Hank led Jesse, Siobhan, and Bella over to Moonset Drive. They decided to leave Brom at Bella’s house, just in case he tried to cause any more problems. Jesse wasn’t totally sure it was a good idea to leave the jack-o-lantern unsupervised, but it was better than taking him with them and risk exposing their identities.

  As they walked, Hank explained what was going on.

  “We’re just cleaning up what’s left of the Halloween party. Most of the big things like the game booths and the contest stage have already been taken care of; now we just need to take down the remaining decorations.”

  It was sort of surreal, seeing Gravewood without all of the Halloween decor. If Jesse didn’t know any better, he could have mistaken it for a regular neighborhood, albeit one of those historical ones where the Victorian-style houses and cobblestone streets had all been preserved. But he knew that in each one of those innocent looking homes, there lived a dangerous monster.

  He shook himself from those thoughts, something else coming to mind. “But wait, Halloween was over a week ago. You’re just now cleaning up?”

  “We like to keep the spirit alive a little past the date,” Hank admitted.

  Siobhan nodded approvingly. “I can respect that.”

  “It’s the one day of the year that celebrates us, you know?”

  He had a point. Halloween was the only time where the weird and creepy were appreciated instead of shunned.

  All down the street, various monsters were helping to take down the decorations, from the colored string lights to the inflatable pop up balloons. Some of them, Jesse vaguely recognized from Halloween night, having briefly seen or talked to them. At the house closest to where they were passing, he saw Ronnie and Donnie working together, one holding a ladder still while the other worked to get plastic hanging bats down from the roof.

  “Do you remember which one’s Ronnie and which one’s Donnie?” Siobhan leaned in to whisper.

  “Ronnie is the tall fellow with fur and Donnie’s the shorter one with blue scales,” Hank hopped in before Jesse got a chance to respond. “Sorry,” he said, at the surprised look on their faces. They had thought that nobody could hear them. “Sensitive ears. Sometimes I overhear things I have no business knowing.”

  “It’s okay,” Jesse said, but he made a mental note not to say too much around the werewolf, lest they accidently let slip their secret. At least he had warned them before they made that mistake.

  Hank led them to a house where a couple of familiar ghosts were surrounded by dozens of plastic bins and boxes, a folding table laden with paperwork in front of them.

  “We’ve arrived at decoration HQ,” he announced. “And there’s the masterminds behind this operation, Walter and Barbara Abernathy.”

  “Oh please, we’re just helping to organize things,” Barbara said with a wave of her hand. “It’s the least we can do. Er, or rather the most, seeing as we aren’t much help with the actual labor.”

  “Hey Bella. And sport,” Walter greeted Jesse. “Good to see you again. And the little scarecrow, too.” He nodded at Siobhan.

  “Did Hank rope you into helping clean up?” Barabra asked. “He has a special way of guilting people into doing what he wants.”

  “Especially when he uses those puppy dog eyes.”

  Hank had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry, I just get a little over-eager sometimes. You two don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

  “No, we do want to,” Jesse said, and Siobhan nodded in agreement.

  As much as every logical part of his brain screamed at him about the dangers that Gravewood posed, there was also a tiny part that had grown attached to some of its inhabitants. Many of them had helped him and his friends during Halloween, and he knew that they weren’t bad people.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Well, most of them, anyway.

  “You two again?” The towering form of Cynthia Vanderwebb approached from behind, her eight spindly spider legs pattering against the sidewalk. “Where’s the rest of your little group?”

  Cynthia was one of the worse parts of Halloween night, presenting a major threat to Jesse and his friends with her vocal anti-human distain.

  “We just decided to come by ourselves today,” he explained, as calmly as he could. He didn’t want to let the scary spider lady know just how much she unnerved him.

  “Yes, and by yourselves, still without adult supervision I see. Maybe I should have a talk with your parents.”

  “No- that’s not necessary.”

  “Yeah, we’re old enough to take care of ourselves,” Siobhan hastily added.

