Chapter 6
There was no fanfare.
There’d been no fanfare the first time, either. No family invites to be sent. It would be a calm, cold day in hell before she’d consider inviting her mother - even ten years ago - to her wedding. It would have been a colder one before the woman had shown up. Disagreement was a loose term for how Evanora felt about Agatha’s ‘lifestyle choices’ - and she’d tried, desperately, to hide it. But Evanora had been all knowing. She’d smelled it out, no matter what Agatha had done at eleven or twelve to disappear, no matter how scared she’d been. By eighteen, she hadn’t cared who would see it, who would know - her mother or otherwise.
If Evanora had shown up to that wedding, it would have been as a naysayer, not as a mother. She’d taken great care to be sure she would never find out, as though she was twelve again. It wasn’t just herself she’d been protecting that time.
In the end, her mother hadn’t touched it. She hadn’t received that angry letter until a year after the wedding, when she’d already been pregnant with Nicky.
Rio hadn’t had anyone to invite either. The people she might have invited were long gone, and the ones that were left wouldn’t have shown up. They were two loners. Not by nature, but by force, and by habit. For protection. There were no friends to join in on festivities. Rio was barely a step above an intern at her firm, and Agatha was far enough from an executive it’d been laughable. No one was important enough to invite.
They had been all they’d needed. A decade ago, they’d rented a small room in the back of the bar they’d met in, and got married by one of the bartenders, who’d had a license in the state of New Jersey. The urban town was the first place Agatha had stopped running when she’d left Salem, drawn as though by a divining rod. She was no believer in God, but she’d landed in the same town Rio had.
If there were such a thing as fate, this was when it had hit her: running out of money for bus tickets somewhere in New Jersey.
Rio had worn a dark green pantsuit with a white crop top underneath and lace up heels that left her towering over Agatha. Her own outfit had featured a white pantsuit and a lace applique top. The pantsuit had been ombre, turning progressively more green to match Rio’s suit. The heels she’d worn were nowhere near as tall as Rio’s.
She’d struggled for a while with the idea of wearing white. Every wedding she’d been to as a child had made such a big to do about it. As much as she did love being the center of attention, she would have been just as happy to marry in a court house back then, too. It was Rio who’d convinced her. Neither had an interest in hiding their outfit from the other, and they’d gone to a boutique together.
No one had ever looked at her the way Rio had looked at her when she’d walked out of the dressing room wearing that pantsuit. It was like a revelation. How could she deny her that? How could she deny her anything?
(Besides, Rio had said. It’s off-white. It’s ivory. Maybe cream?)
There’d been no formal reception. Instead, they’d taken to the bar and figured out just how quickly showing up to a queer bar in your wedding outfits got you free drinks. Within an hour the both of them were wasted, taking shots from anyone who’d offered, being pulled into conversations and dances, surrounded by the laughter and warmth of people who hadn’t known them. They could have run a few wallets out if they’d stayed, but they’d hit their limit by hour two. Two hours since their marriage when they extricated themselves only somewhat politely from the party they’d accidentally created. It would go on without them.
She wouldn't forget it, the warmth from strangers who'd shown them more care than those who'd dared to call themselves family.
Their own party had returned to the one bedroom apartment they’d shared. A bottle of red got passed back and forth between them, and at some point, one of them had made pizza bagels. The old wood Pioneer turntable Rio had miraculously found at the thrift store had played a Fleetwood Mac record that repetitively skipped. They’d never made it back to their bedroom, their wedding night ending intertwined on their couch.
It had just been them. The two of them and the life they’d made.
Ten years ago, their witnesses had been bar guests they’d vaguely known the names of. This time, they were strangers at the courthouse. There’d been no fancy outfits, no laughter in the car ride over. The nerves were still there, of course. How could there be a world where they weren’t? There were nerves by design. Agatha had dropped Nicky off at school, complete with his brown bag lunch for the aquarium and money for the gift shop, and swung around to pick up Rio. If the woman was going to marry her to save the spirit of Christmas, she might as well not make her drive.
They were both in pantsuits, but it was the pantsuits they wore for work. It did nothing to dull how stunning Rio looked. Even in the outfit she wore to talk to clients. Especially in that one.
They got remarried on a Thursday, while Nicky took pictures of clownfish and sea turtles some fifteen miles away.
The after should have been more awkward than it was, sitting in the chilly parking lot of the New Jersey courthouse. It should’ve been worse, after a marriage for convenience (if the convenience was the absence of death and saving Christmas.)
But it wasn’t. Not nearly as much as it should have been.
Sitting behind the driver’s seat of the minivan she’d got custody of, it wasn’t anxiety that filled her chest. Instead, there was a sense of calm that washed over her, not a sense of dread.
It was akin to relief.
(If she wasn’t careful about that, it would circle right back around to anxiety.)
“Do you want a drink?”
She turned to Rio sitting in the passenger seat, half a question in her eyes, half shock at her own words. Rio’s head tilted, eyes widening with matching surprise.
“I thought we agreed this was formal.”
“It is.” She could feel her cheeks heating, so she busied herself with bending down to unstrap the high heels that were still digging into her ankles. She sighed and stretched her feet out with relief.
“We’re not in dresses or tuxes. Why bother with the heels? You hate them.”
“Can you pass me the bag under your seat?” She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes for a second. “I just … did.”
She opened her eyes when a little duffle bag was dropped into her lap. Rio was right: she hated heels. The only variable was if they were attached to boots. It didn’t mean she didn’t own them - as emphasized by the ones she dumped into her bag now, and pulled flats out from.
“I didn’t mean a reception,” she continued, pulling the flats onto her feet. She turned her face towards Rio, so her cheek rested against the headrest. “The Road is what, thirty miles away?”
They’d moved to Westview for the schools, not for its proximity to the town they’d met in.
“It’s noon,” she said, with a shrug. Rio had paled at the earlier suggestion. “We don’t have to pick up Nicky until five. Let me get you a drink as a thank you for saving my life.”
She knows Rio’s faces. She knows all of them. The slightly downturned mouth, the eyes that stared straight ahead - this was Rio weighing the pros and cons. Agatha half held her breath, and hated herself for doing so. What were the pros and cons she was weighing? Which side was Agatha herself on? Could she be weighed on the pro side, after all this time?
Her nose wrinkled. If she said no, she said no. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was hardly anything at all.
“Okay.”
Agatha’s head tilted. She let out a breath.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll let you buy me a drink. I am saving your life.”
–
It was far from the lively, queer atmosphere of The Road, but the bar they ended up in in Eastview wasn’t too shabby. It looked made for millennials, like those restaurants with neon signs of quirky sayings: It’s Taco Tuesday and Tequila O’Clock and wildly uncomfortable stools. It did have those neon signs on the walls, but Agatha refused to read them. The trendy booths looked like they’d wear out in a handful of years. IT didn’t scream community institution, like The Road had. Everything about it seemed to scream temporary at the top of its lungs.
That was fine. Agatha had been forced into more than enough community over the past year.
“Get us a seat,” she said. “I’ll order something.”
Agatha’s fingernails tapped idly on the curved postmodern bar top as she waited for the bartender to reappear from helping a pair of men in business suits, who looked like they were on a work lunch from the amount of talking that was happening. Blue eyes scanned over the backlit wall of bottles. She could get the two of them a couple of beers, but she had a feeling this was one of those places that served hipster brewery shit with names like Cranberry Winter Surprise. No way. Something sugary, maybe. This place probably did plenty of them.
“What can I get you, darling?”
The bartender had black hair done into a pixie cut and a small, heart-shaped face. Normally, Agatha was a good judge of people - what made them tick, what made them want to work with you. Their likes, dislikes, their age. It was a skill she’d honed, but Agatha couldn’t tell if this woman was twenty-one or forty-five.
