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‘The shock absorbers need replacing,’ Mac thought as the school bus bumped over a pothole in the road and he and his classmate bounced in their seats. He figured he could think of a way to improve them if he was given the chance to have a look at the bus’s wheels. Mac left his chair again as another bump in the road reverberated along the bus and wondered if he could speak to the shop teacher in his free period about making some much needed improvements to the school’s vehicle. He’d be grateful if they let him add more padding to the chairs at the very least. He pulled the zip of his coat up until it touched his chin, maybe they’d let him have a look at the heating system too.
The bus jolted and rumbled it’s way through Mac’s neighbourhood, passing trees with bare branches, carefully swept piles of red and orange leaves and houses with pumpkins on their porches and ghosts in their windows. The town was ready for Halloween. It had been for weeks really; decorations had started to go up in mid-October with Mac’s bus ride home growing spookier and spookier each day.
Jack hadn’t put any decorations up. Yet. He’d described himself as a purist, a careful observer of the Halloween tradition.
“If you start plopping pumpkins and rubber arms every which way too early they don’t mean anything. You lose the novelty and the thrill of them being there,” he’d said. “When you’ve walked past the shrunken head hanging off your kitchen ceiling with a bowl of cereal in your hands for weeks it stops being scary.”
Jack was excited for Halloween, making plans and telling stories about his youthful spooky escapades. Mac’s favourite had been the story about the skeleton Jack had hidden in his high school library. He wasn’t sure he believed the one that featured Jack’s cousin George, was it even really possible to steal a corpse from a morgue? Surely there were locks and guards designed to stop people doing that?
Mac was looking forward to the 31st too. It would be his and Jack’s first Halloween together and his first real one for...for a long time.
The bus lumbered around a corner sending the children on it lurching to the left and swaying back again. It shuddered to a halt to let a student off then grumbled back to life to continue it’s journey.
Mac absently watched the boy who had just stepped off pull his backpack onto his shoulders and walk towards his house passing the decorations on the lawn – a witch on her broom, her black cat, and a bubbling cauldron – and climb the steps to the porch that had been draped with pumpkins shaped lights. Then the bus rumbled past the house next door; there was nothing festive or cheerful about that home, no decorations had been hung in it’s windows or placed in it’s yard and there were no lights on inside the house, it looked gloomy and drab in comparison to the one beside it.
Mac’s stomach clenched as he remembered what it had been like to climb off the school bus and walk into a house like that. To a house where Halloween wasn’t welcome, somewhere dark and empty, cold and harsh. He tore his gaze away from the unlit building searching for orange lights and cartoon vampires to distract himself with but the memory of the cold, dark home was there in his head, refusing to leave him alone, pushing at his thoughts, intrusive and persistent. When he reached his stop he jumped down from the bus and sprinted for his front door, trying to outpace the memory haunting him.
He was walking up to his old house in the memory, walking along the leaf strew path and staring over at his neighbour’s house with envy. His neighbour was at the top of a set of step ladders wrapping black and orange streamers around the columns of his porch and he waved at Mac when he saw him looking. Mac pushed the door to his undecorated house open and stepped inside. The door to his father’s study was open and Mac saw James in the middle of the room looking out the window. His father had told Mac not to disturb him when he was working but he wasn’t busy right then, he was just looking outside, not sat at his desk reading or writing anything. Mac thought that maybe if his dad was watching the neighbours decorate their houses it meant he was starting to feel differently about them celebrating Halloween. An excited rush of hope filled him. If he asked when his dad wasn’t busy and when he could see the rest of the street looking so fun and festive he might agree to them having a Halloween like other people had; one with decorations, costumes and the two of them giving out candy together. One that was fun and light-hearted.
“Dad?” Mac asked cautiously as he stepped through the study door. James continued to stare straight ahead, not acknowledging him. His desk was covered in papers and open books with his laptop sitting beside an empty glass. Mac had always liked the books in the study. He didn’t understand everything in them but they were full of interesting photos and diagrams. He had memories of sitting on his father’s lap at his desk looking through the pictures, but those memories were vague and blurred and it felt like it had been a long time since that had last happened. “Dad,” Mac said again, emboldened by his father not immediately telling him to leave, “have you seen Mr Coley’s house?” he added as he walked further into the room. “He’s putting his Halloween decorations up. His house looks really good, I thought…”
James span round suddenly, lashing out and slapped Mac. Mac stumbled sideways until his shoulder collided with the study wall, giving a cry of pain and shock as he fell.
“Have you honestly just disturbed me to say that?!” James snarled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Mac’s cheek stung, burning along with the tears in his eyes. He hated it when his father was angry, it was always so frightening, and he could be so unkind. Mac hadn’t known he would get mad, he hadn’t told him not to come into the study. James moved towards him, bristling with a fury Mac could almost feel radiating off him like a heat haze that would burn him if he got too close. He wanted to bolt from the room and hide or curl into a ball in the corner until his father’s rage passed.