  She pursed her lips, clearly not satisfied, but decided to not press any further, at least for now. “Of course you are. Just be sure to get home safely. You never know who’s lurking around.”

  “Is there a reason you came by?” Barbara asked, deftly switching subjects.

  “Right, I wanted to give this to Bella.” She handed over a ball of sticky webbing that Jesse hadn’t even noticed she was holding. “It’s all I could salvage from the decorations.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Bella took the ball gingerly in her hands. “The silk you make is always so much better than the kind I order online.”

  “Years of practice,” Cynthia said proudly. “Store-bought just can’t compete with home-spun in terms of quality.”

  “What do you use that for?” Jesse asked.

  “Spider silk is a key component in a lot of potions that I make. A little goes a long way and this’ll last me at least until next Halloween.”

  “Only the best for our resident enchantress.” Cynthia beamed and she looked almost like a completely different person from the woman who was scolding them just moments before.

  “Thanks for taking all that webbing down, Cynth,” Hank said. “By the way, there was something I wanted to get your expertise on for next year.”

  He and Cynthia walked off to discuss Halloween decorations. Once they were out of sight, Jesse turned back to Bella.

  “I don’t get it, what’s your secret?”

  “My what?” she asked, confused.

  “Why is she so nice to you when you’re... you know...” he gestured to her.

  “A human?” Walter supplied.

  “Exactly.”

  Bella measured her words carefully. “Cynthia isn’t exactly the easiest to get along with. She has... a hard outer shell.”

  “It’s called an exoskeleton,” Siobhan said.

  “Yes, that. When I first moved to Gravewood, she wasn’t all that thrilled to have me here. Thought I posed a danger to the neighborhood. But Gravewood’s always been a safe haven for witches as well as monsters.”

  “What did you do to convince her to let you stay?”

  Bella shrugged. “I didn’t really do anything. I just... lived my life, and eventually she warmed up to me. Though it’s not like she could actually force me to leave or anything. That would have gone against Gravewood’s founding principles.”

  “What you need to know about Cynthia is that she’s very protective of the neighborhood and its residents,” Barbara said. “But her attention is often misdirected, focusing on things that don’t really matter, or expressing her concern in ways that aren’t helpful.”

  “I’ll say,” Walter muttered.

  “Anyway, we can gossip later. Didn’t you all come here to help with the clean up?”

  Siobhan clapped her hands, eager to get started. “Right, what can we do?”

  “Let’s see.” She looked over at a clipboard on lying the table. “The Ferns need some help taking down the corn maze on their farm. If you could go over there and lend a hand, I’m sure they’d be grateful.”

  At the mention of the maze, Jesse’s mind was flooded with memories of glowing blue eyes and a wicked sharp scythe. He shuddered involuntarily, but kept his voice even when he said, “Uh, sure. No problem.”

  “So, these Ferns are the geniuses who thought giving the scarecrows scythes was a good idea?” Siobhan said. “I would like to have a couple words with them.”

  “Scythes?” Bella repeated. “What are you talking about?”

  She and Jesse relayed their experience on Halloween night with the stalker scarecrows in the corn maze; everything from Siobhan’s ability to trick the regular ones to their encounter with the violent one at the end. So much had happened that night that he’d forgotten they’d never told her about it.

  As they explained, Bella’s expression grew increasingly concerned, her brows furrowing closer together. Even the Abernathy's exchanged a glance.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Bella said once they had finished. “I helped set up the maze, remember? Including placing the enchantments on the scarecrows. None of them were given weapons.”

  Jesse felt his heart sink. “You don’t believe us?”

  “It’s not that, it’s just...” She bit her lip. “I think I’ll need to talk to Hank about this.”

  “But I’ll bet that must have given you kids quite the fright,” Walter jumped in. “Why don’t you two go help Ronnie and Donnie take down the lights instead?”

  “That might be a good idea.” If there was something so weird going on in that maze that even the monsters didn’t know about it, then Jesse didn’t want to go anywhere near it.