Trick or Treat

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  “He’s very excited about it.”

  “Of course he is. Sally’s going with him, and they’ll have a fine vacation.”

  “Honeymoon,” Conor corrected. “We’re the ones who get the vacation.”

  “From what?” Martha grumbled.

  “Mom’s cooking.”

  Martha glanced at him, almost wanting to laugh, but too upset to give him the satisfaction. Instead she slumped even lower in her seat, her mind in a dark, ugly whirl. She hadn’t told anyone about what had happened to her last night. By the time she’d raced back to the house, the phone call had come, and Dad had been too ecstatic to listen to anything, and she’d shut herself in her room to cry. How could Dad and Sally even think about taking a honeymoon now — even if Dad was on assignment in Hawaii? How could they even think of leaving her alone in that creepy old house with Conor and some horrible thing running loose in the woods! I’ll never forgive them, I’ll —

  “I’ll meet you back here at the car after school,” Conor said, and Martha sat up with a start, surprised that they were already in the student lot. The school looked quaint and comfortable — and small, Martha thought — but as she scanned the groups of kids hurrying across campus she felt sick. “You should have eaten something.” Conor was looking at her, and Martha shoved herself out onto the pavement.

  “I’m fine. I don’t need you to worry about me.”

  “I know.” That hint of a smile again. “You don’t need anybody.”

  Martha bit her lip and followed him into the first brick building, down a wide, noisy hall, and into an office. Before she could even think what to do, Conor had spoken to a secretary, and within minutes she found herself in an even tinier office, facing her new advisor across a cluttered desk.

  “Martha Stevenson? I’m Greg Chambers. Mister Chambers in the halls and in class, but Greg’s fine in here. Welcome to Bedford High.”

  As Martha felt her hand enclosed in his warm grasp, she tried not to stare — not only was Greg Chambers boyishly handsome, but she also had the feeling they’d met before.

  “I know things are going to be all new and different for you here — and at home.” As she glanced up, a smile broke his perfectly tanned face. “Your stepmother’s been to see me and explained the situation, of course. It’s rough, I know — I come from a broken home myself. So give yourself time — and permission. Feel all the things you want to feel, and they’ll be easier to handle if you do.”

  He spoke so casually that Martha felt herself relaxing. She nodded, allowing herself a long, hard assessment as he flipped through a folder. He couldn’t have been that old, she told herself — maybe mid- to late-twenties, with dark hair and eyes and a tall, well-built frame. She fixed her eyes on the back of his head and frowned. Someone … he reminds me of someone….

  “Blake!” she burst out. “Blake Chambers!”

  He spun around, startled. “You know Blake?”

  “No … I mean … I met him in the hardware store yesterday.”

  “Well, I knew Blake worked fast but — hey, don’t look like that, I’m kidding! He’s my cousin. The famous one.”

  “Famous?”

  “Oh, so you really haven’t gotten the whole charm treatment, huh?” Greg chuckled and slid back down into his chair. “Athlete extraordinaire — leading scorer on the basketball team — top high-jumper in the state — of course, I am prejudiced. Not to mention extremely jealous.”

  Martha laughed at that. “Did you go to school here?”

  “Where else?” Greg leaned back in his chair, waving his arms in an inclusive gesture. “I loved it here. Loved the town. Still do.” He gazed at her, noting how her expression fell, then he bent forward. “Give it a chance, Martha. It’s not the big city, but it’s got its own kind of charm — its own kind of excitement. We’re all here to help you. Especially me.”

  Martha nodded grudgingly, forcing a smile.

  “Okay. Now let’s decide where to put you. I hear you’re quite the writer. Awards in state competition — yearbook — school paper —”

  In spite of herself, Martha smiled. “They were just little awards. I have a lot to learn.”

  “Great. Then let’s start with my creative writing class. I’m pretty fascinating.”

  Martha couldn’t help laughing. “Do I have to try out?”

  “With your qualifications — are you kidding? Hey, don’t look so worried. You’ll love it.”

