What October Brings

Cosmic Cola Lucy A. Snyder

Millie leaned her forehead against the back window of her stepfather’s new Toyota van, morosely watching the weather-beaten, navy-on-white “Welcome to Marsh Landing!” sign approach and recede. Welcome to what? There was little but some bone-white dunes and shuttered, peeling bait shacks so far. Nothing she’d learned about the isolated coastal town in her school’s library made her feel any better about moving here. Population: twenty thousand. Primary export: fish and Cosmic Cola. Total Dullsville. It was probably one of those stuffy communities that forbade trick-or-treat at Halloween. Marsh Middle School was barely half the size of her old school and didn’t have any Girl Scouts troops she could join. It didn’t even have an orchestra. She’d only just started playing violin and already she was going to have to quit, probably.

Quitters never got anywhere in life. That’s what her grandfather Ernest always used to tell her anyhow, before he had a stroke and quit living. In the months before he died, he’d argue about physics when he was alone in his room, as if the empty walls were his audience. She could play her violin in her room and pretend she had an audience, she supposed, but her bedroom walls wouldn’t tell her if she dropped a note, or if her bowing was scratchy, or if her phrasing was awkward. So even if she kept going on her own, she wasn’t sure she’d get anywhere anyway.

If she was honest with herself, giving up violin didn’t bother her nearly as much as the notion of giving up Halloween. It was her favorite holiday, even better than Christmas, though she could never say that out loud. Her mom would say it wasn’t ladylike to prefer Halloween over Jesus’ birthday. And her love for it wasn’t just because of trick-or-treating. It was the one night when all the things she dreamed of seemed like they could actually become real. The one night when she didn’t have to always be nice and demure and could be something besides a girl from a little town in a flyover state. She could be a ghost. A witch. A werewolf. Something mythical, something to be feared and respected. Running down the street in her costume, she could close her eyes in the frosty fall air and just for a moment imagine that plastic teeth and waxy paints were enamel and skin, and she could go anywhere at all that she wanted on her own. What was Christmas compared to the chilly frisson of becoming?

“Gimme!” On the middle seat, her little half-brother Travis reached for his twin sister’s Cabbage Patch doll.

“Nooo!” Tiffany hugged the doll to her chest and turned away from her brother’s grabby hands. “Mooom!”

“Leave your sister’s toys alone.” Their mother’s tone was one of utter exhaustion. Was exhaustion an emotion, or the lack of it? Millie wasn’t sure. “Play with your Star Wars figures.”

“Fifty,” Millie announced.

“What?” Her mother turned in her seat and squinted at her tiredly.

“That’s the fiftieth time you’ve said those exact words on this trip.”

Her mother’s lips twitched into a half-smile. “You counted?”

“I did.” Millie couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of her voice. She was very good at counting. Last year she’d won a fifty-dollar gift certificate in a contest at Harmon’s Grocery to guess how many jellybeans were in a big jar, and was a little sad afterward when she found out that since she won once she couldn’t compete again. She’d missed the count by two hundred and forty eight, and was sure she could have done even better the next time.

Her stepfather cleared his throat, obviously annoyed. “Doesn’t Madame Curie have a book to read?”

Her mother shot him a dirty look but didn’t say anything. Millie felt her face grow hot. Her stepfather had started calling her “Madame Curie” after she won the school science fair with her homemade electrolysis set. And at first it had seemed like a nice thing, as if after five years of being her stepfather he was starting to like her a little bit and to be proud of her accomplishments, like he was proud of Tiffany and Travis. After all, Marie Curie was the only person in history to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences! So calling her Madame Curie couldn’t really be a bad thing, could it? But the way he started saying it after the first couple of times … it tasted like a razor blade inside a Tootsie Roll. But if she said anything, he’d just accuse her of not being able to take a compliment. Of not having a sense of humor. Of being a brat.

“I had a book to read,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “and I read it.”

“Then you should have brought more.” His tone was hard as the pavement beneath his van’s black tires.

“I brought four. And I read them all.” Her heart was beating so fast her vision was starting to twitch.

The twins had gone silent in the seat in front of her, like nest-bound fledglings beneath the shadow of a hawk.

“You did not read four books in the past six hours.” He stared at her in the rearview mirror, his gaze as steady as any raptor’s.

“Did, too.” She grabbed her library book sale copies of Bunnicula, Superfudge, Blubber, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and held them up so he could see them. “I read them cover to cover. Ask me about them. Ask me anything.”

She wasn’t lying, and she knew that he hadn’t enough of a clue about any of the books to even begin to question her about them. He’d made it clear he considered them to be kids’ books, girl books, and he was a man. A man with a brand-new van and a fancy important job. Nothing in the books could interest him, so why bother? The idea of seeking a subject to discuss with his stepdaughter was so far from his orbit it could take him millennia to discover it.

“If you were so busy reading back there, how could you possibly know what your mother said to the twins?” There was a talon of warning in his tone: she had better stop challenging him, or else.

Or else what? she wondered bitterly. Or else you’ll take me away from everything I care about and drop me in some dumpy awful town that probably stinks of fish? Just because you got a job at some stupid soft drink company?

Why couldn’t he have gone away to work and left them where they were? Other dads did that to keep from uprooting their families. But her half-siblings weren’t in school yet, so she was the only one being uprooted. Her real father had brought her mother to Greensburg so they could be closer to his father, and Mom hadn’t liked it there since Grandpa Ernest died. She said that seeing his old room every day made her feel sad. And Millie wanted her mom to be happy. She did. But … ugh.

“I can count and read at the same time,” she replied defiantly.