“I’m sorry.” Mac breathed, “I…” His dad’s outbursts were unpredictable and were growing more frequent. He could never tell what would make James furious. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked about Halloween but he so wanted to celebrate it like the other kids with a dad who laughed and ruffled his hair and wouldn’t shout at him for reasons he didn’t always understand.
“All I ask is that you leave me in peace while I work! It’s a simple instruction! If you continue to ignore it I’ll either have to teach you how to listen or find a way to make you remember. Do you understand?”
Mac nodded, he understood what James meant, he’d heard his threats before.
“So, what have I told you?” James stepped closer, looming over Mac who shrank away. “I asked you a question, boy!” James roared, incensed by Mac’s scared silence, and slapped Mac again across the cheek he had already marked. The blow snapped Mac’s head to the side and he reached out to steady himself on the bookshelf he’d been cornered beside.
“That I shouldn’t bother you while you’re working,” Mac stuttered as quickly as he could.
“What else?” James snapped. “Come on, what else? What have I said about Halloween?”
“It’s puerile,” Mac hated his answer but knew that it was the right one to give, the one that James wanted, “and I should pay attention to more important things.” He kept his head down, staying as still as he could, hoping that what he’d said was enough and that his father wouldn’t feel it was necessary to teach him another lesson.
“Is that really so hard to remember?” James sneered.
“S-sorry, I’ll do better.” Mac’s pulse thudded for the long seconds that James stayed towering over him. He kept his eyes down, cowering from his father’s anger and watching his hands for signs that they were about to reach for him or rise up with an opened palm. James gave a disgusted scoff and stepped away and Mac heard the ting of a glass being picked up from his desk, the scrape of a bottle being pulled from a shelf then the low glug of liquid being poured. James took a long swallow, wincing as the burn hit the back of his throat, then slammed his glass back on the desk with a bang that made Mac flinch.
“Go to your room,” he growled, “I don’t want to see you again today.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mac walked slowly from the study until he was sure James couldn’t see him anymore, then he ran up the stairs and into his bedroom.
His backpack lay in the middle of the kitchen floor where he had dropped it, but Mac couldn’t bring himself to care about the mess. He poured himself a glass of cold water and gulped it down, trying to soothe his dry throat and wash away the tight, choking feeling gathered there. Mac used to watch Jack’s hands when he first moved in with him. At first he didn’t even realise he was doing it until Jack noticed one day and lowered them, stilling the emphatic gestures he was making to accompany a story. The safer Mac felt the less he found himself watching Jack in that way, but sometimes, every now and then, when Jack moved quickly or reached past Mac to grab a coffee mug or pet a horse’s nose, he found himself keeping a watchful eye on what Jack’s hands were doing.
Mac had wondered once, in the middle of the night when he was lying awake staring at the ceiling, how many times on average in a person’s lifetime they can expect to be hit. It probably wasn’t that many, he reasoned, if you took the whole population of the planet and divided up how many times every single person had been physically hurt by someone else. He’d concluded that he had probably had more than his fair share of slaps, shoves and hard hands gripping him than was typical and therefore he should stop thinking about it because the probability of it happening again was statistically extremely unlikely.
That should have helped.
Science and logic were comforting. They were rational and clear and the knowledge that statically speaking he’d been unlucky but that part of his life was done and he didn’t need to think about it anymore should have helped him, but it didn’t.
He still got scared. He still worried and watched. He remembered bad things that played over and over in his head. And sometimes he found himself in his kitchen on the verge of a panic attack because he’d seen a house without Halloween decorations.
He was ridiculous. He was so screwed up. He was…
“You would think after all these years I’d remember how heavy pumpkins are.” Jack walked into the kitchen with a pumpkin under one arm and a bag of shopping in each hand. Mac had heard the door open and Jack’s footsteps come along the hall into the kitchen but he hadn’t really registered them in the face of his distress. “Every year I do this, every year! I pick up a hoard of pumpkins then think, ‘these things weigh about as much as a small family car’ as I haul them one by one into the house, sweating and swearing as I do.” He put the pumpkin down on the kitchen counter then dropped the shopping bags next to it. One bag fell over spilling small bags of candy and a box of Halloween makeup onto the side. When Jack’s arms were free Mac launched himself into them, colliding with Jack’s chest with a thud and curling his fingers into his shirt to hold on tight. He pushed his face into Jack and heard his voice rumble in his chest as he spoke, concern colouring it. “What is it? Mac? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Mac shook his head without raising it.
“Did something happen?”
