Chapters (84)
- Cover
- Praise
- Dedication
- About the Author
- HALLOWEEN
- Seven Weeks Before Halloween
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- HALLOWEEN
- Six Weeks Before Halloween
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- HALLOWEEN
- Five Weeks Before Halloween
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- HALLOWEEN
- NINE
- TEN
- HALLOWEEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- HALLOWEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- HALLOWEEN
- Eighteen Days Until Halloween
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- HALLOWEEN
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- Eleven Days Until Halloween
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- Eight Days Until Halloween
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- HALLOWEEN
- THIRTY
- Four Days Until Halloween
- THIRTY-ONE
- HALLOWEEN
- THIRTY-TWO
- Two Days Until Halloween
- THIRTY-THREE
- The Night Before Halloween
- THIRTY-FOUR
- HALLOWEEN
- THIRTY-FIVE
- Halloween, Present Day
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- HALLOWEEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- HALLOWEEN
- THIRTY-NINE
- HALLOWEEN
- FORTY
- HALLOWEEN
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- HALLOWEEN... NOW
- FORTY-FIVE
- Seven Months Later
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ALICE SWANSON’S
- Reader's Guide
- Questions for Discussion
- Booklist
As soon as she left, Lily turned to me, her sweetness gone. “Why do you have to be so weird?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You freaked her out.”
“I freaked her out? This is the girl you are planning on dressing up as ghost brides with, but I’m the weird one?” I worried again about Lily’s status at Woodard. With the principal as her dad and her charming personality, Lily should’ve had no problems mingling in any social circles, and I didn’t want her to get pigeonholed. “Lily, I really think you might want to hang out with other kids. What about Sloane Price? Or, I don’t know, some of those girls in your English class that you like?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you say what you really mean, Mom? Normal kids. Popular kids.” She threw the costume’s bag at me. “Not everyone needs to be in the cool crowd.”
And before I could respond, she turned on her heel and slammed the bedroom door.
Eleven Days Until Halloween
ELEVEN DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN
TWENTY-FIVE
Kendra
Bettina ran because she liked it; I ran because I needed to not look pudgy in my fox costume. I had a week and a half left to burn off as much as I could, which was the reason, and the only reason, I’d been rolling out of bed at an ungodly hour to meet her. Belly fat. It was a real motivator.
We converged at the bottom of the path behind my house, down by the lake. The very spot where we would be holding Full Moon in a few days. Bettina was setting her Fitbit, already lightly jogging in place, a black knit cap on her head that made her seem, from a distance, like a very small man.
She looked up, waved. Bettina I could always count on. If you were fighting an enemy, she would be the person you wanted backing you up. She’d always go for blood, no questions asked.
“Twice around?” she asked when I was closer.
We took the first lap in silence, which was good because I was breathing too hard to talk.
It was quiet, slightly foggy. Everything wet with dew. No one was out save for a few ducks in the water and squirrels in the branches. My muscles resisted at first, then relaxed into a rhythm.
On the far side of the lake, when we ran past the trail that led up to the railroad bridge, I picked up my pace.
The bridge wasn’t a pleasant place. The police occasionally patrolled it, especially this time of year when the high schoolers tended to get high and regale each other with ghost stories up there. A bride with no eyes. Unexplained sounds of weeping or screaming. Such bullshit.
Reality was much more horrifying than a ghost story.