“Hey, look, it’s our street,” her mother exclaimed in the loud, overly cheery tone she used when she was trying to distract her stepfather.

“Craftsman Lane!” She patted his hand on the steering wheel. “This is so exciting, isn’t it honey? Our first real house together!”

Millie glared down at her lap, feeling a spike of irritation at her mom’s comment. The old house had been real enough, but Millie’s father bought it before he died, and so it wasn’t their house. But now they could move someplace new and pretend that Millie’s real father had never even existed. It wasn’t fair.

“Oh, what a lovely hibiscus!” her mother said.

Millie finally looked out the window and blinked in surprise. They had gone from dunes and bait shacks to a proper town with tree-shaded neighborhood streets. Teen boys were kicking a soccer ball around on a well-kept corner field. This place didn’t look too bad, she had to admit. Maybe there would be some kids her age in the neighborhood? She hadn’t had a lot of friends at her old school. She and Chrissy Romano were pretty tight, at least until Chrissy started having eyes for Mike Walhgren. Millie walked to school with Jeff Laramie for years and had thought of him as a friend until he joined Little League and decided he was too cool to hang out with girls. Sixth grade was confusing; everybody wanted to be with the boys and nobody wanted to spend time with Millie.

So, maybe seventh grade would be better? Maybe meeting new kids would be the one good thing about having to leave everything she knew behind?

Her stepfather slowed in front of a three-story white Victorian with a wraparound porch. “And here’s our new home!”

Millie couldn’t take her eyes off the amazing porch. It had steps wide enough for pumpkins on each side, and a railing that was begging to be decorated. “That’s the perfect Halloween porch!”

“Aren’t you getting a little old for Halloween?” her stepfather said.

“Not yet,” Millie suddenly felt anxious. She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was being serious.

“I think you are.” He pulled the van into the driveway and parked. “I think you’re getting much too old for things like Halloween and trick-or-treating.”

“You said teenagers are too old. I’m not a teenager. Not until next April.” She turned to her mother, her stomach churning. She couldn’t be too old for Halloween. Not yet. “You said I could still trick-or-treat this year.”

“Oh, honey, that’s a whole three months away,” her mother said. “Let’s go in and see our new home!”

The house was fine. Millie’s new room got too much sun in the mornings, but as her mother pointed out, at least she wasn’t running late for school any more. Her stepfather was frequently gone on Cosmic Cola business—he bought her mother a Honda Civic so they wouldn’t have to share his van—and frankly his absence was a relief. And Marsh Middle School was fine, too, at least as far as her classes went.

The kids were weird, though. She was used to the cliques at Wendover: orchestra kids, theatre kids, rich kids, poor kids. Pretty kids from wealthy families who were good at sports were at the top, and the special ed kids and the immigrant kids from poor families were at the bottom. It wasn’t fair but it made sense. But at Marsh, it was mostly about whose families had been around the longest. Even the kid with crooked, discolored teeth and a limp got to sit with the popular kids at lunch because he was a real Marsh. So did the kid with the threadbare clothes. Sure, they had a hierarchy within their hierarchy, but nobody who was “new blood” got let into that club no matter how cool they were. And apparently you could still be new blood even if your family had lived in the town for several generations … but meanwhile some of the other kids were considered old blood even though they’d moved to town just a few years before. The situation wasn’t any fairer than at Wendover, and Millie couldn’t quite make sense of it, not entirely.

The old blood kids were actually friendlier to Millie than they were to some of the new blood kids they’d grown up with, simply because when the teachers introduced her, they made sure to mention that her father was the new Vice President of Operations for Cosmic Cola. Millie never would have guessed that being the daughter of an executive at the soda company would be such a big deal. It was nearly as good as being a featured soloist in the choir! She didn’t make new friends, not like Chrissy had been, anyway, but she always had a place to sit at lunch and people to talk to and nobody picked on her.

Once she realized the social advantage she had, she could never let on that she didn’t even like Cosmic Cola. It was sickly sweet, and it had an unpleasant licorice aftertaste. And the bubbles seemed too harsh and made her sneeze. Everybody in town seemed to drink gallons of the stuff. Whenever someone offered her a bottle, she’d politely pretend to sip it and then pour it out first chance she got.

Late summer cooled to fall, and at the end of September the janitors festooned the school in black-and-orange streamers and grinning paper Jack-o-Lanterns, black cats, and green-faced witches. Millie was thrilled! Marsh Middle School was far more keen on Halloween than her old school was. And not only did the town have an official trick-or-treat planned from 6:00 to 8:00 pm on Halloween, they had special Devil’s Night parties planned for older kids and teens on the days leading up to Halloween to prevent pranks and other mischief in town.

The biggest Devil’s Night party—or at least the most important party as far as her classmates were concerned—was the Cosmic Cola Party at Marsh Mansion up on the cliff above the ocean. None of the Marsh family lived there anymore; old Jeremiah Marsh had donated it to the soda company for charity events and executive retreats. They’d get to ride in a chartered bus up the winding road to the mansion, and at the party they’d dance and drink Cosmic Cola and eat pizza and play games. All that, on the face of it, didn’t seem so impressive to Millie, but the old blood kids all talked about how their parents had said that the company was bringing in a super-secret special guest to play at the party. Some said it might be Aerosmith … others claimed it was Duran Duran or even Michael Jackson.

Millie’s mother said she was far too young to go to a rock concert, so to think that she might be able to see someone as famous as Michael Jackson … that was most impressive. And even better, because the party ran so late, all the kids who attended would be excused from class the next day.

