Chapter 10
The sun was already setting the next evening when Grace finally gathered the energy to tumble out of bed.
Everything in the Lantern House was chilly, from the sheets she was buried within to the bare floors.
Most of the day was spent drifting in and out of sleep as she nursed the craziest hangover she had in decades.
Getting wine drunk was a common occurrence during the divorce, but when was the last time Grace did shots? Vodka shots?
Remembering it brought a shudder down her spine.
The taste lingered in the back of her throat, even after brushing her teeth repeatedly.
If it were up to her, she would’ve spent the rest of the night in bed too, drowning herself in sappy romantic comedies and eating things that would tear up her stomach the next day.
What else was she supposed to do, with the knowledge that the charming town she wandered into was actually a hub for every sort of supernatural creature she could ever imagine?
But her phone was full of messages from Caroline and the rest of the ladies, all of them determined to bring her to the Halloween party they had mentioned the night before.
There wasn’t much that Grace could really remember from their crazy night, but she could easily recall the moment when her new friends ordered a costume for her over the phone.
The package arrived right before she would need to get ready, but Grace wasn’t too sure if she really wanted to open it.
What if it turned out to be the same costume from her vision?
That was the most damning evidence given to her. How could she deny it any longer?
Grace shook her head and grabbed the box cutter. “You’re insane,” she muttered. “There aren’t mermaids in the lakes. There aren’t wolves who turn into…handsome…lumberjack dressing men. And there is no such thing as magical towns!”
The box popped open with a tug and Grace felt the breath get stolen from her throat.
White lights flashed across her gaze as the vision stunted her for a brief moment – the dress had been obscured before but it was entirely clear now.
A witch’s characteristic get-up, with the classic pointed hat and stunning amber jewel hanging at her breast. The black dress clung to the curves Grace didn’t know she had, with long sleeves and a skirt that hiked up in the front and dropped low in the back.
The neckline plunged farther than anything Grace owned, and clearly showed a little more than she was used to.
But she couldn’t deny one thing: she looked damn good.
She hardly recognized herself in the vision, till she caught a look at her face.
There was no doubt that it was her, Grace Baker, dressed in the same costume the girl’s ordered for her.
The vision flickered away and Grace gripped the sides of the box, staring down at what seemed to be her doom.
How could she deny what was so clearly in front of her?
She had seen that dress before. But it wasn’t like she told Caroline or the others what it looked like in the vision.
There was no way for any of them to have known what she saw.
Grace shook her head and collected the costume from the box.
“What’s the point in fussing?” she questioned as she walked back to her bedroom as if stuck in a daze.
“It’s a perfectly good dress, isn’t it?” In the confines of her room, Grace raised the dress in front of her tall mirror, eyeing the entire outfit with one brow sharply raised.
“Even if it seems to be missing a lot of fabric.”
She slipped out of the wrinkled pajamas she had been stuck in all day and hopped into the steaming shower.
The warm water calmed her anxieties more than she expected as Grace let it wash over her face for a few long minutes.
Grace wasn’t one to go out to parties as she grew older, and it wasn’t like Chuck was ever raging to take her to one.
There was excitement lingering below the fear of meeting more new people, of being somewhere she had never been before.
After her cleansing shower, where she scrubbed and washed and shaved and detoxed, Grace eyed herself in the mirror.
“You’ll never know what can happen if you don’t even bother to try,” she stated with a strong tone.
The sharp edge was like her Mother, and in an instant, the familiar phrase sounded just like how she used to say it.
Grace tilted her head as she combed through her long hair, letting the bangs fall neatly against her forehead.
“Though I’m not sure how Mom would feel about this being what I’m trying. ”
Grace wiggled into the skimpy witch’s costume and inched back to the mirror, already feeling the cool breeze slice by her exposed skin.
And as she slunk in front of her reflection, a delicately red hue engulfed her cheeks.
“Grace Baker,” she murmured to herself, “You are one hot forty three year old. And I am totally going to kill those ladies.”
There was no way to stop the dress’s plunging v-line from exposing the freckled skin along her chest. If she tugged at the waistline to try and cover her thighs more, it only exposed more of her breasts.
But if she did it the other way around, Grace had to deal with the entire world getting a good look at her legs.
Either way, she was more exposed than she ever had been before, without any other Halloween costume to change into.
It was then, as she finished primping and fixing her outfit, that she swore to give her new friends a good talking to when she saw them.
Ding!
Like clockwork, Grace’s phone lit up and vibrated with new messages from Caroline.
Hello, darling! I am heading your way from town.
Hope you’re ready for the time of your life.
There was a beat, the bubble icon glowing as she typed another text:
PS: can’t wait to see that KILLER costume on you, hottie! ;)
Grace rolled her eyes but caught herself grinning in the mirror as she passed it by.
She snatched up her handbag beside the door, pausing at the witch’s hat before shrugging and grabbing it too.
It sat neatly on the top of her head, angled up to avoid covering her face.
She stepped onto the front porch, her laced-up boots clicking against the cobblestone pathway.
The moon was almost full as it looked down on her high in the sky.
Grace raised her head to it, holding the rim of her witch’s hat as she did.
“I’ll be,” she murmured as she stared up at it.
The moon seemed to be far closer in Holiday Hollow than anywhere else Grace had ever been.
