Page 4 of A Very Happy Halloween

“Later.”

It was Friday. Which meant I could kick the can down the road for two days, and by Sunday, maybe Alfie would have changed his mind? It wasn’t as if he liked being at home much, anyway.

When we moved to Engleby, there had been two properties for sale in the village—a two-bedroom flat above the local funeral home, and Marigold Lodge. At first, Harry had voted for the flat because he thought it would be cool to see dead bodies being wheeled in and out, but then he realised he’d have to share a room with Alfie and changed his mind. Alfie had voted for Marigold Lodge because of the bug potential in the garden. And me? I’d had the idea that by renovating the place, we could increase the value as a way to thank Marissa for bailing us out of the massive hole we’d found ourselves in.

Marigold Lodge was a four-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom cottage set in an acre of brambles. The roof leaked, and the pipes leaked. Only a handful of the rooms were habitable, so Harry had ended up sharing with Alfie after all, a fact that pleased neither of them. And I’d spent the past five months cursing, crying, evicting spiders, and moving buckets around every time it rained.

The weather forecast over the weekend? Sunshine and showers.

Alfie went into a sulk as I tried calling Shawn’s mum yet again. This time, she finally answered.

“Where’s Harry? Is he there?”

The woman gave a throaty laugh. “Easy, love. Course he’s here. Where else would he be? You haven’t picked him up yet.”

“Sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that he’s not answering his phone, and then you weren’t answering either, so I… Sorry.”

“I always turn the ringer off when I’m watching Whispers in Willowbrook. You missed a good episode tonight. Detective Cartwright found?—”

“Could I just speak to Harry? Please?”

A sigh. “Hold on a sec. The boys are playing on Shawn’s Xbox.”

I heard rustling as she walked through the house, cursing as she tripped over something, and finally, the sound of shooting. Dammit, tell me she hasn’t let Harry play some eighteen-rated war game.

“Your mam wants to speak to you,” she told him, and the game paused.

The next voice was Harry’s. “Mum?”

“Why didn’t you answer your phone? I was worried about you.”

A long pause. “I lost it.”

“You lost your phone?”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you lose it?”

I heard a voice in the background. “If he knew that, he wouldn’t’ve lost it, would he?”

Was that Shawn? Should I be discouraging this particular friendship? Harry was developing enough of an attitude under Steven’s influence without others egging him on.

“Where did you last see it?” I tried.

“Don’t tell her,” Alfie yelled. “She’s really mad.”

Give me strength.

“I’m not mad,” I lied. “It’s just been a difficult day.”

“School, probably,” Harry said. “I had it in physics.”

I wanted to believe him. I did. Life would be so much easier if he was telling the truth. Harry could survive without a phone for a week or two, and then Steven would give him a half-hearted lecture and buy a new one. Sure, Steven would inevitably whine that I’d disabled the “Find your gadget” app on the missing device, but if he hadn’t been using it to spy on us, I wouldn’t have had to. We’d fight, I’d slam the door in his face, and things would carry on as normal. The paint-on-door stranger could go and scam somebody else.

There was just one teensy problem with all that.

Harry was lying.

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