Page 70 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

For a moment, he only stared down at it. Then up at Grievance. The festival lights reflected in his green eyes, and his smile changed—losing the teasing edge until it became something warm and unbearably soft.

“For me?”

Grievance scoffed. “No. For Pip to murder tomorrow.”

Milo burst out laughing and hugged the bear tightly against his chest.

“I love it.”

Grievance looked at his mate standing beneath the lanterns, clutching an oversized skull-faced teddy bear like it was precious. He decided he liked carnival games after all.

The music, which until then had been a decidedly human mix of Michael Jackson, nearly every song from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and more renditions of the Scooby-Doo theme than Grievance thought strictly necessary, began to fade.

A new note rang out.

And everything changed.

The first note was low and strange, drawn from an instrument Grievance couldn’t name. Its sound conjured images of empty ribcages. Another joined it, then another, weaving into something eerie and cobweb-covered.

Something felt rather than heard.

The bones of every living and dead thing seemed to recognize it, humming in answer like tuning forks struck by an unseen hand.

Conversations quieted. People began moving toward the square. A fiddle joined the melody. Then drums. Then some kind of eerie, warbling brass instrument whose notes seemed to crawl pleasantly along his spine.

The song was strange. Creepy. Fast. Happy. Perfectly Pumpkin Hollow.

“Come on!” Milo caught his hand.

Grievance let himself be dragged into the square. Magic hummed beneath his boots, unfamiliar at first, then settling into a rhythm. A dancing spell. The next beat struck, and Grievance’s right foot moved on its own. Around them, hundreds moved with him.

Step.

Step.

Turn.

Milo spun away. Grievance caught his hand. The crowd separated into sweeping circles, coats and skirts and capes flaring beneath the jack-o’-lantern light. Nobody needed to know the dance. The music knew it for them. Magic whispered through Grievance’s muscles, suggesting each movement an instant before it came.

Forward.

Turn.

Catch.

Milo came flying back into his arms. He was laughing. Grievance laughed too.

They spun.

Separated.

Found each other again.

Around them, Pumpkin Hollow moved like one enormous living creature beneath a ceiling of orange fire. Grievance stopped thinking. He simply followed the pull of the magic woven into each drawn-out note.

Milo.

Especially Milo.