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The whiskers were smudged. Jenny wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somewhere between wrestling a recalcitrant Bella into her little monster costume, helping Ezra straighten his fluffy puppy ears, and searching for Stacia’s misplaced tiara, the whiskers had ended up looking less like precise little lines and more like a little kid had smeared finger paint across Jenny’s face. Exhaling through her teeth, she leaned over the bathroom sink, dabbing at her cheek with a damp paper towel.
Nora clicked her tongue from behind Jenny, making her jump. “You should have just let me charm your face paint like I did Stacia’s,” she said.
“I am a grown woman, Nell. You do not need to mom me.”
“Someone does. You’re making it worse.” Nora elbowed her way in between Jenny and the sink, dabbing patiently at Jenny’s face. “There—”
“How is that any different than what I was doing?”
Tongue between her teeth, Nora waved her hand. Jenny felt the paint shift back into position on her face. “And there,” she said. “It’ll hold this time. You need to stop letting Arthur touch your face just after you’ve done your makeup.”
Belatedly, Jenny remembered that Art’s hands had brushed her cheek about two hours ago, back when she’d leaned in to kiss him before putting him down for his nap. “Maybe I want to have abstract whiskers,” she said. “You don’t know.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “You forgot the nose.”
“I absolutely did not. If there’s no nose, it went the same way as the whiskers.” Jenny stepped around Nora to pick up the tin of face paint, carefully dipping her thumb in to smudge a neat little circle on her nose. “Happy?”
“You should be,” said Nora, waving her hand again. The circle changed shape in the mirror, morphing into a tiny, perfect, downturned triangle. “What sort of self-respecting cat doesn’t have a nose on Halloween?”
“What sort of self-respecting witch doesn’t have a hat on Halloween?” Jenny shot back.
Nora’s eyes widened. As if in slow motion, her hands went to her head. “STACIA,” she said, in a particularly dangerous tone of voice, “DID YOU TAKE MY HAT AGAIN?”
There was a fit of hysterical giggling from the kitchen.
“You know what, I’ll go get your hat back,” said Jenny, trying not to laugh herself. “Why don’t you see what you can do about your makeup? Didn’t you say you wanted to get some lipstick on before you take the kids trick-or-treating?” Without waiting for Nora’s response, she hurried out of the bathroom, carefully shutting the door behind her before turning to face an entirely unrepentant Stacia. “You gonna give your mom’s hat back, kiddo?”
Stacia considered the question, then said, “She doesn’t need it right now, though, does she?”
That was a fair response. “You gonna give your mom’s hat back by the time she needs it to go trick-or-treating?” Jenny amended. When Stacia nodded, she called over her shoulder, “Nora, you’ll have the hat back when we’re ready to go, okay?”
“I could get it back now, you know,” Nora threatened, sticking her head out of the bathroom with lipstick in hand.
“You’re too distracted,” said Stacia. “And I put it somewhere really smart.”
“How did you even get it that fast?” said Ezra curiously from the kitchen table. “I didn’t see you do it—”
“Aunt Jenny said that tapping into the innate magic of a place where a buncha witches live can sometimes lead to—to—” Stacia’s brow furrowed.
“…temporal displacement,” said Jenny, a note of sheepish laughter to her voice. Nora was giving her a death glare.
“Temporal displacement,” Stacia repeated, smiling broadly. “Exactly. So I temporal displacement-ed the hat.”
To Jenny, Nora said through her teeth, “Are you teaching my daughter how to borrow the magic from her surroundings at eight years old? Do you know how much trouble she can cause?”
“Not half as much as Bella when she made your taxes disappear,” Jenny pointed out. “And anybody can do a little party trick like that. Teleportation over short distances doesn’t actually require innate magical ability if you’re living in the same vicinity as—” she dropped her voice an octave, “Eleanora of the Rockies.”
“Good God,” said Nora. “No one should have told you about that. Donovan, did you tell her about that?”
Donovan, who had just entered the kitchen, seemed thoroughly distracted by something else. “Oh, wow,” he said, utterly charmed. “I didn’t know that you two were planning to match your costumes like that!”
Slowly, Nora and Jenny turned to look at each other. “Wait,” said Jenny.
Donovan blinked. His mouth twitched. “…You didn’t plan this,” he said. “I think that’s actually a lot funnier. I’m gonna make sure Nikki takes a picture of this for Mom.”
“No, you—Donovan do not take a picture,” hissed Nora, but Donovan was already heading out of the kitchen. “Unbelievable,” she said, her cheeks flaming red, exactly as her spangled witch’s hat popped into existence a few inches above her head. “Anastasia—!”
“Well, you need it now!” said Stacia, her voice strangled with restrained giggles. “For the photos!”