Mac shook his head again. When he felt Jack’s hands at the side of his head trying to tilt it up so he could look into his face Mac pressed harder against Jack, not wanting to talk, wanting to bury himself inside Jack’s chest where it was warm and safe and no bad memories lived.
“Okay,” Jack said, tightening his hold and resting his chin on the top of Mac’s head, “we can stay like this for a while. Do you remember what we talked about?” Jack asked. “Feel your feet on the floor, think about where you are in space and about what each of your different senses can feel.”
Mac closed his eyes. Jack held him silently while Mac did what he’d advised. He breathed, felt his sneaker clad feet on the linoleum floor and focused on what each of his senses were aware of one at a time. He felt himself gradually start to relax and Jack must have felt the difference in the tension held in his body because he started to talk.
“I went past the library today. They’ve put up decorations that the littlies have made in their kiddies craft group. There’s a whole herd of ghosts made from little white handprints marching their way across the windows. Some of them had one eye and some of them had half a dozen eyes with hardly any of them in the right place. It was adorable.” Jack continued to chatter about the gentle minutiae of his day until Mac pulled away from his grip and looked up.
“You feeling better?”
Mac nodded. He was. He felt more grounded, safe, loved, just how he always did when he was with Jack.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Mac took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “I was looking at all the Halloween stuff on people’s houses,” he said into the green fabric of Jack’s shirt, “I remembered how James didn’t like Halloween. He said it was juvenile. It was...” Mac trailed off, not able to talk about his mom’s passing, not with the raw memories of James’ cruelty so close, “...it made him angry.”
“Oh.” Jack said with worried dismay, looking at the Halloween goodies he’d just bought. “We don’t have to…I mean I thought it would be fun for us to…but if it’s going to make you uncomfortable we…”
“No, it’s fine!” Mac nodded to the bags on the counter, “I’m looking forward to doing Halloween properly this year.”
“Good. Me too.” Jack told him. He looked into Mac’s face, watching for a sign that would tell him that his son was okay. Mac gave him quick flash of a smile and Jack saw what he was looking for, he nodded, squeezed Mac’s shoulders and allowed him to step away from his embrace. “I saw a poster for a Halloween fair today in town,” Jack said, sensing that Mac wanted to change the subject. “It’s coming next week with lots of spooky rides, fortune tellers and corn dog stands. I thought we could go.” He turned away from Mac and ducked his head, pulling packets and boxes out of the shopping bags he’d brought home, “I was thinking that me, you, Diane and Riley could all go together.”
“Oh!” Mac said, suddenly understanding why Jack had started avoiding his eye. “Like a date!”
“It’s not going to be a date! Not a date date. “Jack flushed, huffed and blustered. Mac had never seen him so coy. It was adorable. “You and Riley are coming with us, and you don’t take your kids on a date. Diane and Ri want to go to the fair, and we want to go so I thought it would make sense for us all to go together.”
“Like we’re carpooling?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, like carpooling.”
“Carpooling with a woman you like to go somewhere together and spend time enjoying each other’s company?”
“Just like that.” Jack picked up the pumpkin, looked around for somewhere to put it and, not finding an appropriate spot, put it back where he’d found it.
“So, like a date then?” Mac teased.
“It’s not a date!”
Jack and Mac picked Diane and Riley up for the Not Date and drove them all to the fairground. The white and orange lights from the rides lit up the sky, bright enough to drown out the glow of the stars. When Mac opened his car door he was struck by the smell of popcorn, the clash and clamour of the music playing on the different stalls, the screams from the people hurtling around on the rides, and the shouts of vendors hawking their wares. The fairgrounds staff were all dressed up in Halloween costumes, mummies and vampires standing beside rides and stalls with ghosts and ghouls selling candy apples and spiced apple cider. Dry ice was being pumped into the spaces between the stalls to cover the ground with a lingering white mist.
“So, party people, here we are, let’s start having fun!” Jack crowed.
Mac understood his enthusiasm, he felt it too. There was something infectious about the energy thrumming through the fairground, Mac could feel his own pulse responding to the beat of the crowd.
“I’m thinking we should start at the ghost train and make our way around everything else.” Jack said. “Unless anyone has another idea.”
They all agreed that they didn’t, and Diane slipped under Jack’s arm as they started to make their way over to the ride shaped like a twisted, gothic house with a roof like grasping claws. Diane reached up to twine her fingers with the hand that Jack had wrapped around her shoulder. Mac and Riley met each other’s gaze behind their parent’s backs and simultaneously rolled their eyes.
