“I don’t see any either,” said a woman standing behind them.
Chapter Eight
Nora screamed and Nico spun around so fast his boots sent gravel flying everywhere.
“Oh, oh...sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
The woman apologizing was about Nico’s age, wearing an off-the-rack sexy witch costume that showed ample bare flesh. The tip of the pointed hat on her head was rakishly tilted to one side, and she was holding onto her broom with both hands.
“You’re dressed as a witch and you’re in a cemetery at night sneaking up on people,” Nora said, still panting. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to scare us?”
The girl cringed, winced, and squirmed in her shoes all at once.
“I really didn’t mean to,” she said in a small voice. “I was just cutting through the cemetery. It’s on my way home from work.”
“Where do you work?” Nora asked. “A nightmare factory?”
“Two Keys Tavern, down the dock,” she said. “I’m a bartender. We all dress in costumes during October. This was about the last outfit left at the costume shop. It was either slutty witch or slutty nurse. Or slutty nun, which I didn’t know was a thing.”
“It’s a thing,” Nora said.
The woman had a light Boston accent so that “dock” sounded like “dahck” and “bartender” came out “bahr-tendah.”
“There’s always next Halloween,” the slutty witch said. “I’m Justine, by the way. Sorry again for scaring you.”
“Justine?” Nora said. “Like the Marquis de Sade novel?”
“No…Like Justine Bateman from the TV show Family Ties,” the girl said, narrowing her eyes at Nora. “But now we know something about you we didn’t know before.”
“I knew,” Nico said. The girl, Justine, laughed. It was good laugh. Good laugh for a cute girl. Very cute. She had laughing eyes and a sweet face and hair the color of apple cider. And the slutty witch outfit was definitely working for her.
“I’m Nora, by the way. This is my Nico.”
“Nice to meet you, Justine,” Nico said, shaking her hand.
“Ah, good accent. Is that...Italian?” Justine asked.
“French,” he said.
“Better accent than mine,” Justine said, grinning. “So I guess that answers my question. You two aren’t from around here?”
“New Orleans,” Nora said. “And a vineyard in the south of France. Just here for Halloween. We were ghost-hunting the Smiling Girl.”
“Waste of time,” Justine said. “I’ve been in this graveyard a million times. Never seen her. And I know every dead person in this place. Hey, can I give you a cemetery tour? I owe you after scaring the shit out of you both.”
Nico nodded. “Sure,” Nora said, incapable of saying no to cute girls dressed as slutty witches. “Lead the way.”
With her broom, Justine pointed down the path. “Follow me...into hell,” she said in a dramatic voice.
Justine started off, and Nora and Nico fell in step right behind her.
“Welcome to St. Patrick’s Cemetery,” she intoned in a bland tour guide voice. “Established in 1796 at the edge of town in response to a cholera outbreak. We had more bodies than holes to put them in. Oh yes, people were puking and shitting themselves to death back then. Do you ever wish time travel were real? Well, don’t. Nobody but fucking idiots would go back in time.”
“Is this part of the official cemetery tour?” Nico asked Justine.
“I’m a little off the script,” Justine said. “Carrying on.” She pointed with her broom at a large headstone on her right. “Here lies General Robert McMahon of Revolutionary War fame. Hero. Legend. Total asshole.”
“You think so?” Nico asked.
“Well yeah, his wife is buried on the other side of the cemetery, and she died after him, so...you put two and two together, you get an asshole.”
“Those numbers add up for me,” Nora said.
“And over here,” Justine said, doing a little twirl wherein she tossed her broom in an arc to point at another grave, “lies Elizabeth Dunne, famous for maybe having boinked Nathanial Hawthorne.”
“She boinked Nathanial Hawthorne?” Nora asked.
“What’s boinking?” Nico asked.
“What we were doing half an hour ago,” Nora said.
“Ah,” Nico replied. “Boinking.”
Nora loved teaching him English slang.
“According to local legend,” Justine said, still employing her tour guide voice, “she owned an inn he frequented, and she was reputed to be very attractive. And something of an ass freak.”
“He got a piece of her scarlet A,” Nora said.
“A whole lot of scarlet A,” Justine said, nodding. “But no judgment here. I’ve been known to enjoy a little scarlet A myself every now and then.”
