me. People should be more careful when they’re writing about monsters!

  Jacob’s house has seen better days. Even so, I think it’s totally fabulous … three stories high, with a wide veranda that wraps around the corner on the right side of the front door. Hmmm. Corner might not be the right word, because this is where the tower curves out from the main body of the house. The roof of the tower is a cone that stretches several feet above the already high roof. It’s cool … almost like a rocket attached to the side of the house.

  I cannot tell you how much I wanted to see inside that tower!

  To be honest, I had been wanting to see inside the whole house from the first time I walked past it, back in second grade. That desire had tripled when I found out that my writing hero had lived there. So I was very prompt and rang the doorbell at 5:35.

  “How did you know it was safe?” demanded Jacob when he opened the door. “What if Mom hadn’t left on schedule?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Do you really think your mother would find it dangerous for you to have a friend over to visit?”

  “She would right now! I keep telling you, she doesn’t want anyone else to know about LD.”

  “Well I’m not stupid! I hid in the bushes at the end of the driveway and waited until she pulled out before I rang the bell. So are you going to ask me in, or do I have to stand on the porch all night?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” said Jacob, swinging the door open.

  “This place is ginormous,” I murmured as I stepped into the entryway.

  “Way too ‘ginormous’ for two people and a baby monster,” replied Jacob.

  “Better than being too small for two people,” I said. Instantly I felt bad, because it might have seemed I was saying something mean about my grandfather, who took me in when I needed him. “Where’s the baby?” I asked, to change the subject.

  “In his high chair. Come on.”

  We made our way back to the kitchen. As soon as I saw Little Dumpling, I said, “Oh, Jacob, he is soooooo cute!”

  Despite what Jacob has claimed ever since, I want to make it clear that I did not, repeat did not, actually squeal these words.

  He scowled. “I knew you were going to get all girly!”

  “Oh, shut up. He’s cute, and you know it.”

  “I guess so. He’s less cute once he turns green and the fangs come out.”

  “Can I hold him?”

  “If you want.”

  As soon as Jacob removed the tray from the high chair, LD stretched out his arms. I scooped him up. Without hesitation he cuddled against me.

  If you’ve ever held a baby, you know that special baby smell … and I don’t mean the odor of a full diaper! It’s something you get when you nuzzle your nose against the top of a baby’s head, and it’s one of the best smells in the world. Holding LD close, I plunked down in one of the wooden chairs. Then I bounced him on my knee while I sang my newest song, “The Chipmunk’s Funeral.”

  “It’s a good thing he can’t understand you,” said Jacob. “You’d probably creep him out.”

  “Ha-very-ha. Hey, do you have a video camera?”

  He blinked at the sudden change of topic. “Why? Do you want to me to film you singing to the baby?”

  As he said this, LD squawked and held out his arms to be transferred to Jacob. I took one last sniff of his head, then passed him over. When he was safely snuggled in Jacob’s arms, I said, “No, I don’t want a video of me singing to the baby! I want to help save your skin, you goof. Think about it! If your mother is out during the next full moon and things go wrong, you’re really going to need something to show her.”

  Jacob turned pale. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  “So, do you have one?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe in one of the junk rooms. Dad kept—”

  “Junk rooms?”

  Jacob blushed. “I come from a long line of pack rats. Wanna help me look?”

  “Sure!”

  We went up by the back stairway. It took a little while, because Jacob had to touch certain spots along the wall, and holding the baby made it a bit tricky. I kept my mouth shut about that part. But when we reached the top and I looked ahead, I gasped. I couldn’t believe how long that hall was! Jacob started forward, but I kind of dawdled, because I was looking at the portraits lining the walls.

  Suddenly I gaspe
d. “Jacob!” I yelled. “JACOB!”

  10

  (Jacob)

  SPELUNKER

  At Lily’s cry I hurried back and asked, “Are you all right? You sound like something frightened you.”

  “Who’s that?” she demanded, pointing to one of the paintings.

  I smiled, since I could understand why the picture might have disturbed her. “Tia LaMontagne. She was my grandmother, almost.” Seeing Lily’s expression, I added, “She married Arthur Doolittle but disappeared before they had any kids.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Without a trace.”

  “Boy, people in your family make a habit of that, don’t they?”

  I felt as if she had just stuck a knife in my ribs. Lily must have seen the expression on my face, because she cried, “Oh my god, I’m sorry, Jacob! I …”

  “Forget it,” I said gruffly. “Just tell me why you were so startled.”

  “Because I’ve seen her before.”

  “No surprise. She was pretty famous around here. You probably saw her in some historical article or—”

  “Jake, my grandfather keeps her photo on his dresser!”

  That did surprise me. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “Okay, that is definitely strange.”

  “That’s what Medusa’s hairdresser said. Her last words, if I remember correctly. Anyway, I must have asked Grampa about that picture a dozen times but he never answers. I think the question makes him angry.” She examined the painting again. “She’s fascinating. Beautiful, but kind of … strange. She makes me think of a cat.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. Dad used to say that his own father told him there was a long story behind that painting, and the key to the family mystery. When Dad would beg him to explain, Arthur always told him to wait until his eleventh birthday. But by the time that birthday rolled around …”

  I stopped, unable to say more. As if Little Dumpling could sense what I was feeling, he reached up and patted my cheek.

  Lily waited a bit, then nudged me and said, “Let’s see if we can find a camera.”