The catch was that only thirty kids from Marsh Middle School could attend the party, and they’d be chosen in a special lottery in mid-October. Everyone got one ticket, but students could earn extra tickets by making As, volunteering to help out around the school, and other such things. By October seventh, she’d earned seven lottery tickets thanks to her good grades in math, English and history and a couple afternoons picking up trash. Seven was more than most kids, but she guessed that there were probably nine hundred tickets total for the three hundred kids in the school, which meant that her efforts had earned her only of a fraction of a percent of a chance.

And then she had a worrisome thought.

“Papa, I was wondering about something,” she said that night at dinner. Her mother and stepfather preferred that she called him Papa, rather than Steve or Mr. Gibbs. Calling him that almost didn’t seem unnatural anymore.

“Yes?” He took a bite of meatloaf. “What is it?”

“The Cosmic Cola party … you work for the company. I won’t be excluded from the lottery, will I?”

“No, not at all,” he replied cheerfully. “You’ve got as much of a chance as any other kid. Better, I expect, since you got all those extra tickets.”

Her mother suddenly looked anxious. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up, dear. So few kids get picked. But don’t worry; there are plenty of other parties that evening. There’ll be a sock hop party at DiLouie’s Pizza; that sounds like fun, don’t you think?”

Millie shrugged and ate her mashed potatoes. The pizza parlor wouldn’t have Michael Jackson except on the jukebox.

Her stepfather fixed a sharp gaze on her mother. “But if she is chosen, it’s an honor to go.”

He turned back to Millie and smiled. “Cosmic Cola is putting a lot of effort and money into this party for you kids. If you’re chosen, you’ll be representing our whole family, so you need to be on your best behavior. Can I count on you?”

His words made Millie feel uneasy; how could a party for a bunch of middle schoolers really be such a big deal? But she knew what he wanted to hear. “Yes, sir. You can count on me.”

She looked at her mother; Mrs. Gibbs’ face had gone white and she was staring down at her half-eaten plate. Her expression was carefully blank but her eyes shimmered as if she were holding back tears. It was then that Millie realized that her mother was not happy, and something was happening here that Millie could but dimly grasp. She wanted to go around the table to give her mother a hug, but she knew that would break some unwritten, unspoken rule; her mother would be embarrassed and her stepfather would be angry, but neither adult would tell her what was wrong. Millie felt as though she were on a boat adrift far from shore beneath storm-gathering skies.

The school’s portly vice principal reached into the clear plastic raffle tumbler full of names on folded white notecards. He picked one out and opened it with a theatrical flourish.

“Millie Flynn,” he announced into his microphone.

Millie sat in shock on the wooden gymnasium bleacher at hearing her name called. The girl beside her started shrieking in excitement and shaking her shoulder, and soon Millie was whooping and high-fiving the other kids near her who’d been chosen for the party, too.

After the school assembly was over, Millie had study hall, and her excitement faded into curiosity. She and twenty-one other new blood kids and eight old blood kids had been picked. Why had so few kids from established families won seats on the bus? The kid with the limp and the crooked, discolored teeth was one of them. She still wasn’t sure what his name was. But, she reasoned, the old blood kids hadn’t tried very hard. They hadn’t been the ones volunteering for chores to earn extra tickets. They hadn’t studied late trying to earn straight As. They weren’t the ones who had to prove they belonged in Marsh Landing.

When she got home and told her parents the news, her stepfather seemed pleased and her mother smiled and congratulated her. Millie could see something like panic behind her eyes. That night after dinner, her father went to his Cosmic Cola bowling league, and her mother put the twins to bed.

As Millie was helping her mother wash and dry the dishes, her mother asked, “Have you thought about the costume you’ll wear to the party?”

Millie considered. “A little. I liked being a witch last year, but my dress and stockings are too small now.”

Her mother smiled, her eyes still dark with worry. “You’ve shot up like a weed this past year. You’re nearly as tall as I am, now.”

“Maybe I could be a werewolf this year? I saw a cool mask in the window of the costume shop.”

“I had an idea,” her mother said, looking around as if she was making sure that her stepfather wasn’t still in the house. “Why don’t you go as a pirate queen?”

Millie blinked. “A pirate queen?”

“They probably didn’t tell you this in school, but a lot of women were very fierce pirates back in the day. Jacquotte Delahaye was a Caribbean pirate in the 1600s. They called her ‘Back from the Dead Red’ after she faked her own death to escape the British Navy. She became a pirate after her father died and eventually she became a master swordswoman and commanded a fleet of hundreds of pirates. She ruled over her own island. I think ruling your own island makes you a proper queen, don’t you think?”

“Whoa,” Millie said. Already in her mind she was swashbuckling on a beach, protecting a loot-laden chest from scowling English redcoats in pompous white wigs. “Yeah, for sure!”

Her mother dried the last dish and put it away in the cupboard. Her hand shook just a little as she set it down. “I was out shopping at the thrift store the other day, and I found some things some things in your size that I think would make a good pirate costume. Would you like to see them?”

“Ooh, yes!” Millie clapped her hands.

Her mother led her down into her sewing room in the finished basement.

“I found this.” Her mother reached into a white plastic shopping bag and pulled out a gorgeous wig of long, thickly ringleted red hair. It looked like something from a fancy salon and not a cheap dimestore Halloween wig.

“It’s so pretty!” Millie breathed.

Her mother looked pleased, but the fearful shadows hadn’t left her eyes. “Well, Back From the Dead Red needs proper red hair!” She pulled out another shopping bag and laid out a rakish blue scarf, a poofy-sleeved white shirt with laces instead of buttons, a black leatherette vest, tan pants, a thick black belt, black knee-high boots, and a bunch of golden bangles. And a real genuine brass compass! It was so much nicer than the ones they’d learned to read in Girl Scouts, and it looked like something a real pirate would own.