“Two champagne flutes.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. Agatha blinked. Surely, any other answer would have sufficed. She could have said wine. Two glasses of red wine would’ve been a fine answer. This place probably had something cheap, that wouldn’t look like she was trying. This was not a whole thing. This was just a thank you.
“Are we celebrating?” The bartender spoke over her shoulder as she grabbed two glasses. “Is this a top shelf situation?”
“No.” Was it? Her mouth was incredibly dry, and the word came out far too fast to be normal. She’d moved so her right hand was covering her left, where the ring sat. Looking down and noticing she was doing it, she moved her hands beneath the bar instead.
“No?”
“Nope.”
“Open tab?” Was that judgement on this woman’s face? Agatha sensed judgement. There was nothing to judge here. It was a normal day, and she was lying about nothing. She stared back as hard as she could, and as cooly as she could. Cool as a cucumber.
“Closed.” That, at least, she said definitively. She’d opened with the champagne thing, might as well not make two mistakes. They had a kid to pick up … in roughly five hours.
–
The seat Rio had chosen was a booth in the back of the bar, out of the way. It wasn’t exactly in the shadows, but it wasn’t in the center of the room either. It fell under the neon glow of a sign that wasn’t words, but a giant pink and green glowing martini. Rio was flipping the menu back and forth in her hands, and stopped when Agatha got closer.
“A burger here is twenty dollars. Twenty. For a burger in New Jersey.”
Agatha slid into the booth, eyes dancing back and forth between the menu Rio slammed down and the woman in question. She pushed the drink towards her with a single finger.
“They have to pay for the halogen somehow. Do you want a burger?”
“Not for twenty dollars.” Rio looked up from the menu, then down at the drink in front of her. Her eyes widened. “Champagne?”
“I thought it fit.” She went for confidence, biting hard to the inside of her cheek to stifle the heart that was trying to escape the cage of her ribs. It would not betray her. Not today.
“It does. Weirdly.”
Rio’s voice resettled the heart in her chest. Her former ex-wife pulled one of the glasses of champagne towards her, fingers closing around the flute. Her nails flashed in the neon lighting, black to green and back again. All the collections of polish in their house had belonged to her. No matter how many times Rio - and Nicky, later, joining her - had tried to get her to join in, it always chipped within two days, or she found herself picking at it restlessly. Bare nails it was, save for the times Nicky had begged.
Rio lifted the glass, raising it towards Agatha and waiting.
“What are we toasting to?”
“Good question,” Rio hummed. She pursed her lips. “Let’s toast to Santa Claus.”
“That’s me. You’re toasting to me.”
The corner of Rio’s lips turned up. “It seems I am.”
“Alright.” She lifted her own glass and clinked it to Rio’s. “To Santa Claus.”
“To getting what we wanted.”
–
“Really? Anyone?”
Agatha shrugged, fingers around the rim of the glass. The second glass. Rio had insisted on buying the second, and Agatha had tried not to feel like the bartender was watching them. Bartenders were people watchers. They understood people to the same degree that Agatha did, and she had no doubt that they’d figured out something was going on.
But her shoulders were looser, at least. Somewhere between the start of the second drink and now, they’d scooted closer at the round booth table, close enough that the warmth of Rio’s thigh was pressed into her own. Not touching, but close enough that she could feel it. Like a promise.
“Just about. I assume it’s anyone who celebrates or has celebrated Christmas.”
“So anyone else?”
“I do try to turn it off. It’s rather annoying.”
Staring at someone too long meant she’d know their name, the places they’d lived, the gifts they’d got, which lists they were on and why. Which list they were on now, if they were a child, or an adult of note. It was exhausting. Entirely exhausting, the constant stream of information. The knowledge.
It did have its uses. If Nicky ever brought someone home, she’d be able to get a read on them instantly. Bingo. No one was getting by on her watch.
“Do you know all about me?”
“Of course I know all about you.” She lifted her chin, feeling heat crawl from her chest up to her neck, where she was sure it was visible. “But not from the list, and not from some … Christmas magic.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t look; she wouldn’t. She could feel those eyes on her. The familiar, warm weight of them settled on her like a hand.
She’d been tempted, of course. Who wouldn’t be? All she’d had to do was open that door in her mind when she looked at her, or flip through that book to V to see if she was still on the exceptional adult list. She’d know by Christmas either way. Agatha was not good with denying herself information.
But she had. Everything she knew about Rio, she knew. She knew from the years spent by her side, from long hours curled up in bed together, from raising a son. Countless, endless days. Not so endless. Not so ended.
“What about the people in here?” Rio’s voice broke through, soft and insistent, and Agatha looked down as she felt a hand on her arm.
“Yes,” she swallowed, “if I tried.”
“Can you show me?” Rio leaned forward in the seat, towards Agatha. Her eyes were wide and curious, set on Agatha’s face and searching. It looked to her like she was holding her breath. The anticipation and excitement evident on her face caught in Agatha’s own chest.
“You want me to show you the Naughty and Nice List in action?”
Rio nodded, quickly, eyes still fervently on Agatha.
“Okay.” She shifted her hair behind her shoulders. “Pick someone.” She gestured with the palm of her hand to the bar. “That way you’ll know this isn’t like a magician picking someone from the crowd in advance.”
Rio laughed and leaned back against the booth, turning her head back and forth as she scanned the room. Her tongue poked into her cheek, hands twisting around a hair tie on her wrist. She was intent about it, eyes scanning each and every bit of the bar around her, not skipping a single person. At noon on a workday, it wasn’t exactly packed, but she took her time to choose between them. She couldn’t help but watch Rio, having forgotten the rest of the room. She had missed watching this intensity of hers, the laser focus. Rio put her heart into everything she did, no matter what it was.
“This isn’t life or death, you know-”
“I’m thinking,” Rio shook her head, a pout tugging at her lower lip. Agatha looked, then looked away before Rio could see her looking. “The two men sitting at the bar.” She indicated with a tilt of her chin. “The ones wearing the cheap suits.”
She followed Rio’s line of sight. The two men, whose backs were to them both, seemed deep in conversation. Likely a businessman and a client, by the way they were sitting, by how quickly the man on the left was talking. By the briefcases on the floor, too. She let down the wall she’d built up, the one that stopped the constant barrage of information. She focused on the two of them.
The suddenness of knowing slammed into her as though she’d run face first into a brick wall. Two men’s entire childhoods opened in her mind. She took a breath.
“The one on the left is Eric.” She kept her voice low, head bent close to Rio. “It’s a pretty classic naughty list case. Everyone starts out on the nice list for the first few years of their life. It changes around five. Eric here made the naughty list at six, when he locked his sister in a closet that only opened from the outside for three hours. The gift he wanted the most was a spirograph.” Her nose wrinkled. “He did not get it. And then there was the pulling the cat’s tail. That’s a real classic offense, and he’s a repeat offender. He made the nice list again at nine, when he joined the boy scouts. Switched again at eleven, when he started bullying his sister again.”
Rio’s mouth was open a fraction. “You really have all of that in your head?”
“Yes. Do you want to know about the other man?”
“Sure.” Rio leaned in, chin resting on her fist.
“That’s Frank.”
“Frank.” Rio drew out the name.
“Yes, Frank. He didn’t flip-flop as much as our pal Eric there. In fact, he stayed entirely on the Nice List from the time he turned five. He liked walking the family dog without being asked, learning to make dinner for when his mom worked late, and volunteering at the library. The gift he wanted the most was a wooden castle building set, and he got it when he was eight.”
“Agatha.”
“Yes.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t,” Agatha shrugged. “You just have to trust me.”