  He was right, and as the day wore on, that class turned out to be the only thing Martha did love. Sitting through each new hour was torturous; she could feel all the kids staring at her with unabashed curiosity. At lunchtime no one asked her to eat with them, but she could see heads together and fingers pointing as they talked about her. She didn’t see Conor all day, and by the time school was finally over, she felt so lonely that even he was beginning to sound good to her. “I’m a sick person,” she mumbled to herself, and didn’t realize that someone had come up beside her locker.

  “Hi, remember me? I saw you in the store yesterday.” The girl was smiling shyly, peering at Martha over an armload of books.

  Martha smiled back at her, amused. Even if she hadn’t remembered, the girl’s uncanny resemblance to Blake and Greg Chambers was a dead giveaway.

  “We have writing class together,” the girl went on hesitantly. “I tried to get your attention, but you were a million miles away.”

  “Oh … sorry,” Martha stammered. “I’m kind of in a fog today, I guess.”

  “I would be, too. In fact, I’d be even worse.” The girl nodded solemnly then offered another smile. “I’m Wynn Chambers.”

  In spite of her weariness, Martha laughed. “How many more of you are there around here?” For a moment Wynn looked confused, and Martha laughed again. “Besides you and Blake and my new advisor?”

  This time Wynn laughed, too, tossing back her long brown hair with a shake of her head. “Is Greg your advisor? I’m glad — you’ll like him.” She was tall like her cousins, with the same quick, wide smile, and the same merry brown eyes.

  “I like him already. In fact, he was the high point of my day.”

  “Oh … that bad, huh?” Wynn looked sympathetic, like she truly understood. A group of girls jostled past, calling her name; she waved and turned back to Martha. “Isn’t Bedford what you expected?”

  “Well….” Martha stared for a moment into her locker, taking a quick inventory of what she’d need for homework. “To tell the truth, I didn’t even know I was coming here, so I didn’t know what to expect. I just woke up one morning and found out everything had changed.”

  “That would make me sad.” Wynn looked down at the floor, nodding her head. “I don’t like changes. Changes are scary.”

  Martha stared at her a moment, then smiled. “You’re right. It really is scary.” She closed her locker and swung her purse to her other shoulder. “Do you live here in town?”

  “Four blocks from here. Blake lives another block from me, and Greg’s mom still lives in the house behind that.”

  “Uh-oh. What happened to poor Greg?”

  Wynn giggled. “He has an apartment on the other side of town. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  Martha shook her head, giving a wry smile. “I didn’t. But now I have this weird stepbrother named Conor — he’s going to school here, too —”

  Wynn glanced at her, eyes widening. “Conor? The Conor you were with at the store?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Why?”

  “I can’t believe he’s your brother.” Wynn was suddenly looking shy again.

  “Stepbrother.”

  “You haven’t noticed how everyone’s been lusting after him?”

  “Lusting after Conor!” Martha fell into step beside her.

  “Well, they have. All the girls have.” Wynn flushed slightly and added, “Heads have been turning since he got here. Like the domino effect every time he walks down the hall. They haven’t been able to keep their eyes off him.”

/>   “Conor?” Martha groaned and shoved the door open, glad to be outside at last. Leave it to Conor, she thought dismally. I get treated like a plague victim, and all the girls in school have fallen in love with him.

  “But he’s … he seems kind of different, doesn’t he?” Wynn chose her words cautiously.

  “He’s different, all right.”

  “He hardly looks at anyone. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know how all the girls are staring.”

  “He knows.” Martha shot her a look, and they turned out of the gate to the parking lot. “There’s Conor now. Do you want to meet him officially?” Oh, please let me introduce you to the hottest new sex symbol at Bedford High….

  Wynn stopped, clutching her books to her chest. “I … I should be getting home.”

  She’s nervous about meeting Conor, about actually seeing him up close again, face to face…. “Come on,” Martha encouraged. “I know he’ll remember you from yesterday. You could come to my house and we could —”

  “No.” Wynn shook her head, looking embarrassed. “I … maybe another time.”