Millie threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “This is great! Thank you sooo much!”

Trembling, her mother returned the hug, rubbing Millie’s back in gentle circles. “It’s your last Halloween, and you’re going to a very important party, so I wanted you to feel proud of your costume.”

Millie hugged her mother more tightly. “You’re the best.”

Her mother began to cry and shake.

Millie pulled back and gazed at her mother, worried. “What’s the matter, Mom?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Her mother quickly wiped her red eyes and smiled widely. Unconvincingly. “I … you’re just growing up so quickly. It makes me sad sometimes.”

Her mother glanced at the compass lying beside the costume on the sewing table. “You remember how to use a compass, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely. It was my favorite part of camp craft!” That was a little lie; really Millie had liked building fires best, but she knew that didn’t sound ladylike.

Her mother was still blinking back tears. “I think having a compass is a good idea in case they take you out someplace and you get separated from the rest of the kids. It’s easy to get lost in an unfamiliar town, you know?”

Millie didn’t, but she nodded anyway.

“Marsh Mansion is due southeast of here. If you had to get back here on your own, go north on Oceanside Highway and follow it to Sixth Street, go left, and then take a left on Craftsman Lane. And you’ll find us!”

That sounded like a whole lot of walking. “If I got lost, couldn’t I just find a payphone and call you?”

“Oh, honey, that’s a smart idea but not on Devil’s Night,” her mother replied quickly. “Your stepfather’s concerned about prank callers and he’s planning to leave the phone off the hook. So if something happens, just try to get back here, okay? I’ll stay up waiting for you; just knock quietly and I’ll know it’s you. If it’s late, we don’t want to wake the twins or your stepfather. He hasn’t been sleeping well and you know what a terrible mood he gets in when something wakes him suddenly.”

Millie did. “Okay, I’ll just come back and knock quietly if something happens.”

“But nothing will! This is all just for contingency’s sake. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”

“Okay.”

A flash of remembering crossed her mother’s face. “Oh! And I forgot the most important part of your costume.” She went to the closet and retrieved a long white cardboard box. Inside was a cutlass with a tarnished brass basket guard in a worn leather scabbard. When she pulled the blade out a few inches, it gleamed steely and cold.

Millie could barely believe her eyes. “Whoa, is that a real sword?”

“It’s a costume sword, but it’s still pretty sharp, so don’t go waving it around. Can you believe that this was actually cheaper at the thrift store than a plastic pirate’s cutlass at the toy shop? Prices these days! Anyhow, this looks better with your costume, and you’re mature enough to leave it sheathed so nobody knows it’s dangerous, aren’t you?”

Millie nodded vigorously. Her own real sword! “I’ll just tell people it’s wooden.”

Her mother smiled again, looking relieved. “Good girl. I have one more thing.”

From the pocket of her apron, she pulled out a silvery flask, the kind Old West gamblers and gangsters put liquor in. “I know you don’t really like Cosmic Cola, and that’s practically the only thing they’ll be serving at the party. This way, you can take something else to drink. Just, try not to let anybody see you with it, or they might think you have something you shouldn’t. And that would have … consequences.” She paused, rubbing her throat lightly. “Don’t tell your stepfather about the flask. Or the sword. He wouldn’t approve.”

“I won’t.” Inside, Millie glowed with pleasure at her mother taking her into such confidence. Her own sword and a flask? This wasn’t just the kind of cool boy stuff she’d previously been forbidden from on the grounds it wasn’t ladylike; this was actual grown-up stuff! She was treating Millie like she was an adult! Finally!

Her mother smiled. “Well, it’s an hour until your bedtime … want to go outside and carve a pumpkin or two?”

“Ooh, yes!” This was going to be the best Halloween ever!

On Devil’s Night, Millie’s stepfather had some kind of meeting he had to go to, so he wasn’t around when her mother helped her get dressed in her pirate costume for the party.

“There.” Her mother adjusted the red wig, which was much heavier than Millie had expected, as was the lemonade-filled flask in the inside pocket of her vest. Even the brass compass rested more heavily than she expected in her right hip pocket. And the brass-hilted sword hanging against her left hip—Millie had spray-painted it in brown Rustoleum so it looked a little less suspiciously real—was heaviest of all. “Perfect. Turn around and take a look.”

Millie did. The wig and her mother’s makeup job to give her a proper Caribbean tan made her look much older, but more important, she looked like a real pirate!

“This is so cool! Thank you!” She hugged her mom.

Her mom hugged her back tightly. “You know I love you, right?”

“Of course,” Millie mumbled into her mom’s shoulder.

“I love you bunches and bunches. I know that, sometimes, I do things that don’t seem fair, and I’m sorry about that. I just can’t change how some things are. Steve and I have to worry about what’s best for the twins, and … well, let’s get you to the party.”

By the time Millie’s mother dropped her off at the school stadium parking lot, the twenty-nine other kids were clustered under a tall light, giggling and horsing around as they waited for the Cosmic Cola chartered bus to pick them up. Fifteen boys, and fifteen girls. Seven of the girls were dressed up as different kinds of witches; three were fairy princesses, three were black cats, and one was dressed as Princess Leia. The boys had a more diverse set of costumes; Millie figured it was because they had more movie characters to pick from. There was a Han Solo, an Indiana Jones, a cop, two Karate Kids, a Captain Kirk, three Ghostbusters, a Rocky Balboa, a Batman, a Superman, a solider, a masked slasher … and a pirate captain, who she was dismayed to realize was the old blood kid with the limp and crooked teeth. It made her feel weird that they’d chosen similar costumes. She felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment when he looked up at her and grinned and waved.