–
October was entirely too short.
It was there one moment and nearly gone the next. Very suddenly, and quite without her permission, Agatha was facing down the end of it all. One month and they’d be at Thanksgiving. One month and she’d be at the North Pole.
It was starting to get terrifying.
Last year seemed a lifetime away. It might as well have been a dream. It could have been - that wild trip through the world on the back of a sleigh, traipsing through a workshop in the North Pole that wasn’t meant to exist. All of that could have been some sort of hallucination.
She could have believed that, if not for the white hair. She could have believed it, if not for the Naughty and Nice List that had been delivered to her door.
She could have believed anything, if not for the feeling in her chest that told her it was all real.
And now she was staring it all down again.
Halloween stared her down first.
They’d never split up Halloween.
Family costumes had always been a tradition. They’d started before Nicky had chosen the costumes himself, when he was nothing more than a baby in a carriage they pushed for an hour through the New Jersey suburbs. 101 Dalmatians the first year, farmers and a pea pod the next. They’d won best family costume for that one. They’d done everything from rock paper scissors, and when he was four they’d been baby, mama, and papa shark at his insistence. Even when he’d been in the hospital, they’d dressed up there, going from nurses station to nurses station while dressed up as Buzz, Woody, and Jessie.
Last year he’d insisted on Star Wars for the whole group, tentatively, like he wasn’t sure it would continue that year. But how could either of them deny him?
This year, he’d insisted on the Addams Family. He’d watched Wednesday last year, and then they’d blown through the rest of the films. He’d requested to be Wednesday herself, and neither of them would have even thought to argue with him on it. That left Agatha as Morticia and Rio as Gomez - though there’d been the entire month of September they’d tried to argue being Cousin It and the Thing.
Nicky had put his foot down. Morticia and Gomez it was. What was one more layer of playing a happily married couple on top of everything else?
They made quite the picture. They could have done store bought costumes for the lot of them, but it had never, ever, felt like enough. Evanora had been big on home economics skills. By the time she was old enough to be trusted not to take her own eyes out with a knitting needle, Agatha had learned how to darn socks, mend clothes, and make them as well.
As much as she didn’t consider herself a homemaker - about as far from it as could be imagined - she’d liked the ability to make something with her own hands. Even moreso when it wasn’t whatever her mother wanted her to make. Instead of the conservative dresses her mother had insisted on Agatha making, she’d pivoted to learning how to sew whatever she thought would look the best on her. She still had most of the full length frock coats she’d fallen in love with making. After a while, she’d stopped caring whether or not her mother would hate it, and only if she’d like it.
One thing she knew: Evanora certainly wouldn’t have approved of turning Nicky into Wednesday Addams.
But that was what she’d done.
When she wasn’t putting together a team for their newest clients - toothpaste tabs, chewable and somehow not biodegradable - she was picking and measuring fabric, tracing patterns and sewing seams, watching Phineas and Ferb and The Worst Witch with pins between her teeth. Slowly, a pinstripe blazer and skirt came together. (The striped leggings and braided wig she’d outsourced to Party City, may she rest in peace.)
(It was Rio who’d found the prop hand for his shoulder. Agatha hadn’t asked questions. The woman had connections. It wasn’t an actual hand, so they were probably good to go.)
Her own dress had simply been a lucky find. If she’d had to sew a dress herself, they’d never had made it out of the house on Halloween. Back when Nicky had requested it, she would’ve just straightened her hair and called it a day. Now, the white hair simply wouldn’t cut it, and dye still wouldn’t take, so a wig from Party City it was.
And then there was Rio.
“We’re gonna be late!” Nicky’s voice rang out from the hallway, the boy bouncing up and down on the heels of his still bare feet, an overly long pillowcase twisting between his otherwise empty hands.
“It’s trick or treating!” Rio’s voice came from the other side of the bathroom door. “It goes on all night!”
She’d been in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes, by Agatha’s count. After helping Nicky into his costume, Agatha had pulled on her own in the master bedroom. In all that time, Rio had remained in the bathroom.
“We’ll miss all the good candy! We’re gonna get left with Milk Duds! And toothbrushes! And what about the town square?”
“You heard the boy,” Agatha called to the bathroom door. “Milk Duds and toothbrushes. You wouldn’t want to do that to him!”
“You are both so utterly,” the bathroom door swung open, and Rio emerged. Agatha watched her mouth open and close, and her eyes go from her chest to her feet and back again, before settling firmly on her face. Agatha tried, desperately, to keep her face neutral. “... related.”
“Related?” Nicky’s head tilted. Rio made a humming noise in the back of her throat. Her eyes had fallen back to the scoop neck of Agatha’s dress, but Agatha’s eyes were on her.
Agatha hadn’t made the suit. She’d found it off the rack and taken it in herself, already knowing Rio’s measurements from one too many last minute Halloween costume adjustments, but the pinstripe suit looked good on her. It could have looked ridiculous. It might have, on anyone else.
But she looked like she was born to wear it. It clung to her body and hugged her hips, cut so that it moved with her. A burgundy bow tie sat at her throat, and Agatha’s fingers itched. Even the comically drawn on eyebrows made her face appear angled, where they should have made her look like a cartoon. She was beautiful, and she was staring at Agatha like she thought the same.
Rio’s hair was slicked back with gel so it looked shorter than it was, ears poking out in front, and the fake mustache -
“It’s falling off.”
“What?”
“Your mustache.” Her hand jumped up to touch the mustache that was starting to peel above Rio’s upper lip. Nicky let out a little giggle as Rio cursed under her breath.
“I followed all the directions on this thing!”
“It’s a costume mustache,” Agatha laughed, the feeling light as air in her chest as she stepped forward, reaching up towards the now dangling mustache. Only at the last second did her hand pause, doubt growing in the pit of her stomach. She meant to grab it and press it back in place, but the doubt broke in and made her yank the mustache off instead.
She was not a doubtful woman. Best not to show it.
“Agatha!”
Agatha held the mustache in her left hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger, like some sort of living worm. She would not apologize.
Nicky sighed. It was a giant, heaving sound that sounded more like it should have come out of the body of a ninety year old than a little boy. “I’ll get the eyelash glue.” He ducked around them and into the bathroom that Rio had just come out of.
The woman in question had her eyes narrowed at Agatha, who shrugged.
“It was the most effective way of fixing it.”
Rio rubbed at her upper lip.
“Don’t be a baby. That thing was barely attached.”
“I”m here to save the day.” Nicky appeared between them, big brown eyes and too long eyelashes blinking up at them as he held up the little bottle of eyelash glue Agatha used when there was a big presentation at work, and only then. All those times, Nicky used to sit and watch with fascination on the bathroom counter, begging to help her ‘put her eyes on’.
“Thank you, mijo.” Rio plucked it out of his hands and pressed it into Agatha’s. “Fix your mess.”
Was that not what she was trying to do? Rio was looking at her with a raised brow. Maybe she was trying to fix the mess of killing Santa Claus, but had she? Or was this just another? Was there ever a mess she wasn’t running away from?
“Hurry! Mama! The candy!”
Right. The candy. The reason for the season.
“Come here. And stay still, or your mouth is going to get glued shut.”
–
For Westview, Halloween was an affair to remember.. Aspiring parents Agatha and Rio hadn’t known that when they’d moved into town. Just about every family in town brought their kids out for trick or treating, decorated their houses in some form or another (be it with larger than life skeletons or the typical cobwebs and scarecrows, or the moving lights and fog of the Maximoff household), and then there was the party in the town square.
