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"It's October, Lazlo."
Lazlo looked up from his seat at the Goth family's dining room table, noticing Alexander, dressed in his private school uniform with a blue bookbag hung around his shoulder, standing behind the chair that rested in front of him.
It had been approximately a couple of months since Lazlo first landed inside of the backyard of the Goth manor and subsequently reunited with his brother while also learning about the existence of his nieces, Violet and Nova.
It was a lot to process.
On the bright side, the Goths were paying for his therapy sessions. And everyone in the Goth Manor seemed nice for the most part, though a bit eccentric.
Alexander, most of all.
"You know what that means," Alexander continued, "Right?"
October. That's the same month as Olive Specter's birthday before she died. I remembered this because she was born on the same day as-
"Halloween!"
Of course the Goths are going to care about Halloween! I mean, they're fucking Goths, man! This place already looks a haunted house from the outside!
"Exactly," Alexander said, "Which means we need to start planning now. Mother used to plan all of the Halloween parties, but since she's been gone the rest of us had to do it for her."
"Sounds good, man," Lazlo said, "What do you need my help with?"
"Your help?"
Lazlo and Alexander stared at each other in silence, before Alexander adjusted his circular glasses at Lazlo.
"I have school," he said, "You're unemployed because you have a two year gap in your resume from getting abducted by aliens and you spend most of your time using our money to eat outside food with the excuse of trying out all of the restaurants in Pleasantview and Bluewater Village. You should be the one planning this party."
Ouch.
"I've got to get to school now," Alexander said, "Have fun planning out the party."
Lazlo narrowed his eyes at Alexander as Alexander turned around, calmly leaving the room before staring down at the table.
So I'm the one who has to plan this party now…
Where exactly am I supposed to start?
—
"Oh, the party!"
Lazlo nodded, standing inside of the house's attic with Mortimer as the latter stood in front of an easel, working on an unfinished painting. Violet and Nova were sitting in the corner, playing with a custom-made dollhouse that Cassandra and Vidcund designed for them.
Cassandra's off at work, Vidcund's outside running errands, and I don't want to talk to Zack Carr. That guy's fucking scary. Only option right now is Mortimer.
"Thank you for the reminder, Lazlo," Mortimer said, "We take Halloween very, very seriously. And ever since Bella disappeared, the parties…haven't quite been the same. She was always better at entertaining guests than I was."
"Damn, that sucks…"
"It sucks indeed. But we have to make do with what we have, and I have high hopes for this year. The new neighbors, the Burbs, have agreed to come. Alexander managed to befriend their daughter."
"Who else is coming this year?"
"Besides them, there's Darren, Dirk, Mary-Sue, Angela, Lilith, Coral, and Herb," Mortimer said, "And Dustin and Beau. We can't forget about those two."
Mortimer added a dash of red into his painting as Lazlo tried to recall who any of those people were, his mind running to a complete blank.
"We had a bit of difficulty with people trying to scam us out of our fortune," Mortimer said, "Dustin and Beau's mother happened to be one of them, and we figured the best way to prevent them from going down the same path as her is by supporting their education and helping them succeed in ways that don't involve scamming others."
"Sounds legit," Lazlo said, still unsure of who anybody was.
"We could also invite any family members of yours and Vidcund's," Mortimer added, "If there's any that you have, that is."
Jenny still refuses talk to us after we told her that marrying and having kids with a man twice her age, who also happened to have a one-night-stand with our father before he met our mother, was bad…and Pascal's still trapped in Sixam being used as an incubator by aliens.
Lazlo shuddered at the thought of Pascal.
And when we told Jenny about what happened to Pascal, she simply sent a bunch of laughing emojis and told us to deal with it ourselves.
Lazlo frowned, before noticing Mortimer staring at him with concern.
"I'll interpret that as a no," Mortimer said, "Well, it's alright. We can only feed so many people."
Mortimer chuckled to himself as he turned back to his painting, before Lazlo looked back over at Violet and Nova. He noticed them holding their dolls on the roof of the dollhouse, before Nova pushed her doll against Violet's doll. Lazlo watched as Violet moved her doll to the ground, then let it rest face-down on the floor before Nova moved her doll back inside.
"What are you two playing?" Lazlo asked, kneeling down.
Violet and Nova both turned their heads, staring at Lazlo with their large, pitch-black alien eyes.
They look an awful lot like the kids that the aliens made me have when I was still trapped in Sixam. Wonder what would've happened to Violet, Nova and Vidcund if the aliens knew that they had somehow survived…
"We'we pwaying dowws," Nova said, grabbing a third doll from inside the dollhouse, "You want to join, Uncle Wazlo?"
Lazlo blinked, feeling something wet streaming down his face, before noticing Violet walking over and hugging his arm. Nova crawled over to him, continuing to hold the doll up to his face as she looked at him.
That's the first time Nova called me Uncle.
Lazlo sniffled, tears of conflicted emotions streaming down his face.
"Yes…" he said, "Yes, I'd love to join. Thank you."
Lazlo sat besides the doll as Nova gave him the doll.
"Okay," Nova said, "So this is what we have so faw…"
—
Playing dolls with Violet and Nova did wonders in taking Lazlo's mind off of the slightly more distressing parts of his life. Knowing that he'd never be able to contact Jenny again and coming to terms with the fact that she truly had zero care for any of the three in spite of him and Vidcund being close to her before she met that man, as well as the fact that Pascal was still trapped in Sixam.