Sotto voce, Jenny said to Nora, “You know, your aggravation would be a lot more convincing if we all didn’t know you could magic that camera away from Donovan within a matter of seconds.”
Nora pretended not to hear her. Jenny knew that that meant she was right. “We should start taking pictures,” she said. “I’ll have Nicola bring in the babies in a moment, and—Stacia, can you get your cousins in from the living room?”
“Sophie’s here?!” Stacia shrieked, and proceeded to tear out of the kitchen at a breakneck pace. There was an excited hubbub of voices from the living room, all high and close to shrieking.
“Oh, hell,” said Jenny. “If they wake Art up—”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Nora, and was out of the kitchen before Jenny could even ask reminds you what? It seemed a reasonable assumption that she was going to get Art, though, and Jenny had been stretched a little thin as of late trying to figure out a part-time job that would be even slightly compatible with her slightly deranged newish-mom sleep schedule, so she sat down at the kitchen table next to Ezra and propped her chin up on her elbows.
“Hi,” said Ezra.
Jenny smiled. “Hi. That’s a nice drawing.”
“I wanna show it to Matty,” said Ezra. “He likes bugs.”
“Oh, is that—” Jenny peered at the paper. “Is that a ladybug?”
“Mhm! It has seven spots.” Ezra picked up the red crayon and began to carefully color it in. “Schoolhouse Rock said seven is a lucky number.”
“Lucky ladybug,” Jenny observed, stifling a yawn. She was definitely going to take a little nap herself after she put Art down for the night. “Are you gonna need me to paint your face before we go?”
“I don’t like face paint,” said Ezra, wrinkling his nose. “It smudges.”
Jenny had to try very hard not to laugh. “You’re a heck of a lot smarter than me, mousey,” she said.
Ezra blinked, then took in Jenny’s nose and whiskers. “You’re a cat!” he said. “Is it to match Mom? Are you Mom’s kitty cat?”
“Well, I did take her in on a cold, rainy night and decide to keep her, so it does seem apt, in retrospect,” said Nora from the doorway. She was holding what looked a lot like a bright orange potato sack with unusual tenderness. “Janna—”
Incensed, Jenny said, “I am not a cat!”
Wordlessly, Nora gestured to Jenny’s costume.
“This is cute,” said Jenny. “It’s topical. All the hip moms dress as cats for Halloween.”
“Where do you get any of this information?” Now Nora was the one holding back laughter. “Janna—”
“And for that matter,” Jenny added, “if I was an animal, I’d be something more along the lines of a panther. Or a jaguar.”
“…Janna,” said Nora in a strangled tone of voice. “Those are both cats.”
“They—” Jenny blinked, taking this in. As gracefully as she could, she changed the subject. “What did you want to tell me?”
A soft smile stole across Nora’s face. Wordlessly, she adjusted the potato sack in her arms.
Oh. That was not a potato sack at all. That was Art, wearing an adorable little pumpkin costume and blinking somewhat sulkily up at Nora as if he hadn’t slept a day in his life. When his eyes landed on Jenny, though, he smiled, and made those little grabby hands that always melted her heart faster than anything, and—and he was wearing a little pumpkin hat. Because he was a little pumpkin. God, Jenny had been so good at being cool before she had the most adorable baby in the world.
“My baby!” she cooed, scooping Art from Nora’s arms and cuddling him close. He immediately went in to try and smudge her makeup again. “Oh, you are the biggest troublemaking pumpkin in the whole patch, aren’t you? But—” Belatedly, she realized something important. “Nora, where did you get this?” she said with bemusement. “I mean, I love it, it’s adorable, but didn’t we both have that whole conversation about how it’s not worth spending money on a costume that we’ll have to take off him anyway? I’ll be putting him to bed while you take the kids trick-or-treating. It’s too late for him to go out.”
Nora looked particularly smug. “You are very easy to fool,” she said. “One conversation about budgetary restrictions and the importance of your son’s sleep schedule and you fold like a house of cards. And as for where I got the costume—” Her smile flickered. For the first time, she looked a little nervous. “Well,” she said, eyes darting down to her hands. “Ezra, Stacia, Bella, they’ve all worn that costume at some point. I don’t think you’d have noticed—you were still a bit busy with Arthur at the time, and she really only had it on for a few minutes so that Don and I could take pictures—but Bella had it on for her first Halloween. And I thought—I mean, I didn’t bring it up last year, because everything was still so—new—but you’re here this year, and I thought, well, it wouldn’t look good with the photos if Arthur wasn’t wearing the costume—”
There was a lump the size of a tennis ball in Jenny’s throat. “It wouldn’t look good with the photos,” she echoed, a wobbly smile blossoming on her face. “That’s the excuse you’re going for?”
Nora blinked a few times, then looked back up at Jenny. Her eyes were full of so much love. “It wouldn’t be right,” she said. “We’ve four children. I’d never want him to feel like he’s not just the same as his cousins, to me.”