It was a bonafide shindig, with vendors of free cotton candy and music and contests - pumpkin carving and scarecrow decorating and costumes, and an atmosphere straight out of a sitcom. Most of the years Nicky had been sick they’d had to skip it, his stamina lasting only for trick or treating in the red wagon they’d pulled around, and nothing much more.
Last year, they’d finally started to go.
It was more community building than Agatha was used to, and certainly more than she preferred. It wasn’t that she was bad at small talk. Quite the opposite. She’d spent a long time learning how to read people, to say what they wanted to hear, keep them talking and interested enough that she could get what she wanted or needed from them, be it knowledge or money or continued patronage. She was excellent at it, and when she was winning at manipulating the hell out of people, she was enjoying it.
It was the endless socializing she didn’t enjoy. People, when there wasn’t a goal to grab from them, something she was aiming for, when it was just community or friendship, were … hard. Difficult. It made her feel aimless. Out of place, out of her depth, a fish out of water. For all the things she’d learned how to do that her mother had taken from her, that had never been one of them. Just being with other people, like she knew how to belong.
It was as if they could sense it, those other people. As if they knew she hadn’t grown up like them, with their white picket fence houses, one point five siblings and family dog. As if they knew something was different about her, and she couldn’t catch up.
For Nicky, though? She’d endure being out of her depth for a while and collapse the next day about it.
Westview was already moving.
The air had the distant promise of a bite to it. Two decades ago, it would’ve been cold enough for a jacket. Tonight, she opened her mouth when they stepped out the front door, and Nicky had sent her a warning look that had shocked her into shutting up and not insisting on a jacket in the first place.
He was so fast these days.
There were days she couldn’t ever forget, burned as they were into the back of her eyelids. How long would it take until she didn’t see it anymore, until the image of her son running with the braids of his wigs flying behind him replaced the one where he was too pale, tubes and wires sticking out of him, always tired after taking a couple of steps? Would she see that image until she died?
The hand on her back was warm. Fiercely warm, flat on the small of her back through the somewhat thin black fabric of her dress. She did not falter in her step, but her breath hitched, though she didn’t turn. She kept her eyes straight ahead, and focused on taking even breaths.
Warm. So, so warm. Maybe she was cold after all.
“I think it, too.” Rio spoke close to her ear, voice soft and low. “Every time I see him run out of school to greet me, or want to play board games instead of being too tired to do anything.” She chuckled. It sounded raw. “When we made pizza the other night, he literally couldn’t stop bouncing. He was trying to throw the pepperoni like frisbees, Agatha. I think some got stuck behind the oven. He held the chair still while I climbed on it to get one off the ceiling. By the way? I think we might have created the world’s worst football player.”
Rio laughed, but it was as raw as the one she’d let out before. Watery, too.
“I couldn’t stop him. The kitchen is going to smell like cured meat until I die, but it’s worth it. Because it wasn’t long ago he was just - so, so close to dying. And I’d give him anything. I would. I’d-”
Rio took a deep breath. The noise shuddered on exhale, and Agatha turned to see her with her eyes too bright, tears gathering. This time, she didn’t stop her own hand when she found herself starting to reach out. It brushed at the corner of her eye, then at the bridge of her nose.
“Don’t cry into the eyelash glue. It’s not all that waterproof.” The tear was wet on Agatha’s thumb as Rio huffed another laugh that sounded like it wanted to be a sob. Her shoulders shook for a moment, and if Agatha didn’t know her so terribly well, it could really have been that laugh doing it. “It’s a terrible feature for eyelash glue.”
Rio tilted her head back, like she’d seen her do one too many times at a doctor’s appointment or a school recital. It was the trying not to ruin the makeup look that Agatha knew like the back of her hand.
“You should get a new one,” Rio said, voice watery still as she tilted her head back down, eyes on Agatha, who willed herself not to look away. “They have good ones. At CVS, even. You could walk into a convenience store and walk out with an eyelash glue that doesn’t smell like ass.”
“I don’t usually cry while wearing eyelash glue. I’m not-”
“Don’t try to tell me you’re not a cryer. I keep a mental tally of the silliest times you’ve cried. I’ve seen you tear up because you were proud of Nicky for choosing a movie to watch.”
“Tearing up isn’t crying. And he fucking chose Tangled.”
“Tell that to your insufficient eyelash glue, and don’t blame the movie. You were crying because he knew what he wanted.”
Agatha pressed a hand to her chest and gasped. “Why, I never!”
The flash of a grin from Rio was worth just about everything. She clasped her hands behind her back, mustache twitching with the grin. It was only with the movement that she realized her hand had been solidly on her back until this point, when the cold rushed in to fill the spot. Did Rio realize it had been there the whole time? Had she intended it? Or had it simply stayed there, a force of habit?
She couldn’t ask, couldn’t betray that she wanted it there. They’d discussed what this was, and Agatha had made the bed she was lying in years ago. Manipulating things to make them work the way she wanted was what she did, but not here. Not with her. She’d already done that, hadn’t she? She wasn’t about to do it twice.
“Mama! Mom!”
Their boy was a blur as he ran down the driveway towards them, pillowcase swinging between his hands and the braids of his wig bouncing against his shoulders.
“Did you see? Did you see?”
“Of course.” She had not. She’d been standing and crying in the driveway of a stranger’s house with Rio.
“Sure did, buddy.”
“They gave me two full size candy bars! Two! ‘Cause I couldn’t decide!” Nicky reached into the pillowcase, tongue poking out between his teeth and nose wrinkled. Agatha looked up, briefly, at the woman standing in the cobweb covered doorway, dressed like Frankenstein’s monster. She lifted her hand in a monsteresque wave, and Rio and Agatha waved back.
Nicky finally got what he wanted, triumphantly pulling out a Crunch bar and holding it towards them both.
“I decided I want the Reeses! So this is for you! You guys can split it!” He kept shoving it at them until Agatha took it. From the corner of her eye, she could see Rio biting her cheek to stop a grin. “Okay! I’m going to the next house! Bye!” All of this was said in less than ten seconds, and then he was off again, racing down the sidewalk to the next house.
“What’s the chance he’s downed that Reeses already?” Rio asked, as they headed after him at a leisurely pace. Agatha stuck her hands in her pockets.
“Oh, one hundred percent.” She lifted her chin towards the boy knocking on the next doorway. “Chocolate on the fingers. Classic sign.”
“Didn’t even catch that.” Rio tilted her head towards the sky. “He’s either going to crash or be up until six in the morning.”
It happened every year. Usually, it was a combination: he went like a motor until six in the morning, when he passed out wherever he was. Both of them knew they shouldn’t allow it, but why not, after everything? It was one day out of the year. She looked from the corner of her eye, half a breath in her chest, hedging her bets.
“If he fell asleep on the couch during the Halloween cartoon marathon, you could always stay the night.” Agatha shrugged, like it was nothing. It was nothing. “Moving him to the bedroom is a lot easier than getting him in the car and getting him to fall asleep again after.” Quickly, she said, “And you could take the couch.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure,” she shrugged. “By the time we get through the marathon, it’ll be late. Wouldn’t want you driving on Halloween night in the dark. You might run into Frankenstein’s monster.”
She looked, and quickly looked away. Rio had her body angled towards her as they walked, hands clasped behind her back, and she caught the little smile on her face.
“Okay, Agatha.” The words were careful, measured, and more so than Agatha wanted to hear. It was being seen, right through the skin. “If he falls asleep on the couch, we’ll stay.”
“If you want.”
“Of course.”
Couldn’t let her think it was some sort of necessary thing. It was for convenience, that’s all. Never mind that Agatha never had an issue with putting someone out of their way in her life.
“And this has nothing to do with your birthday in two days?”
“Of course not,” she waved a hand around. “Why would it? I already have Nicky that day.”
