Boondocks

Chapter 19: First

FERN

After Croc left, I sat grinning for a full minute before I picked up the fabric and shook it loose. It was a simple cotton dress, olive green but for one small white daisy embroidered onto the collar. It had an earthy feel to it, perfect for a witch. I crawled into my shelter, pulled off all the layers I'd been wearing before, and slid the thin material over my head.

The air was crisp when I stepped back out, but not unbearably so. I could handle the temperature for a while. It wasn't cold enough for it to be dangerous, and I had a fire to warm me back up after the night was over. The dress hugged my top half and hung loose to my ankles. It was an odd sensation to wear it and not my usual clothes. As if I'd been liberated from jeans and layers and boots.

I unbraided my hair and ran my fingers through the strands, parting it down the center and letting it fall like a wheat colored blanket around me. The more I did, the more I forgot about past Halloweens and lost myself in this one.

I mixed ash from the fire with water and used the mixture to line my eyes, thinking of when I'd come up with the trick while camping with Daddy. He'd shook his head and said that makeup wasn't a survival tool, but I hadn't cared. I'd been around thirteen at the time, and to that past version of myself, makeup was survival.

I grabbed a few of the berries Tex and I had scavenged and used the juice to stain my lips.

I had no idea what I looked like, but I felt...myself. I felt like Fern, before, as if I'd resurrected her to use for this one day. How would she have lived it? If nothing had changed, if they hadn't gone, if I'd been any normal girl with a normal life, what would I have done?

I built up the fire and set a pot of water to boil, adding moss to give it a grimier appearance. Then, I sat and planned what I would say, how I would talk, whether I would cackle, and a mix of words to use as magic spells to cast over them.

When the sun was totally set and the moon was out, they finally arrived. I sat on my knees by the fire, the dress a perfect circle around my legs, head down and hair a curtain around my face.

"Ooh, this is scary," I heard Julia's raspy whisper. The brush rustled as they made their way closer, steps slow. When two sets of shoes entered my line of sight, I flipped my head up to show them my face.

A squeak erupted from the little girl, and Croc appeared like a bullet to snatch her up into his arms. Julia grinned at me. Willow was too busy laughing at Croc to pay much attention. I glanced at Tex out of the corner of my eye. He stood perfectly still, not one of his many smiles on his face. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought him a statue. Was that his costume? A wooden man carved from a mighty oak?

When I realized I'd been staring back for too long, I focused back on the fire, and the pot of moss I had boiling there. "Double bubble, boil or I'm in trouble."

Julia snorted, and the little boy gave a high, tinkling laugh. My attention jerked to his bright face, the chubby cheeks and almond curls peeking out of his corn cob costume. Not a baby, but not quite a child. That stage in between when all the world was new, and life was an adventure. My chest constricted. While I'd seen these children before, I'd yet to make one smile. I wanted to do it again.

"I have been waiting for the children," I said, voice shrill and high. "I have gifts for you."

"Don't take 'em!" a voice cried from the darkness outside the circle. It took me a moment to realize it was Maurice. I hadn't seen him once since I'd patched up his butt. Tex said he'd outright refused to let me check his wound. "She's dangerous. This shit ain't funny!"

Remembering the way Croc had reacted, a wild hair took over me, and I formed my hands into claws and lunged and hissed in the direction his voice had come from. A shriek and a thud followed, and Julia and Willow's laughter was enough to keep the kids at ease.