The ghost train was fun, and it actually was a little bit scary, not that Mac would admit that the zombie falling out of the hidden door had made him jump. They laughed in the Hall of Mirrors and were a little underwhelmed by the Shocking Wonders of Nature - the sign above the stand had promised that they would be amazed, disturbed and wouldn’t believe their eyes but Mac was sure that at least three of the items on show were just shaved farm animals in large pickle jars. Mac and Riley teamed up against Jack and Diane on the dodgems then they bought hot dogs that in Diane’s words, ‘didn’t have any ingredients in them that actually occurred in nature’ and were made of ‘stuff that had been cooked up in a lab’ and ate them anyway. They were delicious.
“Oh no! That’s impossible to ignore, challenge accepted!”
Mac followed Jack’s pointing finger to a Strong Man game surrounded by flashing lights that beckoned the brave of heart and hale of stature to come and test their strength.
“Isn’t that a little bit silly and macho?” Diane asked.
“So, you wouldn’t be impressed if I won you a teddy bear?” Jack flashed Diane his best pirate smile, all charm, mischief and twinkling eyes.
“I didn’t say that.”
“All right then.” Jack rubbed his hands together and strode towards the game with determination in his step. He handed the owner of the stall some cash and picked up the hammer, making a show out of getting ready to swing it, reaching up and out to stretch his muscles, cracking his knuckles and twisting his head to ease out his neck, then he looked over to check that Diane was watching, raised the hammer, paused to wink at Diane and swung the hammer down to land with a heavy crash on the target. The bell rang, Jack whooped, Mac and Riley applauded, and Jack was given a soft, fuzzy bear that he presented to Diane as if he were handing her the crown jewels.
Beside them the door to the Ghost Train burst opened and a set of carriages clattered out, down a ramp and back up through more black double doors to re-enter the ride. Mac and Riley turned towards the commotion and Diane, thinking the kids weren’t watching but not realising that Mac could see her in the mirrored backdrop of the Hook a Duck game, stepped close to Jack and looked into his eyes. She smiled and reached up to rest her fingers on his lips with a whisper of a touch. If they were honest, took the final step and actually called what they were doing what it actually was – a date – Mac was sure she would have kissed him.
Jack looked happy, and Mac was happy for him. The times he’d kissed Katie had been lovely, soft and gentle, warm and tender, and he sometimes couldn’t believe that she wanted to share that with him. She was smart, funny, kind and pretty and it could be hard to believe that she wanted to do something sweetly intimate like that with him. With him. Sometimes when they were kissing he’d pull back and look into her face just to check that she was sure and she’d give him a look a lot like the one Diane had just given Jack. A look that was a mixture of ‘you’re sweet’, ‘you’re an idiot’ and ‘I like you so much’.
Diane was fun and nice, and she made Jack’s eyes sparkle. Mac liked her. She made Jack happy and Jack deserved that, he deserved every kind of happiness and Mac was glad that he’d found someone like her to be with.
But.
If Jack moved her and Riley into their lives, into their house, things would change. And Mac liked how things were. He was happy. Happier than he could remember being. He didn’t want that to change, maybe that was selfish, but he didn’t.
“You coming?” Jack called to him, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the Tin Can Alley booth.
“Always,” Mac replied. Jack’s arm was back around Diane’s shoulder and Mac fell into step behind them.
“So, team,” Jack announced, “I’ve been thinking that if we hit that game there with a joint effort we could win the big prize. Or at least lots of the little prizes. What do you think, are we in this together?” he looked back over his shoulder at Mac and Riley, grinning.
“I’m game,” Riley said
Mac smiled and followed his dad, a tiny shard of melancholy and concern needling the contented glow inside him.
“Ooh! Ooooh look!” Jack pointed across the fairground at the booth that promised that the psychic inside it would ‘Contact the beyond’ to ‘Know all! See all! Reveal all!'
“You should go and have your fortune told!” he told Mac. “You should find out how many Nobel prizes you’re going to win!”
“I don’t think so, Jack. I don’t really need anyone looking at my palm and telling me I’m going to meet a tall dark stranger.” The sign on the booth featured a photo of a woman with a sultry pout and smoky eyes with the name ‘The Lady Yana’ written in swirling letters underneath. “That kind of thing is silly at best and a con at worst.”
“Ah, come on kiddo, it'll be fun. You can talk to The Lady Yana over there while Diane and Riley have a go on that electric game thingy.” Jack nodded to Diane and Riley’s backs as they vanished into the crowd. “Maybe you’ll hear a bunch of hooey but that’ll be entertaining, and you’ll have a funny story to tell your friends. You could tell Bozer she started to levitate or something, he’d love that. And,” Jack wrapped his arm around Mac’s shoulder and pulled him close with sadness shading his smile, “I know you've been thinking a lot about the past and how other Halloweens haven’t been the way they should have been, I think it would be good for you to look to the future too - it’s out there waiting for you and is bound to be full of good stuff.”