The Cosmic Cola bus rolled up, and a pretty woman in a mini-skirted black-tie magician’s costume stepped out onto the pavement. The boys whispered she was dressed like a character named Zatanna from the comics, and once again Millie was annoyed that her parents had forbidden comic books, because she hated knowing less than the others.

“Hey, kids!” Zatanna beamed at them all. “Are you ready for the party?”

The crowd exploded in “Yeah!” and “Woo!”

“Well, everybody get on! Your party awaits!”

Millie was swept up in the boiling wave of seventh graders and shoved onto the bus. She stumbled into a row and plopped down on the plush red velvet window seat … and her heart dropped when the weird kid sat down beside her.

“Hey.” He extended his hand. “My name’s Hubert.”

She awkwardly took his hand and shook it. “I’m Millie.”

“Yes, I know. Your father’s the new executive. He must be so proud that you got chosen.”

Millie squirmed in her seat; Hubert was looking at her so intently, and … it was all just so weird. “Yeah, I mean, I guess.”

“My father’s super proud.” Hubert gave her a snaggle-toothed smile. “He was always so disappointed that I was born with my legs messed up, and the doctors couldn’t really fix them, but now I get to do something really good for the whole family tonight.”

“Why is this party such a big deal?”

“Well, it’s the thirty year, and …” He paused, wincing a little, seeming to realize that maybe he’d said something he shouldn’t. “Well, it’s just going to be something special. You’ll see.”

Zatanna went up and down the aisle with a narrow serving cart laden with apple cider donuts, popcorn balls, bags of chips, frosted Halloween cookies, and of course cans of Cosmic Cola.

“They’ll have pizza at the party, too.” Hubert grabbed double-fistfuls of donuts. “You want something?”

“No, thank you; I’m saving room for pizza.” Feeling unsettled, Millie turned away to watch the Marsh Landing Lighthouse and the rest of the dark landscape pass outside the bus windows.

They reached Marsh Mansion just before 9:00 pm. It was a huge old place, built on a low cliff above the ocean, all covered in Victorian gingerbread and wrought iron balconies and railings.

Zatanna and the bus driver—a gruff, heavyset man who’d been silent the entire trip—ushered them all off the bus and into the mansion’s vaulted foyer.

“Last year, we had the party in the second-floor ballroom, but there was a leak and some of the ceiling came down last week,” Zatanna said brightly. “So this year, the party is in the downstairs grotto.”

She opened up a pair of double doors at the side of the foyer that revealed wide stone steps with a wrought iron wall railing that coiled downward. The bass line of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” boomed faintly from below. “Everybody, follow me!”

The kids all jostled down the stairs. Millie gripped the iron railing, partly to avoid getting knocked over, but partly to still her nerves, which had been jangling ever since Hubert’s comment. She felt badly for judging the boy on his looks, but it wasn’t just his looks that made her recoil, and her instincts told her that anything he liked, she should be wary of. But that was silly; everyone said this party was a huge honor. Everyone. Her stepfather, her mother, the vice principal, the other kids. It wasn’t possible that everyone could be wrong.

The railing was very cold, and slick from condensation. The air grew colder and damper and the music got louder as they went down, down at least three stories into the earth. She was glad for the cover of her vest. The widely spiraling stairs were at first lit with electric lights, but those changed to guttering, Medieval-looking torches in iron sconces.

“Mind the open flames!” Zatanna called up over the music. “Don’t get burned!”

Just as the music switched to Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf,” the stairs opened up into a big natural cave whose walls were strung with white-and-orange string lights. Along the left side was a big buffet line with a half-dozen pizzas from DiLouie’s in white cardboard boxes and few steel banquet serving bins atop flickering Sterno cans. At the end of the long table beyond the food were plastic tubs of different flavors of Cosmic Colas on ice. There wasn’t even any water. Millie was glad she brought her flask.

On the right side of the cave were some big heavy steel barn doors which had either corroded or were painted a rust brown. A bit of water puddled beneath them, and Millie wondered where they led.

The side of the cave directly opposite the stairs held a raised stage with a few big speakers and some sound equipment but no instruments. A DJ in a black turtleneck and jeans and a pair of huge headphones sat at a sound panel with a couple of turntables and reel-to-reel deck beside the stage. He gave her a little wave when he noticed her staring at him, and that made her flush with embarrassment and look away. And when she looked away, she noticed four other men—Chaperones? Security guards?—standing quietly in alcoves carved into the limestone walls. They were also dressed in black, and at first glance she thought they were statues or decorative dummies, but then one scratched his nose.

“Dig in, kids!” Zatanna shouted over the booming music. “Our very special musical guest will be out in a little while!”

The seventh graders swarmed to the food line, chattering and pogoing with excitement as they flopped pizza onto paper plates with greasy fingers. The other kids had gotten increasingly rambunctious as they’d drunk more soda and eaten more sweets, and the louder they all got, the more Millie lost her appetite and wished she could be someplace that wasn’t so noisy. And that frustrated her. She was finally someplace cool with the cool kids; why couldn’t she enjoy it? Why couldn’t she just join in like everybody else?

Was this what getting old was like? To feel isolated in the middle of huge crowd and want to be someplace quiet? To feel oppressed rather than privileged to be in the middle of something everybody said was cool?

The DJ cued up Madonna’s “Holiday” and a bunch of the kids started dancing, Cosmic Cola cans sloshing in their hands.

