Meeting

by Nina Hoffman

  “Cool costume,” Maya said.

  “Wow. Yours, too. We’re like silver spray-paint sisters. Hey, you guys! Glad you could make it! Want some cider? Who’s the Christmas tree?”

  “Travis,” Maya said.

  “Who’s the fox?”

  “My little brother, Peter.”

  “Hi, Peter. Rowan? Rowan? Wow, I never expected to see you here! Hi, Gwenda and Benjamin! You guys look great!”

  “Thanks,” said Benjamin. “You look excellent, Helen.”

  “Muchas gracias. Check out the others.”

  They followed the robot into a living room with red shag carpet, comfortable-looking couches, an entertainment center, and three people.

  “Janine’s the ninja. Tovah’s the cat. Sibyl’s the ghost,” said Helen. She introduced Peter and Travis around, because Peter was new and Travis was unrecognizable.

  Janine’s black ninja pajamas and full head mask with a slot for her eyes were kind of spoiled by her winter coat, which was pink. Tovah was wearing a fuzzy white coat that blended in with her white fake-fur pants and white hat with tall pink cat ears attached. She had a white cat mask that covered her eyes and nose and sported whiskers.

  Sibyl had gone the white sheet route, only her sheet was white with little blue roses all over it. It was belted at the waist with the gold scarf of Yiliss, and she wore her glasses over the eye holes. There was too much sheet for her height. She had bunched some of the sheet up and tossed it over her left arm.

  “Happy Halloween,” Maya said, feeling suddenly awkward. She didn’t know Tovah or Janine at all, and what was she going to do about Sibyl? Did Travis know Sibyl had a sissimi?

  “Hey, all,” said the Tovah, the cat. “Let’s go get candy.”

  They all fled the house and ran out into the night.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The air was cool and smelled like metal. Street lights cast an orange glow on patches of sidewalk, and some houses were dark silhouettes with lighted windows. Some were entirely dark. Those with porch lights or front lights on were the ones to visit, especially if they had Halloween decorations.

  Helen led the way, giving tour guide information about her neighbors. “These guys give the kind of taffy that gets your fillings if you’re not careful. I think they pull it themselves. Mom makes me show her all the homemade stuff when I get home, and usually she throws it out, so it’s not even worth going there—oh, you want to try it? Go on up and come back and tell us what you got.”

  Peter went to the door by himself. The woman who opened it cooed over his costume and gave him a plastic bag with broken bits of something in it.

  “What’d I tell you?” Helen said when he came back. They moved on. “These guys usually give fruit leather. Mom makes me save it for school lunches. Hey, Gwenda, you guys are always eating special food. Will you be able to eat any of this stuff?”

  “Probably Benjamin’s mom will look it over and tell us what’s okay for us to eat. Mostly we came because Maya invited us. I’ve always wondered what this was about. I’ve only seen it from windows. Looked fun, but strange.”

  Helen laughed.

  Sibyl drifted back to walk with Maya; there was only room on the sidewalk for two people abreast, and the pairs kept shifting as they moved from one house to the next. “Last time I did this, I was seven years old,” Sibyl muttered. “I was dressed like a ballerina, and my dad took me around. I thought it was the best holiday ever.”

  “Still is,” Maya said.

  “But Daddy—” The sheet ghost aimed her glasses toward the clump of kids ahead of them. “Daddy.”

  “Did the Thrixa people snatch you from your home?” asked Maya.

  “No. No. Mommy and Daddy—they died. I’m pretty sure. I mean, someone else picked me up from school, someone I never met before, and she said I couldn’t go home ever again, and then I went to a shelter with a lot of other kids. I was there a couple months, I think. I didn’t really know how to count days yet. I was playing in the yard by the back fence when Gaelli came to talk to me. He asked me if I wanted to go somewhere else, where there were people who’d love me, and I said yes. Yes. So I did.”

  They visited a house, trailing behind all the others. The woman seemed pleased to see them and gave them handfuls of hard candy. Maya said, as they hit the sidewalk, “Bikos was an orphan, too.”

  “We all were. The Thrixa only wanted kids who didn’t have family and needed a better place to go. Hey, Maya,” Sibyl said.

  “Yes?”

