HALLOWEEN TOWN
CHAPTER ONE
“I look absolutely gorgeous. Tragically so.”
Gentle afternoon light spilled through the sheer curtains of the bridal suite, casting a soft glow on Poppy McMaster’s face. Sitting on the stool in front of the antique, gilt-framed mirror, she tipped her head to the left, then the right, not recognizing her reflection.
Her normally tousled blonde hair was swept up into a sleek, smooth chignon, tucked into the left side of her neck, a style her mother liked. She’d wanted a natural look, but the makeup artist opted for the smoky eyes and contoured cheekbones that her mother demanded.
When Glenda McMaster spoke, even God listened.
As for her dress … Poppy’d imagined something floaty, light, boho-ish.
But Glenda had insisted on a can-barely-breathe number that resented every move she made.
It hugged her hips, then flared into a peppy, mermaid’s tale.
Poppy loathed it with the fire of a thousand suns.
But she loved the look in Glenda’s eyes when she wore it.
The pride, the satisfaction, the “she’s finally acceptable” gleam.
Poppy was the perfect bride, marrying the perfect groom, their wedding highly and perfectly curated.
An uncomfortable truth bomb floated up to the surface.
She wanted to ignore it, but couldn’t… If her mother was this happy with her, then she should probably be concerned.
Because it meant she was further away from her authentic self.
And judging by Glenda’s effusive praise earlier, Poppy wasn’t just in trouble.
She was in deep, irreversible, mermaid-tailed shit.
Poppy touched her grandmother’s pearl necklace. It didn’t suit the dress, she knew that. Everyone knew that. But she didn’t care. It was the only sartorial detail she’d cared enough about to dig in her heels over.
Today was, as she’d realized a month after first becoming engaged to Benji Sheffield, Glenda’s wedding. Poppy was simply the lead actress in the production, there to look pretty but not to give any input.
Not how she should feel on her wedding day.
The dress, the makeup, the two-hundred guests, most of whom she didn’t know …
there were a dozen reasons why this day wasn’t what she’d imagined.
Oh, and her best friend and matron of honor was on the other side of the country, in LA, currently in the hospital after suffering from dehydration post-food-poisoning.
Poor Wren, it was her first choreography job in months, and she’d fallen ill.
Her boyfriend, Dane, had naturally flown to her side immediately.
Poppy, who’d known Wren since they were five, had wanted to be with her, too, but there was the small matter of getting married.
If Dane hadn’t been around, then not rabid wolves, aliens, nor Glenda would’ve have kept Poppy from jumping on a plane, upcoming wedding or not.
As for today, how was she supposed to get married without Wren by her side?
They’d taken turns wearing the veil when playing dress-up-weddings as kids, written their own vows, and practiced walking down the aisle.
Sometimes the bride, sometimes the groom. Always together.
That she was doing this majorly adult thing without Wren was all sorts of wrong.
Standing in the bridal suite, Poppy heard raised voices floating in from the adjacent room, now occupied by her bridesmaids, her sisters, and acquaintances chosen by Glenda.
Someone was arguing about a shade of lipstick, and she recognized her second-oldest sister’s voice.
Apparently, she urgently needed a protein bar.
Poppy urgently needed a drink. Or several.
Poppy stared at herself in the mirror, clutching her pearls like a talisman, her mind spinning her away to her favorite place in the world, Solstice Springs.
She didn’t want to be in Boston, playing the starring role in this polished, socially perfect, city wedding.
Solstice Deep, her grandparents’ bluff-top, Victorian inn on the edge of the small town of Solstice Springs, was where she most wanted to be.
There, where the Berkshires loomed, and the lake glittered…
During all her childhood and teen summers, she’d run through the town and the surrounding woods like she owned both, laughing with Wren at things too dumb to remember.
Memories, all of them and all at once, hit—a punch of nostalgia, longing, and wild, impossible happiness.
Yes, Solstice Springs was deeply weird, but weird was the point there.
With its all-year-round Halloween madness and a mayor who was a part-time witch and a full-time hustler, it was spooky, chaotic, and a little ridiculous.
Poppy loved it, and it was where she most wanted to be.
She knew that on this last day of September, Halloween Town, as tourists affectionately called it, would look beautiful.
