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Dean looks at him for a silent moment.
“You’re right,” he says flatly. “Why would I do something likethat?”
While Xavier searches for the first movie, I head into the kitchen for another drink. I look into the refrigerator at the pints of ice cream waiting in there and briefly debate with myself about grabbing one. The pizza is going to be delivered soon, so I stop myself and get back into the living room right as Xavier is asking what I’m sure is the first of manyquestions.
“Is that a real full moon or a stuntmoon?”
It’s actually a legitimate question and I don’t know the answer to it.
At the end of the first movie, while Xavier is still trying to recover from the final shock jump scare that I just know he’s going to bring up when we start the second movie, I start collecting some of the empty dishes from the tables to bring into the kitchen. We’ve eaten through the popcorn and the pizza, and I’m planning an ice cream break perhaps mid-movie. Sam calls while I’m putting the leftover pizza in therefrigerator.
“Hey, babe,” I answer, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear so I can rearrange the top shelf to accommodate the wrapped slices. “How are youdoing?”
Sam is back up in Michigan, helping his Aunt Rose deal with the fallout of what we now know to be her daughter Marie’s murder at the hands of Alfa-Corps, a corporation that was dumping toxic waste and majorly harming small communities and the environment. Marie was a reporter and was about ready to expose them once and for all when they had her silenced—permanently. At first, the scene was staged to look like an overdose, but we all knew that that just wasn’t like Marie. She’d never touched drugs in her life. We’ve been able to clear her name and finally put away the people responsible, but it still can’t bring her back. Rose is taking it hard, so I’m glad that Sam has been able to be there forher.
“Good,” he replies. “It’s a lot, but I’m glad I’mhere.”
“I know you are,” I say. “How isRose?”
“Getting through it a lot better than I thought she would. Though, honestly, I should have expected that. She already got through the hardest part. This is just theformality.”
“I miss you,” Isay.
“I miss you, too. Are the guys there?”
“Yeah. We’re getting ready to start movie number two of our marathon. Well, actually, movie two and a half. Xavier found out that we started on the fourth one, and we got over an hour in before we had to find theoriginal.”
“Why would you do that?” Sam asks. “Even I wouldn’t try to dothat.”
I nod even though he can’t see me.
“I know. The mistake has been rectified,” Isay.
“Make sure you get some sleep. I know you have worktomorrow.”
“I will. You get some sleep, too. I loveyou.”
“I loveyou.”
We say goodnight and I make my way back into the living room.
The third movie starts with a pint of Cherry Garcia clutched in my hand and Xavier doing his best to excavate the caramel core of his own pint. By the time we get back to the point in the fourth movie where we left off, I’ve stolen one of Xavier’s blankets and am curled in the corner of the couch in a full-on food and movie coma.
It turns out, Xavier and I were both wrong when it came to how much of the movie marathon I was going to get through. I manage to get past the three I initially committed to, but I’m gone to the world by the middle of the fifth. I’m not sure how long the boys actually lasted. They were awake and still commenting on the movie when I finally gave in and let sleep take me, but when I wake up curled on the sofa, the streaming network has timed out and gone back to the home channel, so I don’t know which movie was the last they were watching before they, too, passed out.
Both are sleeping deeply and I consider waking them up to have them move into the bedrooms they use when they are here in Sherwood, but they look too peaceful curled up on the oversized nest Xavier laid out. I don’t want to disturb them. I also don’t want to risk possibly scaring the hell out of them, which is a very real possibility considering how dark it still is in the living room as I carefully get up and walk around Xavier to go upstairs.
I wash my face and brush my teeth before heading to my bedroom. As I walk across the room, the window catches my eye. There’s something strange about the moonlight coming in from outside. I walk over to it and look out over the street below. Everything is still and quiet, exactly as I’d expect it to be in these deep pre-dawn hours. Sherwood isn’t the kind of place where people are commonly out in the middle of the night. There aren’t any nightclubs or big entertainment venues in town, and the bars here close well before what last call would be in other places.
Unless someone has really decided to tempt fate and make the drive from one of the neighboring towns, people don’t stumble home drunk in the wee hours. And except for the occasional traveler or overnight employee coming and going, things tend to go still in Sherwood atnight.
Not that it’s an idyllic utopia where nothing bad could ever happen. No one is making postcards of Main Street with captions declaring Sherwood the town of no crime since the 1700s. There have been gruesome murders, kidnappings, and horrific conspiracies that have left their mark on the small town. But for the most part, it’s still safe, comfortable, and quiet here. Sam and I make sure it stays thatway.
But tonight, there’s something different. A strange feeling hangs in the air, sending a chill along my skin so I wrap my arms around myself and consider unfolding the extra blanket at the foot of the bed. I notice something at the end of the street and press a little closer to the window so I can turn my head and look further.
Something like fog is building up at the curve and starting to drift down the street. The closer it creeps, blanketing the other houses, settling into crevices, and swirling around trees and summer-dry flowerbeds, the more I notice that it doesn’t really look like regularfog.
Rather than the heaviness that usually comes with that phenomenon, there’s an ethereal flow to the fine white mist. It seems to shimmer in the moonlight, almost pearlescent against the contrasting dark. It rolls along the street and spreads out to cover each house. When it gets to mine, the window is briefly obscured so all I can see is the delicate hint of shifting colors on the surface of the mist, like light reflecting off the halo of a waterfall.
