Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Up close, he was interesting-looking. His face was all hard angles and dramatic dark eyebrows, but his mouth was lush and soft, and his eyelashes were a dark and elegant sweep. His brown eyes looked sharp and intelligent.
“We were just telling Bram here about the Casper Road Halloween Decorating Contest. Really you should talk to Zachary. He’s won it every year since he moved onto Casper Lane,” Carl said.
A proud smile played at the corners of Zachary’s mouth.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Seems like you start to plan the next year bright and early November 1st,” Charlotte said, clearly trying to include Zachary in the light and jokey tone of the conversation.
But Zachary just said, “I take a day off after winning. To enjoy it.”
Bram wondered if this buttoned-up guy ever enjoyed anything. But then Zachary broke into a real smile, revealing very white teeth that overlapped charmingly, and his face was transformed.
“Wait until you see what I’ve got planned for this year.”
Bram revised his opinion. There was an impish delight about him.
“What’ve you got planned?” Bram asked.
“You’ll see,” Zachary said, raising an inky eyebrow.
Bram snorted.
“You’ll join in the fun, won’t you?” Charlotte asked.
Bram had never cared much for Halloween, but he loved making things, and loved festivals and parades, so surely it would be fun to participate in something that would bring costumed trick-or-treaters. Besides, if he was going to be living here now, it would be an excellent way to make friends.
So he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely will.”
Carl grinned. Charlotte beamed.
Zachary Glass narrowed his eyes, all traces of his smile gone. Now, it seemed, he was evaluating the competition.
Chapter Two
Zachary
A variable had entered Zachary Glass’ meticulously planned life. And it had a dog.
Zachary closed the front door behind him and returned to his plans. The building he was working on had some challenges, structurally, that he needed to work out. It was designed to be built against a rock face and the effect was to be almost as though it had been carved out of the mountain itself. The tension between the crushing solidity of rock and the delicate lines of the excised structure gave the piece an immediacy that sent shivers up Zachary’s spine.
He loved this. The art of the edifice. It was art on the largest scale. And to see one of his buildings in the world? He couldn’t think of anything more rewarding.
Except perhaps his annual Halloween decorating victory.
The other inhabitants of Casper Road were really no competition. Most of them participated for fun; some threw up some store-bought decorations a few days before Halloween and a few enjoyed the project enthusiastically. But even the most elaborate decorations among them were for maximalist effect, and none could hold a candle to the meticulously planned concepts that took up all of Zachary’s spare time when he let it. Which he always did. But although the judges saw his visions, some of his neighbors remained huffy about their loss.
A few years ago, the second time Zachary won, Tracy Breslin at the end of the cul-de-sac questioned his victory.
“It’s just so...weird,” had been her articulate complaint. “And it’s not festive.”
“The festival of All Hallows’ Eve was dedicated to honoring the dead and came from Samhain, during which the cattle would be brought down from the summer pastures and slaughtered for sustenance through the winter,” Zachary had informed her and the neighbors that had gathered, magnetized by controversy. “And open burial mounds are no weirder than mass-produced plastic models of human skeletons, surely.”
Tracy Breslin had sniffed, raised her eyebrows as if to say that she was very much not convinced of this argument, and headed for home. That had been the last time someone had challenged Zachary’s win to his face, but likely not the last time they’d done so behind his back.
His neighbors were probably fine, as neighbors went. Zachary didn’t know and he didn’t care. But as designers they left much to be desired. In fact the only one of them that Zachary considered competition was old Mrs. Lundy near the intersection of Casper Road and Hoot Owl Road. Her strange piles of sticks and stones were truly chilling. When the sun was at certain places in the sky, they cast shadows that Zachary was convinced were conjurations in their own right.
But no one else—not neighbors, the trick-or-treaters, or the judges from the local paper—seemed to take any notice of them. Instead, they always awarded second and third place to designs that looked like a seasonal Halloween store had disgorged itself. A nauseating mishmash of premade graves and spiderwebs and fabric, lit by garish lights and billowing in the wind to the cacophonous soundtrack of howling, evil laughter, and doors desperately in need of WD-40.
But, as they only got second and third place, Zachary didn’t care.
Standing at his drafting table, he could see the new arrival to Casper Road sunnily glad-handing with every neighbor who passed by. Of course, they weren’t simply passing by. Carl had no doubt texted Beverly Mathers, his partner in neighborhood crime—and by crime, Zachary meant utterly placid, crime-free gossip—who had activated the Casper Road Phone Tree, a complex and arcane system that somehow managed to keep certain people always in the know and others (including—and perhaps limited to—Zachary himself) in the dark.