“You should get some pizza!” Hubert yelled at her elbow.

She turned toward him, startled. His eyes were glassy, and he had an enormous grin on his sweaty, flushed face. He gripped what had to be his third or fourth Cosmic Cola of the evening.

“I will,” she yelled back. “In a minute or two!”

“Okay,” he replied. “I’m not trying to boss you. It’s just you should enjoy yourself! You earned it!”

I should, she thought. I should stop being a stick in the mud and get some pizza, at least.

Just as she made her way to the back of the buffet line, she saw a group of men and women in strange hooded robes come down the stairs in single file. Startled kids stopped dancing and let them pass as they made their way to the stage. When the last hooded figure—the thirteenth—had emerged from the stairway, two of the silent men in black suits pulled an iron gate Millie hadn’t noticed over the entry to the stairs and chained it shut. The girl’s stomach dropped and she lost any and all interest in pizza.

The DJ stopped the music and turned on the stage lights. Zatanna stepped up and approached the microphone.

“And here’s our special musical guests tonight, direct from Innsmouth,” she announced. “The Esoteric Order of Dagon Choir! Let’s all give them a hand!”

Some of the new blood kids started golf-clapping uncertainly, but Hubert and the other old blood kids started cheering and whistling and stomping their feet and chanting like they were at a football game: “FAA-ther DAA-gon! FAA-ther DAA-gon!”

Millie blinked, feeling profoundly confused and unsettled. This didn’t make any sense. Was Father Dagon the lead singer? Or was it the name of a song? What was going on here?

Zatanna hopped offstage. The leader of the group pushed his hood back and stepped regally to the microphone. The old, thin, white-bearded man scanned the crowd of kids. He wore a strange golden crown that was all high, asymmetrical spires in front with some coralline flourishes around the headband. It both looked like something someone found at the bottom of the sea and something she’d expect to see floating in outer space.

“You are the Chosen,” he intoned into the microphone. “You are the Promised. You are the Honored. Tonight you ascend as you descend, and the gift of your lives ensures that Father Dagon smiles kindly upon your families and communities for the next generation. Those of you whose families are outsiders, rejoice! From this night forward, your sacrifice ensures that your bloodlines flow with ours. Your kin will be joined with the host, and you will all be profoundly blessed.”

Millie felt her heart flutter in her chest and she took a step back, bumping into Hubert. The gift of their lives? Sacrifice?

“Father Dagon, take me first!” Hubert screamed behind her.

Millie frantically looked around for some other exit, or a place to hide, but there was none. Just the heavy metal barn doors that led someplace dark and watery, and the chained gate to the stairs.

The man with the crown took a deep breath, as did the twelve choir members behind him, and they began to sing. It was loud, like opera, but there was no melody and the voices of the chorus ground against each other like glass in disharmony. Millie whole body broke out in goosebumps and her heart pounded in her chest and she plugged her fingers in her ears, but there was no getting away from this strange, horrible, atonal music, no way to keep it from pounding into her skull like hurricane waves smashing against the beach, no way to keep from feeling like someone was reaching inside her skull and twisting her brains until up was down and down was up, and it was all so terrible that she just wanted to laugh and laugh and never stop ….

And the other children around her were laughing, laughing ‘til they shrieked, laughing ‘til they vomited up pizza and sweets and Cosmic Cola. The still-sane part of Millie’s mind noticed that Zatanna and the men had gotten out hard-shelled ear muffs like her stepfather wore when he went to the gun range. And they just stood there on the margins, wearing their ear protection, impassively watching and waiting … for what?

Hubert finished puking behind her and gasped, “It’s happening! It’s happening! Praise Father Dagon, I am Becoming!”

She turned. The boy’s whole head was swelling up like a grotesque balloon, his eyes bulging, his mouth widening impossibly. His back and shoulders hunched spasmodically, and she heard the crack of breaking bone. He yawned, making a terrible retching sound, and Millie watched in horror as his crooked white incisors, bicuspids and molars popped bloodily from his jaw, jumping free like popcorn kernels, only to be followed by the sharp grey irregular jags of brand-new teeth erupting through his raw gums, teeth like a shark’s or a barracuda’s. His eyes had bulged so much she was sure they’d pop right out of his head, the whites turning black, his blue irises turning a mottled golden like a frog’s.

His skin split over his swollen flesh and he started furiously scratching himself with newly-clawed paws, tearing his clothing and pale skin away to reveal mottled, moist scales beneath. He threw the last rags of his captain’s costume aside and crouched naked on muscular frog’s legs, croaking hoarsely at her.

The awful sight of Hubert’s transformation sent adrenaline surging through Millie’s blood, and that broke the spell of the eldritch choir. She stepped away from the hopping abomination that Hubert had become and looked all around her, again seeking escape when she knew there was none. All the other kids were turning into monstrous fish-frogs. Everybody changing into something mythical and terrifying. Everyone but her.

The sane, calm part of her mind made note that while the dark part of her mind had long dreamed of being able to become something feared and respected, something that could send all the kids who’d ever bullied her and all the adults who’d ever belittled her screaming for the safety of locked doors … she most certainly did not want to become one of these god-awful things. They stank. Sweet lord, they stank like fish and vomit and blood. And one look in their bulging eyes and she just knew that they weren’t in control of their own minds. They were slaves to Father Dagon.

If Millie ever became a monster, she wanted it to be on her own terms.

“Children, rejoice!” The leader of the choir shouted over the abominable song. “You are remade in your Father’s image, and now you shall meet him!”