  “Those kids from Janus House. Yiliss says there’s something weird about them.”

  “Like what?”

  “They’re—” Sibyl jumped as Rowan strode up beside them. He was walking in the street. He glared at both of them, then moved on ahead. He hadn’t brought anything to carry candy in, and he didn’t go up to front doors. Mostly he just seemed to want to hang around and glare at people. Maya was surprised he’d actually gotten a scythe. He could have done all the glaring without it.

  Sibyl grabbed Maya’s arm and pulled her to a stop, letting the others move on. “Those Janus House kids have extra layers of energy, Yiliss says. Does Rimi know about this? Yiliss thinks there’s no way she could not know.”

  Maya didn’t know what to say.

  “I mean, I’ve been staying away from them at school, because Yiliss and I are trying to blend in, and everybody else keeps away from them. Except you and Travis. You know, don’t you?”

  “I guess,” Maya said.

  Evren’s nearby, Rimi said. Just behind us. Too close.

  “What does it mean?” Sibyl asked. “What are these extra layers? What kind of different are those kids?”

  “What does Yiliss think?”

  “Yiliss thinks—who’s there?” Sibyl turned toward Evren. Yiliss lifted fringed ends, wavered the fringes, and then all of them straightened, pointing toward nothing. “Someone’s right here! Yiliss says! And I can’t—Maya—”

  Maya pulled out her flashlight and shone it behind them, the direction Yiliss was pointing. Nothing was visible except empty sidewalk, fence, and rhododendron bushes. Rimi dropped shadow over Maya’s eyes, enough to show her Evren’s outline.

  “Someone’s there,” Maya agreed.

  “Is it a ghost?” Sibyl whispered. “You’ve lived on Earth all your life. Have you seen ghosts before? Or felt them? Is this what that’s like?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a ghost, and I’ve only had sissimi help to see things for a few weeks,” whispered Maya. “Without Rimi, I don’t think I would’ve known anything was there.” She felt suddenly overwhelmed. She didn’t know how she was going to keep secrets from everyone when people kept suspecting things. Maya hated lying. For one thing, it was a strain remembering the fake stuff you made up. For another thing, it made her feel rotten. Now she was lying to her parents and her sister, and hiding things from her friends. She couldn’t keep track of who knew what. When anyone asked her a direct question, she just wanted to answer. And since Rimi had lifted Harper’s silence from Maya’s tongue, Maya could answer, even when she shouldn’t.

  “Hey, you,” she said in Evren’s direction. “We know you’re following us. What do you want?”

  Agitation, Rimi thought. And now, he’s running away.

  “Yiliss said he ran away,” Sibyl said. She pressed her hands against her chest. Her breathing was hard and fast. “I thought I understood Earth. Now I just don’t know.”

  “Hey, dudettes,” said a nearby Christmas tree, “you okay? You totally disappeared on us.”

  Maya swung the light to illuminate Travis, then aimed it at the ground. There was enough reflected light to show her Sibyl’s pale, ghostly, expressionless form beside her. Maya looked at Sibyl, and Sibyl stared back, or at least her glasses and eyeholes were aimed in Maya’s direction.

  “Sorry,” Maya told Travis. “We just wanted to talk.”

  “Well, come on. We’re, like, a whole block ahead of you. You’re missing all the fun.” Trav
is held out a fistful of candy bars. Maya opened the messenger bag, and he dropped them in, then waved Maya and Sibyl past him. Up the street, Maya saw a shadowy group of figures. Was it the right group? Had she lost Peter, after promising her parents she wouldn’t get separated from him?

  The owl on her helmet hooted. He’s there, with the others. We haven’t lost anybody, Mayamela. I’m keeping track of him. Rimi sent Maya warmth. I can remember who knows what, too. Travis doesn’t know about Sibyl yet. We should tell him, maybe tomorrow, if he doesn’t find out tonight.

  Rimi, Maya thought. Thank you. She gripped Sibyl’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s stay with the others. Thanks for coming back for us, Travis.” Maya pulled Sibyl back to the group.

  They all approached a well-lit house with four pumpkins on the porch, different thicknesses of pumpkin rind making some of the pumpkins brilliant orange, and others shadowy globes lit from the mouth, nose, eye, and eyebrow holes. The candlelight flickered, and the air smelled of melting wax and singeing pumpkin.

