'Tis the Season (5 page)

He and Gracie reached the clearing and paused by the forest's edge, in the shadows. The house looked dark. It looked spooky, too, the porch overhang casting a black shadow, the roof steep. Gracie slipped her hand into his and he didn't pull away. He would never admit he needed to hold her hand as much as she needed to hold his, but it helped to know he wasn't alone, even if she was just a kid.

“Come on,” he whispered. “And don't make a sound.” He tugged her toward the house. She wasn't so brave anymore; he practically had to drag her around to the side of the house. But she didn't talk or whine or complain. Her slippers hardly made any noise on the grass.

Nearing the side window, he positioned her against the wall, not too close to the window. “I'll look first,” he whispered. “You stay out of sight.”

She nodded. Her eyes appeared ready to pop again.

Shrugging to make his shoulders feel bigger, he let go of her hand and crept up to the window, hunching slightly
so he wouldn't be visible. When he reached the window, he straightened slowly until he could peek inside. What he saw made him gasp.

Candles. Four of them, maybe five, flickering on a table where there used to be just a big white sheet. More candles were visible through the doorway in another room, creating little dancing shadows on the floor. And music! He could barely hear it through the thick glass, but it sounded weird and tinkly.

He sank back down below the edge of the window and ran over to Gracie. “Did you see the spirit?” she asked.

He shook his head. “But there're candles all over the place.”

“Candles?”

“Yeah. And they're lit.”

“Like on a birthday cake?”

“No, like in candlesticks. On tables and stuff.”

“I wanna see!”

“Shh.” He glanced toward the window, thinking. If he didn't believe in ghosts—which he didn't—then the candles must have been lit by a person. Which meant someone was inside the house. Which meant that if the person inside saw them spying through the window, that person could do something bad, like chase them or call the police, or maybe even pull a gun on them and shoot them. Billy just didn't know.

Gracie started revving up. “I wanna see,” she said in the whiniest whisper he'd ever heard. “You saw the candles. I wanna see them, too. I bet the spirit lit them. I wanna see!”

“I think we should go home,” Billy said, feeling very old and responsible.

“That's no fair! I wanna see! If you make me go home without seeing the candles, I'm gonna tell Daddy.”

She would, too. She'd go right ahead and get herself in trouble over this if it meant she could get Billy in trouble, also.

Sighing, he weighed his options. He hadn't seen anyone through the window, so maybe if Gracie took a quick look, she wouldn't see anyone, either. And with the music, maybe they wouldn't be heard. And if, just if, there
was
a ghost in the house, they were as good as dead, anyway—which was probably better than getting in trouble with Dad.

“Okay,” he muttered. They moved together toward the window, Billy hunching down as they neared it. Once they were under the window, he wrapped his arms around Gracie's middle and straightened, lifting her as high as he could.

She gripped the windowsill and gazed inside. She didn't squirm, didn't speak, didn't try to scramble higher. She didn't even seem to breathe.

And then, all of a sudden, she blasted out a scream loud enough to explode his eardrums. She shoved away from the windowsill so hard he fell backward, losing his footing and sprawling on the ground with her on top of him, still screeching like a maniac.

“Shut up!” he shouted, trying to wriggle out from under her. “Shut up, Gracie!”

“Aaaiiieee!” She clung to him and howled.

“Shut up!”

Through her wailing he heard the creak of a window opening, and then another voice. A woman's voice. “Hey, there! What's going on?”

“Get off of me,” he grunted, figuring if Gracie wasn't
going to shut up, at least she didn't have to be sitting on his stomach, pinning him to the ground, with her mouth so close to his ear her howling was making him deaf. He wanted her off him, and he wanted to see whoever was talking to them. He peeled Gracie's fingers away from his sweatshirt and heaved her to one side. She jumped to her feet and started running in circles, yelping and flailing her arms as if she was being attacked by wasps.

He ignored her and turned to the window. It was brightly lit now, with real light, not just candlelight. The woman standing in the window was just a silhouette. But she was a real human being, not a ghost.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “We were just looking. My sister's an idiot.”

“I am not! I am not!” Gracie shrieked, bouncing up and down and zigzagging around the yard. “It's a ghost! It's a witch!”

The woman laughed. “I'm not a witch. Meet me around by the back porch and you'll see for yourself.” She turned from the window and walked away.

Billy snagged Gracie on one of her sprints around the yard. “It's just a lady, you moron,” he told her, giving her a small shake to get her attention. “She's meeting us at the back porch.”

“She's a witch. She's gonna eat us,” Gracie whimpered.

“Don't be stupid. She's not gonna eat us. She wouldn't wanna eat you, anyhow. You'd probably make her puke.”

“You're mean!” Gracie shouted, yanking her arm free and scampering to the back porch. She must have decided she'd be better off with a witch than with her own brother.

He used the s-word again. Leave it to Gracie to act like such a jerk.

By the time he reached the rear of the house, a porch light was on, spreading a bright yellow glow across the porch and down the steps. The woman stood on the top step, and Billy could see how, at a glance, Gracie might have taken her for a witch. She was wearing a sweater so long it came down nearly to her knees, and a skirt that came down to her ankles, and black boots. Her hair was long, dark and kind of ripply, and huge earrings that resembled lots of little silver coins woven together dangled from her ears. Around her neck hung a necklace on a black cord. The pendant was shaped like the moon, a silver crescent on top of a circle, as big around as the lid on a jar of mustard.

But staring up at her face, he knew she wasn't a witch. An angel would be more like it. She was really, really pretty.

