Page 4 of Halloween Town

Yeah, the park it was.

Poppy hadn’t pictured herself coming back like this. Not in a crumpled wedding dress, barefoot, clutching her phone and the ragged edges of her sanity, stepping off the bus like some tragic heroine from a midnight zombie movie.

It absolutely hadn’t featured anywhere on her life’s bingo card. Still, none of it mattered now. Because soon she’d be in her grandparents’ creaky inn, her heart’s true home. Grandpa M.’s estate was finally settled, and her father was now the fourth McMaster to own the property. Sure, it was officially her dad’s, but she knew where the spare key to the kitchen door was hidden.

She’d sneak in and head straight upstairs to her childhood bedroom, a quirky little sanctuary, nestled under the slant of the third-floor roof. With its drafty windows and floors that groaned with every step, it was her secret hideaway. Solstice Deep had always been her soft place to land, the only spot she’d ever felt absolutely herself, no masks required. And right now? She needed that. She needed home like she needed oxygen. She needed safe.

Because, frankly, there was a good chance she was losing her bloody mind.

Who ran away from their wedding because two ghosts told them to?

Crossing Main Street, she ignored the curious looks from tourists and entered the park. Looking around, she sighed.

It was, as she’d imagined, beautiful. Even before Luna—Wren’s godmother—got her Halloween-obsessed paws on the place, Solstice Springs had been quietly charming.

Truth was, the town was easy-to-sell-to-tourists lovely. Add the element of it being settled by an offshoot of the Salem Puritans, who’d been kicked out of Salem for being a little too wild, a little too theatrical, and its wholehearted, year-round embrace of Halloween, and visitors poured into the town. Its soundtrack was the ching of cash registers pinging from tourist income.

Yet Poppy heard another whisper deep in her soul.

“Hey, sweetheart, welcome home. You’re safe here.”

Further along, Main Street curved around the park, the restored Victorian buildings now home to boutiques, galleries, and stores completely committed to Halloween and all things paranormal. The lampposts had already dressed up for the season—velvet bows, old-fashioned lanterns, judgy, fake ravens, and the odd broomstick tied on at a jaunty angle. Poppy looked up and shook her head. Only in H-Town, she thought, as she took in a set of striped legs dangling out of a second-floor picture window. Black-and-white stockings, pointy boots, a poor witch was lodged halfway through the round, small window. A broom was wedged under her one leg, implying the witch had been at a cauldron, drinking too much eye-of-the-frog or heel-of-the-cat or whatever. Her billowing black robe fluttered dramatically down the side of the building. The whole scene suggested she was questioning her life choices.

Honestly? Poppy could relate.

Despite being across the road, the scent of fresh coffee and warm pie drifting out of Spirited Grounds hit her, colliding with a thick wall of patchouli and sage rolling out from Madame Calliope’s. She desperately wanted a pumpkin spiced latte, but picking up a drink would be like taking out a front-page ad in the next edition of Solstice Springs News, announcing her return.

Poppy eyed Madame Calliope—real name Glynis Smith—emerging from her store, with Morrigan, her gigantic pitch-black Maine Coon, draped around her shoulders. Morrigan, like Reggie, the town’s infamous semi-feral turkey, was equal parts local celebrity and living tourist trap: visitors lined up to get a selfie with either creature. Reggie, for his part, treated all humans with the disdain of a true artist, while Morrigan, consummate professional, charged ten bucks a photo. To be fair, if cats read romance novels, he’d be on every cover.

Unlike Wren, Poppy didn’t think Madame Calliope—though capitalist to her core—was an excellent bullshit artist. She had, after all, once predicted that Poppy’s last name would be Sheffield. And honestly? She’d come damn close today. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

If Poppy could say one thing with absolute certainty, it was that Madame Calliope was certifiably odd. Then again, in H-Town, weird wasn’t just tolerated—it was celebrated.

But not at The Bar. Diagonally across the road, The Bar’s plain, square windows stared back at her, as stubbornly undecorated and blissfully ordinary as ever. The faded sign above the door hadn’t changed either. Poppy managed a small smile. Jasper, the owner, was still proudly flying the flag as H-Town’s biggest skeptic. He still hadn’t defected to the glitter-smeared, ghost-worshipping side of the town’s great divide. Gruff and with minimal patience for BS, Poppy knew he never would.

H-Town was in a permanent tug-of-war for its soul. On one side, the True Believers—loud, a little obnoxious, and utterly convinced witches, ghosts, and all things paranormal were as real as income tax. The skeptics were pragmatic, and only interested in the tangible cash Halloween, and everything associated with it, generated. The only energy they believed in was money moving from tourists’ wallets into their bank accounts.

Living in a place that celebrated Halloween most of the year, the skeptics had a tough gig.

Poppy didn’t belong to either camp. Despite her minor encounters with things-she-couldn’t-explain, there were too many variables for her to believe believe, but she’d seen too much weird shit—today’s encounter was weirder than most!—to be a skeptic. She was, she supposed, ghost-curious. Willing to consider the possibility of the paranormal without hopping onto the “let’s have a séance to consult the spirits about every little thing” crazy train.

Although, after what she’d seen in that mirror—two ghosts, clear as day, talking to her—she might have to stop calling herself curious and book herself an appointment with a psychiatrist. Or Madame Calliope.

Poppy stepped off the path and onto the grass of the meadow and walked down the slope toward the lake, the water dancing under the autumn breeze. Like H-Town, the park along the shoreline was already deep in its annual transformation for the month-long Halloween Festival—a month of events, candles, crowds, and absolute mayhem.

Ambling down the path, with the lake on one side of her, Blackweather Green on the other, she took in the plastic jack-o’-lanterns, each roughly the size of a chubby toddler, dangling from the branches of the red maples, oaks, and birches. Fairy lights and fake cobwebs zigzagged between the trees. Poppy caught the faint outlines of the painted glow-in-the-dark “ghost” footprints on the path that wound through a dark portion of the woods, skirted the boathouse, and ended at the bandstand. On weekends, tourists could join an organized walk through the woods, where they’d be scared shitless by volunteers dressed up as ghouls, zombies, and witches. H‑Town, because Luna reveled in being different, boasted a haunted wood instead of a haunted house…

Poppy walked on, the hem of her dress scrunched up in her hands, catching the odd glimpse of Solstice Deep. She was breathless, heartsore, confused, overdressed, underprepared, hoping—praying—that her grandparents’ Victorian home and her favorite town would provide her with the healing and the clarity she so badly needed.

Chapter Two

Thom

From the moment he’d set foot on this property as the owner, Thom Sheffield was convinced Solstice Deep was quietly judging him. And that no matter how much sweat and money he poured into the place, it was never quite enough. That the house thought he could do better.

A lot better. Standing on the wide porch, to the right of the front door, he stepped away from the windowsill he was sanding—one of a million—and dusted off his hands by slapping them against his denim-covered thighs. Sometimes, very imaginatively for him, he felt like the big, brooding Victorian inn was squinting at him, unimpressed by his lack of progress. The place reminded him of a haughty old lady who’d fallen on hard times, her once exquisite navy dress now baggy and saggy, tired and worn out.

She’d been grand once—he could see that. Hell, you couldn’t miss it. She was three stories of fancy flourishes and pointless curves, built by someone with far too much money who wanted everyone to know it. She sported too many turrets, gingerbread, narrow windows topped with fussy arches, and a wide porch that wrapped the ground floor in a three-armed hug. The house creaked constantly, a never-ending complaint that had started, he was sure, in 1890 and never quite stopped.