“Yes,” Rio said, in a tone that made Agatha feel dumb. “You already have Nicky that day.”
Agatha picked at the Crunch bar wrapper as they walked, finally putting it up to her teeth and ripping it open that way. She snapped it in half and held it out to Rio, who took it without complaint. Out of the two of them, Agatha was the one with the sweet tooth. Something about not having access when she was young had kicked it into exceptional overdrive as an adult. Crunch bars were by no means her favorite (she’d choose a 3 Musketeers or European chocolate any day), but it was a good pick me up regardless. She watched Rio break squares off as Nicky knocked on the front door of the next house.
She waited until she saw Rio pop a square in her mouth.
“Ralph Bohner.”
Rio choked. “Excuse me?”
“That house.” She lifted a hand, swallowing. “That’s Ralph Bohner’s house.”
“Agatha. Your next door neighbor is a man whose god given name is Ralph Bohner? Someone named their kid Ralph Bohner?”
“It’s better than Dick.”
“Is it?”
The front door opened, and the scruffiest man alive appeared. Ralph Bohner was wearing a pilot’s outfit, complete with the hat and the little pin on the lapel. The beard was truly all over the place. She’d never seen something more in need of grooming, and for a short time in her early twenties she’d worked in a mall with a dog groomer next door.
“He’s a conspiracy theorist,” she said. “It started when he was little. He used to think all the Mattress Firms were some big front. And that McDonalds put mind control salt on their fries.”
“They do.”
She leveled Rio with a look.
“Is this all some List nonsense?”
“No,” she grinned and clucked her tongue. “When I moved in, he came up to my door and gave me his entire life story.”
Rio slapped a hand over the grin. “No.”
“Oh, yes.” She drew out the word. “He put his foot in the door and handed me a pamphlet about neighborhood construction being done at optimal times to reduce brain function. So we could be sheeple. And told me he’d been cursed by witches.”
“He looks like he’s been cursed by witches.”
“That would be the beard oil he tried to sell me. I genuinely think it’s bacon grease.”
He waved to Agatha from the doorway, making a motion like he was going to start to come over, starting to put the bowl of candy back inside his house. Nicky’s speed worked for them. He ran down the driveway, and Agatha gathered him by his shoulder, not bothering to give a polite nod. She heard the door close, and hoped he was on the other side of it.
“Mama, are birds real?”
Rio’s laugh filled the whole town.
–
A Halloween fair was not unique to Westview, but it certainly made Westview unique.
Normally, the town square was a place people gathered during their lunch breaks, or walked their dogs, or spent an afternoon shopping. Boutiques and ice cream parlors and hairdressers lined the streets surrounding it, as well as the Westview Post Office, a grocery store, and an international convenience shop that she liked to buy spices at when she cooked from scratch. Little restaurants and cafes took up every couple of shops. There was a Thai spot they’d taken a liking to when they’d first moved in and the baby item shop that still existed, never even having changed hands, and newer places like the wiccan shop and a Japanese-French fusion bakery.
Nearly every store had decorated for the occasion, and some of them had stayed open late. The pizza place was doing garlic knots dyed black from a booth outside, and the ice cream parlor was doing free cones. In the middle of the square was where the action took place. Music blared over the speakers, booths set up from local vendors, two chairs and a table set up where a lady was doing face painting. One of the contests seemed to be starting already as children lined up to grab pumpkins.
“Can we?”
“I don’t see why not,” Agatha said. She let go of Nicky’s shoulder. His joy was palpable as he darted over to join the line. Agatha took a step to join him and Rio before she felt a tug on her hand.
It was a little girl with orange and black beads at the ends of her braids and the biggest eyes Agatha had ever seen. She gave her hand another tug, then made a curling motion with her finger. Rio paused, turning back from her walk over.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll catch up.”
She bent down towards the girl like she’d asked. Naomi Lewis, the name came to her. Born in 2019, six years old, on the nice list. Always helped her younger sister tie her shoes, even when she wasn’t the best at it herself. It was the trying that counted, and -
“I want a Snorlax nightlight.”
“What?”
“A Snorlax nightlight,” she repeated. “And a miniature goat.”
“I-”
Naomi squeezed her hand with a grin, and ran off. Bizarre. That was bizarre. At best, and -
There was a tiny hand tapping her own.
“Yes?”
It wasn’t Naomi. This boy was a bit older, with red hair that fell past his ears. Liam Scott. Also on the nice list. Had spent a year teetering back and forth between the lists when he’d developed a habit of kicking his classmates, but turned it around when he started going to counseling. Wanted -
“A guitar. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she said. “Very well. I have to -”
A boy stepped out from behind him. Agatha turned. A girl was walking over with her dog in her arms. A few kids dressed as crayons were whispering to each other, and Agatha caught the moment they decided to walk over as well. Arnold, Jarelle, Laura, Bennie, Malcolm -
This was going to be a long night.
–
“I had a line,” she said, unlocking the front door. “An actual line.”
“It’s ‘cause you didn’t go to the mall,” Nicky said, confidently. “Most Santas get the lines when they go to the mall. But you didn’t.”
She’d all but entirely missed the pumpkin carving, unable to get away for more than a second before another child would stop her. She’d considered pushing on past them all to get to the contest, but when their faces had stared up at her, she’d found herself entirely unable to do so.
And nevermind looking over at Rio and Nicky. They’d seemed peaceful, and fine, and watching Rio guide Nicky’s hands was a glimpse into something she didn’t get any longer. Agatha unlocked the door, and they spilled into the entryway.
“Did you leave the light on?”
There was hesitance in Rio’s voice as she tilted her head towards the kitchen, where warm light spilled out into the hall, over the light brown of floorboards Agatha still wasn't convinced were real. Not at the price point she’d bought the house for. Had she left the light on? She wasn’t totally sure. It hadn’t exactly been the lights she’d been focusing on when they were leaving.
“The door was locked,” she said. “That part I’m sure of, so no one-”
Crash.
All three of them jumped at the noise that came from the kitchen. Rio’s hand flew to Nicky’s shoulder, the other to her back pocket - where Agatha knew her phone was. The hand on their son’s back had curled fingers, biting into the fabric of his costume.
“Rio,” she said, carefully, trying for a level of concern and sanity that wouldn’t terrify Nicky. There were footsteps from the kitchen, now. Someone was wearing heels in Agatha’s kitchen. “Take Nicky into the bedroom. Lock the door and call 911. Don’t come out.”
Brown eyes locked onto her own; she inclined her head with a small nod. There was fear in those warm eyes. For just a breath, Agatha didn’t look away.
“Go,” she said, and broke her own spell.
“Mama? Is someone in the kitchen?”
Nicky’s voice was small, and innocent - but scared. So scared. She hadn’t heard him sound like this since he was going through treatment, looking too pale in a hospital bed that had dwarfed him. The twinge in her head threatened to engulf her like a flame. Agatha breathed out, trying to temper it, lips pulling into a tight smile she hoped was at least a little reassuring to the wide-eyed boy staring up at her.
“I’m not sure, baby. But go with your mother and I’ll be fine. Okay?”
“But you’ll be alone.”
“I’m big and strong. Just go.”
Rio wasn’t waiting for their boy’s okay. Her hand was firm and gentle as she pulled on his shoulder, eyes going from Agatha to Nicky and back again.
“Come, Nicky. Mama’s fine.”
Something swooped low in her stomach at that fierce protectiveness she was watching Rio exhibit, over their son, in this less than ideal home Agatha had bought.
It spurred her to movement. She grabbed the heaviest item she could find, which happened to be a book off the bookshelf in the living room/entryway combination. The movement of the book toppled others, a pile of nonfiction historical texts thudding onto the floor one after another, followed quickly by The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Dragons Love Tacos, The Phantom Tollbooth, and Dogman.