  “Well, sure, whenever you want —”

  “Hey, Wynn! Martha! Wait up, will you?”

  Martha felt her heart skip as Blake Chambers came running towards them from the gym, his body long and leanly muscled, his hair still damp from the showers. He caught Wynn in a huge hug, nearly knocking her down, and fixed his eyes on Martha with a grin.

  “How’s it going? You survive the first day without too many battle scars?”

  “Barely.” Martha’s pulse quickened as he came over and took three of her books, his arm brushing hers as he leafed through the pages.

  “Hmmm … I seem to remember all this horrible stuff … don’t tell me you like Poe?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether we like him or not; we still have to read him,” Wynn sighed. “But guess what? Martha’s in Greg’s writing class with me —”

  “Great. So what are you writing?”

  “Typical Greg. He gave us some corny assignment for Halloween —”

  “And speak of the devil — come on, let’s catch a ride. See you later, huh, Martha?” As Blake loped off, Wynn glanced openmouthed at Martha, then both girls began to laugh.

  “He’s not always this rude,” Wynn apologized. “Greg must be in a hurry.”

  “Greg?”

  “Yes, see? Over there — the red Jaguar.”

  Martha squinted against the crisp breeze. “I can’t believe how much alike Blake and Greg look. You, too, for that matter.”

  “It’s just ’cause I’m tall,” Wynn said ruefully. “I hate being tall. No one asks you out when you’re tall.” She shrugged. “Everybody says we look alike. Blake and Greg especially. They almost look like brothers.”

  “From a distance they could be twins.”

  They were almost to the station wagon now. Martha could see Conor inside and she stopped, wondering if Wynn would change her mind about saying hello.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Wynn stopped abruptly, tugging her sweater around her. “It’ll get better — just think — your first day’s over and you’re not new anymore.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Martha chuckled. “I’m stuck right in the middle of every class, and I have tons to catch up on — even our writing assignment sounds hard.”

  Wynn looked surprised. “What? Writing a ghost story for Halloween? That shouldn’t be any problem — especially for you.”

  Martha was doubtful. “Just ’cause my dad’s a writer, that doesn’t mean any of his talent rubbed off on me.”

  “Your father’s a writer? I didn’t know that.”

  “You didn’t? I thought that’s what you meant —”

  “I didn’t know about your father,” Wynn said. “I was talking about … well, you know. About your house.”

  Martha stared at her. Something about the way Wynn was looking back at her made her uneasy. “What … about my house?”

  “Hey, Wynn!” Blake yelled. The Jaguar was moving slowly towards them, and Blake was hanging out the window. “Hurry up! Greg’s got a meeting!”

  Wynn wasn’t even listening to him; her expression was on Martha, and it looked suddenly strained. “You … really don’t know, do you? Nobody told you —”

  Martha shook her head. “Are you talking about the old cemetery?”

  And Wynn was looking so strange — sort of sad and sympathetic at the same time, and Martha took a step back, not wanting to hear any more —

  “There was a murder in your house,” Wynn said quietly. “Everyone knows the old Bedford place is evil.”

  Chapter 4

  “Evil?” Conor glanced over at Martha as he eased the car into a curve. She was staring rigidly out at the road, her hands locked in her lap.

  “That’s what she said,” Martha insisted. “She said everyone knows about it. But obviously nobody told us.”

  “They wouldn’t, would they?” Conor said reasonably. “The realtor’d be afraid of losing a good sale.”

  “We’ve been tricked,” Martha said. “I feel like everyone’s laughing at us.”

  “No one tricked us. And if somebody thinks they did, the joke’s on them. If your dad had known it was evil, he’d have snapped it up even faster.”

  Martha knew Conor was right — but the memory of school still hurt. “No wonder people kept looking at me like I had three heads,” she mumbled. She waited for Conor to make some joke, but when he didn’t, she chanced a quick look in his direction. He was staring at her, deep in thought.

