A Plague Year

and a wide quadrangle dotted with statues. I recognized that Venus-without-any-arms statue. She had been the victim of a frat boy prank, though, and was now wearing a pink bra. (I wondered if frat boys did that in Florida, too.)

The perimeter road took us behind the student center, where we veered right again and, technically, left the campus. We were now in a tree-lined area that held the fraternity and sorority houses and the homes of the university professors.

Arthur had not spoken all the way up, and he did not sound happy when he finally did. “What’s the address of this place?”

I told him, and we slowed down to look at numbers. But that turned out to be unnecessary. It was obvious where the big Halloween party was taking place.

The Lyles’ house was a large redbrick structure with a white porch running around the front and sides. College kids in costumes were hanging out on the porch and on the lawn, and they were moving in and out of the open front door.

We found a parking spot a block and a half away and started walking back through a crowd of partyers. Some were in real costumes—I saw a Spanish matador and a couple of Disney princesses—but most people had improvised like we had, and the prevailing costume was indeed zombie.

The first person I recognized was Catherine Lyle. She was standing, costumeless, on the front porch (which was, of course, her front porch). She was speaking to a young man about the plastic beer cup in his hand. The young man reluctantly poured the beer over the porch railing and onto the dirt below.

When Arthur and I mounted the stairs, Catherine Lyle looked up and met my eyes. But then her counselor ethics kicked in, I guess, and she looked away. Her frown deepened, though, as she realized that two more underage kids, very underage kids, were entering her house.

Some kind of rock music was playing as we walked into the wide foyer. To the left was a living room filled with people on couches and chairs. They were all smoking and drinking.

To the right was a dining room. There were snacks and sodas on one table, and a CD player, some CDs, and two kegs of beer on another.

I heard a familiar voice call out from the back of the foyer. “Hey! You made it!” Wendy Lyle was standing there (leaning, really) against a wall. She was wrapped in purple cloth. Like a genie, I guess.

A short guy with curly hair had his arms pressed against the wall over her head, like he had her trapped. He was wearing an eye patch and a purple sash with a plastic dagger stuck in it.

Wendy slipped out from under his arms and walked toward us just as Catherine Lyle walked back inside. Catherine stopped her long enough to say, “There is to be no underage drinking, Wendy. That goes for you and any of your friends.” She then continued down a hallway to what I figured was the kitchen.

Wendy was not like herself. Not like herself in class anyway, or in the counseling group. She was smiling at everything. She told me, over the rock music, “One thing I will say about the town of Blackwater [she pronounced it BACKwahr], one good thing, is that they are really into Halloween. We were driving around, and we saw all of these… haunted houses. You know? Like people had gone all out to turn their houses into these… haunted houses.”

I nodded. “Yeah. There are always a lot of those around.”

“I guess because it already is a dark, old, scary place, people just go with it, you know? They make it even darker and scarier. You know?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

She stopped talking. I tried to come up with something to say. The best I could do was to point to the walls. “This is a nice house. It’s all brick?”

Wendy wrinkled her nose. “I guess. Aren’t most houses brick?”

“No.”

“No? What’s your house made of?”

“Wood.”

I had forgotten momentarily about Arthur. He was right behind me, and he suddenly spoke up. “I live in a trailer.”

Wendy started to laugh hysterically. “My God! Do you hear that? Do you get it? We’re the three little pigs! I’m brick, you’re wood, and you’re… I don’t know. What are trailers made of?”

Arthur didn’t answer. He walked into the dining room and stared at the snacks table.

Wendy laughed for a little while longer. She muttered, “Straw. That’s it. They’re made of straw.”

I asked her, “What’s with the purple? Are you a genie?”

“It’s not purple! It’s indigo. It’s because I am an indigo.”

I must have looked confused. Wendy added, “That’s the color of my aura.”

That didn’t help me. She asked, “Have you ever had your aura read?”

“No. I don’t know what that is.”

“Every living thing gives off energy in an aura,” she explained. “Like the aurora borealis. And every aura has a color.” She tugged at my sleeve. “You could be an indigo and not know it. Tell me: Do you seem to have more empathy than those around you?”

I remembered my PSAT vocabulary. “Like can I put myself in someone else’s shoes?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah.”

“And are you more creative than those around you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. That’s not too hard around here.”

“Yeah. Right.”

The conversation deflated after that. Wendy started looking around, maybe to find someone better to talk to. “So, where did you get your aura read?” I asked.

“Cassadaga. In Florida. My dad took me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s all spiritualists. It’s a very spiritual place. You should check it out when you’re down there.”

“Yeah. Maybe I will.”

“I know you will.”

“How do you know that?”

Arthur rejoined us. He had a handful of Chex mix.

“Because I’m an indigo,” Wendy said.

Arthur asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s the color of my aura.”

Arthur tried to pronounce it, like it was a foreign word. “In-DEE-grow?”

“Indigo—like indigo on the light spectrum,” I explained. “ROY G BIV.”

Arthur asked, somewhat dumbly, “Roy Biv? Who’s that?”

“Nobody. It’s a mnemonic device.”

Arthur rubbed at his eye, smearing one black line of makeup. “Huh?”

“A memory trick. ROY G BIV. Each letter stands for a color on the spectrum.”

“Relax, cuz. I know what it is. I’m just bustin’ them on you. I know all that stuff.”

“Oh.”

“I was good in science.” He asked Wendy, “Indigo? So that means you’re… what? Like a grape?”

Wendy didn’t respond to that. She checked around furtively. Then she whispered to both of us, “Who wants a drink? We have beer. We have rum punch!”

Arthur made a dismissive gesture with his hand. He answered curtly, “Not me,” and walked outside.

I shook my head. “No. I’d better not, either.”

Wendy shrugged. She stepped into the dining room and grabbed two pieces of candy corn. “I love these. Love them, love them, love them.”

She took me by the arm and led me back to that spot against the wall, the spot where the pirate had been. He wasn’t there now.

She told me, “Open your mouth.”

“Huh?”