True:I cannot participate in this conversation.
Ash:He told me I should ask Cassidy to the gala.
Onny:How does he know you like her?
Ash:No idea.
Onny:Vampire telepathy!
True:I’m done here. Goodbye. Have a nice life.
Ash:He’s totally wrong, though. Logan got the marching bandto come over this afternoon so he could ask Cassidy to Sadie Hawkins. In front of the entire cross-country team. And she said yes.
Onny:I thought girls were supposed to be the ones asking for Sadie Hawkins?
True:I’m back in the conversation, but only to object to the fundamentally anti-feminist nature of the Sadie Hawkins concept. This antiquated idea presupposes that women are docile creatures who need men to initiate any and all relationships. Not to mention the completely outdated notion that there are only two genders.
Ash:Hear hear.
Onny:100% agreed. But I’d like to go back to Mr. Brightside’s advice?
Ash:It doesn’t matter anyway. Because Logan already asked Cassidy out.
True:See? Love sucks. Go over to Onny’s and be useful instead.
Onny:Oooh, yes. I’m holed up doing homework and then getting glammed up, so I can’t see you till the party. But my parents desperately need help setting up the Mystic Woods. A guy from the lighting crew didn’t show.
Ash laughed to himself. Onny’s parents were so insanely wealthy, they always hired an army to set up their parties. Yet ifonemember of the staff failed to show up, it was suddenly a disaster.
But hey, why not go over and help? Ash didn’t have anything else to do anyway.
Ash found Onny’s mom outside the greenhouse, in the vast gardens behind their castlelike mansion. She gesticulated frantically with one of the caterers, and Ash waited until she was finished before walking up to her.
“Hi, Mrs. D,” he said. “I know Onny’s busy and not to be disturbed, but she said you could use some help setting up for the party?”
“Oh, Ash, darling, you’re my savior!” Mrs. Diamante drew him into a quick hug. “One of the men from the lighting crew called in sick, and now they’re short-staffed. Would you be able to help them string lights through the canopies of the trees?”
“Sure thing.” Ash figured he must have been granted his exceptional height for some reason, because it certainly wasn’t for playing basketball. Maybe his purpose in life was to help people with things like hanging lights and getting hard-to-reach boxes of cereal from the top shelves at the grocery store.
He jogged out to the copse of oak trees on the other side of the sprawling grounds. When he, Onny, and True were little, they used to call this the Mystic Woods, and they did everything from building forts to attempting to make their own maple syrup(it turns out you can’t do that with oak trees) to, of course, charting the night sky for Onny. The Mystic Woods were second only to Skeleton Shack in terms of magic and mystery.
Tonight, especially, as darkness settled like a sorcerer’s cloak, the Mystic Woods felt even more enchanted than usual. The crew from Lights Amore! had already been hard at work, and half the trees were strung with mini mason jars full of flickering lights that looked like dancing fireflies. The breeze rustled through the leaves that still hung on the branches, and the radio from the crew’s truck played a classical piece full of flutes and chimes that sounded like Halloween sprites gallivanting through the Mystic Woods. In the distance, the frogs in the Diamantes’ moat provided extra percussion.
“Hey,” Ash said, to one of the guys in the trees. “Mrs. Diamante sent me over. You need a hand?”
“Yeah, man, that’d be awesome. Lemme show you what we’re doing.”
He gave Ash some quick instructions on how to weave the strings through the branches. The goal was to ensure equal distribution of lights while not making it impossible to take it all down tomorrow. And obviously, don’t hurt the trees.
“I think I got it,” Ash said, after watching him work through a few branches.
“Cool. Then grab a ladder and some crates from the back of the truck, and you can start on the trees way back there.” He pointed to the back of the Mystic Woods, where nothing was lit up yet.
Ash got to work and soon found a rhythm. He’d climb the ladder and wedge himself into the lowest level of branches, thenweave the lights in and out, up and down. When he’d exhausted that height, he’d stand on the sturdiest branch and work at waist level. Then shoulder height. Then above his head. If he needed to go any higher than that, he’d climb the ladder again, but for the most part, his six-foot-three frame and corresponding wingspan meant he could pretty much reach as far as he needed.
It was really peaceful, stringing lights by himself as the sun set. The task was almost meditative, and Ash was able to forget about Cassidy and Logan for a while, concentrating instead on placing the lights just so, and making sure his feet were secure in the tree, and stopping every so often to look up at the stars and remember how vast the galaxy was, how small and insignificant his problems were, how beautiful a simple, quiet night could be.
When he finished stringing up all the lights, Ash decided to take a break before turning them on and returning the ladder and empty crates to the truck. He sat at the base of one of the trees and looked up through its lattice of bare branches.