Nora started after to follow her but Nico stopped her with a hand on Nora’s arm.
“I like her,” Nico said, soto vocce.
Nora pitched his cheeks. “I’m so proud of my boy.”
“You two coming?” Justine asked. “So many assholes, so little time.”
“Story of my life,” Nora said.
The impromptu tour lasted another twenty minutes. It wasn’t a very big cemetery, though according to Justine, it had more than its fair share of assholes and ass freaks.
“And that concludes our stroll through St. Patrick’s,” Justine said with a little curtsey.
Nora and Nico golf-clapped.
“Thank you,” Nora said. “You were a fabulous tour guide. I’m glad to know that so many early settlers were...what did you call them?”
“The Salem Bitches,” Justine said.
“Right,” Nora said.
“So, yeah, really sorry about scaring the bejesus out of you two earlier,” Justine said, smiling impishly.
“Are you?” Nora asked.
“Hmm…I admit I kind of did it on purpose. Hate all the fucking tourists we have to deal with in October, but if I’d known you two were so adorable, I might not have done it,” Justine said.
“We are pretty adorable,” Nora said. “Want to go get a drink somewhere? I’m buying.”
Justine grinned broadly but the smile faded when she glanced down at her phone.
“Ah, shit. I’d love to, but I gotta get home. I’m working the morning shift.”
“At a bar?” Nora asked. “This is a rough town.”
Justine smiled. “Taking my grandma to her hair appointment. Why do old people get up so early? And really, she’s ninety. Who’s she trying to impress?”
“Nico,” Nora said, causing him to smack her on the ass again.
Justine raised an eyebrow.
“She teases me because I like older women,” Nico explained.
“I’ve got eleven years on him,” Nora said.
“Now I’m kind of sad I’m only twenty-eight,” Justine said, a twinkle in her eyes. Nico brought out that twinkle in a lot of ladies.
“That’s two years older than me,” Nico said, wearing a sly smile to match her twinkle. “It counts.”
“Is he flirting with me?” Justine asked Nora.
“If he knows what’s good for him, he is,” Nora said.
Justine pointed her broom at them. “I like you two. You’re good people.”
“We’re going to a costume party tomorrow night at the Highbury. You want to be our date?”
“That sounds amazing. But...I wouldn’t be a third wheel?” Justine asked. She looked eager but nervous. She’d probably never gone on a date with a couple before.
“If you’re a tricycle, you need a third wheel,” Nora said. “We’d love to hang out with you more.”
“You twisted my arm,” Justine said. “I’m in.”
They exchanged numbers. Nora hugged Justine, and Nico kissed both her cheeks goodnight. Justine took great delight in having a Frenchman kiss her in the classic bise-bise French style.
Nora and Nico watched Justine stroll off to her
apartment. Just before she disappeared out of sight, she turned and blew them both a kiss.
“I told you it wouldn’t be hard,” Nora said.
Nico slowly shook his head in wonder and said one word:
“Rembrandt.”
Chapter Nine
Nora and Nico slept obscenely late the next morning. They had sex upon waking, went back to sleep, and almost had sex again upon waking the second time, but decided they needed food more than sex. By then they’d missed breakfast at the B&B, but a large brunch at the Ugly Mug diner saved them from cannibalism.
Nora and Nico texted back and forth with Justine all day. She gave them suggestions galore of places to visit. Through their texting, they learned Justine was bartending by night to pay for her Master’s in Art Education by day. Justine thought it was “amazing” that Nico, barely twenty-six, had his own winery in France and begged to try some of his wine if it were for sale in Salem. She thought it was equally “amazing” that Nora was a published author. Nora promised her wine and dirty books, and Justine said if they weren’t careful, she’d tie them up in her basement and never let them leave Salem.
This, Justine texted, was how people flirted in Salem.
Nora approved.
Soon as the sun set at the ungodly early hour of six in the evening, Nora and Nico headed out on foot to a nearby haunted museum attraction Justine had recommended. Hand in hand, they wandered long dark hallways where zombies, ghosts, and demons awaited them around every corner and behind every door. In a room labelled “The Oddities,” a collection of medical nightmares that had been discovered in the home of a doctor six decades earlier were on display. Nora and Nico peered through the glass at deformed animals stuffed and mounted, tumors with hair, and even one human brain preserved in formaldehyde.
