Mal resisted the urge to say she wasn’tliterallyblown away, and instead said “Thanks” like they were supposed to. Then they added the truth: “It was Emerson’s idea.”
“But y’all are a team,” Sam said. “Don’t let her take all the credit. Because she will, and she will run with it.”
“It’s true!” Emerson shouted over her shoulder, then turned back to the bewildered customer who was buying a copy of James’s vampire zine.
“She’s so great, though.” Mal smiled, the words mostly for themself. “She can take it.”
Emily turned to Sam and said, “We should do something like this at NKU, Sam. If these two will let us borrow the idea.”
“Huh?” Mal said, before they could process properly and say something that sounded smart.
“I’m in Sam’s program!” Emily beamed. “Or, well. We’re studying the same thing. Dr. Barnett would lose it for something this cool.”
“Oh,” Mal said, considering. “You both study zines?”
“Technicallyqueer literary tradition and zine culture,” Emily corrected, in a tone that made Mal wonder if she and Sam had to clear that up often. “But yeah. There’s a couple of us, actually. I’ve seen a few of the usual suspects here tonight.”
Emily indicated two people browsing at the tables, both of whom looked like they would be right at home with theMixxedMediastaff: They, too, were colorfully and visibly queer. (At least, Mal assumed no one with a mullet as sick as the person at the far table’s couldnotbe queer.)
“We always find our people,” Sam said, watching Mal. “We basically do what you do withMixxedMedia, but we get grades for it.”
Mal’s head spun. They hadn’t known this was something people coulddoat school. When Sam had originally told them about their major, Mal had assumed it was a Just Them specialization. The Plan relied on what Mal knew about college, which only extended so far, to the things they saw in media or at college fairs or that got talked up by their bored guidance counselor. They’d assumed that college would be like schoolalwayswas for them: something they tolerated (math, history, most things) with brief interludes of things they enjoyed (English, biology, andCollage, before it was canceled). Mal had never considered that they could do something they actuallyliked, all the time, and get a degree for it.
Remembering the two girls they’d helped earlier, Mal wished they had toldthemabout this. It felt like the sort of information other people needed to have.
“You can really do that?” they asked, hesitantly.
Sam and Emily exchanged a gentle laugh at the wonder in Mal’s voice.
“Really,” said Sam.
“Likereallyreally,” said Emily.
“Could you…” Mal trailed off, feeling the urge to look over their shoulder as if they might be caught. But behind them was only Emerson, talking animatedly with a couple and gesturing back over at Mal. Whatever she was saying about them must have been good, because she was beaming. Mal looked back to Sam. “Could you bring me some more information? About your program, I mean.”
“Yeah, I could super do that.” Sam nodded, like this was a casual statement and not a revolution. “I’ll have it for you at the Haus as soon as I can.”
When it came time for them to tap out and Nylan and Parker—dressed up as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, respectively—came to take over, Mal actually felt a little sad to leave the booth. It felt nice, being part of things here.
But Emerson was ready to wander.
“Come on, let’s go!” she shouted, a blur of glitter and motion twinkling under the string lights draped in the branches above. “I have about a million things I want to show you!”
And she did. Emerson, it turned out, was an expert Haint History Festival tour guide. As she told Mal—at length, and often through a mouthful of whatever sweet treat she’d stopped to pick up along the way—she had come to this festival every year, minus her freshman one, for as long as she could remember.
Under Emerson’s guidance, Mal stopped at all the best booths, admiring handicrafts and hand-dipped toffee apples even though they couldn’t buy them. With Emerson’s assurance that they wouldn’t get caught—shepromised—they circled back for a second sample-size cup of free hot mulled cider. They carefully dodged around adults in Halloween finery and little kids in their came-in-a-bag costumes, out for a night of trick-or-treating at neighborhood homes and small businesses. Passing the row of food trucks, Mal debated splurging on a bratwurst with sauerkraut or some spam musubi, but in the end they decided that enjoying a handful of Emerson’s black-and-orange-sprinkled kettle corn would be enough.
But Mal’s favorite features were the central firepits, round and roaring and fragrant of woodsmoke, and the free s’mores making stations that were decorated with carefully arranged gourds and glass lanterns glittering with candlelight. They loaded up several stacks of chocolate and graham crackers, milling about with the dozens and dozens of people gathered in their sweaters and scarves around the crackling fire at the center of the promenade. While Mal took time to carefully toast their marshmallows, Emerson dipped hers low into the flames, setting them on fire and then blowing them out with a hoot of laughter.
Those closest to the fire took turns telling stories of the ghosts rumored to haunt the homes in Mainstrasse Village. Emerson, her eyebrows waggling, tugged Mal against the tide of bodies, closer to the fire and the stories. Some of them, like the Gray Lady of Carneal House—a spurned woman andpossible murder victim—Mal hoped were untrue. Others, like one about a little orange cat named Cornball who haunted the toy store down the road, they wanted to be real.
But in the warm glow of the fire, Mal started to feel it: the length of the day, which had started for them at four a.m., when they got up early to answer Sam’s questions. And it wouldn’t be over until at least ten p.m.—or more realistically, until the hour or so later they guessed it would take to break down and unload everything. They didn’t mean for them to, but in the cozy glow of the flame, Mal’s eyes fluttered closed, their stick and the marshmallow speared on it dipping down into the embers and catching flame, Emerson-style.
“Oop, that’s a bit too toasty,” Emerson said, giggling, but when she looked at Mal, she nodded resolutely. “Enough s’mores, I think. I know what you need.”
It was coffee, and Emerson was right. She even insisted that Mal let her pay for it—with the caveat that she got to pick what kind Mal got. In the moment, they needed it so badly that they didn’t protest, just took the cardboard cup into their hands, letting it warm their fingers as the first sip warmed their insides.
“Is this…” Mal pursed their lips. “Hot chocolate?”
