“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Cassidy said, shaking her head. “A black cat inside a haunted house? I can’t go in there.”
Ash glanced at the cat. It mewed at him. “Oh, that’s just Igor.”
“Igor?”
“Yeah, he’s, like, the mascot and caretaker of Skeleton Shack.” Ash turned to the cat. “Igor, where are your manners? Scowling is no way to greet a guest.”
Igor shot Ash the kind of contemptuous look cats are expert at. But then Igor hopped through the broken window and went up to Cassidy, purring as he nuzzled against her legs.
“See?” Ash said. “He’s sweet. Don’t discriminate just because he looks like an evil witch’s companion.”
Igor actually paused at that comment to glare at Ash again.
Cassidy laughed.
Ash took the opportunity to try again to coax her into the house. “Come on in. I’m sure Igor’s excited to show you around.” Ash offered her his hand.
But as soon as he touched her, dizziness swept over him. The feel of her skin against his was like soda drunk too fast, the euphoric bubbles gushing in all at once. He braced himself on an ivy-covered post.
“Are you okay?” Cassidy asked.
Maybe.
Definitely.
In his dizziness, Cassidy was a riotous blur of color, and if Ash were to paint her in this moment, she would be a Kandinsky, wild and bright.
Ash let the image linger for another second, then he blinkedand his vision cleared. The Cassidy in front of him was even more beautiful than the deconstructed painting he’d imagined.
“I’m fine,” he said aloud.
I’ve never been better,he thought to himself, his fingers still pressed around hers.
But Cassidy was waiting on him to save the day, so he refocused on the goal of finding her mask—the mass-produced leopard mask that allowed him to be this close to her, to feel her heartbeat beneath her skin. Never had Ash been so happy for cheap, artless products sold in bulk.
She pulled herself up onto the porch and let go of his hand, but when he slipped through the open doorframe into the house, she followed. Igor slunk in on her heels.
The first room was the kitchen. Remnants of a dining table stood beneath a cobwebbed light fixture, an old-fashioned kind made of wrought iron. The bulbs were shattered, and a shallow layer of dirt filled the bottom halves of the glass orbs.
“How could you play here when you were little?” Cassidy asked, frowning.
Ash shrugged. “There was kind of a competitive game among the three of us every time we came. True would challenge us to each find three new things that were eerie. Onny would issue a similar challenge, but for three new plants, so she could use them for her potions.”
“And you?”
He felt the color rush into his cheeks. Why did he have to blush so much?
“I’d ask them to find three new things that were beautiful,” Ash said softly.
They were silent for a few seconds, and he thought he might die of embarrassment.
Then Cassidy smiled. “I’ll take you up on your challenge.”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“On the contrary, I do. In the Rivera household, you can’t deny a challenge.”
“Or else what?”
