Stella excused herself and returned to the waiting room, where she went over the exchange, fearing she had done something that might endanger her hopes of adoption or, worse, hurt Candace.
Chapter 8
Ghost Town
“Jakka-lannern!” called Emera, stopping her bunny-hop to point at the decoration in the window.
The pumpkin was only a sun-faded cardboard cutout taped to the window of Calloway’s Exotic Pet Supply. Bernard wondered if it had been there, untouched, since last year. Or the year before.
The pet store was locked, blinds down, leaving him to wonder if, like so many local businesses and farms, the proprietors had up and left.
“Zat where the fishes an’ turtles are?” asked Emmie.
Bernard’s heart sank at the idea of letting his daughter down. “Well…I don’t know.”
Father and daughter went to the window. Bernard tried to peer between the blinds for a clue. The window decal was intact, and the business-hours sign, though coated in dust, remained in place.
“Maybe they had to go somewhere,” Bernard told Emmie. “We’ll check back in a few minutes.”
“Okay!”
Bernard feared he was just delaying the little one’s disappointment.
Bernard remembered walking along the sidewalk this time of year in previous autumns, even well into the evening hours, and finding himself jostled by people coming and going to prepare for Halloween at all the mom-and-pop shops that sold every conceivable kind of Halloween-related merchandise, often handmade.
Preparations for the annual Pumpkin Parade, Ember Hollow’s long-standing claim to tourism fame, would be in full gear, with every shop sign, window and door, every fire hydrant, parking meter and bike stand subject to trick-or-treatment, as the town, and particularly Main Street, transformed into Haunted Hollow, a family-friendly, autumnal Mardi Gras.
It saddened him that Emera might never experience that infectious air of excitement and anticipation.
Now, memories of the parade two years past were inextricably tied to Ragdoll Ruth, the notorious demented doll-costumed domestic terrorist, raining on the parade with her tainted candy, distributing it indiscriminately to anyone unlucky enough to cross her path.
Thanks to her, the parade had quickly devolved to a full-scale riot that night, with costumed revelers becoming a horde of senseless, raging savages.
Many lives were lost. Some, like Bernard’s friends Reverend McGlazer, the members of The Chalk Outlines, and his own Stella, somehow survived, with scars to show for it.
The next Halloween, last Halloween, was just as harrowing.
A gang of bikers, snarkily described by Chalk Outlines bassist Pedro Fuentes as “volunteer werewolves,” arrived to avenge Ragdoll Ruth. Turned out she was the gang leader’s “ol’ lady.”
At least half the businesses here on Main Street had since closed down, the owners moving on to greener, less “cursed” pastures.
Shops and offices on the outlying streets seemed to be shuttering at an even faster rate. Farther out in the county, many of the farmers whose pumpkin crops were intended to go out into all the world were cutting their losses and putting their land up for sale. The lucky ones had already sold. The others, it appeared, would soon be slashing their selling prices and applying for government relief.
The few folks who did walk past Bernard and Emera wore glum or disinterested faces. The only thing missing from this desolate picture was a rolling tumbleweed.
Bernard hoisted Emera and gave her a kiss. “How about some cookies for my pretty princess?”
“Yeah!”
Bernard internally scolded himself, realizing he should have made sure the Cookie Kitchen wasn’t closed as well.
A sparkling-clean Cadillac XTS appeared, cruising toward them at well below even the city speed limit of 20 mph. Spotting the rental plate, Bernard tossed up a welcoming wave, which Emmie emulated.
The Caddie stopped beside them, the driver’s window powering down. “Good afternoon!”
The strawberry-blond woman dressed in pricey casual wear was vivacious in a way that locals would describe as “uptown,” very much like the record-company executive with the British accent who had come to check out The Chalk Outlines a couple of years ago, God rest her.
“Hello and welcome,” Bernard said, and so did Emera.
“You two are the cutest couple in this town, I’d bet!” said the visitor.
Seeing their reflection elegantly framed in her Versace sunglasses, Bernard couldn’t argue. “Well, Emmie here counts for at least seventy-five percent. Looking for someone?”
“The Blue Moon Inn.”
Bernard always winced at the name, only because Stella had stayed there during their brief split right around the time of the werewolves on wheels. Bernard could not know how much this woman, Violina Malandra, could glean from his tiny wince, just as he would not have understood what she was doing if he’d seen her just fifteen minutes ago, looking out over a pumpkin field at the strange, charred trail left by Ysabella’s vomiting episode.
Bernard pointed to the high hill at the far end of the street. “Just drive in the direction of that old church up there. A series of increasingly large signs will guide you right to it.”
Emmie pointed too.
Violina smiled her thanks and waved two burgundy-gloved fingertips at Emera before motoring off.
Emmie wore a concerned look Bernard had never seen from her before. “Is she…another wolf monster, Daddy?”
“Hmm? Surely not. Why would you ask that?”
Emmie frowned deeper. “She feels kinda like one.”
* * * *
“We can talk about anything you don’t want your foster mom to hear.”
“She’s my Mom-mom. Not my foster mom.”
“Right.”
“It’s just, well…the sleeping pills don’t always work like they should.”
Dr. Lanton was incredulous. Candace’s dose should be doing the job well enough.
The doctor nodded and listened, remembering the girl’s history. Like the fact that her previous foster parents, in debt to The Fireheads motorcycle gang, had given Candace too much or too few of her prescriptions, both to control the troubled girl to their own ends and to sell or use the surplus.
“Why haven’t you told your fos—your mom and dad this?”
“I…I don’t want to worry them. They have a lot to deal with. With Emmie and me both.”
Candace’s body language indicated this was not the reason, at least not entirely.
“They’ll have to approve and oversee any med change, you know.”
“Oh.”
“You’re okay with that?”
“I just