Two of the men from the alcoves pulled open the huge metal barn doors, and suddenly the grotto was filled with the smell of seawater and the sound of crashing surf. Immediately, the gibbering, baying, croaking fish-frogs swarmed toward the water, and Millie was carried along with them. She managed to take a deep breath right before they all plunged into the dark, surging waves.

Immediately, she lost her gorgeous red wig amongst the thrashing, splashing limbs. Millie had never been a fast swimmer, but she had always been a strong one. It was hard to swim in her boots and poofy-sleeved shirt, hard to keep her head above water with the brass sword weighing her down in the croaking throng surging out to sea, but she did it.

The throng thinned, and Millie distantly glimpsed the sweeping spotlight in the lighthouse, which she remembered the bus passing. That way was town, and her parents’ house. Safety.

She started to awkwardly breast-stroke toward the lighthouse, but something grabbed the hem of her blouse. Hubert’s awful croaking face loomed beside hers, his bulging eyes gleaming with mindless hunger.

Millie shrieked and scrabbled her pirate’s cutlass out of its scabbard and jabbed it at him. She felt the blade sink into something soft. Hubert let out an inhuman barking cry and released her. She gave the sword another shove and let it go, too, splashing away as fast as she could.

He didn’t follow.

Millie staggered to shore on the rocky beach a few hundred yards north of the mansion. Her arms and legs were numb with cold. She was so exhausted she wanted to lie down and sleep, but she knew she couldn’t. The people from the mansion could find her here, and she wasn’t convinced that some of the fish-frogs wouldn’t track her down. Besides, she’d learned about hypothermia in Girl Scouts, and if she didn’t keep moving she might get so cold she’d die. She sat down on a rock to pour the seawater out of her boots and wring out her socks as best she could. Her feet were wrinkled from her swim, and she had no doubt they’d be covered in the worst blisters she’d ever had by the time she got home.

The compass had stayed in her back pocket, and when she pulled it out, she was surprised to find that it had been waterproofed and still worked fine. She put her damp socks and boots back on and kept going down the beach, hoping that the rocky cliffs would end soon so she could get back onto the highway like her mother had told her.

“Like my mother told me,” she repeated aloud to herself.

The sudden shock of realization made her stop and stand very still, shivering. Her mother had known this was going to happen. Maybe not exactly what had happened, but she knew something bad would happen. Why had she sent her to the party if she knew? Had her own mother betrayed her? Millie felt a new surge of terror and anger. If her mother was in on this, could she still go home?

But no. She shook her head, scolding herself. Her mom loved her. She did. She’d given Millie a real sword! And a flask so she wouldn’t have to drink the hateful Cosmic Cola. She’d given her the tools she needed to escape. Millie couldn’t understand why her mom would send her into the mouth of horror when her entire life she’d kept Millie away from anything and everything that seemed even slightly dangerous. But, she had … and Millie figured her mother had some explaining to do. At least.

Further, even if Millie did want to run away, where could she go? She didn’t know how to contact any of her other relatives, and she didn’t have any money for a bus or even for a pay phone. Millie had seen enough thrillers to suspect a conspiracy, and she didn’t know who could be trusted. If she couldn’t trust her own mom, she certainly couldn’t trust neighbors or teachers she’d only known for a few months, could she? There wasn’t much choice except to go home.

Shivering in the fitful wind, Millie plodded along the dark beach, eyes downcast, until she smelled burning gasoline and glimpsed the flicker of flames in her peripheral vision. She looked up. The Cosmic Cola bus had crashed over the guardrail onto its side and was burning. The whole thing was engulfed. Two firetrucks were vainly trying to put the flames out, and the local news van was filming a reporter a safe distance away.

This was how they were going to explain the kids’ disappearance, she realized. A big tragic bus crash that people would forget in a decade or two. Probably if she looked in the town records, she’d find that some other terrible accident had befallen the kids picked for the big Devil’s Night party thirty years before.

Left with no doubt whatsoever that this was a conspiracy, Millie crept onward, making sure that she wouldn’t be seen as she passed the crash.

She finally made it back to her parents’ house in the early grey dawn when the sun was just a rumor below the horizon. Exhaustion had dissolved her rage and terror into a disbelieving numbness. Her mother was sitting on the front steps, dozing against a porch pillar, one of the jack-o-lanterns she’d helped Millie carve sitting in her lap. Its candle had gone out. A wine glass and an empty bottle of merlot lay on the white-washed wooden planks beside her.

Millie shrugged off the blanket she’d pilfered from a beach house clothesline and shook her mother’s shoulder. “Mom.”

Mrs. Gibbs woke with a start, looked around, and then pressed a finger to her lips. Her eyes were very red, as if she’d been crying a long time that night. “We have to be quiet. If anyone knows you’re alive, they’ll come after you again. I won’t be able to do anything. I’m so sorry about all of this, honey.”

“What the hell is going on?” Millie whispered, then flinched, expecting her mother to scold her for using a swear word.

But her mother didn’t even seem to notice. “There’s a cult here, and it’s real, and Steve was a part of it long before I met him. And now we’re all sucked in. I’m so sorry.”

Millie felt her anger rise again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Fresh tears welled in her mother’s eyes. “I couldn’t, honey. If you had known, you would have been so scared, and they’d have known that I told you. We’d both be dead now, and there would be nobody to protect your little brother and sister. I did the best I could think to do.”

Millie wanted to scream at her, so she took care to speak as clearly and quietly as she could. “If you knew, why didn’t you just take us and leave while he was away at work?”

