Eden's Gate

Chapter 16: A Halloween Spooktacular

The kids spent a month waiting and planning. Every day they'd get together and go over what they knew. The grade book they had seen was one shared by all the teachers, so any one or all of them could have been in on it. The only names they had seen that hadn't had their symbols grayed out were theirs. This was an indication that Edelweiss, wherever she was, was probably alive. They needed her, and the rest, for their ritual. That made it a mystery why Eliza said she wouldn't be coming back. Maybe she wasn't in on it and had also been lied to? But what was the plan? What part of them was the key? They found that no one below a C+ grade was ever marked with the symbol. So it was probably their power that was needed. The dreams made it clear that the Noise was what they were trying to reach, and that the ritual was how they intended to do it. Unfortunately none of them were especially learned in magic, so they had no idea what it might mean.

"There's just not enough information," Richard would finish with a sigh.

"We need to investigate more!" Clifton would argue.

"We can't just go and do that, they'll know and catch us. We have to come up with a plan!"

For a month, they'd try to find opportunities to investigate, but they were always either not perfectly discreet enough for Kaitlyn and Richard or somehow blocked. It wouldn't be too surprising to find out that there literally was a mind reader guessing their every plan, being in a psychic school, but they were hiding their more conspiratorial thoughts with barriers. Not that the staff couldn't over come those but they'd thought they'd be able to tell.

Too bad Edelweiss wasn't here, she'd be strong enough to know If they were being eavesdropped on. Her channel had been secure enough.

It was Halloween now, and Mr. Lepus had folded his ears so that they looked like devil horns. He was walking around with his arms pointed forward and with big steps. She was currently getting in her own costume. She had put it together in Workshop and it had come out quite nice.

It was a whole body suit of black fur. Out of the back came a long tail, which she had stiffened into a curved shape. She had also bult what could be called a headband, but it was too thin to hold her hair, and had two large cat ears jutting out of it. She now had one last thing to take care of.

She had gotten her hands on some make-up and began to paint her nose pink, dabbing it to think out into her natural skin tone. She then, one by one, put painted black stripes along her cheeks for whiskers. She turned to Mr. Lepus.

"How do I look?" She asked.

Mr. Lepus stopped his funny act before turning towards her, tilting his head, and after a moment of consideration, nodding and lifting his hand. Kaitlyn didn't realize what he was doing, but it was an attempt at a thumbs up.

"I wish you could speak. Maybe, you'll figure it out."

He shrugged, and leaped up on her shoulder. She set out for homeroom.

It was always fun to see her friends and classmates all dressed up for the holiday. You could tell a lot about someone by what they wanted to be on Halloween. Donna was a witch, Afton was supposed to be a shark but he looked more like a pale blue version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Matthew was a scarecrow. Then she saw Clifton.

Clifton was already there. He had gotten dressed up as Rapheal, the most ornery of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with a shell made out of corrugated cardboard and a red bandana she had actually given him the fabric for. The bandana had holes cut in it so he could see, obviously, but he had gone through the trouble to use eyeblack too.

"You're a Ninja Turtle!" Kaitlyn said.

Clifton beamed, and picked up Voltaire. He technically wasn't supposed to be in class, but an exception was made for this day. Voltaire, for his part, had a little purple bandana tied around his neck.

"Yeah! And I brought my buddy, Donatello!"

'Donatello' looked, frankly, just as horrified about this as he did everything else.

Richard finally came in. He had dressed up as a WW2 British Soldier. He had apparently gone for a specific regiment, Kaitlyn wasn't sure which one, but it had stormed one of the beaches on D-Day. Like all the other costumes, she had seen it come together in the Workshop class, but his in particular looked much better when actually worn by him. She remembered watching him, especially putting effort into badges, which he carved out of wood. He was hobbling slowly, his leg having another bad day.

"Wow! Richard, you look great!"

Richard blushed a bit and saluted her. "Thanks, Kait. You look...cute."

"Aye, lad, cute's the word yer lookin' fer," came a voice from behind him.

Taylor popped their head over his shoulder with a manic cackle. Richard let out a startled yelp.

Taylor had dressed up like a pirate, cloth wrap and a tattered red vest around their chest with baggy blue pants and thick black boots. A leather strap went around their waist with a toy flintlock pistol and a wooden sword they had carved themself. They even wore a tricorn hat with a white feather.

"Agh! Not today, Taylor!"

Taylor's manic smile instantly flattened, "oh, sorry Rich. Are you okay?"

Richard nodded. "Yeah, I'm alright."

Taylor let out a relieved sigh, "good. Is me crew ready to go candy huntin'?" They asked.

"Aye, aye!" Kaitlyn cheered.

"Well good! Just because Eda isn't here, doesn't mean we can't have fun. In fact, we need to have extra fun, and get extra candy, just for her!"

Kaitlyn nodded. Edelweiss hadn't been around for when they started working on their costumes, but last year she had been an angel, and she had mentioned wanting to do an ant queen this year. Kaitlyn sighed. She noticed Clifton was looking at her with a frown on his face, so she lifted her eyes and nodded.

"Let's go get some candy," she said.