Fire With Fire by Jenny Han
At the top of the stairs, I notice Aunt Bette’s bedroom door is open the skinniest crack. She’s been keeping it closed. I walk up slowly and peek inside.
There are books all over the floor. At least a hundred of them, piled in teetering stacks on top of Aunt Bette’s Moroccan rug. Musty, cloth-covered books. The kind that sit and gather dust at the library. The kind that you find at a garage sale.
I step inside, careful not to touch anything, because I have a pretty good feeling that Aunt Bette would lose her mind if she knew I was poking around her room. I crouch down and try to read some of the spines, but most of the titles aren’t written in English. It looks like maybe Latin. And some Spanish, which reminds me that I am so far behind in Señor Tremont’s class it’s not even funny. There are a few books split open, but to pages that don’t have any words. Only, like, hieroglyphics. Symbols and numbers that make no sense to me.
Aunt Bette’s Volvo putters into the driveway. I jump up and turn to head out the bedroom door. That’s when I notice the shared wall that separates Aunt’s Bette’s bedroom from mine. The one to the right of her bed.
It used to be a wall full of art. Pictures. Paintings. Photographs. But everything’s been taken down, except for the tiny nails left in the wall. Even Aunt Bette’s dresser, the low four-drawer one that sat against the wall, has been pushed aside.
The whole thing is stripped bare.
Or at least I think it is. But when I take a step closer, I see that Aunt Bette has laced string, string the very same color as the eggshell wall paint, around the picture nails. I think it might even be the same stuff she used to wrap those smudge bundles. She’s woven them into some kind of pattern. Like a lopsided, crooked star.
The same star that’s in one of the pages of her opened books.
Oh God. What’s going on?
I dart out of her bedroom and into my own. Aunt Bette opens the back door and calls for me.
“Up here!” I say in a voice that I hope sounds normal. Then I pray she won’t come upstairs. Thankfully, she doesn’t. I hear the faucet come on, probably for her teakettle.
I take careful steps over to my bed and sit on the mattress. It’s pushed up against that shared wall. I reach out and touch it, feeling for I don’t know what. Energy. Heat. Something coming through from the other side.
Has Aunt Bette been putting spells on me?
I don’t think she’d try to hurt me, but I can’t say I feel totally safe. Especially when I don’t know how long that thing in her room has been up. And what it might be doing to me.
But there’s nothing coming through, nothing to feel besides a wall. A plain old wall.
Of course. What else would it be?
I guess when you live with a crazy person, it’s hard not to feel crazy sometimes too.
* * *
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
LILLIA
HALLOWEEN NIGHT IS BEAUTIFUL. CLEAR sky, not too cold, and a big full moon.
Kids are starting to file in with their parents, and my heart is thrumming in my chest. I’m standing by the entrance in my ballerina costume, greeting people and passing out raffle tickets. I’m wearing a pink leotard that crosses in the back and a tutu on top, with sheer pink tights and pink ballet slippers with ribbons that wind up my legs. My bun is so high and tight it’s pulling on my scalp, but I don’t dare mess with it because it took me forever to get it right.
Alex walks in, and he’s got on black framed glasses and a button-down and khakis.
“What are you?” I ask him. “A nerd?”
Alex wags his finger at me, and then he rips open his shirt with a flourish, and underneath is a Superman tee. “Clark Kent, at your service!”
I laugh and clap my hands. Alex used to wear glasses, but he never does anymore. I like him all geek chic like this. “Alex, you’re my hero,” I say. Then I point him in the direction of the apple-bobbing booth and he takes off.
The kids look so cute in their costumes. There are a few Iron Mans, a Harry Potter, a little boy who is dressed up as a chef, a girl who is a bottle of ketchup. My favorite is three boys dressed up as Snap, Crackle, and Pop from the Rice Krispies cereal box. I’m totally giving them the costume award.