A part of Lazlo wanted to run up to the roof and get abducted again, to see if he could try to find a way to save him. But he also knew that if he did, he'd just end up getting re-captured and forced back into the role of an incubator.
It was a conflicting thing. He and Pascal were never truly close, but he could tell that Pascal liked him considerably more than Vidcund. That was probably due to them constantly bickering about almost everything, while most of Lazlo's arguments with his eldest brother was Pascal scolding him like an angry parent.
Lazlo lingered near the bottom of the staircase, staring at random statue that the Goth family happened to have in their house.
Pascal used to like analyzing art. I never cared enough to tell whether or not he was right about the author's intentions or whatever, but I'm sure he'd get more meaning out of this statue than I could.
Lazlo crossed his arms, trying to recall what Pascal looked like, vaguely remembering the sight of thinning hair that was combed to the left side to hide the fact that his hairline was slowly receding.
Or was it the right side? Was his hairline actually receding, or was it just some joke we were making at his expense because Vidcund and I both inherited the "thick luscoius hair" genetics from our mom?
What color was his hair, anyway? Or his eyes? Who did he look more like, between Vidcund, Jenny, and I? Which parent did he take after?
Lazlo shook his head, trying to shake the vision of Pascal out of his mind, before hearing the door creak open as Vidcund entered the room with grocery bags. The two of them stared at each other as Vidcund closed the door with his hips, before walking towards Lazlo.
"Are you alright?" he asked, "You look bothered."
"I'm fine, man. I was just thinking about Pascal."
"…I see."
Vidcund walked to the dining room, glancing behind him to indicate to Lazlo that he wanted him to follow. Lazlo followed Vidcund to the dining room as he watched his brother add the groceries into the refridgerator, before he returned to the dining room with one grocery bag left over.
"I got the items we needed for the annual Halloween Party," Vidcund said, "Everyone here takes it very seriously."
"Yeah, I've heard. Alexander told me about it."
"Makes sense. This one's going to be special for him, because it's the first time he's inviting friends from school over."
Aww! It's Alexander's first set of friends! I didn't know that!
"You know anything about them?"
"Not particuarly, no. Sometimes I talk to Lucy's dad about gardening. He grows a very mean set of tomatoes."
I keep forgetting that Vidcund has friends here. The only person that he actually successfully befriended on his own before was Circe, and…well…it's Circe.
I'm not sure what prompted Vidcund to befriend a sociopath with an obsession with clothing hangers of all things, but we're lucky the only thing she broke was his heart.
"That's great, man," Lazlo said, feeling a slight pang of jealousy, "I'm happy for you. What's his name?"
"John. He works as a househusband, like me."
"You and Cassandra aren't even married."
"Well, we could be married soon," Vidcund said, crossing his arms, "I already have the family approval, and the job market doesn't like people recovering from amnesia."
"Ableists."
Vidcund chuckled, before removing multiple pumpkins from the dining table. Lazlo watched in awe as more pumpkins got pulled out, before they eventually covered the entire dining table.
"Tomorrow the Dreamers will be coming by to help carve and paint them," Vidcund said, "I can introduce you to Darren then. He painted the portrait that hangs over the fireplace."
"Damn. Didn't realize you had art friends too. Pascal would be jealous."
"I'm not sure if I'd call Darren my friend, but I suppose I do tolerate his presence."
So Darren is his friend too. Got it.
The air grew cold as Zack Carr entered from the kitchen, clearing his throat as he nodded at the table.
"Don't put them here."
Vidcund quickly put the pumpkins back into the bag as Zack Carr left the room.
"Could you tell me about John or Darren?"
"John's a plant nerd who's trying to teach me how to make profit from growing plants, and Darren's an artist who used to have a crush on Cassandra due to her resembling his late wife when the two of them first met," Vidcund said, "You can get the rest of their information from them. I'm not an exposition dump."
"Cool," Lazlo said, "So-"
Lazlo flinched, silencing himself as he heard a loud noise coming from somewhere outside in their backyard.
"…What the fuck was that?"
Vidcund and Lazlo quickly ran towards the door, flinging it open as they heard Mortimer running down the stairs behind them, before they both screamed in unison.
"THERE'S A UFO IN THE YARD!"
—
Vidcund and Lazlo stood outside, staring at the UFO remains as Mortimer lingered near the door, being joined shortly by Cassandra (who had managed to leave work early due to this sudden emergency) and Zack Carr.
"The aliens sure love dumping their stuff on our yard," Mortimer said.
"Did you check if there was a person?" Cassandra asked, "There might be someone injured inside of it. And we can interrogate them for information about Pascal or Bella."
"Oh, I forgot about that!" Mortimer exclaimed. "Thank you for the reminder."
Lazlo turned around to notice Cassandra and Mortimer high-fiving, before turning back towards the UFO. A hand that was the same color as Vidcund's suddenly poked out from underneath the UFO, reaching out for something (or possibly someone) before going limp. Vidcund and Lazlo glanced at each other, before quickly running over to try to lift the UFO off of the ground where the hand was.
Just as I suspected, the minute I saw that hand.
It's Pascal.