  Helen rang the bell. A teen boy answered the door. “Trick-or-treat,” everyone yelled.

  “Jeez,” he said, “how many of you are there?”

  “A bunch,” said Helen cheerfully.

  “I don’t know if we have enough stuff for everybody,” he said.

  From deeper in the house, a woman’s voice floated out. “Jerry, of course we do. Hand out the candy. We have more bags in the living room. You don’t get to save it all for yourself!”

  He tossed a snarl over his shoulder, but he gave candy to everybody.

  Back on the sidewalk, Benjamin walked beside Maya. “This is such a weird custom,” he muttered as they trailed the others toward the next house, a big old Victorian with skull lights drooping along the porch roof and a flagstone path from the sidewalk to the porch steps.

  “But fun, no?” Maya asked.

  He smiled wide at her. “In a lot of different ways.”

  Maya, a voice called, faint and far away.

  Rimi?

  That wasn’t me, Rimi thought.

  Maya felt a spot of heat near her right hip. She touched it and felt the lump of the rough garnet trapped in her pocket. “Oh,” she said. “Oh—” She stepped off the sidewalk and looked back.

  Houses lined the street, some dark, some with windows glowing, some windows masked by curtains and some revealing their insides in snapshot glimpses. Porch lights splashed over walls and ground but left deep shadows. Street lights spread globes of orange radiance, but between them stripes of darkness lay across the pavement. People, most of them pretty short, surged along the street, dark silhouettes. All light was ringed with darkness and the stretching of shadows. The air was chill against her face and hands, and freezing against the back of her neck where Rimi was not attached.

  “Maya?” Benjamin said.

  “I thought I heard something.” Maya stared into the dark-and-light distance.

  Maya.

  “Steph?” she whispered. She took the garnet out of her pocket and held it in her hand. It was warm, but she couldn’t tell if that was because of some ghostly agency or because it had been tight against her hip.

  The walls between the universes are thinner on Halloween night, Gwenda said in Maya’s memory.

  Hey, Maya. The voice was so soft. Did it come from the dark, or from her imagination?

  Rimi thought, There’s a shadow here.

  Show me. Please.

  Rimi dropped a layer of shadow over Maya’s eyes that made the night clearer and less dark. Maya saw a wavery form about five feet from her. A little shorter than she was—the same height she had been last spring—and the shadow had hair on her shadow head that didn’t match Maya’s last images of chemo-bald Stephanie. Lovely dandelion fuzz hair, a tight-curled mane, like Steph used to have before she got sick.

  Hey, pal.

  Everything inside Maya froze.

  “Steph,” she whispered. “Are you here? Is that you?”

  It’s me.

  “How’d you find me?” Tears heated Maya’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “We left, Steph. We ran away. I didn’t want to leave you, and then I didn’t want to do anything but sleep and cry. They made me leave.”

  I know. I’m sorry you had such a tough summer, pal. There was nothing I could do.

  “I miss you so much.”

  Yes. That’s how I found you. I’m mostly gone, Maya, but there’s still a connection between us. Thanks for keeping me in your heart.

  “Steph! You would not believe the people I know now!”

  Steph laughed. More than anything else, that warble of laughter convinced Maya she was actually talking to her dead best friend.

  I get that, pal. Boy howdy do I get that.

  “I wish you were—”

  Yeah, but I’m not, Steph said. And that’s okay. You’re going to be okay.

  Maya reached up and put her hand on the cheek of her helmet. Warm, soft. Rimi, looking like metal, feeling like flesh. Maya sighed and straightened. “Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

  The shadow Steph radiated a feeling of smile. So, she said, I’m off on my next adventure. You don’t have to keep me alive, Maya. I’m there all by myself, in my own way. Think of me when you want to, but don’t worry about me, okay?

  “Really?”

  Really. Now that I know you’re going to be all right, I’m not going to hang around anymore. Okay?

  “Do you have to go?”

  No, but I’m ready to, and I’m going to. Bye, pal. You were the best friend ever. See ya.

  “Where?”

  Stephanie laughed again. Somewhere down the road. With these new friends of yours, you’ll be going lots of places. Who knows? We might bump into each other! Love you.

