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 Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:20 pm
 Haunted Hallows was the best time of the year, bar none. Eidil had been awakened on November 1st, in the early evening, so she’d avoided being Hallowed by a little under twenty-four hours. Nonetheless, her heart belonged to the October days, the shortening of the light, the falling of leaves, the bats and spiderwebs hung in every window. Her heart also belonged to Callessa, her beautiful girlfriend of two years. They’d been dating for a long time now, and Eidil wouldn’t have it any other way. This would be their last Haunted Hallows at the Academy. Soon they would be moving out into the big, scary world ahead of them.
It wouldn’t be all that scary, though, because they’d have each other. Eidil had always been able to rely on Callessa, even before they’d started dating—they’d been friends since they were freshlings. They did everything together, including going to the Haunted Hallows festival. Now that they’d festival’d out, though, they were heading back to Eidil’s parents’ house to watch a silly, spooky movie.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:22 pm
 Callessa squeezed Eidil’s hand. Her other hand was full with a pail of candy, an unlit lantern, and a pair of quite large stuffed spiders. They’d had an excellent time at Haunted Hallows this year; they’d gotten some candy, some dumb tricks, and both of them had gotten some stuffed animals. It had been ages since Cal had gotten a stuffed animal for herself; generally, she preferred to give her stuffed animals to people younger than her, but she knew that her brother might object if she kept giving him all of her animals. She would, if some older sibling had been continually foisting them on her!
It was better this way. Besides, Cal liked spiders. They were helpful, a natural form of pest control that meant that she could save money on pesticides and mosquito tablets. Any little bit helped. Which reminded her, they needed to pick a movie. “What movies have you got?” she asked Eidil. “I’m kind of hoping you have Spider Vixens of the Outer Planets.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:23 pm
Oh Nine! “Cal!” Eidil laughed. “That’s a terrible movie! No, seriously, it’s awful—the sets are cheap, and the actors are wooden. Of course I’ve got a copy! I haven’t got Spider Vixens Two, though,” she added. “That one’s the bad kind of bad, not the fun kind of bad. I only collect the fun kind of bad.” She’d been collecting them for years. A lot of them had been hard to get, but they were so worth the effort for occasions like this. “How long can you stay out, anyway?” She hoped that it would be a while—long enough at least for a couple movies. Chances were, though that Cal would have to go home sooner rather than later. It was a school night tonight, and Cal lived on the other side of town. Staying up all night was probably not going to be an option, no matter how tempting it might be.
Oh well. At least we can watch a cheesy movie with women in costumes that deserved a better script. And a better cast. And a better director, and just—better everything. They were pretty neat costumes was the point.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:24 pm
Cal snorted. “Yeah, I figured it would be terrible like that. That’s why I was hoping you had it.” Some people liked scary horror movies for Haunted Hallows. Some people liked thoughtful ones. Some people liked suspenseful ones, or they liked family-friendly fare. Cal was generally of the suspenseful type (on the rare occasions that she got to watch movies), but when it came to Haunted Hallows, and having Eidil at her side, she wanted something she could giggle at and shout comments at. You didn’t get that with other peoples’ favorite Haunted Hallows movies—just with the dumb ones that were made for a cheap audience.
Cal extended a wing over Eidil’s back. They’d both doused their lanterns after leaving the festival. There were more than enough streetlamps around to make the way easy to see. Having a fire hazard near their plushies and their candy was just not a good idea. Street lamps were better. They were, however, a reminder that Below was always moving in an eternal dance around their sun; day passed into night, and the night passed into day.
In less poetic terms, Cal didn’t have all night. It was a school night, after all. “I think I’ve got until ten. I’ll call my mom then and ask her if I can stay longer, but the answer is probably no later than ten-thirty.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:24 pm
“Aw, foo,” Eidil said. She made a face. She’d been hoping for longer, sure, but she had been expecting the answer she got. Ten-thirty was Elienne’s preferred curfew for Cal (Teo’s was nine-thirty, so at least Cal had the edge over her younger brother—hey, where was Teo tonight, anyway? Eidil hadn’t seen him recently, so what was he up to?), and the Elresiennes liked to schedule fifteen to thirty minutes of transit for a car to get to Eidil’s parents’ house and back to Eliennne’s house.
Just because she’d expected that answer didn’t mean she had to accept it, though. “Maybe you can convince your mom to let you stay over tonight,” she said. “She could drop off some clothes for you—you can’t borrow my clothes, I haven’t got wing slots in any of my shirts—and you and I can go to school together in the morning. Surely she can’t argue with that.”
They had reached the Orchid household, a fine house painted an inviting shade of purple. This was Eidil’s parents house. They were in the nice part of town here, which also meant that they were quite a ways from everything else. That didn’t bother Eidil too much—Asphodel Garden was still a small town. Eidil unlocked the door to let herself and Cal in. Her parents were here, but they left the door locked anyway. They were in the living room, watching some sort of noir movie. Eidil smiled. That was just like them.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:25 pm
Cal had always liked Eidil’s parents’ house. True, the paintjob outside was just a little garish, and the house was quite large (even in comparison to Cal’s mother’s house, which was no cottage by any stretch of the imagination), but it still had a strong sense of hominess to it. It was a place to live, and to thrive, and to grow up. The wood furnishings were oak, reflecting the warm lights in the rooms, and the walls were hung with photographs of the family and paintings that Eidil’s mother had done. In many ways, Eidil’s house was Cal’s house away from a house. Eidil’s parents even sometimes referred to Cal as their “adopted daughter,” which was funny enough.
