He flicked the lighter, causing it to spark but not light, and put it in the pocket of his Adidas track pants. Then he pulled it out and flicked it again, harder. The flame rose and swayed in the purpling light. When it died, he flicked it again. It was addictive.

His parents had matches lying around their house. His dad brought them home when he picked up takeout from restaurants and used them occasionally to light candles. A lighter was better. You could stare at the flame and it didn’t burn your fingers. When it went out, you could just light it again.

He wanted to hold the lighter to the corner of the subway map and watch it burn. He could put the fire out with the bottle of water. He wanted it so badly, his mouth hung open and he drooled a little. But the people admiring the huge puppy were still there, across the schoolyard, and the lame principal and strict lunch ladies and even stricter librarian were still inside, preparing for tomorrow. He pushed the lighter back into his pocket, its heat against the top of his thigh, and opened the subway map. Here was Brooklyn, there was Queens, there Manhattan, the Bronx. You couldn’t take the subway to Staten Island but it was on the map because it had its own subway that wasn’t connected to anything. He pretended to study it, waiting.

Halloween Hijinks

Call them pranksters, call them artists, call them Halloween devotees to a crazed degree. Someone went overboard this year. In the lead-up to Brooklyn’s favorite holiday, someone scattered the limbs of dolls, mannequins, stuffed animals, and porcelain figurines in parks and gardens around Cobble Hill, giving members of the community quite a fright.

“The ankles looked just like my husband’s,” said Plum Brenner of Amity Street. “He’s been dead for seven years.”

The fun of it is, no one knows who’s behind it. But we prefer it this way. Maybe it’ll become a yearly thing, like the spiders crawling up the houses on Verandah Place, the piano that plays itself on Clinton Street, or the tiny pumpkins stuck all around the prongs of the wrought-iron fence on Kane.

(Cue evil laugh).

Happy Halloween!

PART IV NOVEMBER 3

Chapter 21

Wendy said she would buy the firewood herself.

It was Friday. The party was Sunday night, which meant she had all weekend to prepare, but she’d taken the day off work to get a head start. She’d found the name of a woodcutter in Staten Island. Finding him would be an adventure. Wendy was excited. Parties were her specialty, and this was their first in Brooklyn. Roy couldn’t be bothered; he was too busy with his book.