If there was anything this house had, it was enough books to outnumber the population of Westview. She stepped lightly over the pile.
“No!” Nicky’s shout made her jump, and she couldn’t help looking. Rio had got Nicky halfway across the living room, out of view of the kitchen doorway, but he was struggling valiantly against the hold she had on him. “I don’t want to leave! I want to stay! Mama!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, trusting Rio would keep him safe as she moved towards the light of the kitchen.
A shadow blocked the doorway of the kitchen, then a body to block out the light. Agatha raised the book just as she heard Rio give a wordless shout.
“If the three of you are done with this racket, I’ve made cookies.”
“Lilia?”
“Who else would it be? Did you not see the reindeer on the roof? The glamour is only on for mortals - oh, hello, Nicholas!”
Nicky had escaped Rio and run full force at Lilia, wrapping his arms tightly around the woman’s waist.
“We thought you were a murderer!”
“I don’t have the constitution for murder. It upsets the digestive system.”
“You mean it gives you the poops?”
“I’m sorry,” Rio interrupted. “Who is this woman in your house Nicky is hugging?”
The words weren’t accusatory, for which Agatha couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of relief. It merely sounded curious, and as Agatha put the heavy book down, she caught sight of her and saw the anger, too, in the hard set of her eyes.
“This is Lilia,” she said, carefully, rolling her shoulders and trying to wrestle her heart rate into submission. “She’s Head Elf.”
“There’s an elf in your home.”
“There’s not not an elf in my home.”
Said elf was drying her hands on a paper towel and looking between the two of them, Nicky still attached to her waist like a barnacle. She looked much the same as the last time AGatha had seen her, save that she was out of the outfit. Instead she seemed to have dedicated herself to wearing all orange, from the yoga pants to the sweatshirt. Agatha followed the bewildering sight upwards to her face and found cat whiskers.
“What?” Lilia asked. “It’s Halloween. We were having a party.”
“That’s … very Nightmare Before Christmas of you,” Rio said. Was Agatha imagining things, or did she sound frustrated? “Why are you here on Halloween? I thought she had until Thanksgiving.”
“She does.” One brow had arched on Lilia’s face. “But it’s tradition to come catch up on Halloween. It’s only a month until you’ll be coming to the North Pole.” Her eyes jumped to Nicholas and back again. “Agatha, do you have a moment? We have a lot to discuss.”
“Aw,” he whined. “We were going to watch all the Halloween episodes of Rugrats and Spongebob!”
Nicky released a gigantic sigh, but Rio stepped forward to take his shoulders, her hand briefly brushing Agatha’s as she walked by. The spot prickled, long after her hand was gone. Lilia was here. Surely, this was for show. It was all on now, since she was here. This was part one of the big game.
"You said there were cookies?” Rio craned her neck to look inside the kitchen. “Nicky, go grab us some of those, and then we’re gonna sort out your candy and steal all the chocolate so your mama can’t have it.”
“Hey!”
“Santa doesn’t get chocolate if she snoozes,” Rio said, giving Agatha’s shoulder a little pat as Nicky came back with cookies, grinning like a proper thief. Rio was good at this. She was really good at this. It was annoying that she was so good at this. She disappeared into the living room, calling out over her shoulder. “Have fun!”
Agatha blew out a breath as she followed Lilia into her own kitchen. The elf immediately returned to the oven, grabbing a remaining cookie off the cooling rack and directly into her mouth. At the very least, it seemed that Agatha’s sweet tooth would be at home in the North Pole.
“Cookie?” Lilia held out another cookie, and Agatha scoffed as she took it. Why let it go to waste? “Was that the first time you’ve had children line up for you? You looked perplexed. I suppose it’s taken some time to kick in this year. It is your first, after all.”
“Did you bake those in my kitchen?” She reached over and pressed a hand to the oven door. It was warm against her skin. Opting to ignore the fact that Lilia had clearly been watching them, she said, “How did you even get in? I know we locked that door. Lilia, you terrified my son.”
There was genuine anger there. The fear in his voice made her feel violent. She had always been willing to kill whatever remotely threatened to harm her son.
“I apologize.” From the living room, Agatha could hear low voices and laughter. “He seems happy now.”
“You gave him cookies while he’s already on a sugar high, of course he’s happy now. It’s like giving the newly elected President the keys to the White House. Or the truth about aliens.”
“Is that his mother?”
Agatha tossed her hands up in the air and let them fall to hit her thighs. Was she just talking nonsense?
“Yes. Rio. If you’re here to investigate my marriage license, shouldn’t you have done that months ago?”
Lilia made a dismissive noise and moved towards the stove, grabbing a tea kettle that seemed to be on the verge of whistling, steam starting to pour out the spout.
“Don’t tell the rest of the elves, but I’ve always preferred tea over cocoa.”
“I’ll be sure to inform them for a mutiny,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Lilia, voice bland. She poured steaming water into two mugs and passed one to Agatha. It was her own purple mugs being handed over, and, with a peek inside, her own herbal tea bags as well. “You know most people don’t break into other people’s houses, use their kitchen, and scare the life out of their children?”
“I’m an elf,” Lilia shrugged. “We have different rules.”
Agatha took a sip of the tea. It was frustratingly well brewed. “You wanted to talk.”
“Yes. There’s only a month until you come to the workshop again. We have things to work out. Are they-”
Lilia gestured with one hand towards the living room, where she could still hear Rio and Nicky laughing as they sorted candy. If she focused, she could hear the crinkle of laughter. Repetitive sounds of joy, from her own living room, the way she hadn’t heard in years. She wanted to be out there.
Snapping fingers broke her out of it.
“Harkness. Focus.” She blinked. “Will they be joining you in the North Pole?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes.” She shook herself off to clear her head. “From Thanksgiving on through. I’ve been meaning to ask how that works. I don’t have a week of PTO, and I think Nicky’s school would call the cops if he disappeared.”
“No one’s calling the cops. You’re really a zero to one hundred sort of girl, aren’t you? The North Pole handles that with magic, as we always have. You’re not the first Santa Claus to have a son. Or an outside job. How do you think Santa gets a month off? It’s taken care of. Is she your wife?”
Agatha was prepared, she was. It still sent her stomach twisting, like a Boy Scout practicing knots for the very first time.
“Yes,” she said. “Ex-wife. Current wife.”
Lilia’s eyebrows raised. Think on your feet, Harkness.
“When your … rather pointed letter came through,” she started, “we were in the process of working things out.”
“I take it Nicholas doesn’t know?”
“That’s an assumption.”
“You’re not wearing rings. I assume you’d have them, if you were married before.”
“Look at you, Sherlock fucking Holmes,” Agatha clicked her tongue, leaning her hip against the counter. “No, we haven’t told him. We thought my becoming Santa was enough of a shock for one year.”
“You can’t protect him forever.”
“I think I’ll decide what I can and can’t do for my son.” The line of her jaw hardened as she spoke, her heart quickening.
Lilia put her hands up. “Apologies.” She took a sip of her tea. “But won’t it become obvious, over time?”
Would it? They’d have to explain. It simply wasn’t the explanation that Lilia was thinking about. If they were going to spend every Christmas at the North Pole, pretending to be a happily married couple, Nicky wasn’t always going to be the innocent child he currently was. He’d figure it out. He had both of his mothers’ brains shoved in that head of his, and he’d grown up far faster than they’d wanted him to.
“My son-” she bit her cheek, restarted. “Our son has had a rough go of it. He was diagnosed with leukemia when he was three, went into remission just before he turned five. He’s had to process a lot more than the average child. I know better than anyone what I can and can’t protect him from.”