“I'm Fil,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Fill?” Gracie scowled. “What kind of name is that?”

“It's short for Filomena. What's your name?”

“Filomena?” Gracie echoed. Billy, too, was amazed by the name. He'd never heard a name like that before. It sounded like an angel's name.

“That's right. What's your name?”

“Gracie. That's my brother, Billy. He's an idiot.”

“Hello, Gracie. Hello, Billy,” the lady said gently. “It's kind of late for you to be out, isn't it? It's past eight-thirty. And you, Gracie, you're in your pajamas! You must be cold! Why don't you come inside and warm up?”

“Don't go in,” Billy warned, reaching out and grabbing Gracie's arm. The lady might look like an angel,
but Billy knew better than to go anywhere with a stranger. “We're just going home,” he said, even though she was so pretty he didn't want to leave her.

She gazed around. “How did you get here?”

“Through the woods,” Gracie told her.

“In the dark?”

“It's easy,” Gracie bragged, although Billy was thinking his sister would have gotten totally lost if she hadn't been following him. “We live on the other side of the woods.”

Filomena stared into the trees, then shook her head as if she wasn't quite sure she believed this. “Maybe I ought to drive you home. Your parents will be worried.”

“Our mommy is gone,” Gracie explained, “and our daddy is playing poker.” From screaming and acting like a ninny, she'd turned into a regular chatterbox.

“He could still be worried,” Filomena insisted. “Let me drive you home—or at least phone him and tell him you're safe.”

“No,” Billy said quickly. If she called Dad and told him where they were, they'd be in such deep trouble they'd never be able to climb out of it. “We can get home ourselves. Thanks anyway.”

“I'm not going to let you go tramping through those dark woods,” Filomena said. “Gracie, you're wearing bedroom slippers. And oh, they're beautiful. That's Minnie Mouse, isn't it? I love Minnie Mouse.”

Gracie grinned. Swell. In another minute she'd be following the strange-named lady into the house. “We'll be fine,” he insisted, because he knew how dangerous going into her house might be. They'd had classes in school about this stuff—not trusting strangers, not going places with them and that kind of thing. Dad had also lectured
him and Gracie about safety with strangers. “We don't want a ride home. We can't go in your car anyhow.”

Filomena mulled that over, then nodded. “Well, then, I'll walk you through the woods, just to make sure you get home safely.”

“We can get home okay.”

She scooted toward the door, her skirt swirling around her. “Let me just blow out the candles and get a flashlight. Oh, and you know what? I think I have something of yours, Gracie.” Before Billy could stop her, she was in the house.

Billy and Gracie exchanged a glance. “She's beautiful,” Gracie murmured.

“Five minutes ago you thought she was a witch.”

“I think she's a fairy godmother.”

“What does she have of yours?”

Gracie shrugged.

Billy stifled a groan. If she had something of Gracie's, maybe she was going to do something awful, like make them pay to get it back. Or burn it in a voodoo ritual—he'd seen some kind of ceremony in a movie Scott's parents had rented last summer. It involved a big bonfire and lots of weird singing and dancing, and people wearing face paint. “We are in
so
much trouble,” he muttered. “If she walks us home—” if she didn't hex them with the voodoo ritual “—Dad's gonna kill us.”

“Not if we go in through the window.”

“How are we gonna go in through the window if she's with us?”

Gracie didn't have an answer for that. And anyway, Filomena was already back, carrying a flashlight and a scarf. She heaved the door shut behind her, flicked on the flashlight and came down the porch steps. “You look
cold, Gracie,” she said, wrapping the scarf around her. It was too big, and it went three times around Gracie's neck and shoulders and dangled down to her knees.

Gracie's smile was so gigantic it practically split her face in two.

“Are you going to trip on it? Maybe I should carry you so you don't trip.”

“Okay. What do you have of mine?”

“I don't know if it's yours…” Filomena dug into a pocket of her skirt and pulled out something small and pink.

“My butterfly clip! Where did you find it? I thought I lost it in my room, 'cuz my room is kind of messy.”

“I found it outside the window you were peeking into tonight.” Filomena handed the barrette to Gracie. “I guess you've been peeking into that window before, hmm?”

Oh, boy, were they in trouble. Billy wasn't sure, but he'd bet there were laws against people peeking into windows. And now she had evidence—Gracie's stupid butterfly hair clip. She could take the clip to the police and have them thrown in prison for looking through her window. If only Gracie hadn't kept following him around, none of this would have happened. It was all her fault he was going to wind up spending the rest of his life in jail.

“There you go,” Filomena said, pressing the barrette into Gracie's hand and then lifting Gracie into her arms. “Hold on tight. And don't drop the barrette.”

Billy bit his lip. He didn't like the idea of a stranger carrying Gracie, no matter how nice the stranger acted. But he figured he could tackle her if she tried to do anything evil. He knew his way through the woods better than she did, with or without her flashlight.

They started down the path, Billy one step ahead of Filomena, who had Gracie arranged so her butt rested in the bend of Filomena's elbow and her arms were wrapped around Filomena's neck. The beam from the flashlight speared ahead of Billy on the trail, illuminating roots and rocks. He had to admit walking the path like this was a lot easier than counting on the moonlight to reach all the way through the branches to light the ground.

After a few minutes they arrived at his backyard. “This is our house,” he said quietly. “Thanks. You can go home now.”

Still holding Gracie, who was all snuggled up in her arms with her head resting on her shoulder, Filomena studied the rear of the house. “I'd like to say hello to your father.”

“Uh, no, that's okay. I mean, he's playing poker now. He wouldn't want to meet you.”