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“Wahey,” Danny declares in a deadpan voice, “I’ve found Nessie.”
Freya comes up behind Arabella and sticks a headband of two green antennae on her. “You forgot these,” she sings, planting a tiny kiss on her cheek.
Like me, Freya is dressed entirely in white. But while I’ve been deemed the offspring of a sheep, Freya manages to look like the most graceful maiden in the land. Her gown is more like a long nightdress. Coupled with her hip-length blonde waves, there’s something ghostly and windswept about the ensemble.
Danny stares at her, possibly because her white dress looks practically see-through. “What are you meant to be?”
She tosses her long blonde hair over her shoulder like it’s supposed to be obvious. “A selkie.”
I give Danny a questioning look. He explains for me, “It’s basically a sexy seal. A sexy seal woman monster thing. A seal that turns into a woman and looks all hot and broody, that kind of thing.”
Freya scowls at him, like everything he just said is wildly offensive. “I’m a fair maiden transformed from a noble creature of the ocean, hoping to be swallowed back by the sea. But humanity enslaves me for its own whims, and the sea becomes but a heartbreaking ghost to me.”
Danny and I raise our eyebrows at one another. Freya sure is being dramatic about her costume. In a quiet voice, Danny starts to make the enthusiastic noise of a clapping seal. I have to tighten my mouth so I don’t laugh.
Freya pointedly ignores him. Her eyes alight on me. “And you’re a… lamb?” she asks in distaste. It’s the most she’s spoken to me since Operation Strike First (or Operation Backfire, as I’m tempted to call it these days), and even now she can barely look me in the eye. As I nod, resigned to being a goddamnlamball night, she turns to Danny, who’s still clapping away. “Cute.” She smiles at us both. “You two make a really cute couple.”
“We’re not—”
“It isn’t like that—”
But Arabella nudges Freya in her side and, with a giggle, tells her to shush.
I meet Danny’s gaze, suddenly feeling awkward. It’s bad enough that I’m dressed in a dopey costume, but now I have the — utterly gorgeous, beautifully presented, intimidatingly perfect — girls mocking my friendship choices.
Ugh.
When Becca and Li arrive, they’re no less manicured. Becca’s majestic, with her braids swept to the side of her head and horse ears attached to a headband. They look so realistic that I have to do a double-take. Pearl beads and crystals cascade down her braids, looking like water droplets and making Becca appear like another creature of the ocean.
“Kelpie,” Danny says knowledgeably. “Water horse.”
I frown, feeling spiteful. “Isn’t that a hippo? Aren’t hippos actually called water horses?”
Becca glares at me. “I’m a kelpie, not a hippo.”
“And besides,” Arabella says in a breezy tone, flipping her green hair over her shoulder, “etymologically, hippos areriverhorses, not water horses. It’s quite a significant difference, Jessa.”
I grit my teeth together and say nothing after that.
Li seems to have forfeited the wholeScottish mythical creaturething entirely and has dressed up as a stereotypical devil. She doesn’t look any less impressive, her short black hair cut at a severe angle against her jaw. She’s so incredibly stylish in a scarlet bodycon dress with her makeup done to perfection, a black leather jacket slung over her shoulder like she’s going somewhere a hell of a lot cooler than a school party. She takes a long swig from a bottle of alcohol and surveys me through dark mascara lashes.
“What?” she barks.
“Your outfit… Is it a Scottish demon thing?”
Her mouth curves into a smirk. “You read enough Scottish folklore, you’ll realize soon enough that the big baddy is always the devil. Everyone’s batshit scared of it.” Her chin points upward. “I’m happy to fulfill that role tonight.”
Danny meets my gaze, his eyebrows flying into his hair. “Just tonight?” he mouths, and I purse my lips to stop myself from laughing.
Even surrounded by the girls and dressed as a lamb, I can’t help but feel kinda upbeat about tonight. There’s a party atmosphere, an energy to Lochkelvin that isn’t normally there. Maybe itisthe spirit realm opening up, if only to laugh at us and go,what the heck are these idiot kids wearing?
Together, we descend from the tower and into the grounds. Thankfully, the girls are all wearing heels, which means I’m not the one slowing down the group with my crutches. It’s been a few weeks since my fall and my leg has started to be walkable now, but there’s no way I’m risking it tonight of all nights.
It takes us forever to reach the bottom, but Danny helps me. He helps the other girls, too, and I watch as they lean on him and carefully lift the hems of their dresses up from the floor. He holds one tufted paw out for them, the other behind his back. It makes me smile. Danny’s a good guy.
The doors to the main entrance are wide open. I’d have thought that there might have been some cool decor for Hallowe’en — I mean, you already have a spooky old castle, so why not camp it up a bit? But despite them taking Hallowe’en seriously enough here to warrant assigned costumes, the decor is as ordinary as always.
Still, it’s not as though Lochkelvin is any ordinary setting.
