Page 128 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

Seconds ticked by. She had no way of knowing whether the bell had rung inside the house at all: if it had, her housemates were under strict instructions not to answer, while if it hadn’t, that implied that it had rung somewhere else instead. The doorbell worked, under normal circumstances. But she had spent the last hour making sure that they weren’t dealing with normal circumstances, while her housemates looked on in confusion. Now was when she’d find out if it had worked.

It didn’t help that she’d never actually needed to call on Halloween before. Halloween had always just shown up, uninvited and eager to crash the party. Any party, from birthday to funeral. Halloween wasn’t picky.

Velveteen was. That was why she’d told Halloween she didn’t want to belong to them, didn’t want to join their endless masquerade, no matter how tempting it might seem, no matter how well she fit into their holiday games. So calling on them now felt awkward and wrong, like she was doing something forbidden. Like it was, in some way, a trick.

The thought seemed to be the last component needed to bring everything together. A cold breeze blew across the porch, tickling the back of her neck, making her hands close tighter on the handle of her bag. The door creaked open with a grating screech of hinges, and the girl on the other side looked at her with dismissive curiosity.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Velveteen agreed. “Can we talk?”

“I guess. It’s a free timeline.” Hailey Ween, the Halloween Princess, folded her arms and eyed Velveteen suspiciously. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Jacqueline Claus.”

Hailey paused, expression turning hard. “Is this some sort of a joke? Are you trying to play a trick on me? Because I promise, you won’t like the results if you try to play trick or treachery with me.”

“No!” yelped Velveteen. “We just haven’t been able to find her since the dinosaur incident, and we’re getting worried. I think the Princess may do something really stupid soon if we can’t figure this out, and if anyone would know what was going on, it would be you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Lady Moon is better for general gossip, but whatever’s going on with Jack, it’s probably not good. You’re the cool babysitter and the big sister who knows where all the best candy is. If there’s something going on, you would know about it before anybody else would. Please. Is Jack okay?”

Hailey frowned, looking away.

As always, she was a fairly normal-looking girl in her late teens, with pale blonde hair liberally streaked in green and orange. She was dressed in a purple and black handkerchief skirt, black fishnets, and an orange and purple corset-style blouse that skirted the line of naughtiness with expert ease. All her jewelry for the night was spider-themed, and Velveteen was reasonably sure that some of those spiders were moving. She looked every inch her station, and a proper Spirit of the Season.

After a long, terrible pause, she took a deep breath and said, “That isn’t really a question I can answer. If you had any sense, it would be a question that you weren’t trying so hard to ask.”

“She’s our friend,” said Velveteen. “We care about her, and we need to know whether she’s okay. Please, if you know anything, we need to know it too. And if you don’t…we really need a passage into Winter.”

“Heading straight for the big man, are you?”

“He owes me,” said Velveteen, in a voice like ice. Hailey took a step back. “He’s Santa Claus. He should pay his debts.”

“You know, we all had our fun with you, but I’m glad Halloween never went out of our way to piss you off,” she said.

“You turned me into a ragdoll and made me serve you for months without letting me know what time it was in the real world. You kept me captive when my friends needed me. I think I have plenty of reason to be angry with you.”

Hailey shrugged. “You do, but you’re not.”

Velveteen tried to glower, then sighed and sagged. “I do,” she allowed. “And I’m not. You were always up front with me. You never pretended to be my friend, never acted like you were doing all this because it was what was best for me. You wanted me because I was what was best for you. I can trust you to be straight with me. So please, be straight with me. Where is Jack?”

Hailey’s mouth worked, but no sounds came out. Finally, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “This is a sovereign matter of the Winter Country. For Halloween to answer what you ask would be to violate our treaty with our neighbors, and could put us in a very poor position moving forward. There is, however, nothing to the treaty which forbids us from allowing you passage. Are you ready to go?”

“Not by myself,” said Velveteen.

“All right. Trick-or-treaters most often travel in groups. Where are your friends?”

“Well, that might be a bit of a problem, since they’re behind the door you just used to reach me.”

“Oh, that’s no problem at all.” Hailey stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She beamed at Velveteen, then tossed her hair and turned around, opening the door to reveal the ordinary hall beyond. “There we go: your house, exactly as you left it.”

“Thank you,” said Velveteen, and stepped through, Hailey close behind.

* * *

Velveteen’s relationship with the Seasonal Lands had been ongoing since she was a child, and had never been a secret from her teammates. But while most of them had encountered the various denizens of Winter, they had never directly interacted with the Autumn, or with Halloween. Trick and Treat had been members of The Super Patriots, Inc., for years. That didn’t mean they’d been taking their co-workers home with them to meet the family.