She cuts her eyes at me, checking my expression, and a thin smile crosses her lips, which look kind of chapped, like she bites them. “What do you know about Halloween here?”

She says it the way she says everything, making it impossible to read her meaning.

“Um . . . nothing. Why?”

She completes her smile, untwisting a Jolly Rancher wrapper. “You better be ready. We got over two hundred trick-or-treaters last year. And everyone called it a bust Halloween.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.” The Rancher clicks in her teeth. “It’s a Pender thing. Everybody decorates, the businesses get into it. People bring their kids from hick towns like Derby to take them door-to-door, because we have, like, sidewalks. You’ll see.” She lifts a shoulder. “But I don’t know, maybe not so much this year. With the mill closed and everything, lots of people have moved away.”

I take another piece of candy and concentrate on gluing my jaws together. My dad worked the paper mill demolition in Astley, too, and it felt just like this: like we were scavengers, coming to clean up after a town died. Bree’s watching, and it’s like she’s in my head with me, because she says, “How come you started school so late?”

“It took us a while to find a place to live here. Everything was either way too expensive or too long a commute for my dad. Then this place opened up.”

“Will you move again when they’re finished tearing the mill down?”

I shrug. “Depends. My dad works for Cuso Construction—they won the bid for the demolition and everything. They’ve got jobs going all over New England. I mean, he’ll try to get something close to here so we don’t have to leave so soon, but sometimes”—just talking about moving brings discomfort back, the thought of packing up, cleaning up, that last swift walk out the front door with the keys left behind for the landlord—“there just isn’t anything.” I stuff the wrapper into my pocket. “Anyway. Nobody ever trick-or-treated at our old apartments. Guess they were too sketchy-looking. Everybody’s mom probably thought we’d give their precious pumpkin a razor blade in a Mr. Goodbar or something.”

I earn another rough laugh. Feels like such a win—you can tell she doesn’t give them out much. Bree checks the time on her phone. Maybe hinting for me to go. But then she says, without lifting her gaze, “Can I ask you something?” I say yes. “Do you want your hair like that?”

I brace up, like maybe she lured me here just to give me shit. “Obviously.”