When she squinted, she could’ve sworn that the valleys and craters were as visible as the shadowy woods in front of her.
Grace found herself walking down the front lawn, not at all watching where she was going, her eyes stuck on the pearly white haze that enveloped the Moon.
She took another step and her foot sank into the sloped ditch at the end of her driveway.
Grace yelped as her knee started to give out, but before she toppled to the dirty ground before, strong hands slipped beneath her armpits, and hoisted her out from the grimy ditch.
Grace’s eyes were wide as she hovered over the ground, staring down at the costumed man that had come to her rescue.
Bryant held her about a foot over the floor, his eyes growing as wide as hers as he stared.
Heat swarmed to her face as she realized how close his hands were to her chest, nearing the provocative costume she wore.
He swiftly cleared his throat and swung her around another time, gently resting her feet back on the ground beside her maroon mailbox.
And Grace took the time to notice how his hands lingered on her before he jerked them away.
Grace eyed his costume – a fake cutlass hung from his leather belt, with dark trousers to match.
Puffy white sleeves adorned his arms, with a laced vest strapped tightly across his wide torso.
He was the buffest pirate Grace had ever laid her eyes on – even if he happened to be the first pirate she had ever laid her eyes on.
For just as long as she was looking over him, Bryant was eyeing her.
Though all Grace could see in his expression was pure and utter shock.
His gaze glanced at her chest before quickly snapping away, finding her legs next and jerking away just as fast. Color flamed across his cheeks and nose as he raised his eyes to the sky, ogling the moon in the way she had done moments before.
“You – er, uh –” Bryant tried to speak but cleared his throat a few times, awkwardly bumping his fist into the center of his chest, as if he had something stuck there. “That’s quite the costume you’ve got. It’s…it’s nice.”
Grace pressed her lips together and crossed her arms, growing just as red in the face as he was.
“Thank you,” she drawled while chewing on the inside of her mouth.
You’re such an idiot, she thought to yourself.
Just keep blowing it with the first guy you dare to have a crush on.
“M-My friends got it for me. I-I know it’s a bit much. ”
“A bit much?” he repeated.
“Pirate’s a good way to go,” she blurted, realizing that she was about to enter into the full on ‘babbling’ territory.
“I mean, you look – you wear it well – I mean, you’re, you know – you’ve got the style – well, not the style, but – w-what I’m trying to say is – well, I dunno, but – it’s a good –” her eyes glanced toward his collar, where the shirt diverted and tufts of dark hair could be seen on his bare skin “ – chest, I mean, vest –”
Bryant stepped closer, his thick brow furrowing as he drew nearer. Though the expression he wore contorted in a way that gave off the impression of anger, when he spoke next, his words were the softest Grace had ever heard.
“It isn’t too much,” Bryant said.
“W-What?”
“The costume.” His eyes wandered for a moment before returning to her gaze. “It isn’t too much.”
Grace felt her cheeks burn as though there were flames caressing her skin.
Before she could try and come up with anything that sounded like an appropriate response, Bryant was backing up again, one hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
Whatever moment had fallen between them was slipping away, but Grace was in the midst of replaying it over and over in the back of her mind.
“I, uh, only got dressed up for Tommy Briggs’ Halloween party,” Bryant said.
Grace bit back her smile. “T-That’s where I’m heading.”
He raised a brow.
“Caroline invited me to tag along.”
“I see.” Bryant’s eyes hung onto her as he inhaled, his lips parting as though there was something he had been wanting to say.
At the same moment, a pair of headlights cut through the darkness, and Caroline’s classic convertible hummed from up the road.
With the car’s arrival, Bryant started backing away, nearing the line of trees that bordered the left side of his house. “I suppose I’ll see you at the party.”
Grace whipped around to face him. “Wait! D-Don’t you want a ride?”
But he was already slipping between the thick trees, and by the time she managed to shout, Bryant had entirely disappeared into the darkness.
She stared for a moment longer, squinting into the inky black forest. Something shuffled within the bushes, rustling the greenery and causing twigs to snap underfoot.
The sounds continued as Grace inched closer, almost about to cross over Bryant’s property and follow in his footsteps.
But something caught her attention within the mesh: low hanging branches and deeply green leaves were suddenly shrouded in danger as a pair of green eyes stared back at her too low to the ground to belong to Bryant.
Grace’s lips parted, a shout trapped in the back of her throat, a series of newfound questions lingering over her head, all ready to be blurted into the evening when –
BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEP!
Caroline’s sharp horn rang throughout the neighborhood.
Grace jumped a foot in the air and lunged away from the woods, quickly scooting back down the street.
The bright red vehicle hummed with energy and quiet music as she neared, but something in the back of Grace’s mind made her stop for another time.
She paused in the center of her driveway, and took one more look over her shoulder.
Whatever she had seen no longer stared back at her, and was now a dark mass that was moving with great speed through the quiet woods.
Caroline’s horn sounded again. “Don’t make me drag you into this car, Grace!”
Before she got attacked by her eager friend, Grace quickly made her way to the passenger seat.
But even as she slipped inside, listening to her friend quickly chattering about how fun the party would be, Grace’s eyes clung to the woods, the creeping sensation of something watching her in the darkness never once daring to leave her.