Our Town of Halloween | Halloweentown ❥ Ethan

𝟎𝟗: 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥

They were pointed to the direction of the mayor's office when Gwen inquired about seeing the mayor and Gwen led them to Calabar's office. The negative emotions that were flying from Marnie and Gwen, was giving Maisie the slight pangs of an oncoming headache. Marnie was clearly angry and frustrated with Gwen and their mother was frustrated and stressed from the bus being delayed and them finding out Halloweentown existed. 

It happens every now and then, the negativity giving her headaches. When her dad died, all the grief from everyone had made her isolate herself because it effected horribly with migraines and her own grief didn't help, making her sick – vomiting and all. She ended up in the hospital twice because of the migraines and they prescribed her aspirin to take because that was they could do. The second time, she had bad cramps to add onto her migraine pain. 

She had to listen to silence while in 'isolation' because of the grief affecting her. It took Gwen a while to realize that Maisie had empathy and to figure out what was happening. So, all Maisie could do was essentially remove herself from the extremely emotional situation and just. get. away.

Some days, like during soccer championships, she could block out the emotions, but some days, she couldn't.

But she really had nowhere to go to decompress, especially since Gwen was walking right into Calabar's office.

"Gwen," Calabar said, sounding surprised.

Gwen gasped in surprise, "Calabar. You're the mayor?"

Maisie kept her arms crossed. She still didn't like Calabar all that much because he was hiding something, and she can't call him out on it. She had learned that some people just didn't like it when you outright call someone a liar – especially when you had no proof. And saying, 'I can just tell' didn't cut it. It just made you look like a liar and a weirdo. And Maisie didn't like looking like a lying weirdo.

That one couple, that Maisie knew was having triplets, still looked at her like she was a weirdo, because of her prediction of them having triplets – two boys and a girl. That was just an extreme prediction, and she turned out to be correct. 

"Well, I'm – yes," Calabar replied. "You didn't hear about the election?"

"No," Gwen replied.

That was because she wanted nothing to do with Halloweentown, so of course she wouldn't hear anything about that. And they lived in the Mortal World, so there was that.

"It's just a title, really," Calabar replied. "I have big plans for all of us here in Halloweentown." He seemed genuine on that; Maisie felt. "You are the last person I ever expected to see here. It's been a long time."

He held out a dead rose to Gwen and used magic to bring it back to life.

It was rather uncomfortable, knowing that Calabar seemed to be flirting with Gwen. 

"You always did let your magic do that talking," Gwen replied, taking the rose. "Thank you."

"You used to like it," Calabar replied. "Or have you forgotten that part?"

Maisie wished she could forget this part.

"Uh, no," Gwen said. 

Dylan whispered to his sisters, "What's going on here?" 

"I think the mayor wants to date our mother," Maisie whispered back in disgust. 

Calabar was so not becoming her stepfather.

"You know, I always hoped you'd come back and now? Here you are," Calabar said to Gwen. "Say, I oughta show you around. We could take the Styx River Cruise, have a little dinner, then I could show you all our old haunts. Huh?" He stepped rather uncomfortably closer to Gwen.

Gwen took a small step back, "Uh, actually, I'm trying to leave. I-It seems the bus was delayed and I was hoping that the—"

"That the mayor could help you out," finished Calabar.

Gwen gave a slight nod, "I'm sorry."

Maisie could feel the disappointment roll off of Calabar.

There was a clattering sound and a woman that had the lower half of a pin cushion but with legs came in – more like spun in. She had large needles stuck in her pin cushion and it looked like there were papers stuck to the needles.

"Excuse me, sir," the woman called out. "Miss Sticky here. I'll get right to the point."

Maisie couldn't tell if that was an intentional pun or not.

Miss Sticky went forward, "I have a very urgent message, ooh." She seemed to giggle as she went around the kids, "Somebody's on pins and needles." She laughed.

Maisie liked Miss Sticky. Something about the woman was hilarious and brought some much-needed relief from the tension and negative emotions. 

Calabar took a notice off a needle.

"Pins and needles," Miss Sticky with another laugh.

"I love it," Maisie told her. 

Miss Sticky patted each of the kids as she took off.

Calabar said, "This is an emergency, won't take long. Just stay put. I'll see what I can do for you when I return."

Gwen said, "Thank you."

Calabar said, "Kids." as he walked past them to leave.

Dylan asked, "What was that all about?"

"Well, obviously he's Mom's ex-boyfriend," Maisie said. 

"Maisie," Gwen said.

"I guess you like magic when he does it," Marnie pointed out.

"That's enough," Gwen told her.

"Oh, and if you marry him, I'm not calling him Dad," Marnie added.

Maisie can feel the tension, once again, between Marnie and Gwen, and it was making her develop a full-blown headache. She wondered what the Halloweentown equivalent of aspirin was. 

She moved away from the negativity and went to look out the nearest window while Marnie and Gwen bickered. It looked like Gwen was trying to move Marnie away from Maisie, because she knew that Maisie needed some space away from the negative emotions. 

Sophie came to look out the window with Maisie.

It looked like Aggie and Luke were going somewhere. Maisie really didn't like the look of that.

"Hey, while you two hash this out, I'm going to get fresh air," Maisie lied heading for the door.

"Grandma's going somewhere with the wiener dude," Sophie told the others.

Marnie looked out the window, "Mai and I gotta help Grandma."

Maisie and Marnie both made a run for it.

"Girls!" yelled Gwen. "You two get back here!"