“Oh my God,” said Jenny, and had to hand Art to Nora. (Art whined.) She sat down hard at the kitchen table. “Nell—Nora. You—you’ve already done so much for me. You don’t need—I mean, he’s my baby, that doesn’t mean he—if, if you want, but I would never want you to feel like you have to—” None of her words were coming out even remotely coherent.
Nora smiled a little shyly and bounced Art in her arms, holding him with the same kind of easy affection that she’d held Bella a year ago (before, of course, Bella had learned to walk and become a living nightmare). “I just—” she started, but Art whined again, tugging hard at the fabric of her dress. “All right, little pumpkin,” she said, a low laugh in her voice, and crossed the room to place him back in an overwhelmed Jenny’s lap. He quieted immediately. “It’s his costume too,” she said, soft and steady. “Just the same as the rest of our children.”
“Our?” Jenny echoed, all but shy.
Nora thinned her lips and stared down at Art, who appeared to be trying to take his little pumpkin hat off.
Jenny didn’t know what to say to that. The thought of having even the most tenuous claim to Ezra, Stacey, Bella—a sharp, aching want took root in her heart. She hadn’t even known she was allowed to so much as think it. “Our,” she said again. “Our children.” Nora still wasn’t looking at her, all prickly after a rare bout of emotional vulnerability. Jenny felt ill-equipped for something like this. “I…I like the costume,” she tried shyly.
Nora’s head snapped up. “You like the costume?” she echoed, as if testing the phrase. Giving Jenny the chance to snatch it back.
“I like the costume,” Jenny confirmed.
Nora’s shoulders dropped. She looked almost relieved. Without a word, she knelt down just next to Jenny’s chair, resting her head quietly against the side of Jenny’s leg. Softly, and without looking at Jenny, she said, “I’m so glad you’re here, Janna.”
Jenny felt that pinprick of quiet guilt, deep in her stomach. She hated that there was—might always be—a part of her that wanted her and her baby to be somewhere else. But that part wasn’t half so loud on days like this.
“Oh, he’s a pumpkin!” squealed Stacey, flanked by an equally delighted Sophie and Vivi. Mobbed by his cousins, Art stared grumpily back at them, very clearly not at all in the mood for anything but going back to sleep. “Ohhh, he’s a little crabby pumpkin. He’s like those little crab-apples except he’s a pumpkin. Isn’t he just the cutest?”
“He’s orange!” said Matty with interest. “Like a monarch butterfly!”
“How many spots do butterflies have?” Ezra asked Matty very curiously.
“Baby,” said Bella, squirming in Donovan’s arms to try and pull Art’s hair. Donovan very patiently took a step back, placing Art well out of Bella’s reach. “Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Baby. Daddy—”
“Nicola, would you—” Nora handed Nikki the camera. “Thank you so much. And the cousins can be in it too, if they like, I just—”
“—nah, I know the drill,” said Nikki, giving Nora a warm smile. “One with Don’s little bunch, all together, right?”
Nora smiled back, allowing Nikki to gently tug her children out of frame, before sitting down on the sofa next to Donovan. “Janna?” she said, patting the seat next to her.
“…what?” said Jenny. “But I wasn’t in it last year, I—”
“Last year,” Nora reminded her, “you had a one-month-old, and I’m fairly certain you two slept through almost all of Halloween. You’ve no excuse this year. Get in here.”
Jenny stared. For the very first time, it clicked in her mind that Art could have decades of Halloweens like this ahead of him: cousins who fussed over him, a mom who looked out for him, and an aunt and uncle who loved him. He was wearing a costume well-worn and well-loved, and after the photos were taken, she was going to wrap him up in a handmade baby blanket and sing him to sleep. He was surrounded by love.
Her baby’s little hands were tightly gripping the front of her black turtleneck. His cheek was pressed against her chest. She had known from a very early age that it was her against the world, but more and more, she was starting to think that Art was never going to have to feel that way. Nora loved him. Nora wanted to protect him. Nora wanted him in the little pumpkin costume that her children wore every Halloween.
“Oh, good grief,” said Nora, but it was more worry and love than anything. “Thank goodness I had the foresight to charm your whiskers safe from smudging. Sit down next to me, Janna, it’s all right. There. There, now.”
(“And then,” Art concluded, “Mom cried so hard she almost threw up on the sofa, and Aunt Nora said if you ruin my sofa, I’m legally entitled to financial compensation, which as we all know is Aunt Nora’s way of saying I love you. But the point of that story is the fact that we’ve all got equal claim to the pumpkin costume, so we’re all probably going to have to fight to the death for it unless Aunt Nora leaves it to somebody in the will.”
“Wow,” said Ellie. “Morbid much?”)