  The shadow vanished, and so did the sense that Stephanie was present.

  “Steph!” Maya cried. She lifted her hands and rubbed her eyes. She had to sniff a few times. Then she glanced sideways.

  Benjamin had formed a triangle with his fingers and thumbs, the same way Columba had before, and he was staring through that frame toward where Stephanie had stood. He separated his hands and lowered them, then looked at her.

  “Did you see her?” Maya asked. Her throat was tight, and her voice came out squeaky.

  “Yeah,” he said. His voice was higher than usual, too. “My first ghost.”

  “Did you hear her?” Maya asked, a little softer.

  Benjamin shook his head. “But—amazing.”

  “Maya, Maya, Maya!” Peter darted toward her. “Are you all right?”

  “I—oh, Peter!” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight.

  “You’re squishing my head,” he said, his voice muffled by his mask.

  “Oh! Sorry!” She straightened, released him, and studied his mask. She had compressed the fox’s whiskery cheek so the mask had a dent in it instead of a curve.

  Lean close to him again, Rimi thought.

  Maya took Peter in her arms again and leaned close. She felt her helmet shift somehow. “I fixed it,” Rimi said aloud, very quietly, and Maya let Peter go again.

  “Thanks,” Peter muttered. He patted his restored cheek. “Maya. Are you okay? I heard you yell.”

  “It was Steph, Peter! Steph’s ghost! Ben saw her, too!”

  “You did?” Peter squeaked.

  “Uh—” said Benjamin.

  Maya turned and stared at him. All these secrets, jammed up inside her, and she was supposed to share them with some people and not others. This one was all her own, and she wanted Peter to know it. Was Benjamin going to pretend it hadn’t happened? Something bitter twisted inside her. She had told Stephanie she was going to be okay, based in part on her belief that Benjamin was one of her new best friends.

  Peter would believe her, either way. Rimi would support her. Still—

  “I did,” Benjamin said.

  Maya started breathing again. She held out her hand, and he grasped it. His hand was warm and dry, and his gri
p was firm, but not too tight. He pressed his thumb into her palm and then let go.

  “Wow. Oh, wow. Oh wow!” Peter yelled, jumping, and then the rest of their friends returned, laughing and lugging loot.

  “What’s the fuss? What’s going on?” asked Helen.

  “Maya saw a ghost!” Peter said.

  A flood of questions poured out of her friends. “Was it scary?” “Was it someone you knew?” “What did it do?” “Is it still here?”

  Gwenda stopped beside Maya and waved her wand. Its crystal tip lit up, trailing sparks. Gwenda’s eyes shone with reflected flickers. “Maya!” she said. “Was it Steph?”

  “Yes,” Maya said.

  Gwenda hugged her, scattering more sparks.

  “Too weird,” said Travis. “Or—maybe not.”

  “Yil—my—I saw it, too,” Sibyl said.

  “You did?” said Maya.

  “Kind of sensed it. A glowing outline right near you. Yil—a kind of person.” Sibyl’s hands were shaking. Her loot bag rustled with her shudders. “Were you scared?”

  Had she been scared? All the feelings she’d had lately—apprehension, wonder, frustration, sorrow, the overwhelming sensation of too many secrets hanging over her head and not knowing how to organize them. Sarutha saying good-bye. Columba and Evren saying hello. Harper frowning at her, as he always did. Weyland saying she had another safe place to come. Benjamin and Gwenda coming out of the shell of Janus House and stepping into the rest of the world, where Maya and Travis lived.

  Here she was, out in the Halloween-haunted night, with friends in disguise, and one friend who had unmasked by becoming a mask. She had a growing candy stash at her right hip and Rimi wrapped around her, and Steph had come back. Steph had come back. Steph knew about the magic, and she had left Maya in the heart of it, with her blessings.

  “Happy,” said Maya. “But Steph just came to say good-bye, and now she’s gone.”

  “Still,” said Peter. “Best Halloween ever!”

  Over the past twenty-some years, NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN has published novels, juvenile and media tie-in books, short story collections, and more than two hundred fifty short stories. Her works have been finalists for the World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her first novel, The Thread That Binds the Bones, won a Bram Stoker Award, and her short story “Trophy Wives” won a Nebula Award.