Protecting him from the world was a lost cause, but she could try to protect him from herself. From the consequences of her own actions, from the changes and the riptide she’d pulled them all through, and almost drowned them underneath.
“I know all about your son, Mrs. Harkness. Or did you hyphenate?”
It was an absurd question in the middle of all of this, but it gave her a moment to catch her breath. She was more than sure that Lilia knew.
“We never hyphenated the first time around,” she said, because it was the truth. “Nicky has both of our last names, and we kept our own.”
“I’m not doubting you, Agatha. You’re a good mom. Anyone can see that.”
There it was, right back on track. She buried her nose in the still steaming cup of tea, clenching her hands around it until her palms stung.
“You are.”
“I know.” She pushed the words through grit teeth. She did know, somehow, somewhere. Even if it felt like hell sometimes, remembering. Nicky was happy. He was thriving. School reports came back with glowing comments about how helpful he was to other students, how he shared his lunches if someone didn’t have enough, how thoughtful his questions in class were, even the subjects he wasn’t good at. And sure, Nicky had his moments. He’d had a few teachers write that he was stubborn and especially steadfast in his opinions, that he’d once stolen a handbell from the music room because he’d liked it. No one was perfect, but Nicky came close. Stole the title just as he’d stolen that bell.
It was the things she couldn’t save him from. Of course Lilia was right. Life wasn’t something she could protect him from.
But being a mother wasn’t a reasonable thing.
“I know many kids in this world,” Lilia said. “More than just about everyone. Not as well as you do, of course.” Agatha scoffed. Or as well as kids seemed to know her. That might have to be the last Halloween Town Fair she attended. “And I observed the two of you last Christmas Eve. Few people would put on a dead man’s suit and climb onto the roof because their son asked.”
“Well, I’m exceptional.”
“I agree. You are. Accept it.”
It was fine when she complimented herself like that. Someone else agreeing with it -
“I already said so.”
When Agatha was young, before Evanora pulled her from public school, she’d had a teacher. The woman had been truly ancient, or at least it had seemed so to a kindergartener. Miss Rose had paper thin skin, always smelled like baby powder and cinnamon, and when she looked at you, really looked at you, she could stop the whole world from moving.
And she could tell when you were lying. She never had to say anything. She just set those eyes on you and you knew that she did, too. Everything about you was exposed. Agatha had wanted to be like that one day. To be able to expose a person just by looking at them.
Looking at Lilia now, she remembered that teacher. She had that same look on her face as she regarded Agatha. As if she knew exactly the secrets being kept, and she was only waiting for them to be told now, and it was all on her to do so.
She swallowed.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
It was a diversion, and an obvious one at that. She’d made better ones as a child. But she didn’t blink, didn’t lower her chin. If Lilia thought she was lying, she could drag the truth out of her with her own hands. Agatha would give up nothing by herself.
Lilia looked her up and down, then hummed. “We’ll pick you up that Thursday after dinner. Have your things packed for the month. We’ll handle any business or school. You’ll be learning the ropes, so Christmas will go … smoothly this year.”
“Sorry, Lilia, was my performance not satisfactory last time around?” She stole another cookie off the cooling rack she was certain she hadn’t had when she left the house this evening. That was not hers.
“It could have been more streamlined.”
Agatha scoffed. “I’ll try not to kill anyone this year.”
“Please do. We truly couldn’t bear it.” There was a measure of sarcasm in her voice that Agatha appreciated. “That’s why you join us early. You’re getting training. You have input.”
“I’ll be learning to follow North Pole OSHA?”
“POLES.”
“Come again?”
“POLES. Practicing Operations of Lapland Elves Safely.”
“How long did it take the North Pole to come up with that little acronym?”
“A solid ten minutes.”
“A solid ten minutes,” Agatha repeated, high and mocking.
“Laugh all you want, but that’s a bit long for elves. I’ll go,” she said. “Enjoy the rest of your night. Do try to avoid acquiring any more costumed children asking you for presents. It creates a scene.”
–
“All good?” Rio spoke around the end of a gummy worm that she was pulling on with her hand. It ripped, the head caught between her teeth and her hand flying. “I’m testing the integrity of these. To be sure they’re top quality for our boy here.”
“Oh, toss me one!” Agatha dropped onto the couch, on the other side of Nicky, stretching out to put a foot on the coffee table. Rio raised a brow, but it was Agatha’s coffee table. Former house rules did not apply. She held out a hand, wiggling her fingers. Rio placed a gummy worm in it, reaching around Nicky to do so.
Were gummy candies her favorite? No, not by a long shot. Was she willing to take them from Rio and Nicky just to cause a scene? Absolutely. She bit off the tail of the worm with the same exaggerated motion Rio had.
“Hmm.” She tapped her pointer finger on her chin, chewing. Nicky scrambled onto his knees to watch her. “I’m sensing insufficient information. May I have another?”
“Of course, my lady.”
Over the top of Nicky’s head, another gummy worm was placed into her palm. She held it up, turning it this way and that. Nicky sighed and slammed his hands onto his legs.
“You guys are just stealing. It’s like when you used to tell me ice cream was spicy and I wouldn’t like it.”
Agatha dangled the worm above her mouth and dropped it in, furrowing her brow as she chewed.
“Mama.”
“No, I think they might be poisoned.” She put her hand over her chest and sank back against the couch cushions. “Goodbye, world! Fare thee well!”
With her eyes closed, she felt rather than saw Nicky climb onto her lap. Little hands laid flat on either side of her face. “I know you’re not dead. Because you’re breathing.” Noted. Breath held. “You’re being dramatic. ‘Cause you’re a drama queen. The worms haven’t killed you. Mama. You’re delaying our movie marathon and encouraging Mommy in her thievery.”
He pulled open one of her eyelids. She slammed it shut again. There was a volcano of laughter in her chest waiting to erupt. A hernia was likely from holding it in. She’d have to spend Halloween in the hospital, and when the doctors asked what happened, she’d have to say she’d allowed Halloween traditions to continue after her divorce and remarriage.
Nevermind. She’d let the hernia kill her.
“Do you remember Stitch?” His nose touched hers, his eyelashes gently tickling her eyelids. “Both of your badness levels are up to here.” Warm fingers poked the center of her forehead before suddenly, all of his weight was off her lap. As though he’d been grabbed by a tornado.
“Our badness levels? Our badness levels are up to where, Nicholas?”
The boy shrieked as Rio grabbed him, and when Agatha opened her eyes she saw an impressive show of her holding him above her head, as though he were two years old again, his feet swinging so fast she was sure Rio would get kicked in the head.
“Yes! Your badness levels! Put me down!”
She did, tucking him underneath her arm like a football, her laughter filling the room as she tickled his ribs. Rio’s laughter was the first snowfall of winter, was closing your eyes after a long day. Agatha sank sideways on the couch, elbow propping her up, level with both Rio’s lap and their son’s eyes.
“The council has deemed you safe to eat the gummy worms … for now.”
Rio released him, and Nicky scrambled away towards the packet of gummy worms, snatching them off the coffee table.
“They’re all mine ‘cause I knocked on the doors and you didn’t, and there’s no such thing as taxes.”
The cackle burst from her like a live thing.
“There’s most definitely a thing such as taxes.”
“And bed times,” Nicky said. “You have to stop stealing my candy and calling it taxes, and we have to start our marathon. Otherwise, you’re gonna make me go to bed before it ends!”
Agatha put her hand to her chest. “We would never.”
“We would rue the day,” Rio added.
Agatha stole another piece of candy from the table.
–
“Is he good?” Rio looked up from her spot on the couch, one hand rubbing at her upper lip, the other clutching the mustache. “I couldn’t tell if he’d go down easy or not.”