“This is so disgusting,” Nora said, wincing at the sight of a tapeworm in a jar. It was one hundred feet long that had been supposedly removed from a woman’s stomach in 1898. Proof Justine was right that time travel was for idiots.
“Eh, it’s not so bad,” Nico said.
“The woman thought she was pregnant for two years, and it wasn’t a baby. It was a tapeworm.”
Nico shrugged. “In France, that’s like a...like a kid’s book. You know, a secret pet.”
Nora narrowed her eyes at him. “What happened to the French to make you all like this? Was is the Revolution? It was, wasn’t it?”
They survived the haunted house. Nora screamed and jumped twice, Nico once. In Nico’s defense, he screamed because Nora stepped on his foot. In Nora’s defense, she only stepped on his foot because a young girl in a torn and bloodstained nightgown and white facepaint reached out from under a table and grabbed her ankle with a claw-like hand.
Nico held Nora tightly and patted her back while she caught her breath.
“That was a demon,” she said. “A demon attacked me.”
“It was only a baby demon.”
“Next time you want to celebrate an American holiday, we’re celebrating motherfucking Thanksgiving.”
“You’re so cute when you’re terrified,” Nico said into her ear.
“I think I pissed myself.”
“Maybe not so cute.”
Thankfully, Nora did not piss herself, and Nico’s foot was fine. He’d been wise to wear his steel-toed work boots this evening.
Once Nora recovered from her brush with the demonic ghost girl, she was more than ready for dinner. Afterward, she and Nico picked separate rooms to get ready in for the costume party at the Highbury. She didn’t have to do much but shimmy into her cheerleader outfit and put her hair into pigtails. Nico’s costume, whatever it was, took a little longer. They were meeting Justine in front of the Highbury at nine and it wasn’t until 8:30 that Nico called out from the bathroom.
“Ready?”
“I’ve been ready for an hour, pretty boy. You’re the one taking forever.”
“I can take forever,” Nico said. “I have all the time in the world.”
He emerged from the bathroom. He had changed into black breeches and Hessian boots, a silk vest, white shirt with an elaborate cravat, a black and silver silk jacket, very much in the classic Georgian style. He looked dashing. And a little familiar.
Nora crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the floor.
“Didn’t I tell you not to dress like Kingsley?”
“I didn’t,” Nico said.
He smiled to bare his fangs.
Nora nearly screamed again.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“You told me Interview with the Vampire was one of your favorite books.”
“And movies,” she said. “Holy...you look amazing. Can I call you Lestat? “
“I’m yours. You can call me whatever you want,” he said.
He held out his hand and she slowly slipped her fingers into his. With a quick jerk he pulled her to him, spun her so that her back rested against his chest, and dug his quite realistic fangs into her jugular vein.
“Oh...it tickles,” she said, half-laughing, half-purring. “I like it. Do you have any fake blood on you?”
He did. Nora took it and applied it to her neck.
“Now I’m a cheerleader for the damned,” she said.
“And a very sexy one,” Nico said. He was standing behind her at the mirror while she put on the fake blood makeup. His hands kept wandering under her short skirt.
“Save that for Justine.”
“I have two hands. I can grope you both.”
Nora kissed him. “Such a good boy.”
On the cab ride to the hotel, Nico was quiet, more so than usual. Nora took his hand in hers and squeezed it.
“I take good care of my property,” she said in French. “Nothing happens that you don’t want to happen.”
Nico said nothing, and simply kissed her. As it was a French kiss, she took it as a good sign.
The cab let them off a block from the hotel, which was as close as he could get on Halloween night in Salem, Massachusetts. Nora and Nico emerged into a carnival of costumes. She spotted two Iron Mans (Iron Men?), every possible type of witch (good, bad, and ugly), one slave Princess Leia (she must have been freezing her ass off), and two Captain Americas.
“Do you have anyone like Captain America in France?” Nora asked Nico as they worked their way through the crowd.
“Yes,” he said. “Charles de Gaulle.”
“Charles de Gaulle was a real person,” Nora reminded him, “not a comic book hero.”