Cal chirped a greeting to Steiphen and Eidieth as she took off her shoes. They greeted her in return, sounding even more glad to see her than she was to see them. It was good to see them, and Cal was seeing more and more of them since Eidil had decided to leave the dorms. It was a little awkward now—it used to be that Eidil lived on campus most of the week, which allowed Cal to visit her after classes were done without the delay of a long carriage ride. On the other hand, it was nice to be able to visit Eidil’s actual home more often.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:27 pm
Eidil slipped off her shoes and led the way up the staircase to her room. She had a TV and a DVD player of her own up there. They could watch something upstairs without ever bothering her parents (except for loud hooting that came through the house, even when the door was closed. But before Eidil had gotten even halfway up the stairs, the TV downstairs gave out a loud, long, high-pitched buzz. Eidil winced. It didn’t sound like nails on a chalkboard exactly, but it did sound like shame and anxiety felt.
It was the sound of an emergency alert, followed by a voice instructing them to go to the nearest emergency shelter. Eidil slipped back down the stairs past Callessa and looked into the living room. Her parents were rushing to their feet. “Eidil, could you check on your phone where the nearest safehouse is?” Dad asked.
“Sure thing, Dad,” Eidil said. She pulled out her phone. She had an emergency text on it as well—understandable—but she dismissed it with a flick of her fingers and brought up her map app. “It’s the stadium,” she said. “There’s another one at the Academy, but it’s too far from here.” Eidil stuffed her phone back into her pocket and put her shoes back on.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:27 pm
Cal’s feathers fluffed out in annoyance at that sound. Ugh. But she’d heard it once or twice when there were flood warnings or really bad blizzards coming. She knew what it meant. Normally, though, the announcements included what sort of disaster was coming for them. It couldn’t be a flood or a blizzard, the weather was all wrong; there were no volcanoes nearby, and most diviners had trouble predicting earthquakes. Besides, if it had been one of those, they would have mentioned it. Not mentioning it was more than a little frightening.
Cal put her shoes on while Eidil checked her phone. The Fallen went into the kitchen, where Eidieth was turning off the stove from underneath a kettle. “May I leave all of these things here, Mrs. Orchid?” she murmured, gesturing to her Haunted Hallows prizes.
Mrs. Orchid nodded. “Yes, please, Callessa. We don’t have any animals that can get that high onto the counter. Could you grab Eidil’s things as well?”
Cal nodded. “Yeah. She brought home more bats, though, so I don’t know if the bats might attack our candy.
Mrs. Orchid sighed. “It wouldn’t be a party without Eidil making friends,” she said. “Put the candy in the fridge, then. The bats should be fine for a couple of hours while we’re gone.”
Cal nodded and collected Eidil’s prizes from her. Food in the fridge, stuffed animals on the counter, and now they were moving out to the carriage. Eidil and Cal still had their jackets on, but Steiphen and Eidieth paused to put their jackets on as well.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:29 pm
Eidil didn’t like leaving her new Nezubats behind, but she didn’t want to take any animals with her to an emergency shelter. Panicky people would stress out the bats; it was better that they be left here in a calm, quiet, dark house rather than be forced into a crowded, probably brightly-lit stadium. The needs of the animal come before the needs of the Nightmare, Eidil thought. She followed her family into her father’s carriage, settling into the back seat next to Cal. The car was eerily silent; there was no conversation other than a hushed one from Cal into her cell phone. Even that conversation was brief, though, to be replaced by total silence. Eidil held Cal’s hand tight and leaned against her girlfriend.
I suppose I should feel frightened, Eidil thought. But I don’t. I just feel…distant. Like this can’t be happening. Since she didn’t know what was happening, she couldn’t contextualize it; and without context, this just wasn’t scary, kind of like seeing a random monster walk across the screen in a horror movie. A good horror movie needs a plot, Eidil thought, looking out the window. Her mind was flitting from idea to idea, never lingering on the situation at hand. It should have characters, too—ones with clear motivation. The horror should have rules, ones that are explained in the first act of the movie. That way, the audience knows how it all fits together.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:31 pm
Cal spent the car drive with her hand wrapped around Eidil’s and her wing outstretched to brush her girlfriend’s shoulder. Eidil was a welcome presence at her side, anchoring her. Everything had happened too fast—she didn’t know what was going on, or how to feel about it. But Cal knew her mother. Elienne would be listening to the radio all evening; she’d been talking about a radio show, or maybe it was a bunch of radio shows, that she had wanted to listen to this evening. The emergency alert would have gone out on the radio, too, so Elienne would know about the problem already.
Cal wanted to know where her family was, but she was more concerned with letting her mother know where she was. Cal’s mother was a worrywart, and if she didn’t know where her children were and what they were doing, she’d panic all over the place.
Almost as soon as she dialed her mother’s cell phone, she got a response. “Cal, dear!” Mom’s voice said. “Dear, I’m in the carriage right now, I know I shouldn’t be answering the phone while I drive, but then your number came up, and I had to know—”
“I know, Mom,” Cal murmured. “I’m glad you’re out of the house, Mom. I’m with the Orchids, we just got the alert and now we’re driving to the safehouse at the stadium. Eidil’s with me.”
“Oh, thank the saints,” Elienne gasped. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetie—I’m heading to the stadium right now, too. I’ll see you soon. I need to call Teo, he hasn’t called me yet, I need to talk to him—”
“I understand, Mom,” Cal said. “I’ll talk to you when we get there.”
“Thank you, I love you so much, Cal,” Mom said.
“Love you too, Mom. Drive safe.” Cal hung up and leaned against the seat. It was going to be okay. Her family would be safe. She squeezed Eidil’s hand. Yeah.
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