Chapter Twenty-One The Haint History Fest #2
But Mal’s favorite features were the central firepits, round and roaring and fragrant of woodsmoke, and the free s’mores making stations that were decorated with carefully arranged gourds and glass lanterns glittering with candlelight.
They loaded up several stacks of chocolate and graham crackers, milling about with the dozens and dozens of people gathered in their sweaters and scarves around the crackling fire at the center of the promenade.
While Mal took time to carefully toast their marshmallows, Emerson dipped hers low into the flames, setting them on fire and then blowing them out with a hoot of laughter.
Those closest to the fire took turns telling stories of the ghosts rumored to haunt the homes in Mainstrasse Village.
Emerson, her eyebrows waggling, tugged Mal against the tide of bodies, closer to the fire and the stories.
Some of them, like the Gray Lady of Carneal House—a spurned woman and possible murder victim—Mal hoped were untrue.
Others, like one about a little orange cat named Cornball who haunted the toy store down the road, they wanted to be real.
But in the warm glow of the fire, Mal started to feel it: the length of the day, which had started for them at four a.m., when they got up early to answer Sam’s questions.
And it wouldn’t be over until at least ten p.m.—or more realistically, until the hour or so later they guessed it would take to break down and unload everything.
They didn’t mean for them to, but in the cozy glow of the flame, Mal’s eyes fluttered closed, their stick and the marshmallow speared on it dipping down into the embers and catching flame, Emerson-style.
“Oop, that’s a bit too toasty,” Emerson said, giggling, but when she looked at Mal, she nodded resolutely. “Enough s’mores, I think. I know what you need.”
It was coffee, and Emerson was right. She even insisted that Mal let her pay for it—with the caveat that she got to pick what kind Mal got.
In the moment, they needed it so badly that they didn’t protest, just took the cardboard cup into their hands, letting it warm their fingers as the first sip warmed their insides.
“Is this…” Mal pursed their lips. “Hot chocolate?”
“It’s COFF-chocolate!” Emerson beamed, wiggling where she stood so that her own cup spurted a few bubbles out of its lid. Her pink glitter cat ears bobbled. “It’s hot chocolate but made with coffee, not water. It’s one of my favorite things ever.”
As coffee went, it was pretty vile. But if it was one of Emerson’s favorite things, Mal wanted to at least try to love it. When they thought of it more as coffee-flavored hot chocolate, and not as hot-chocolate-flavored coffee, it was bearable.
“Come on,” Emerson said, taking the lead again. “You need a breather.”
Mal allowed themself to be led to the far end of the promenade, into the crowd, and then back out of it, crossing the street toward a low stone fence that looked perfect for sitting—and then directly past it, through an iron gate and up the steps of a grand house that was, despite the ample number of pumpkins in every color and shape and size that decorated its wide, wraparound porch, certainly not part of the Haint History Festival.
“Emerson!” Mal hissed. They didn’t care how rebellious Emerson felt, it was still true: “We can’t just go up on people’s porches!”
“This one we can,” Emerson said, her voice thick with laughter. At Mal’s confused, concerned look, her giggles spilled over, as sweet as the smell of roasting marshmallows in the chilly night. “It’s my house, you goofball.”
As Emerson threw herself easily into one of the rocking chairs on the porch, Mal cocked an eyebrow.
It was mostly to themself; the house was huge and restored in a way that made the restorations on Mal’s street look like they had been done by toddlers.
Eyeing the stained-glass window over the enormous, heavy wood front door, Mal considered that maybe it had never been restored.
Maybe houses like this stayed well cared for and never fell into disrepair in the first place.
Mal’s chest tightened with a familiar feeling, one they often felt when they found themself walking through the rich parts of Covington: like they might get caught, like someone would realize they didn’t belong.
But here with Emerson, Mal wanted to belong.
“Are you going to sit?” Emerson asked, patting the gingham cushion of the chair beside her.
Mal sank into it. And instantly, they realized how much they had needed to sit down. They could not honestly remember when—if—they had last rested. Though the arms of the chair were tight on their hips, they relaxed into it, rocking gently back and forth.
Emerson made a pleased hum, but aside from that, they fell into a quiet spell together.
Or, Mal considered sleepily, into as quiet a spell as there could be, fifteen feet away from a busy Covington Halloween festival.
At this distance, the noise became indistinct, a gentle wall of sound.
They let it wash over them: the laughter of friends, the hum of generators powering food trucks, the occasional shriek of a child.
Mal drank their coff-chocolate and watched.
From this vantage point, they could see the whole festival.
And it seemed like everyone was there: people Mal recognized as customers at the Haus, people they passed on their walks, people who lived in their neighborhood, people who went to their school.
There were city officials Mal recognized from social media, and they shared the same space as some of the unhoused library patrons Mal remembered from their visit with Emerson.
