“And Elizabeth?”
“She moved too.” That part wasn’t true, but I didn’t feel like explaining the way Elizabeth stopped sitting with me at lunch after I came back to school last winter. “Forget about them,” I told my sister, and then I thought of what I’d overheard in the school library, the reason I felt nervous about who might show up tonight. “Besides, one of us needs to watch the place in case anyone decides to make trouble.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, Sylvie. I’ve got us covered on that front.”
A fist pounded on the door, startling me. When I opened up, it took a moment to place the driver, since her face was caked with witch makeup too. The extra features didn’t help: matted wig, fake eyebrows, rubber hands with noodly fingers. Instead of a “trick or treat,” she launched into an explanation of how she’d been listening to Rose and me until she remembered the doorbell was broken. “You really should put a sign up, letting people know the thing doesn’t ring. Lucky I figured it out, because someone el—”
“All right, all right,” Rose said, cutting her off. “Come in already, Cora.”
I stared at Cora’s noodly fingers, thinking of that rainy afternoon when I first found her waiting for me in the living room, the way Rose had returned downstairs a few minutes later only to peek over her shoulder at the clipboard and ask us both the questions listed there: How many hours of sleep do you get a night? Do you ever feel anxious during the day? If so, how often and why? “I didn’t recognize you without your clipboard,” I told Cora now, as I remembered the reluctant answers she’d given my sister that day: Four or five at best . . . Yes . . . Quite a bit . . . I’m supporting my sister and me with this new job. . . . And I guess you could say I don’t have enough fun in my life. . . .
She tilted her green witch face and said, “Really? Well, it would have been odd for me to bring it. I mean, witches don’t carry clipboards.”
“That was a joke, Cor,” Rose told her. “It might come as a shock, but we do make jokes in this house. Even Great-Grandma Sylvie ekes one out now and then.”
Cora pressed her fake fingers to her mouth and let out an “Ohhhhhh!” Then she smiled. “How are you doing, Sylvie?”
“Fine.”
“How’s school?”
“Good.”
“No problems?”
“No problems.”
“While I was waiting at the door, I heard you saying something about your friends. Is something wrong?”
“One moved away. That’s all. I have plenty of others.”
“Well, don’t forget if you ever need anything, how do you reach me?”
“RIBSPIN,” I told her, repeating the acronym she’d worked out for her number.
“Good. And do you have paperwork from your doctor visits like we discussed?”
“All right already,” Rose said. “You’re off duty, so let’s skip the official business. We are supposed to be having fun, remember? And where the hell is your date?”
So this was not an unexpected visit after all, I thought, as Cora informed us that “the Hulk” was waiting in the car. I went to the window and looked out to see an enormous rottweiler leaping from the front seat to the rear and back again, its tail a drumstick beating the seats.
“The Hulk belongs to Dan,” Cora explained. “Dan lives upstairs from my mother. He let me borrow her for the night.”
“Her? The Hulk’s a girl?”
“Yeah,” Rose told me, thrill rising in her voice. “We’re going to tie her to a tree. She’ll scare the crap out of anybody who comes around to mess with the place.” My sister turned away and started rummaging through the closet.
The news should have made me feel safer. But that dog would also keep away ordinary trick-or-treaters, like my happy hookers, spoiling what little fun I looked forward to. I didn’t bother saying any of that, though. “So are you going to the party with my sister?” I asked Cora.
She gave a tight-lipped smile. “Guess that’s probably breaking some sort of code. But it’s just one party. You don’t mind, Sylvie, do you?”
I shook my head then remembered Louise’s warning about speaking up. “No.”
“Here we go.” Rose unearthed two brooms, buried so far behind the coats it made me realize how seldom we swept. One had a wooden handle and cinched straw at the base, the other, a lime-green plastic handle and stubby plastic bristles. Rose handed Cora the bad broom before opening our front door and stepping into the dark. On the top step she paused, adjusting her hat so it didn’t blow off in the wind. Then she stuck her broom between her legs and leaped off the stairs. She went so high that for a second it seemed she might actually keep on soaring before she landed on the mossy lawn.
“Not bad,” Cora said, taking her place on the step.
“Well, I did date a former track star. It’s how I learned everything I know.”