  “Nobody’s laughing at us,” he said at last. “If anything, it makes us irresistibly interesting.”

  “Like freaks. Wait till I tell Dad about —” She broke off, remembering that she wouldn’t even see him for several weeks. The thought made her feel defeated somehow, and she slumped in her seat.

  “So what happened in our infamous house to make it so evil?” Conor asked quietly.

  “A murder. That’s all I know. Wynn had to hurry to catch a ride with Greg, and that’s all she said.”

  “Who’s Greg?”

  “My advisor. Mr. Chambers. Did you know they’re all cousins — Greg and Wynn and Blake?” She deliberately kept her eyes averted. “He’s the guy in the hardware store yesterday —”

  “Of course. How could I forget Blake Chambers?”

  Martha ignored him. “Well, anyway, Wynn and I have class together — she’s the one who was on the ladder in the store. I really like her.”

  “So do we at least know who or what is supposed to be making the house so evil?”

  “Some ghost, I guess.”

  “Aah.”

  Martha bristled. “Look, I don’t know any more about it than you do. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.” She closed her eyes, fighting panicky thoughts away — the body in the tree … the cold in her room … the invisible watcher in the woods…. Tell him! Tell him what happened! “It’s probably just a lie, anyway. It’s probably something that got started, and it’s not even true. Don’t you think so?”

  Conor didn’t answer, so Martha stared out the window the rest of the way home. Compared to this dreary countryside, school had seemed so normal … so alive … full of noise and activity and real people. Now it was already starting to get dark, and the longer they drove, the more lonely she felt. There was nothing out here … nothing. And again, the heavy sky dripped with almost-rain, shrouding the world in gray. As they finally made the turn onto their road, Martha pulled her jacket around her like a cocoon, bracing herself for the sight of the house. As soon as Conor parked the car she ran inside and up to her room.

  Oh, God, I can’t stand this! Weeks in this hideous place with only Conor to keep her company! Martha threw herself across her bed and lay there, drained. How could life get any worse? If Conor only knew about what had happened near the woods last night, he wouldn’t be nearly so unconcerned about the evil house stories. Then why don’t you tell him? ’Cause he’d never belie
ve me. I don’t have any kind of proof. In fact, I’m not even sure anymore that I believe it myself….

  Martha groaned and went to the window, rubbing her arms against the nagging chill. She couldn’t even relax in this room — no matter what she did to it, she just couldn’t seem to make it comfortable. She stared down into the backyard and was startled to see Conor go into the woods. Now what is he doing down there?

  The thought of being in the house alone wasn’t a pleasant one. Before Martha even realized what she was doing, she was standing on the back porch, staring off towards the trees where she’d seen him disappear.

  “Conor!”

  Her voice came to her eerily on the wind, as if the trees had caught it in their twisted arms and thrown it back. There was no other sound, though Martha held her breath, straining to hear. Heavy rain clouds still hung stubbornly in the sky, making the air unbearably clammy. She hunched her shoulders and started resolutely across the yard.

  “Conor! Where are you?”

  But she might as well have been the only living person in the world, the evening lay so gray and empty around her. Nervously Martha glanced behind her at the house. Only one light was visible through the half-open curtains of the kitchen; the rest of the rooms stood lifelessly behind blank windows. Cautiously she tried to peer through the trees, then parted a web of branches and saw a narrow path beyond. “Conor, I know you’re in there — I saw you from the window!”

  What is he doing in there?

  Martha moved deeper into the trees, deeper info the thickening dusk, her thoughts whirling. Was this where she’d seen the movement last night? Right about here? In her fear, in the dark, it was impossible to remember the exact spot…. Drawing a shaky breath she stopped, confused. Suddenly she was afraid to go on. Afraid to go on and afraid to go back. What if it’s still here? Watching me … even now —

  “Martha —”

  Martha screamed and collapsed against a tree, her hand to her heart. “Conor! Where were you? I couldn’t —”

  “What are you doing following me around without a jacket?” he said, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.