Even if he could manufacture some excuse to get out of here, it was physically impossible until they got to the next cross street. He was stuck in a gaggle of crazy people dressed as mermaids.

Under other circumstances he might have found it comical. Instead of getting the hell out of Dodge, he had no choice but to inch along at two miles an hour in a squad car decorated with mermaid decals and blue and green balloons. The world’s least macho getaway car.

Maybe she wouldn’t notice him, despite the fact that he looked like he was driving the Barbie Dream Car: Mermaid Edition. She always could get lost in a daydream. She’d be lying on the beach and you’d say, “A penny for your thoughts,” and she’d say, “I was just thinking about if there was any chance my Hogwarts letter got delayed and it might come on my twelfth birthday?”

But no. She’d seen him. As they rolled past, Evie looked at him like she thought he was the devil.

And, really, in her story, he kind of was.

“Hey, can I ask you a question? What is this Auntie Festival everyone keeps talking about?”

Eve had made it to the end of parade day. She and Maya were sitting on a sofa in the parlor at the Mermaid watching The Exorcist on Maya’s computer. “Homework,” Maya had said.

“I don’t remember that festival,” Eve went on. “I swear, this town has gone festival mad. But you couldn’t come up with anything better than aunts? And why not uncles, too?”

Maya laughed. “Anti-Festival. A-N-T-I.”

Huh? “Because that makes so much more sense? What, are you celebrating your collective orneriness?”

“Mmm.” Maya studied the screen. “Father Damien is kind of hot, in a shaggy 1970s way, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. If he’s hot, I think it has more to do with the forbidden priest thing.”

“Collective orneriness is not so far off the mark,” Maya said, returning to the festival conversation. “The Anti-Festival started as a joke a few years ago. The marquee events—the parade and the Raspberry Festival—have gotten really big. And the moonflower thing, too. All this stuff used to be kind of homespun and local, but it’s really taken off. Which is great—God knows I need tourists to come to my shows. But it can get old. At some point, someone—probably Pearl—said, ‘I wish all these tourists would go away.’ The grumbling somehow turned into a town party—just for locals—the first weekend of October.”

“That’s the point at which the seasonal businesses shut down.”