Halloween night, fifteen years ago
Lily Dale, New York
"Okay, one more house and then we're done." Julia Garrity
teeters across the small patch of wet lawn, her heels
sinking into the damp earth.
"Three more," Kristin Shuttleworth amends, walking several
steps ahead. "I didn't even get any Milk Duds yet and
they're my favorite."
โOne," Julia insists. "I mean it, Kristin. That's it for
me. You can keep going on your own ff you want."
โThat would be stupid. My costume doesn't make sense
without you, Jul. I need you. Please."
Kristin is very good at pleading. Most of the time, she
can talk Julia into just about anything. But tonight,
Julia shakes her head. She's had it with this whole scene.
For one thing, at fourteen, they're getting too old to be
trick-or-treating, free Milk Duds or not. For another,
Julia's feet are killing her in her mother's pointy old
satin pumps. She can't wait to change into sneakers and
jeans and wash this gunk off her face.
Why the heck did she ever let Kristin convince her to
dress up as the female half of a bridal couple?
Kristin, as the groom, gets to wear her father's old
tuxedo and a pair of flat, comfortable black shoes. Her
long blond hair is tucked beneath a black top hat, and
only a fake mustache mars her pretty face.
Meanwhile, Julia is decked out in a long white gown with a
train that she keeps tripping over, her vision obscured by
multiple layers of illusion. The veil is attached to a
tiara, which is pinned to the teased brunette wig that
conceals Julia's mop of boyish brown hair. The wig--and
full makeup--was Kristin's idea, to make Julia look more
feminine.
"If I'm so masculine, why can't I be the groom?" Julia had
asked grumpily when they were getting dressed.
"Because my mother doesn't have a wedding dress I can
wear. She had on some crazy short, psychedelic hippie
dress when she married my dad in that freaky flower child
ceremony," Kristin pointed out impatiently.
True. Not that Julia's mother has a wedding dress, either,
having never married Julia's father, whoever--and wherever-
he is.
Kristin continues, โAnd your grandmother is freaked enough
as it is about us borrowing her gown for a costume. She
definitely wouldn't want me to be the one wearing it."
True, again. Julia's grandmother isn't crazy about
Kristin. And Julia's mother, who is usually laid-back when
it comes to parenting, can't stand her. She thinks
Kristin's a bad influence.
Julia can understand why. Strong-willed Kristin, who
smokes and curses and never studies, isn't the kind of
girl parents like. But she's a loyal friend, and she's
loads of fun. She's adventurous where Julia is cautious,
outgoing where Julia is reserved. A teacher once said the
biggest difference between them is that Julia tries to
avoid making waves, while Kristin thrives on rocking the
boat.
That might be the biggest difference, but it's far from
the only one.
Often mistaken as being much younger than her fourteen
years, Julia is an athletic but petite freckle-faced, jean-
clad tomboy--not unattractive, but she certainly doesn't
turn heads the way leggy, slim Kristin does.
Kristin's wide-set eyes, high cheekbones, and full mouth
are striking even without makeup, though she hasn't been
in public without it since sixth grade. Naturally, she' s
thrilled when strangers assume she's several years older.
She even recently started dating college guys from the
state university a few miles away in Fredonia. They all
think she's eighteen or nineteen.
Of course her parents have no idea what Kristin is up to.
Julia can't help worrying that she's going to get herself
into trouble one of these days, but her self-assured
friend never seems to waste a moment on apprehension as
she slap-dashes her way through life.
Kristin is so utterly opposite in temperament and
appearance that even Julia herself sometimes finds it hard
to believe that they're still so close. But there aren't
many girls their own age in a community the size of Lily
Dale, with only a handful of year-round families. They've
been basically thrown together since they were toddlers,
and for all Kristin' s faults, Julia loves her like the
sister she never had--and will never have, judging by the
way her mother goes through men. It doesn't look as if
she's ever going to find one she likes and settle down.
"Come on, Jul, let's go," Kristin says, striding up narrow
Summer Street, her plastic orange pumpkin swinging from
her hand. "Looks like the Biddies are home."
Julia hesitates, glancing at the two-story Victorian
cottage ahead. "I don't think we should go to their place,
Kristin."
"Why not?" Kristin doesn't even break her stride. "It's
not like we have a lot to choose from, Jul."
She has a point. Most of the homes in Lily Dale are
deserted at this time of year, windows covered with
plywood, owners settled far from the harsh winds and snows
that batter western New York from October until April.
But Rupert and Nanette Biddle, like the Garritys and the
Shuttleworths, have always stayed in town. Though they
tend to keep to themselves, they seem friendly in a
distant sort of way when Julia sees them at Assembly
services.
"Their porch light isn't on," Julia points out. โAnd we've
never gone trick-or-treating here before."
"There's a first time for everything," is Kristin's glib
reply. She's already halfway up the steps.
Julia sighs, following her friend as the wind gusts off
nearby Cassadaga Lake. Dry leaves scuttle along the gravel
walk and a chorus of wind chimes tinkles forlornly on the
breeze. As she climbs the steps Julia gathers her train in
one hand and grasps the wooden railing with the other,
wobbling in her shoes, her dress whipping precariously
around her ankles. Above her head, suspended from an
ornately carved bracket that matches the scrolled trim
lining the porch eaves, a wooden sign sways in the wind.
RUPERT BIDDLE, REGISTERED MEDIUM.
A floorboard creaks beneath Julia's weight as she crosses
the porch to join Kristin, who is already reaching for the
antique doorbell.
Like most of the other cottages in Lily Dale, this place
is probably a hundred years old. But Rupert Biddle is one
of the more successful mediums in the Spiritualist
Assembly, and his home is one of the few that have been
restored to its former pristine state. No peeling paint,
missing spindles, or lopsided shutters here.
None at the Shuttleworths' home a few blocks away, either.
Kristin's father, Anson, is a nationally renowned psychic
medium whose fame has grown considerably ever since he
helped the police up in Buffalo track down the bodies of
several children who were murdered by a serial killer
almost three years ago. He's just published a book about
that experience.
Kristin doesn't like to talk about that, or about her
father in general.
Nor does she waste much breath discussing her older half
brother, Edward, who lives down in Jamestown with his
mother, Anson's first wife. Julia remembers him coming
around more often when they were younger, but he doesn't
anymore. Kristin once mentioned in passing that he'd had a
big blowout with her mother, Iris. Julia sometimes forgets
he even exists, and it certainly seems as though Kristin
is an only child, the way her parents dote on her.
Julia is an only child, too. But her mother is far too
busy and self-involved to dote. Nor will she discuss the
circumstances of Julia's birth. Even Grandma, who lives
with them, won't reveal her father's identity--if Grandma
even knows. Julia figures it's possible that she doesn't.
And whenever she asks Grandma about it, Grandma says that
she shouldn't concern herself with that. She tells Julia
how lucky she is to have a mother and grandmother who love
her.
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