It took twice as long as it should have to get to the manor. Sadie Grace complained that her feet were hurting and ended up on his back, gripping onto the tails of his cape like he was a horse. He didn’t know how Jonny did it. He knew Jonny didn’t know how he did it either, just that he had to.
“You can get down now, Sadie,” he said, squatting so she could dismount. “Seriously, you need to get down.” He heard Charlie and Harry giggling.
“No,” Sadie said. “I’m tall up here.”
“You’re also heavy. If you don’t get down now, I’m going to share your treats with everyone at the fire station.” Jonny was a firefighter and it had been known before for him to bring the kids’ treats in as a form of punishment.
There was a loud sigh and Sadie Grace inched herself down. “Do you think the hotel lady will have treats for us?”
There was no sign that the ‘hotel lady’ was even in. For all he knew, she was out having a meal with a boyfriend or husband or gigolo. Most houses in Severton were decorated for Halloween. Some had more contemporary decorations, bought from supermarkets or Amazon. Others went more traditional with elaborately carved pumpkins and candles, bowls of milk and ‘treats’ for the fairy folk and the souls of those past that were meant to loom on Halloween.
Charlie knocked, using the heavy iron door knocker, the sound echoing into the still night. It was cold, colder than usual for the end of October and some snow was forecast for the week ahead. There was no wind and any sound carried easily.
An owl hooted and Zack heard the beating of wings and the rustle of a shrub. Charlie knocked again and this time, after a few seconds, the door opened.
Sorrell Slater stood in the doorway looking almost ethereal. Her skin was paler than he remembered and her chestnut hair was darker too. She was slight, more slender than his cousin, Rayah, who Zack always thought could do with eating an extra bar of chocolate or four, and this time she wasn’t covered in the remains of wallpaper.
“Trick or treat!” Sadie Grace yelled at her, thrusting the pumpkin shaped sweets container in front of her. “Where are your decorations?”
Zack prayed for a vampire to take him captive. He had the feeling that Sorrell Slater wasn’t really the type to embrace the whole community spirit and would probably prefer to remain on her mountain, glaring at them from afar.
Jake had spoken to her a couple of times during the week. She wanted to make an arrangement to buy fresh produce from the farm, which was fine—business had to be business and his dad and Jake wouldn’t turn that down. Jake had also seen her in Severton shopping and then at Mo’s restaurant with Keren. Zack wasn’t sure why Jake had needed to give him an overview of Sorrell’s movement. It was the movements of the builders he needed. Or a plan.
The laugh that came from Sorrell surprised him. She squatted down so she was face to face with Sadie Grace and gave her a huge smile. “I only have the really old decorations,” she said. “But I’ve new pumpkins and I’ve baked some apple and cinnamon muffins.”
Sadie Grace’s eyes lit up the darkened porch at the thought of food.
“Are they for trick or treaters?” Charlie said.
Sorrell tipped her head to one side. “Kind of,” she said looking up at him as he was now half a head taller than her. “I wasn’t sure if any trick or treaters would be brave enough to come so far out of town but I made them anyway.”
“What were you going to do with them if we hadn’t come?” Charlie asked.
Sorrell leaned towards him. “Eat them all myself!” she whispered.
Sadie Grace giggled wildly, Charlie smiled and Harry looked hopeful.
“But now I don’t need to if your dad says it’s okay for you to have some?” She looked up at Zack and he saw the concern in her eyes that she’d said something wrong. He hadn’t expected her to be nice to the kids. If anything, he’d expected her to come out with a couple of out of date biscuits she’d found in the cupboards and pack them off with a glare like the witch she was.
“He’s not our daddy,” Sadie Grace was loud enough to wake any of the dead that had decided to sleep through Halloween. “He’s Zacky, our Daddy’s friend. And our Daddy always says it’s okay for us to eat muffins.” Her toothless grin was even wider.
Zack let out a long sigh. More sugar. Children who were more hyper. But he didn’t have to worry about them until bonfire night, or maybe the night before when he was pulling a babysitting duty with Jonny having a night shift.
“Is it okay withZackythen if you each have an apple and cinnamon muffin?” Sorrell said, looking up at him with eyes that were dancing with amusement.
“Zackysays it’s fine as long as they go straight to bed when they get home. Else Mrs Morris will be using me as the guy on the bonfire next week,” he said, wondering why he was still looking at Sorrell.
She was wearing sweat pants and what looked like an old, over-washed university hoodie. Her hair was slightly tangled and her face looked freshly washed, as if she’d been getting ready to go to bed.
Zack was pissed off with her—she had thrown a huge spanner in the works of his Christmas plans and induced the biggest planning headache he’d had in years, but she was sat at home on her own on one of the most fun and sociable nights of the year in Severton.
“You have bonfires here?” she said, almost wistfully.
He nodded. “We make a huge thing of stuff like Halloween and Bonfire night. Wait until you see what Christmas is like. It could be something out of Disney.”
She laughed and he noticed the music in it. “The whole town is like something out of a book. I saw the decorations for Halloween all week. The scarecrow competition was oddly…” She looked puzzled.
“Disconcerting?” he suggested.
