Chapter Two
Blythe
“Ican’t thank you enough for doing this for us, Blythe,” my best friend, Twyla, chirps into my ear via the earbud I have linked to my cell phone.
“Trey somehow swooped me off on our honeymoon so with no warning, I had no way to unrope you from housesitting for us. I’m so sorry he took you away from your home during your favorite holiday. ”
She’s not wrong. Halloween is my favorite holiday by far.
Thanksgiving does come in a close second, but not really that close.
If I could leave my Halloween decorations up all year round without my HOA having a conniption, I would do it in a heartbeat.
I feel bad for about two point two seconds, but quickly realize that I have no need and keep unraveling the strand of purple lights in my hands.
“Twyla, what did I tell you the other eighteen times that you have called in the last four days?”
“Don’t worry about me,” I echo along with her drawn out words. She adds a sigh at the end of hers, but I just snicker.
“You were gracious enough to allow me to decorate your yard since I didn’t have enough time to do mine, so this is thank you enough.”
I hear Trey’s deep voice but can’t understand his words, followed by some rustling before he comes on the line himself.
“Blythe, this woman is going to make me go gray or bald before we all turn forty. I swear I put this phone in the safe, with a combination she had no way of figuring out, but she somehow still managed to get her sneaky little hands on it while I was getting ice.”
“I’m not sneaky,” his new wife of three months shouts from the background, “I’m just happen to know you even better than you know yourself.”
Oh, did I mention that my best friend is a vampire?
I may be a full human myself, but I have known about the supernatural world my entire life.
When I was younger I went through many phases of wishing I was different magical beings; whether it be a vampire, mermaid, witch, or any type of shifter; but wishing is as far as I’ll ever get.
My mom’s childhood best friend was a wolf shifter and I envied her way of life so much.
I also miss her so bad it hurts to even think of her.
Eliana loved Halloween. I know that’s where I get mine love for it too.
My mother, bless her OCD heart, can barely handle having a Christmas tree up for the twenty nine days that my dad has it up in their house, so there is no way any of my love of any holiday décor comes from her.
As a now twenty-eight year old adult, when I think about how much of a stickler my mom has always been for keeping things tidy and following her routines, it amazes me to imagine how Eliana and Dina ever became friends…
but they were inseparable until the day Eliana died.
I remember the day like it was yesterday.
She and her youngest son Shaun had spent the day shopping with us, but on the way back to their pack territory were run off the road.
Neither survived the crash even with their super wolf healing powers.
We lost more than just them that day. Elias, her husband, I think he couldn’t take the constant reminder of the happy times, so after the funeral, we never saw him or their oldest son ever again.
“Blythe!” My name shouted in my ear snaps me out of the sad walk down memory lane, right back to the present and the now finally untangled lights. “Are you there?”
“Yea, sorry. I go distracted by this damn strand of lights.” She doesn’t need to know where my mind really was. If she was here in person, she would be able to read my thoughts, but luckily for me, her power doesn’t work over phone lines.
“Did you find my holiday totes in the garage? I know I’ll never have as many decorations as you do, but can you make what I have work to sate your spooky spirit?”
“About that,” I let my words drag out to try and delay answering her question.
“Blythe Madeline Daley, what did you do?” Leave it to the best friend to drop your full legal name when they know you’ve done something naughty.
“Nothing much.” I was hoping to keep the extent of this project a surprise until they get back home from their honeymoon, when everything is all up and I know she’ll love it so much she can’t give me a hard time for bringing some of my own extra decorations from home to use here.
“You better not have bought more stuff,” she starts to scold me. “If I find out that you spent even one penny on new things, I will call and tell your mom on you.”
I drop a small bundle of fake spiderwebs on the porch and look straight into her doorbell camera lens.
“Are you spying on me Twyla? Were we just not talking about your husband trying to keep you off technology for your honeymoon? And now you’re checking up on me in the cameras! Shame on you, bestie. Shame!”
My nagging is definitely playful, sassy waggling finger and all, but I knew I should have covered the camera before I started.
“You nor my husband can hide things from me for too long. My powers of love reach beyond the miles and continents. Muahahaha!”
Her attempt at an evil cackle is just funny, seeing as how she’s a witch and all, and I can’t hold back my own laughs.
When we both finally settle down, I wag my pointer finger and the camera again, then quickly flip her the bird before sticking a piece of green painters tape over the lens.
“While I love you more than I love my own sister most days, this is where you lose your peeking privileges. If Trey doesn’t hide the phone well enough again, you can see everything after I’m done setting everything up. ”
“Don’t forget—”
I cut off her off and pull my earbud out and hold it close to my mouth. “I will take the tape off when I’m done.”
Once I have the bud back in my ear, I hear her talking to Trey again, whining this time. “She taped the doorbell camera so I can’t see what she’s doing.”
“Oh you poor witchy baby,” he jestingly says back. “Say goodbye to your bestie or I’ll get naked and shower without you this time.”
“No you don’t!” she shouts so loud, my right eye twitches. “Okay, bestie. Gotta go. Love you. See you in a week.”
And she’s gone.
“Go Trey!” I give myself a high five, pretending it was for him and his smart distraction tactics, and get back to work.
Three hours later, I stand in the middle of the cul-de-sac and admire the beauty that is now 417 Pine Cone Circle.
Purple and orange lights are wrapped around alternating porch posts, faux spiderwebs are stretched in every available corner and open beam, life size skeletons, sit on three of the four rocking chairs on the porch, and the fourth chair is now home to a motion sensored seven foot mummy.
When you walk within a three foot perimeter of him, he groans and raises his arms up shoulder height like he’s about to get up and chase you.
I placed ghost shaped stickies to the inside of all the front facing windows, ran red rope lights along the bottom of the wind trim on the inside to give the effect of hell glowing from below, and even changed the porch lights to the bulbs that look like flickering candles.
White net lights in the shape of a giant spiderweb, with a huge fake spider that looks like it’s crawling up, stretch from the gutter at the left corner of the house and down to various points along the front flower bed.
The grass of the front yard is my pièce de resistance…
a graveyard! These pressure treated and hand painted wooden headstones and staked into the ground, so those suckers ain’t going anywhere, are my pride and joy.
I used to have the plastic kind of cheap headstones that you can buy at all the chain home improvement stores, but over the years I started making my own better versions.
I started with six that first year, but as of right now I have thirty and I already have a list started with new ideas for more fun sayings.
Rest In Pieces. Here Lies Fred – Without His Head. Here Lies Common Sense. Izzy Deadyet. Barry D Live. Will B Back. No Vacancy. Frank N Stein. C U Lay-ter. Dee Capitated. Paige Turner. Ben Dover. Anita Newhart. Rusty Gates.
Some are cheesy… okay, most are cheesy… but no matter how many times I look at them, they make me smile.
While I probably have enough decorations at home that could cover three more houses, I am happy with how this display turned out.
I can’t go too overboard because I know I’ll be taking everything back down in a little over a week, but these few hours of work were worth it.
I love my friends, but I love Halloween even more.