“Well...” Mac said, scrunching up his face, Jack was right about the past, and hopefully the future too. He could see was really important to Jack that he have his fortune told and Bozer would love to hear about Mac visiting a psychic - he’d probably want to put a telepath in his next movie script. “Okay, I suppose so. Why not?”
“Great!” Jack put his hands on Mac’s shoulders and steered him towards the booth through the people milling around and moving between the rides and games. They weaved through families clutching cotton candy, packs of teenage friends and couples holding hands as the fair glowed, chimed and clanged around them. “Let’s go and see what The Lady Yana predicts for you. I bet it will be amazing.”
Jack pushed through the curtains covering the entrance to the booth with Mac in front of him. The walls of the small room they found themselves in were hung with deep red fabric, the smell of incense was thick in the air and the ceiling had been strung with lights that shone above them like tiny constellations.
Lady Yana was sat at a table with a set of tarot cards and a crystal ball on a small table in front of her. A patterned shawl was wrapped round her shoulders with another one draped over her head, the fabric covering her hair had small coins sewn into it that jingled when she moved. She raised an eyebrow at Mac and Jack as they entered.
“Good evening!” Jack said, “My son here has come to find out about his future.”
“Well,” Lady Yana’s thick Eastern European accent rolled the word around with a husky purr as she looked up at Mac and Jack through heavily mascaraed lashes, “he has entered the right domain. Come. Sit. I feel the spirits starting to gather. Let me gaze into the beyond, I will ask your questions to the other side.”
“Awesome, gaze away!” Jack gave Mac two thumbs up and scuttled out of the door.
“Take a seat young man,” Lady Yana drawled, “and let me see what the infinite holds for you.” She waved a hand at the empty wicker chair on the other side of the table.
“Er, hi.” Mac managed to stop himself from giving Lady Yana a small, silly wave as he sat down, but only just. She looked a little older than the image of her hanging above her stall, Mac guessed she was in her late thirties but with all the makeup and shawls it was impossible to tell.
Lady Yana waved her hands sinuously over her crystal ball. Her nails were long and red and her fingers full of silver rings that flashed in the light. “I need you to clear your mind,” she said, drawing her hand in front of the smouldering look on her face. “I need you to think of the past! I need you to look to the future! I need you to clear your third eye and open your chakras! I need you to…” she stopped, hands frozen in the middle of a dramatic pose and narrowed her eyes, looking hard at Mac through her fingers.
“You don’t need the shtick, do you?” she said.
“No.” Mac shook his head, a little confused. “Not really.”
Lady Yana dropped her arms. “Thank god!” she said in a mid-western accent, all traces of the Eastern European tones vanishing as if they were never there. “Do you mind if I take this off?” She pulled the scarf from her head, “I get so hot and itchy with that thing on.” Her jewelled fingers pushed into her short, blonde hair and she scratched at her scalp with a satisfied moan. “Oh, that’s better. My name’s Laura, by the way.”
“I’m Mac.” Mac was relieved by the Lady Yana’s sudden disappearance. The melodrama, arm waving and gathering spirits had been all a bit too much for him and he had been wondering just exactly how much time he should spend in the booth before making a bolt for the door. Laura’s company was better.
“This was your dad’s idea, wasn’t it?” Laura said with a knowing twitch of her head in the direction of the door. “He thought it would be fun for you to come to see me and find all about how bright your future was going to be, but you weren’t really interested and you just agreed to it to humour him, right?”
“Yes, I didn’t really want to have my fortune told – s-sorry.” Mac added quickly. “My dad liked the idea so much I agreed to it to make him happy.”
“I see a lot of enthusiastic parents. I think it’s sweet. It just means he’s proud of you and is excited for your future. But since we’re here,” Laura picked up the pack of tarot cards in front of her, “why don’t we have a little look at the cards anyway, just so you have something to tell him. I promise,” she held up her free hand as if swearing an oath in court, “there’ll be no funny business
Mac shrugged. “Okay. I suppose so.” Lady Yana would have told him about grand voyages and mysterious strangers, Mac felt a spark of curiosity about what Laura would say.
“Right then, Mac, what do I see in you?” Laura raised a teasing eyebrow then leaned towards Mac. She moved her gaze over his face slowly, looking at him with such close attention that he flushed and quivered with the urge to squirm. The intent in her eyes made him feel like he really was being read, like she was looking through him and inside him at parts of himself he didn’t like to see and things he kept hidden.
As she studied Mac the focus in Laura's face changed. “Oh,” her expression shifted into one of distressed compassion, “oh, sweetheart,” she whispered and reached out to gently cup Mac’s cheek with her palm.
Her unexpected touch was soft, kind and so maternal that Mac was mortified to find his eyes filling with tears.
“I, umm…” Mac ducked his head, blinking and swallowing hard against the lump in his throat.
