Page 22 of The King of Halloween
Then Baph moved into the sun. People probably expected the kind of woman who hung porcelain baby doll heads in her trees to have ashen skin, jet black hair, cheekbones that’d cut diamonds, and lips red as blood. Instead, Baph was blessed with the rosy cheeks of a child fresh from playing in the cold. Her hair had less of a creeping fog over the graveyard look and more of a honeyed sunset feel—though she did keep it very short. And instead of the go-to rail-thin goth aesthetic, she was that level of plump that everyone from babies to grown men wanted to snuggle on.
At least, they did until they saw her eyes.
Baph sashayed past him, her work galoshes tramping as she went. “Who’s a good boy, Chernie?” she greeted her guard goat. Taking his horns, she gave him a good shake, and the goat joined in like it was a game.
“You have a goat,” Adam said.
“I’ve had Chernabog for three and a half years now. Not that you’d be aware.” She let go of her goat’s horns and stood, arms crossed over her chest. Adam tried to look into her eyes, but they were covered by her welding goggles.
“Do you mind…?” he said, miming taking them off.
She sighed but did as he asked. People would always gasp when they’d pass her in the street. Ask if they were real, or if she’d been in an accident. But no. Her terrifying eyes, so silver the irises nearly blended in with the sclera, were all natural. She looked like a living wraith trapped in the body of a Minnesotan mom.
“You were not given leave to visit, yet here you are before me. What brings you to this place, Adam?” she asked, then stroked her goat’s head like a Bond villain.
“This!” Adam held up his phone with a picture of the wall of masks.
Baph shielded her eyes. “I do not suffer the whims of such addled technology.”
He gritted his teeth, then strode toward her. “You will this time.” Adam kept forcing the phone into her line of sight. It was a childish game, chasing after her eyes as she kept dodging back and forth before finally catching her. “These are yours, aren’t they?”
With a beleaguered sigh, she cupped a hand behind his phone. He clenched tight, worried she might rip it out of his hand and feed it to her goat. “There are no two alike atoms in this world. Every blade of grass is composed of an ever-shifting array of electrons. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“So that’s a yes. What are they doing in a store that’s not mine?”
“Who is to say when the winds of time dance with the waters of mischief?”
“Don’t bullshit me. You sold them. You sold your masks to someone else!”
She sighed, then slipped back on her welding goggles. Without saying a word, she turned and pushed open her front door. The goat followed.
Unbelievable. Adam snorted. He thought they could do this civilly, but if she wasn’t going to own up to her shit, then he might have to go nuclear.
“Well? Are you coming in or not?”
No one saw inside Baph’s house. Almost no one. It was damn near impossible to make out anything. All the windows were coated in a tint, so even at high noon, the place was darker than a crypt. Baph hung her tool belt on a mannequin in a ballerina tutu, then trailed through the living room. “Attend to me in the kitchen,” she said.
Adam started to take off his shoes before he stared closer at the floor. Instead of something normal like wood or even carpet, it looked like she’d dumped cheap tiny toys all over the floor, glued them down, then painted it black.Shoes are staying on.
“Yes, your highness,” Adam mocked, doing his best to ignore the awkward crunching noises as he followed her.
Half a table sat dead center in the room. It was held up by the hands of a massive elephant statue, which the goat rubbed his horns on. Baph randomly caressed the goat’s head as she poured herself a bowl of honey, grabbed a spoon, and sat down to eat.
Does she expect me to watch her eat breakfast?
“This isn’t a social visit,” Adam began.
“It never is with you,” she retorted. “Every visit of yours comes with strings so fine one can almost miss them until the puppeteer pulls and…” She mimed a thread being cut. “Snap.”
Why didn’t he send her a strongly worded email?
Because she wouldn’t have read it for three years before sending him back a picture of a banana.
“Baph, are these your masks?” he asked, once again forcing her to ‘use technology.’ As if she didn’t have all the streaming services on her Xbox.
“Why ask what you already know?” was her way of saying yes.
“And you sold them, without my permission, to my fucking competition!”
