After the pumpkin patch, a field of tall grass lay between me and the inn, and I started out across it. The moon was up already but waning, and not giving much light. Trees lined the field, leafless trees that looked like gnarled old women, which can give you the creeps if you let it. A moment later, I found out first-hand just what surprise looks like. You don’t raise your eyebrows or jump up in the air. What you do is freeze into perfect stillness, just as I did when Aaron Hamilton jumped out at me from behind a nearby tree.
I knew it was Aaron right away, even though he was wearing a Halloween mask. Many a time in the past four years, I had felt his eyes on me. Before tonight, I’d always thought it my imagination. But as Jewel had early on observed, I had no imagination, and so all those times, Aaron must have been following me and watching me when I couldn’t see him.
He yelled “Boo!”
Instinctively, I backed away, raising my arm to reveal the knife I had taken to carrying. My hand shook visibly as I held the blade high. If only he wasn’t wearing the mask, I thought. Seeing his face, I’d read it and know what to do, whether to fight or flee, hold my ground or surrender it.
“Whatta’ you pulling a knife on me for?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.
“Get away from me.” I brandished the knife at him. “I almost killed you once. This time, I’ll really do it.”
“Hell, you were just a kid then and didn’t know what you was doing,” said Aaron generously. “But now you’re a full-grown woman.”
“And you’re a full-grown pig.”
He laughed and began to circle me like an Indian. I spun on my heels, knife still raised, so as he shouldn’t get behind me. “You shouldn’t be calling me names, Miss Willickers. I mean it ain’t like you were one of the pretty girls. They got a right to say what they want and get away with it. But somebody plain as you can’t afford to pass up no opportunity. It might not come again.”
“I’ll take the chance.”
He lifted his mask, and I got some of my nerve back. His face was quizzical. “You know it’s a funny thing, Darcy,” he said. “You’re not good looking and you’re not sweet-tempered. But there’s something about you. I wish I could say just what. Something that makes a man think you might be worth his while after all.”
I jabbed the knife out blindly and hearing him yell, “Shit!” I knew I’d nicked him. He stopped dancing around me long enough to study his arm. The cut couldn’t have been too bad because his good humor came quickly back.
He smiled. “I want you to know, Darcy, that I ain’t going to hold tonight against you. Just remember, I got nothing but time. And one of these nights, you’re going to turn around and there I’ll be. Might as well face up to it. You’re never going to get away.” And with those words, he turned on his heels and was gone.
Shaken, my mind so preoccupied with these new fears, it truly came as a surprise to have Jewel and Luca and the girls dash out from behind the furniture. Sure enough, they had their costumes on. Jolene was a witch with a pointed hat. Caroline was a fairy princess, a part in which she often cast herself even when it wasn’t Halloween. Jewel, naturally, was a gypsy, and Luca was a pirate with a scarf tied around his head and a patch over one eye. Jewel plunked a party hat on my head, snapped the elastic under my chin, and I suffered them all to kiss me, except Luca who shook my hand instead.
I felt dazed, but nobody seemed to notice. It would have been a relief to tell them what had happened. To see the fear in their faces would have lessened my own. But that was impossible. They were in a party mood and rowdy as a lynch mob. So I kept it to myself and reasoned that there wasn’t really anything they could do about Aaron anyhow. He was as much a fact of life in Galen as the mines.
Out came the birthday cake, a lopsided thing, the result of great effort from Jewel and my sisters. They put eighteen candles on the cake and one for luck, and I made a wish. I put so much thought into my wish that by the time I blew out the candles, they had melted all over the cake. My wish took so long because it was really four wishes in one. I wished that Luca would move out, that Jewel would marry, that the girls would go away to college, and last and most important, that I could then begin my travels, safe in the knowledge that everybody had been provided for and would make no further demands of me.
Naturally, they all wanted to know what I wished, and I said I wished I would travel a lot. Jewel commented that nobody in Galen ever went much of anywhere, and Caroline snickered. Jolene gave me one of her snooty I’m-so-smart looks and told me to cut the cake. Eating that cake, I thought that Jewel was as equally unsuited for the baking profession as for the hospitality profession. If not for the melted wax, the cake wouldn’t have had any taste at all.
After we had all choked down the cake, it was time for me to open my presents. Jewel handed me a box from herself and the girls that I could tell came from the dry goods store because of the way it was wrapped, but also