My sister and her friends are setting up the scavenger hunt, hiding clues around the gym. They’re Santa’s reindeer—Nadia is Vixen, and she’s got on antlers and a fur shawl of our mom’s that she never wears and crimson-red lipstick. Alex is dropping more apples into the apple-bobbing pail.
I’m by the food table arranging candy-corn cupcakes on a big black tray when I see him—Reeve, swinging in on his crutches and his soft cast. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and his Jason mask and has a chain saw strapped to his back.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he showed.
I watch as Reeve sets up a folding chair for himself under the basketball net. He drags another chair over, plops down, and props his leg up on the second chair. A bunch of kids run over to him. “Reeve!” they shriek. “Chase us!”
Reeve shakes his chain saw at them menacingly. But he doesn’t chase them. He can’t. I watch the kids collectively deflate when they realize this, and they walk away to the other booths, and then Reeve’s just sitting there alone. He looks bummed out, marooned in his chair. All alone.
I can feel a little lump in my throat. I basically harassed him into coming, and now he doesn’t have anything to do. I head over, making a show of stopping and checking on the sound system along the way, so it doesn’t look like I’m coming over just to say hi.
I stop in front of him. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” Reeve grunts from behind his mask.
I clear my throat. “Um, so . . . I feel bad I made you come when you can’t really do anything.”
“Which is what I tried to explain to you in the first place,” he says, pushing his mask on top of his head.
“I know.”
“How am I supposed to run around with the kids here and then go to a freaking maze with you guys?” Reeve huffs. “My leg should be elevated pretty much at all times.”
“I know,” I say again.
We stare at each other for a second. And then he says, “Nice costume.”
I wait for him to make a crack, maybe ask me where my tiara is, but he doesn’t. He reaches out and touches my tutu. I can feel my insides heat up.
Then Alex comes up behind me and Reeve’s arm drops. “Hey, man,” Alex says.
“Hey,” he says.
“It was decent of you to show,” Alex says with a nod. To me Alex says, “Lil, if you want, I can trade jobs with Reeve since he can’t run around. I don’t mind. Reeve, for the apple-bobbing station all you have to do is sit there.”
Reeve stares at him in disbelief. “Jason is my thing.”
“I know, man, but the kids want you to chase them around. It’s not scary if you wave the chain saw at them from your chair. . . .” Alex’s voice trails off, and he looks at me like he’s hoping I’ll back him up.
Before I can say anything, Reeve rips the mask off his head and tosses it at Alex. “Here, take it, then. Have at it. You won’t do as good a job as me, but whatever.” Jerkily, he gets up on his crutches. “Go show off for your girl.”
Alex’s face goes red, and I look around the room, pretending like I didn’t hear him.
Reeve stalks off, and at first I think he’s leaving, but he’s not; he’s moving toward the apple-bobbing booth. Alex leans in to me and whispers, “I think maybe Reeve’s still channeling Jason.”
I let out a guilty giggle. “Thanks for everything, Lindy.”
Alex puts on the Jason mask. “You’re welcome,” he says in a creepy serial-killer voice.
I laugh again, for real this time. Then I walk back over to the refreshment table and set out the spider cookies I baked the night before. I arrange it so the good ones are on top and the broken ones are underneath.
This has actually turned out okay. The kids are having fun, the booths ar
I watch Alex chase a group of girls with the chain saw. He almost trips but catches himself. Across the room I can hear Reeve’s guffaw. It echoes throughout the gym.
I bite a piece of candy off my candy bracelet. In an hour and a half it’ll all be over. I wasn’t going to go to the haunted maze because I didn’t want to see Rennie, but now I think I will go. I have as much right to be there as she does. They’re my friends too. Look how Reeve and Alex showed up for me tonight. They’re not in her pocket as much as she thinks.
* * *
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
MARY
I DON’T THINK I EVER understood the power of a Halloween costume before tonight. Probably because I never had a very good one.
