Page 47 of She is the Darke
First electronic publication: October 2021
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Editor: Alyxandra Miller
Chapter One
She’d always wanted to do this.
Stacia Wallace wasn’t amazing at parallel parking, but she gave it a go right under the Main Street sign that readHollow Rock Halloween Festival.
A trill of excitement zinged through her as she watched two men on stilts dressed like monsters gracefully crossing the street in front of her with paper sacks of fast food in their hands.
A mom dressed as a pink bunny waited up at the light to cross the street with two little kids close behind her dressed in white baby bunny costumes. There were a trio of elves, a witch holding hands with a warlock, a cowboy and two girls dressed like horses, and a man dressed like the frog prince, just on her side of the street alone!
It took her three tries to park her little Mazda, and usually she would be embarrassed with the audience on the busy street, but it was very hard to feel judged by a grown man wearing a Smurf costume.
She’d always heard about this place. Her Halloween-loving little heart had always fantasized about coming here the week of the holiday, but this year, her thirty-third year, was the first time the stars had aligned to allow her to come.
She had two weeks of paid vacation she had to take before the year was through, and had found a helluva last-minute deal on a hotel here. Usually this small, quaint Massachusetts town booked up a year in advance during spooky season because of the festival. And randomly, she gets an email from the hotel she’s been eyeing for years that there was a last-minute cancellation and they were offering her a king suite for the entire week for half off? She’d been signed up for their newsletter for a decade, and all of the sudden, for the first time ever, she gets anemail that a room opened on the exact week she wanted, for a price she could actually afford?
It was a sign. She was supposed to be here.
She parked the car and smoothed out her fitted red and black ringmaster costume. What if she stuck out? What if the locals pegged her as a tourist immediately?
A man in an alien costume walked in front of her car with a Starbucks coffee in his hand.
Okay then. She would be fine.
Stacia shoved her door open and slid out of the car, careful on her high-heeled costume boots. It smelled like caramel popcorn and pumpkin spice. She placed her hands on her hips and sniffed deeply, then scanned the trees that lined the streets. They were all changing colors to bright reds and oranges and yellows.
This was amazing. It was even better than in the pictures!
“Helloooooo fellow Halloween freaks,” she murmured under her breath.
Honk, honk!
Oh crap, she was in the street. “Sorry!” she called to the woman driving a big Highboy pickup truck.
The woman passed, and there was a big enough break in traffic for Stacia to grab her suitcase out of the back seat.
Her hotel, Darkhorse Manor, was just a block up, right in the middle of the action on Main Street. It was an old Victorian home painted in dark grays with cream colored trim. The trees out front were decorated with massive spiderwebs and motion sensor ghosts that bobbled and talked as she passed. There were gravestone decorations and a fake skeleton crawling out of the yard, and anEnter if you Daresign on the front door.
Unable to contain her grin, Stacia pushed open the door and giggled as a toy spider fell down in front of her face and wiggled around. She stepped around it and made her way to the counter.
The wooden floors were dark and scuffed, and her heels made creaking sounds on some of the old boards.
A dark-haired beauty around her age was writing something behind the counter. She wore glasses and a sexy pirate costume. When she looked up, Stacia was struck by how bright and unusual her green eyes were. She wanted to ask if they were colored contacts and where she got them, but Stacia didn’t want to be rude.