14

Tricks and No Treats

Lottica slipped on some damp leaves and lost her head—which she happened to be carrying under her arm.

It tumbled onto a neighbor's lawn, and in the darkness it took her a moment to locate. It didn't help matters that she wanted to lose her head, a paper mache pumpkin head like in Disney’s Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. That was Nick's idea. Masks that would help them carry out his last-ditch effort to keep their grandparents from spiriting them away to Lebreima.

"Ded bu fin id?" Nick asked, his vampire mask with the gnarly collection of rubber fangs chomping and mashing his words up horribly.

"Yes, it's right here," Lottica called, holding up the gaudy orange mask they’d worked on all week.

"Pud i ahn," he mumbled through his toothy mangle.

"No. I can hardly see or breathe with this thing on."

Nick stopped and pulled the mask up over his mouth. "Lottica, it's not like I'm enjoying this either. This thing feels like I'm inside a tire. But we need a little disguise in case Cape Man is out doing a little trick or treating too."

Nick saw this as a clever part of the scheme. It had been a monumental effort to talk their grandparents into letting them go out for Halloween, pleading with them that it was their last night in America and it would help them deal with the move.

In the meantime, Nick had called Jake Borden and asked if he and Lottica could come spend the night, in order to do some serious trick or treating with Jake and his younger sister Liz. Nick figured Jake’s mom wouldn’t bother to call his grandmother to check on the arrangements because she knew how uncomfortable his grandmother was speaking English.

Over the phone, Nick had assured Mrs. Borden that their grandparents would drive them over on Halloween and pick them up the next morning. Nick had them stuff a change of clothes in the pillow cases they’d use to trick or treat.

Their entire plan was based on the somewhat desperate idea that if they did not return home on Halloween, their grandparents would have to cancel their flight and it would buy them some time. They also planned to let the Bordens know what was going on—after they had missed their flight to Lebreima.

Nick’s insistence on wearing costumes with masks was intended to make them more anonymous, especially if the man in the cape was watching for them. So, he got Lottica to put her mask back on and he did the same. With the moon peeking between ragged rain clouds, they walked toward the bus stop.

"So far so good," Nick said when they arrived at the near-empty bus stop. "The bus should be here in five or ten minutes. Then we'll have to switch busses by Cemetery Hill."

"Great planning, Nick. Cemetery Hill. Halloween night. Maybe we can stop by and visit Mom and Dad."

Nick and Lottica had only been to Cemetery Hill twice. Once for their parents’ funeral when they’d been entombed in the mausoleum. The second time, a month later when their grandparents had escorted them to place flowers at the threshold. The small gothic edifice with Breima carved into the stone over the doorway gave off a strange vibe to Lottica. It seemed almost quaint, rustic, as if upon opening the heavy-set door she might find her parents seated in rocking chairs next to a cozy fire.

"Lottica,” Nick reminded her, “we're doing this so we can visit Dad and Mom on a more regular basis. We'll be a continent away by this time tomorrow if we can't ditch Grandfather and Grandmother."

The lights of a bus swung around the corner and both siblings felt a rush of relief, signaling just how on edge they’d been all afternoon. That relief was short lived. Just beyond the onrushing lights of the bus was the silhouette of a man walking their way. The telltale billowing of a cape reaching to the pavement and a ghostly red glow emanating from his dark form spooked Lottica.

She waved her hand frantically so the approaching bus driver couldn't miss them. She kept looking from the bus to the caped menace approaching. She should have been considering whether to cut and run, instead, she stood frozen with Nick.

The screech of the bus’s brake jarred them and they hustled aboard. The bus driver smiled at their masks and costumes as if he expected them to ask for candy. He waved them on when they tried to find the fare.

"Forget it," said the driver. "This treat's on me. Just don't scare the other passengers." He laughed, motioning down the length of the quarter-full bus.

Nick and Lottica hurried to find a seat. Through the eyeholes of his vampire mask, Nick spied the man in the cape come alongside the bus. He wanted to urge the driver to quickly close the door and drive off. But the driver was looking in his side-view mirror.

He left the door open. The man in the cape drew astride the door. He stepped in.

He leaned toward the driver. They exchanged words that the siblings could not hear. Then the man in the cape nodded and stepped slowly back out into the street and the doors closed.

Nick exhaled, realizing he’d been holding his breath for the last minute. He pulled off his mask and looked over at Lottica. Her mask remained on, but she was clutching her pillowcase close to her chest. Her fingers were white.

"Lottica, take off your mask."

"No." Her voice was unusually soft.

"We need to talk."

"I want to go back, Nick."

"To Grandfather and Grandmother'?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because that caped nut is after us. He wants something." Lottica's voice sounded close to tears through her mask. "And I think I know what he wants."

Nick leaned closer and lowered his voice. "What?"

In answer, Lottica relaxed her grip on the pillowcase. She slowly opened it, so Nick could see inside.

The vampire mask slipped from Nick’s grasp, falling to the floor of the bus as if a stake had been pushed through its latex heart. At the bottom of Lottica's trick-or-treating pillowcase, resting atop her neatly folded pajamas, sparkling cold and bright as a blue moon, was the Kareima.