When I was a kid, my mom made my costumes herself. Other kids would buy theirs at the drugstore, the kind that came with a mask and a plastic suit to put on over your clothes. Those kids would run around, breaking sticks as Superman or shooting pretend webs out of their wrists like Spider-Man.
Mom wouldn’t allow it. “There’s no creativity in that,” she’d say.
Really, she wanted to make them herself because my grandmother had made costumes for Mom and Aunt Bette when they were little. My grandmother was a very accomplished seamstress. We still have a bunch of her quilts in the attic in a cedar chest. It’s crazy to know that something so perfect could be made by hand. Mom liked that tradition. “When you grow up and have a little boy or a little girl, you’ll do the same for them,” she’d tell me, usually with tears in her eyes.
It was hard to argue with that.
So at the beginning of every October I’d tell Mom what I wanted to be for Halloween that year—a princess, a gypsy, a bat. We’d draw up plans together with colored pencils, and then we’d go to the fabric store to get supplies.
The only problem was that Mom wasn’t very good at sewing. In fact, Halloween was the only time of year when she’d take her sewing machine out of the box. She’d taken a class in high school, but that was about it. And though the whole thing started out as a fun endeavor, by the week before Halloween she’d be upstairs in the attic, working through the night. Usually she had to go back to the fabric store a few times because she’d cut the material wrong or run out of supplies because she kept starting over.
The end result was never what I’d imagined. The seams were always off. Some places the thing would fit me tight; some places it would be too loose. Lots of times it wasn’t clear what I was supposed to be. Like my dragon costume. People thought I was some kind of beanstalk. I never had that feeling of actually becoming someone else.
Not like tonight.
I was so happy when Kat invited me out with her. I was already having nightmares of having to spend the night in complete darkness, not answering the door, because Aunt Bette didn’t buy candy for the trick-or-treaters.
So I’m in the bathroom, putting the finishing touches on my costume, which means adding as many safety pins as I can before Kat pulls up and beeps the horn for me.
I went through an old trunk in the attic, full of Aunt Bette’s things. Inside, there was a pair of skinny leather pants. The tag was for an Italian brand, I bet from when she was twenty-one and living in Milan. She had a great pair of black stiletto heels, too, and a tight, lacy tank. Everything fit perfectly. All dressed up, I looked like a hot biker chick.
I teased out my hair so it looked wild and dramatic, and used a crimper that was underneath the sink in our guest bathroom to add a few wavy sections. I braided a few strands and clipped in some fake pink streaks.
Last I put on heavy eye makeup from Aunt Bette’s vanity. Black eyeliner, sparkly shadow, and layers and layers of mascara. I’ll probably need to borrow some turpentine from Aunt Bette to get it off.
I stand in front of the mirror. I don’t look like Mary tonight. I don’t even feel like Mary tonight, if that makes any sense. Everything’s completely, utterly different. I feel lit up from the inside. I feel . . . alive.
When I turn around, Aunt Bette is behind me.
I gasp. “How . . . how long were you standing there?”
“Not more than a minute,” Aunt Bette says. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” She cocks her head and then takes a step toward me. With a shaky hand she reaches out and touches the leather. “My pants.”
I look down and realize that I didn’t ask her permission for borrowing her clothes. I say, “I’m sorry. I should have asked first. I can take all this off if you mind.”
“It’s not that, it’s not that . . .”
“Don’t worry. I won’t take candy from strangers. Unless they’ve got Kit Kats.”
Aunt Bette doesn’t even crack a smile at my joke. Instead she says dazedly, “The line between the living and the dead is blurred on Halloween.”
I nod, as if I’m taking her seriously, but what I really think is . . . Aunt Bette needs to quit reading those weird books. She sounds like a witch! And she’s been looking more and more like one too. Her hair is so unkempt and wiry, her eyes sunken and dark. If I were a trick-or-treater and she came to the door, I’d probably run. It’s crazy, to think she was once a cool, fun girl who’d wear leather pants from Italy.