And though there was an abandoned house around the far corner, its windows boarded up with plywood and a FOR SALE sign bleaching in its front yard, right now it felt seasonal and spooky instead of a little sad.
From where they sat, Mal could see that the festival wasn’t silly, like they’d always thought—or that if it was, it was a kind of silly they liked.
Maybe Covington was the kind of silly they liked.
Mal had never taken the time, really, to consider this.
The Covington they knew had never felt like the right fit for them.
It was for people like their parents, with their jobs in Florence—or Sai, running businesses like the Haus.
It wasn’t for people like Maddie, who had a way out through sports and book smarts, and so Mal had always thought it wasn’t for them, either.
But as they gazed out at the warm lights and the cheerful crowd, they suddenly felt like the Covington they knew was limited.
It existed within the walls of Holmes High School, which had never felt comfortable, and in the aisles of Dollar City, which felt like it could be in any city, anywhere, for the low price of one dollar to five dollars an item.
It existed, mostly, with Mal at Maddie’s side, understanding the world around them through her experiences rather than their own.
But here, beside Emerson, with a comfortable quiet and a pair of chocolaty coffees between them, Mal thought they might be discovering a new Covington.
One that was vibrant and a little weird and a bit against the rules.
It was niche, like this festival, and varied, like the zines they’d brought to it, and a little punk rock, like Emerson.
Like Mal.
Maybe it was a place where they could be all those things too.
And before they had given themself permission to do it, they were talking, staring straight ahead toward the center of the action, where the bright light of the central bonfire created dark, moving silhouettes in the night.
“It feels Correct,” they said, making sure Emerson would understand the capital C. “Here.” They gave the word time to take up space in their chest. But it wasn’t just here, at the Haint History Festival, or even here in Covington. There was another important part. They added, “With you.”
That wasn’t the whole of it either. Mal tried again, looking at Emerson at last.
“I feel Correct, here with you.”
Mal had never felt that way before—like they were right.
And more importantly, like they were not wrong.
Sometimes Mal felt like most of their baseline brain page paragraphs were there to prove to people—their mom, their teachers, on bad days even themself—that they were not fundamentally flawed in some way.
But with Emerson, the usual need to explain, to write it down and figure out the formatting of it first, wasn’t there.
They knew Emerson would understand them, because Emerson, for Mal, was Correct too.
She fit into Mal’s life perfectly, in all-caps comments in Mal’s margins, in clever, brilliant additions on Mal’s pages in twelve-point Georgia Bold font.
“You are Correct.” It didn’t surprise them, the way Emerson looked at Mal then—like she saw them, really saw them, for exactly who they were.
Mal looked back like they saw Emerson, too—her paw-print sweatshirt the same shade of very bright yellow as her favorite Post-its, her smile shaped like the same curve she used to dot her i’s, her brain big and beautiful and weird and wonderful.
It didn’t surprise Mal either when both of them moved at the same time, when their lips met with such force that Mal’s coff-chocolate splashed out of their cup and onto the sleeve of their sweater.
When they were kissing Emerson, Mal felt Good. Confident and sure, like their hands on her round cheeks. Successful and important, like the zine that had brought them together. Dreamy and bright, like the glow of the promenade fires and the promise of their future ahead of them.
Tucked away from the noise of the night, but still very much a part of it, Mal felt like they Mattered.
How much time they passed like that, Mal couldn’t be sure.
Long enough for their hot chocolate to go very lukewarm, and for their elbow to grow sore where it was perched on the arm of the rocking chair.
When Emerson pulled away, Mal’s lips were wet and tasted of peppermint, and still they wanted more.
“We are Correct,” Emerson said, soft but sure, reaching for their hand.
Mal put down their coffee, energized in a different way. They put their left hand in Emerson’s right and squeezed.
“We should see what everyone else is up to,” Mal said, because that felt Correct, too.
This night was theirs and Emerson’s, but it was MixxedMedia’s too—Nylan’s and Parker’s, James’s and Kodi’s and Alex’s, even Stella’s.
And this new feeling growing in Mal’s rib cage, warm and glowing like the fire on the promenade, was begging to be shared.
“Yeah, okay,” Emerson said in a huff. She gestured between the two of them with their joined hands. “But I’m not done with this.”
Mal smiled, shook their head. “Oh, no. Me either.”
Emerson stood, pulling them up from their rocking chair. And like she had that first time, she threw her arms around Mal, pulling them in for an unexpected hug. Without even being told, she squeezed tight, just how Mal liked their hugs.
When she let go, Mal took her hand, and they were off together into the night. They left their coff-chocolate on the porch, forgotten.
It was only when they got back to the MixxedMedia booth, only when they saw a member of the Holmes High School soccer team, still in their game gear and a face full of sweat-shifted zombie makeup, that Mal realized they had completely forgotten Maddie’s soccer game.