Laura drew back her hand with an understanding hum. “So, to the cards then,” she said, fussing with them to give Mac a moment to gather himself. The cards were larger than ordinary playing cards with black and white sketches of twisting, knotted vines on the back. They looked like they were regularly handled, some were worn and thinning in places, but also like they were well looked after, and Laura held them with reverend care. She took a card from the top of the pile and laid it on the table. It showed a lady wrapped in a white robe with a crown sitting on her blonde head, the title ‘The Empress’ was printed under her feet.
The lady in the picture looked a little like Mac’s mom, he thought as he studied the figure, with her blonde hair and blue eyes. When Mac thought of his mom he remembered her long hair, her arms around him, and how safe and loved he felt when he was with her. She liked to sing and laugh, and he used to climb up onto her lap to snuggle into her as she read him stories. He looked harder at the card, searching for more signs of his mother, and found himself thinking that The Empress’ eyes looked empty, and her mouth was thin and downturned.
Mac’s memories of his mom came from when he’d been very young, not much more than a baby really. Maybe they weren’t the whole truth, he thought as he looked at the despondency he saw in The Empress’ face. He’d always believed that James had been different when his mom had been alive but maybe that wasn’t true, maybe he just thought that because he hadn’t been old enough to understand the reality of what was happening in his family home. James might have always been angry and unpredictable and maybe back then he had been too young to recognise it. Maybe his mom’s life with James had been as miserable and frightening as his own had been before Jack. Maybe when his mom had been with his dad, been with him, she’d worn the haunted look that he could see on The Empress as she sat despairing and isolated on her throne. Maybe his mom had lost the battle with her illness because the diagnosis had felt like a release. Mac’s heart clenched with anguish as a cold blanket of grief settled over him. He remembered what it had been like to walk towards his joyless, loveless home and how he used to feel that he would do almost anything to get away from it. Maybe he just hadn’t been enough to make her want to stay. Maybe leaving him, he thought as tears threatened to fall again, was a price his mom had been prepared to pay to escape a life that was destroying her spirit.
“No, no don’t do that!” Laura called, shaking her head, her voice tight with alarm. “There’s no reason to think that’s how it was!” she turned another card over and laid it down on top of the first, “Temperance, see!” the new card showed a blonde woman with wings like an angel holding a goblet in each hand and pouring water from one to the other. “Temperance means harmony. Sweetheart,” Laura leaned towards Mac like she wanted to reach out to him again but she held herself back and Mac was glad, he didn’t know if he would have been able to rein in his feelings if she’d touched him in her soft, mothering way again, “Sometimes the things that happen are unearned and unkind – no one wants them, no one chooses them - the same as how sometimes you get good times and good luck for no reason. Sometimes people are taken from you and it’s heart-breaking and unfair; and then sometimes people come into your life and they change everything and open up a whole new, better world to you – I know you know what I mean.”
Mac looked up and met her earnest gaze.
“Don’t do that to yourself, hon, don’t look for an imbalance or darkness if you don’t know it existed,” she said. “Please don’t. There’s no reason to think that’s how it was for her. She loved you, you made her happy, remember that.”
Mac nodded. He blinked his tears away and looked back down at the cards on the table. Temperance stared placidly back. Her expression was bland, probably deliberately so the person viewing it interpreted her features in their own way. If they saw sadness or pain or loneliness there it came from them. The unhappiness Mac remembered being in the home he’d shared with James was his and no one else’s; looking at the past he saw misery and at the fair that evening looking at the future had come with uncertainty so that’s what he’d had in him when Laura had showed him her card.
When Mac thought of his mom he remembered her warmth, her sweet perfume and her smile, there was no reason to think she had been any other way than loving and loved.
“Okay, kiddo?” Laura drawled out the words and gave them to Mac with a knowing glint in her eye. She’d sounded just like Jack, the inflections she’d used were just how he would have asked that question. She quirked a smile and turned over another card.
Death.
Mac stared at the new card in front of him. It showed a skeleton sat astride a white horse with a banner in one hand. ‘Death’ was written in stark black letters underneath the ghoulish figure.
“Wait, don’t panic, people always panic when they see that card.” Laura smiled wryly at Mac’s wide eyes and sharp inhale. “The card isn’t predicting death, it just means change, the end of one thing and the start of another. Lots of changes happen at your age, school, college, becoming an adult." Laura gestured to the card. "This isn’t a portent of doom.”
“No doom?” Mac’s heartbeat was slowing a little after the lurching judder it had given when he’d first seen the picture.
“No doom I promise, it’s nothing to be worried about. The card can show growth and learning. That’s what being your age is all about. And change is something you’ve been thinking about, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Mac agreed, “it’s like you said, school and college and…and other things.” He had just been thinking about the changes that could happen in his and Jack’s lives. What they would mean, how it would feel, if Jack being happy would really be enough to make him happy and if it was self-centred to think otherwise.