It’s a mean thought, and I immediately feel bad for thinking it. Aunt Bette’s so lonely; her life is so sad. She never visits with friends or gets a night away from the house.
She’s like how I used to be.
That’s when I wonder . . . did something happen to Aunt Bette? Something traumatic that I don’t know about, that made her into this person? Maybe it was a fight with my mom? Maybe she never wanted us to leave Jar Island?
I don’t know what it is, but I step forward and I hug her. I haven’t done that once since coming back here. Aunt Bette has never been big on physical displays of affection, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need one every so often.
Her whole body goes rigid. She’s so alone, who knows the last time she got a hug from anyone? “It’s all right, Aunt Bette,” I say, and then Aunt Bette melts, her head drops, and I feel her squeeze me back, tenderly. I can see in the mirror that her eyes are closed.
Kat’s car horn sounds from outside. I peel away from Aunt Bette and tell her, “Love you. Don’t wait up!” before bounding down the stairs.
“Holy shit. Look at you!” Kat says, flicking her cigarette butt out of the driver’s-side window.
“I guess we’re opposites tonight,” I say with a laugh as I climb into her car, because Kat’s got a nun’s outfit on. It’s a full habit that covers everything but her hands and her face, and a heavy wooden cross around her neck. Kat isn’t wearing any makeup. I’ve never noticed before, but she has amazing skin and a couple of teeny-tiny freckles.
“I’m an evil nun,” she clarifies. She twists in her seat and looks me up and down. “You look hot, girl.”
“I do?” I feel like clapping like a little kid, but I restrain myself.
Kat gives me a look like I’m crazy. “Hell, yeah, you do. Good thing Sister DeBrassio brought you a chastity belt.”
I stick my tongue out, buckle my seat belt, and crank Kat’s car radio up as loud as it will go. She’s got a wild band on, and I start thrashing my head around, rocking in my seat.
“Dear Lord, please shine your light down on this clunker and keep it running tonight.” Kat makes the sign of the cross, lights herself a new cigarette, and then peels out so fast her tires squeal and smoke. “It’s still early!” she yells above the music. “Let’s stop by my friend Ricky’s house and bum some of his booze before we go to the maze.”
I nod and keep dancing. I’ve never hung out with anyone besides Kat and Lillia since I came back here. And I’ve never drunk before, not even one sip. I can tell it’s going to be a crazy night. Not bad crazy, either, thank
* * *
I’m sitting on the couch in this guy Ricky’s basement. It’s dark and smoky, and the TV is on. It’s some horror movie. I’ve got a beer in my hand, but I’m not drinking it. It smells funny, like yeast.
Next to me, Kat is straddling the sofa armrest, swigging from her beer till the last drop. “I’m out,” she announces. “Ricky, help me bring down some more beers.” She leans in close to me and whispers, “He’s cute, right?”
I nod. Ricky has these sparkly brown eyes and thick black lashes. “Very.”
“Why did I ever waste time with a tool like Alex Lind?”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer her question. Alex and Ricky are very different guys. I come up with Alex Lind seems nice, but before I have a chance to say it, Kat and Ricky head up the stairs. I watch them go, and then turn back to Kat’s brother, Pat, who’s watching them too. He’s in a grim-reaper costume, sprawled out on a La-Z-Boy, a glass bong between his legs.
I hope Kat comes back soon. I feel out of place and kind of awkward here, and the excitement I felt earlier on is starting to fade away. On the couch with me there’s a guy wearing a monster mask, and he’s breathing heavily through the rubber.
I turn and watch the TV. A guy is chasing a girl with an ax, and when he finally catches up to her, I can’t help but let out a shriek. Kat’s brother finally looks away from the stairs and laughs. “You scared?” he asks me.
“I don’t like horror movies,” I say, holding the beer bottle to my lips but not actually drinking.
“How do you know Kat?” Pat asks me.
“Um, we’re friends from school.”
“I thought Kat didn’t have any friends at school,” the guy in the monster mask says, and Pat snickers.