It was a pretty, pretty town—wide streets, big yards, Victorian buildings, and flowerboxes.
Every season was wonderful, but the fall was her favorite.
She could see it all so clearly … the lake shimmering in the sunlight, its surface ruffled by an autumnal wind.
There would be orange kayaks on the wide shore of Lantern Beach, lined in a neat little row, waiting for anyone who liked a little exercise with their pumpkin spiced lattes and spooky decorations.
Blackweather Green, the large park running alongside the lake, would already be transformed in preparation for the town’s biggest festival, a month-long affair celebrating everything Halloween, culminating in the Bonfire of the Bewitched on Halloween night.
An iron Victorian bandstand stood in the center of the meadow, its rails wrapped in black-and-orange bunting.
The hills overlooking the town blazed with the kind of foliage people drove six hours to see, the slopes rolling upward in waves of fire-red and gold, like someone had set them on a slow burn.
H-Town was home. It was where she most wanted to be.
“Harper, shall we go check on Poppy?” She heard Isobel, her oldest sister, ask from the other side of the door. “She was looking a bit pale earlier.”
God, Poppy did not want to deal with perfect sister one and two right now.
She wasn’t ready to smile sweetly or act like this day was what she’d dreamed of, wanted, and looked forward to for months.
Moving as quickly as she could in her breath-restricting dress, Poppy slipped into the adjoining bathroom, closed the door, and locked it.
The huge, sash window dominated the space, and she pushed it up, inhaling the scent of the blood-red roses in the bed just outside the window.
If she wanted to, she could sling a leg over the sash, hightail it through the garden, and run.
It was so very tempting…
But that wasn’t an option. Her family was one of the most respected in Boston, her mother a stalwart of the A-List social scene; her father, a highly regarded neurosurgeon.
Two of her siblings worked at the hospital with him, one as a thoracic surgeon, the other as a pediatric specialist. Her oldest brother ran the family business interests—medical-related—which were impressive and wide-ranging.
Another sibling was an actuary, with his own super-successful venture-capital firm.
In their eyes, Poppy’s greatest achievement was marrying into the legendary Sheffield family, a political dynasty that boasted a few senators and a couple of state judges, and one of the oldest law firms in the state.
Her fiancé, Benji, who, when his older half-brother, Thom, had “stepped down,” had taken over Sheffield Strategy, a well-respected public and government affairs company, planned to go into politics in a few years, starting with becoming a…
She couldn’t remember.
Everyone agreed that a merger between the two most influential families in Massachusetts was a flex, good for both sides. Poppy wasn’t so sure; she knew she wasn’t cut out to be a politician’s wife.
Or even Benji’s wife.
“Having cold feet on your wedding day is normal,” she told herself, speaking out loud to convince herself. “Everything will go back to normal soon.”
She’d been telling herself the same tired story for months, but nothing had changed. Would it ever? She and Benji barely saw each other these days, and they hadn’t had sex for, uh, how long? Weeks? And that raised the question: if he wasn’t getting it from her, who was he getting lucky with?
Because Benji liked sex. Benji liked sex a lot.
Poppy gripped the edge of the basin, astonished to realize that the thought of Benji having an affair didn’t shock her, nor did it hurt. She didn’t feel … well, anything. Not love, or jealousy, nor a smidgen of concern.
Shit. That was concerning. And a hell of a thing to figure out on your wedding day.
Poppy shook out her hands and hauled in some much-needed air.
You’re just having a bridal panic attack. Just breathe. All you have to do is breathe. And get through today. After today, everything will be better.
Would it, though?
Seeing that her veil was off-center, she adjusted it and frowned at the flicker of movement in the bathroom mirror. That was odd.
Poppy looked at the locked door and wondered what time it was. How much freedom remained? She looked at her phone… She had half an hour. Thirty minutes before she married Benji, became his wife … before they got the government involved and made it legal.
Lifting her eyes to look in the mirror, she frowned at the fog forming on the edges of the frame. The windows were open, there was a breeze blowing … and, oh, my God, what the fuck was a woman doing inside the mirror?
Poppy gripped the sides of the basin again, unable to wrench her eyes away. A sweet face, hair pulled back into a simple tail, huge eyes, and far too thin.
What the hell was she doing in her mirror? In her goddamn mirror!
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.