“A change in the things that make you happy won't necessarily make you sad. They could mean that you’ll find a new kind of happy.” Laura turned over another card to reveal a picture of a young man walking along a country lane and carrying a stick with a bundle of possessions tied at the end over his shoulder. The sun was shining above him, and he was looking up and away beyond the realms of the card’s edge. “The Fool," she said. “He means welcoming new beginnings and adventures, not quite knowing what’s coming next and improvising. He’s not overthinking his next step,” Laura tapped the youth in the picture with a red nail, “he’s looking out to the future, having faith that it will be okay and figuring he’ll work out what he'll need to do when he gets there. Maybe you could do the same, hmm?”
“Maybe,” Mac agreed.
Laura sat back in her chair, regarding Mac with an observant smile. “So,” she said, “I think we’re done here. I think you’ve seen what you need to. Do you think your dad will be happy when you tell him what the cards showed you?”
“I don’t know.” Mac stared down at the small pile of cards on the table and wondered how he’d explain what he’d seen to Jack. He wasn’t sure how to explain it to himself.
“I’ll tell you what,” Laura started wrapping the jingling coin covered shawl back around her head, “tell him I told you that you would travel to far off lands, reach great heights, learn important lessons and that you should never trust a man wearing white shoes - that last thing is actually a genuinely good piece of advice worth remembering - what do you think?”
“Yeah, yeah I’ll do that.”
“I mean, that’s not a lie, I do think you will do all those things, you look like a smart boy.” Laura winked.
Mac stood as Laura adjusted her shawls so that they draped over her dramatically. “I should go," he said. “Goodbye, Laura – I mean Lady Yana.”
“Goodbye, Mac. Take care of yourself,” Laura rumbled in her character’s accent.
Mac stood halfway out of the curtains hanging over the booth’s entrance. “You too. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Mac let the curtains swing closed behind him and stepped back out into the noise and bustle of the fair.
Jack was waiting for him with a grin and an expectant expression. “How did it go?” he asked. “Did she say anything to you about working for NASA or inventing an Arc Reactor or next week’s lottery numbers?”
“She talked about travelling and reaching great heights and stuff, and how I should think positively about the future. And something about not trusting men wearing white shoes.”
“Did you enjoy it? Was it worth doing?” Jack was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in his eagerness to hear about Mac’s shining future.
“I think,” Mac saw Diane and Riley step out of the crowd and walk towards him and Jack, “yeah, I think it was.”
When Diane and Riley joined them Jack took Diane in his arms and span her around and around, her hair flying out, until she laughed and grabbed hold of his arms for balance. “What do we all feel like doing next?” Jack asked, slowing their movement down until they were turning in a gentle waltz. “Does anyone have anything they’d like to do?”
“The carousel,” Diane answered, swaying in Jack’s arms, “I’ve liked them since I was a little girl, and I thought it might be fun for you and Mac to spend a bit of time with horses that you don’t have to groom or muck out.”
“I’ll bet those horses smell better than the ones in my stable too.”
“They might just.”
Mac looked past the dancing couple to meet Riley’s eyes. She understands, he thought, she really understands in a way that many other people wouldn’t. Mac didn’t know much about her past but from the few things she’d said about her father he believed that Elwood had been similar to James and that they might have the same kind of memories and concerns. Mac liked Riley, really liked her, she was his buddy, and he thought that if he let her she could be a close friend and maybe even a good sister. Riley smiled back as if she knew what he was thinking.
Jack stopped spinning and reached an arm out to hook it around Mac’s shoulders keeping the other wrapped around Diane. Diane stretched out the arm not resting around Jack to put her hand on Riley’s hip and draw her close. “Let’s go and find those wooden horsies then!” Jack said and they walked together as one towards the brightly lit carousel in the distance.
Jack must have told everyone who took lessons at the stable about his big plans for Halloween because groups of children started turning up at Mac and Jack’s house before the sun had even set.
They’d spent the whole of the Sunday before preparing the house. Jack, with a little help from Mac, had created a Halloween playlist and had put it on as he and Mac hung decorations, strung lights and carved the pumpkins Jack had bought. Afterwards they’d both stood staring at the pile of orange mush they’d scraped out.
“What are we going to do with all that?” Mac had asked.
“You can bake with it, pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin fudge. Who doesn’t like pumpkin pie, right?” Jack had said, bopping side to side in time with the song The Monster Mash that was playing in the background.
“Do you have recipes for any of those?” Mac liked pumpkin pie but not enough to eat that much of it. There had been enough pumpkin in front of them to keep them well stocked until New Year.