Her mother’s gaze turned distant, and when she spoke, her voice was hollow. “There was a ritual. I thought Steve and I were just going to lunch … but we weren’t. They forced me. I’m bound here. I will literally die if I try to leave here with you or the twins. Steve had to promise a child to Dagon so he could rise in the ranks of the Order. He promised you. And you’re still promised.”

God. This was even more awful than she had imagined. “What happens now?”

“You have to leave here, tonight, and never come back. If they think you drowned in the ocean, the Order considers the promise fulfilled even though Dagon didn’t get another child. But if they find out you’re alive, they’ll try to get you. And if they can’t get you, they’ll demand that Steve give them a different child. And then he’ll hand over your little brother or little sister.”

Millie felt a shock run from her skull to the soles of her aching feet. “He wouldn’t. He loves them.”

Her mother gave a short, quiet, bitter laugh. She looked terrified. “He would. He’d hand over all of us if they asked him to. And he’d get married and start a new family with another woman he does his Prince Charming act for. He’s not all the man I thought he was. He’s not even the man you think he is, and I know you never liked him much.”

“He’s a monster,” Millie whispered.

Another quiet, bitter laugh. “This whole town is a monster factory, and it has been for a long, long time. But if you leave before they know you’re alive, you and I and the twins stay safe. You can’t call or write after you go; they read our mail, and they’ve tapped our phone. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it does.”

Millie felt completely lost. “Where do I go?”

“You’re going to live with my cousin Penny in Fensmere, Mississippi. She knows a lot about monsters and cults and she can keep you safe.”

“Cousin Penny?” Millie blinked. “You never mentioned her before, and now I’m supposed to go live with her?”

“It’s not ideal. She’s sort of a hermit. Not many people in the family really know her. I think she works as a private investigator? She tried to warn me about Steve, but I thought she was a lunatic.” Her mother looked sad and deeply embarrassed. “I should have listened; everything she told me turned out to be true. She also told me that if any of my children were in danger, she would help. I called her from a payphone in Surfton the other night, and she said she’d send someone up here to collect you if you lived. And you did.”

Her mother reached into her pocket for a lighter, re-ignited the candle in the jack-o-lantern. She stood and carefully set the pumpkin up on the broad porch railing beside their other jack-o-lantern and lit it, too.

At that, a car that Millie hadn’t even noticed that was parked on the street a few houses down turned on its lights, flashed them three times, and turned them off again.

“And there’s your ride.” Her mother knelt to reach for something under the porch swing. When she stood up, she was holding Millie’s old backpack—one she thought her mother had donated to Goodwill—and her violin case. “I packed essentials. Things Steve won’t notice being gone. And a little money. I’ll try to mail things from another town later.”

The gravity of the situation finally hit Millie full-force. She was going to leave, maybe forever, and she might never see her mother again. She started to tear up. “I have to go now?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Her mother set the luggage down and gave her a long hug. “Be good. A day won’t pass where I don’t think of you. I love you so much.”

Tears flowed down Millie’s cheeks in hot rivulets. “I love you, too.”

“Go.” Her mother helped her put on her backpack and gave her a gentle push.

Millie hurried across the lawns to the sedan. Someone inside flung the rear driver’s side door open.

A black girl in pigtails who looked a little younger than Millie beckoned her excitedly. “Get in!”

Millie handed her the violin case. The girl grabbed it and scooted over on the seat so Millie could get in and shut the door behind her.

“Oh, cool, I play violin, too!” The girl exclaimed. “We could do duets later! Can you fiddle? I’m taking fiddle lessons from Miz Greene next year when she gets back –”

“Lena.” The driver, a thirty-something woman with a short Afro haircut and hoop earrings, turned and gave the pigtailed girl a look. “What did I tell you?”

“Wash my hands?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Context.”

Lena brightened. “Oh. Right. Introduce myself first?”

“Yes.”

The grinning girl turned back to Millie and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Lena, and this is my mom Bess. Cousin Penny sent us to get you away from this terrible place. Cultists suck.”

Millie shook her offered hand, feeling a bit like she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and this cheerful child was standing in for the Mad Hatter. “Hi. Good to meet you.”

“Perfect!” Lena’s mother started the car and pulled away from the curb. “As she says, I’m Bess. I’m Penny’s investigative partner. She sends her regrets that she couldn’t come get you herself, but she’s got a distance vision problem that limits her driving. You’ll meet her probably day after tomorrow. It’s a really long drive to Fensmere, so I was thinking we could stop outside Harrisburg and get a hotel room. Your mom told Penny you love Halloween, and there are some good neighborhoods in the suburbs where I can take the two of you trick-or-treating. You up for that, Millie?”

Lena started excitedly whispering, “Say yes, say yes, say yes!”

“Sweet pea, don’t pester her,” Bess said. “She’s been through a whole lot tonight. She might rather sleep, and we’re not going to leave her by herself,”

“I’d like that,” Millie said. “But my pirate costume is all gross, and I lost my wig and my sword besides.”

“It’s okay! I brought a whole suitcase full of costumes, just in case!” Lena replied.

“But on that note,” Bess said, “once we’re out of cult territory, I’ll find a truck stop where you can get a shower and change into fresh clothes if you like. Folks gonna think we tried to drown you if I drive around with you like this.”

“I’d definitely like that,” Millie said.

“Consider it done,” said Bess.

Millie looked out the window just in time to see the “Welcome to Marsh Landing!” sign flash past and felt a wash of relief and sadness at the realization that she might never see it ever again.

Lena nudged her. “Hey. You know what today is? Besides it being Wednesday and Halloween, I mean.”

Millie shook her head.

“It’s the first day of the rest of your life!” Lena grinned excitedly.

Millie couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah, it sure is.”