The familiarity of it ached as it sank to her chest, fingertips rubbing at her sternum, then dropping down to the locket at the hollow of her throat. The locket was decades old, and carved from a cowrie shell. Like her, it had come from Salem.
And like you, Rio had said, as she’d clasped the locket around her throat for the first time, brushing aside hair she’d rarely ever cut for more than a trim, it made it out.
Most people took off the thing that signified their engagement when they divorced, but the nakedness she’d felt without it had been unbearable.
So she’d worn it.
“We compromised.” Agatha said. “He brushed his teeth, and coincidentally, Wednesday Addams is sleeping in our son’s bed.”
Rio lifted her feet from the coffee table to allow Agatha to pass by. When had she put those there? Agatha dropped back into her spot on the sofa, grabbing chocolate off the table, and then the remote. There was familiarity in this, too. Familiarity, and an ache. Their spots on the sofa were the same, too. Too many nights they’d put Nicky to bed, and deal with the work they’d brought home side by side. The room would be lit by the glow of their laptops and the television, filled by the sound of their breathing side by side, clicking of their fingers on the keyboards, and the drone of the television for whatever murder mystery they’d put on first. Someone’s feet would end up in someone else’s lap, or one of them would try to pull an all nighter while the other would fall asleep against them. Rio would always complain the next day about a sore neck from falling asleep half sitting up, but it never stopped either of them from doing it.
“You’re a pushover.”
“I am not.”
“No, you’re not. With anyone else. But you are with him. I’m not complaining, I am too.” Rio turned, shifting her whole body on the couch so she was facing Agatha, cheek resting against it. Parts of her slick backed hair had started to stick up, probably from roughhousing with Nicky. “I let him throw pepperoni at the ceiling. You never said. Was everything okay?”
“Other than the elf break-in?”
“Do we need elf chain locks? What was up with that? I didn’t expect her to be human sized. I was picturing something like elf on the shelf.”
“You thought I’d warned you not to flirt with elf on the shelf sized people? Rio Vidal.”
“It’s been a very weird year, Agatha.”
That was true. They’d had years that were more stressful, years that were worse, but not years that were weirder. If anything weirder than becoming Santa Claus happened, they should probably pack it all up.
“That’s the lady who sent you a letter saying you had to get married or die.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s an elf.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not fucking with me. Is she fucking with you? I didn’t see pointed ears.” Rio frowned. “I didn’t look at her ears.”
“Please don’t ask me about the logic of the North Pole. I got abducted by reindeer last year. It’s not going to start making any sense.”
“The way Nicky explains it, you put on the suit, climbed in the sleigh, and accidentally told the reindeer to go. That makes sense to me.”
“Of course it does.”
“I watched you. You were good with them. Those kids.”
“Obviously,” she said, trying to quell the heat in her face. “Happens all the time. It’s just a thing, with being Santa Claus.”
“But really, Agatha. What did she want?”
“Administrative bullshit,” she scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. “OSHA requirements.”
Rio’s eyebrows raised.
“They don’t call it OSHA. I’m relieved. I thought there’d be some other insane requirement she was going to throw at me last minute. You … you did well.” The words were stones dropping into her stomach. Admitting had never been her strong suit. Over the years, she’d grown better at it, but it seemed she’d fractured it along with her marriage. “You didn’t need to do any of this, but you did. Lilia didn’t question anything. The shoulder touches, the movie marathon, the fact that you’re clearly staying over-”
Rio’s face fell, and Agatha’s stomach flipped. She busied her hands with a chocolate wrapper, folding it up over and over again until only the H of the Hershey was visible, folds it up tight enough it makes her fingers ache.
“-thank you, is what I’m trying to say.” And doing it badly, by the look on Rio’s face. “It seems like it’ll all be fine. I can’t imagine it won’t be, but-”
“Did you know she was coming?” Rio interrupted, her voice level and distant; she didn’t give Agatha a second to respond before she barged forwards. “Is that why you did all of this?”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t play dumb, Agatha,” Rio huffed. “It’s antithetical to who you are. It’s insulting.”
Agatha pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth, barely holding the wince from showing on her face. She hadn’t meant to. It wasn’t dumb she was playing, it was shock. The feeling of it sat metallic on her tongue, bitter, and tasted a lot like blood.
“Is that why you did it?” Rio repeated, again, before Agatha had a chance to answer. “Did you ask us to stay over, set up this movie marathon, do all of that to play into their perception, Agatha?”
Oh. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I didn’t know she was going to be there. Why would I ask you to take Nicky and call 911 if I knew she was going to be there?” Agatha gathered her legs up underneath her, pushing herself up so her elbow was resting against the back of the couch, facing Rio. She didn’t interrupt, eyes no longer on her, instead between them on the couch.
Rio was always looking at her. The absence of it made her skin crawl, wrong in some earth turning sort of way, fundamental to how things worked.
“Rio.”
A muscle in the other woman’s jaw jumped.
“Rio.” For the third time today, Agatha reached out to touch her. Her fingertips grazed her cheek, and when she wasn’t pushed away, she left them there. “I didn’t know she was coming, and even if I had, that wouldn’t have been the reason I invited you over. I’m not that cruel.”
Was she?
“You can back out,” she said, voice a low rasp in the back of her throat. Rio hadn’t looked up. “You’re not locked in, I’ll figure something out. This is more than I could have asked from anyone.”
She deserved to be able to back out. Even if it made Agatha’s body ache, her skin crawl with panic. She deserved that.
“I’m not backing out.”
“You can,”
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” she said, with conviction. “I don’t want to go and find some woman to spend the rest of my life in the North Pole with.” Even Agatha could recognize what a strange sentence that was. “I don’t want that at all. But if you want an out -”
Rio lifted her chin, finally meeting Agatha’s eyes. The world settled.
“I don’t want an out. You started complimenting my acting skills. You made it sound like a setup.”
She wasn’t acting. That fact circled her, daring her to look it straight on. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
(Of course she wasn’t acting. She’d said as much at the cafe, hadn’t she?)
“It wasn’t a setup.” She dropped the hand that was still resting on Rio’s cheek. “Halloween was always-”
“I know.”
“And I invited you to stay because it was what was best.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.” Rio unfolded herself from the couch. One hand darted out and plucked the remote from where it was sitting on the cushion besides Agatha, then pointed it at the television and turned it on. In one swift motion, she’d resettled, facing the tv. “We used to do murder mysteries, but it’s Halloween. Jennifer’s Body, Heavenly Creatures, or The Craft?”
She was going to get whiplash.
“We have time. We could run the list?”
–
Peeling her eyes open was a struggle, points of pain and an odd weight the first things she noticed. An odd strain licked up her spine, settling at a neck that felt crooked and out of place. Attempting to reach up and rub at it found her arm locked into place, and Agatha blinked against the semi-dark. It wasn’t her bedroom she found herself in. The television was still droning on. Still half asleep, she could recognize the voices of Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried.
There was movement against her; she wasn’t alone. Agatha blinked several times to clear her eyes, then looked towards the movement: the shape of a woman against her side, sleeping body half sitting up and head vertical against her arm.
Rio.
She thought of Nicky, asleep in the other room, still dressed in his costume, and realized the both of them still were as well. Carefully - as carefully as she possibly could - she shifted and pulled Rio so she was laying down, head on her thigh. She pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over her, smoothing it out.
The ache in her stomach settled - that constant, dreadful feeling she’d had since she’d got this place, the one that spiked whenever she saw people close together in a restaurant, touching, when she saw people laughing together. That loneliness that had accompanied her from youth as steadfast as another child might have an imaginary friend.
She might as well finish the movie.