“No,” Jack had drawled, “but I suppose I could find some. There are bound to be some online. Or,” he’d ducked down and his head had vanished inside a cupboard, “or we could freeze all that pumpkiny smush,” his hand had appeared to drop some Tupperware dishes onto the counter, “until we know what we're going to do with it.” Jack had stayed inside the cupboard, muffled crashes and thumps echoing in the cabinet until he finally surfaced with the lids to the dishes held triumphantly in his fist. “What do you think?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
They’d dumped the pumpkin into the dishes and tucked them into the freezer, Mac feeling confident they would sit there until he and Jack both admitted they would never actually make anything with the frozen goo and emptied it into the bin.
By Halloween night the porch was covered in hanging decorations with carved pumpkins peeking from every corner. Mac had set up low lights to add a spooky glow to the house and had asked Jack to park his truck in the front yard where he’d used empty packaging from the stable and strong wire to attach tentacles, big eyes and a wide, tooth filled mouth to the vehicle.
“It’s a truck with a monster in it,” Mac had told Jack, after promising that all his additions would come away without leaving a mark. “A monster truck, get it?”
“I get it,” Jack had told him, staring wide eyed at the display in his front yard. “That is utterly ridiculous, and I absolutely love it.”
Mac lost count of how many candy bars they gave out, with him dressed as a Stormtrooper and Jack in a zombie costume. Katie came by dressed as a Ghostbuster with a gaggle of younger cousins all dressed as ghosts, and Diane and Riley visited both wearing pirate costumes.
“Here you go, sweetie," Jack said, dropping a handful of chocolate into the bucket Cassie was holding. “You look amazing.”
“I’m a star!” Cassie said, holding out her arms to show off her bright, glittering yellow costume.
“I see that. I could see you twinkling all the way down the street.”
Cassie grinned, delighted. “Thank you for the candy.” she said, taking her mother’s hand, “Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Halloween!” Mac called to her.
The moon was high by the time Bozer came to see them with some of the children who lived in his street. Bozer took more candy than all the children he was chaperoning. “It’s like payment for keeping these kids in order!” he insisted, affronted by Jack’s obvious look at his pillowcase, “and I’ve walked miles tonight!”
The trick or treaters stopped coming soon after Bozer left and as the stars started to blink in the cold clear sky Jack realised he could see Mac’s breath misting in the air.
“I think it’s time to go in. I don’t think anyone else is coming for this candy, would you like to eat what’s left while we watch a Halloween movie?” he asked, shivering as the chill seeped through his costume.
“Yeah. Let’s do that.” Mac smiled. He’d had fun, he’d enjoyed seeing the trick or treaters almost as much as Jack had. The little ones had been cute, and it had been funny to see the older ones being embarrassed to still be joining in with the Halloween spirit but not enough to stop them putting on a costume and enjoying the festivities. He followed Jack inside and Jack closed the door behind them, pulling off the bulkier parts of his costume.
“I’m wondering about what movie to watch,” Jack said from inside his ripped, fake blood-flecked sweater as he dragged it over his head. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for a full on, white knuckle, scream queen horror movie right now. I’m feeling the need for a more family friendly vibe. I have an idea, c’mon.”
Mac gathered up the remaining candy bars – there were lots, Jack had been really enthusiastic in his Halloween shopping – and followed Jack into the lounge, dropping onto the couch in front of the TV while Jack fiddled with the remote.
“Pass me over some of that candy,” Jack said, having finished selecting the movie. He stretched over to grab a handful of chocolates as the opening credits of the movie he had picked started.
“Hocus Pocus?” Mac asked as on the screen Thackary Binks went in search of his little sister.
“What?” Jack protested, apparently finding an objection in Mac’s question. “This movie is a classic. There are witches, a zombie, a talking black cat and a musical number, what’s not to like?”
“Nothing,” Mac said, “I was just expecting something else, something more, you know, scary.”
“Well like I said,” Jack said around a mouthful of gummy bears, “I’m in the mood for a family movie. Chainsaws, escaped psychopaths and trails of arterial blood up the walls would kill my mellow Halloween buzz. This is just right.”
“I wasn’t complaining, I was just surprised.” Mac shifted to get more comfortable. “I like this movie.”
“Good.” Jack threw his arm out to put it across Mac’s shoulder. “Have you had a good Halloween, buddy?”
“I have,” Mac answered, slumping sideways into Jack’s warmth. “It’s been the best one ever.”
“I’m glad,” Jack said, “I hoped that going to the fair and decorating the house would be the start of lots of new memories for you. Happy ones. Did your psychic lady say anything about that?”
“No, she didn’t,” Mac unwrapped a chocolate and took a bite, sweetness flooding his mouth as it melted on his tongue, “but I think it’s definitely written in the cards.”