Thursday morning dawned warm and sunny. A soft breeze blew up from the south and filled the neighborhood with a sweet pungent smell that Elizabeth could not identify, but Alice and Dirk said was tobacco curing in the warehouses across the river.
The sudden warmth necessitated a number of costume changes on the part of Alice who had to give up her plan to wear a woolly spooky outfit, in honor of Halloween, for a more temperature-appropriate spooky outfit. She finally settled on a clingy black jumpsuit and dramatic eye makeup that made her look like she belonged on an ancient Egyptian wall painting. Elizabeth didn't think that she needed a costume herself, given that she would be working upstairs, but it occurred to her that she might run into Trip on her lunch break and she dressed with more flair than was strictly necessary.
Before they left for work, Alice walked her sister down to the lip of the park which extended around the traffic circle with the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the column that Elizabeth had noticed when she first arrived, rising from its center. Looking out over the river and breathing in the humid scent of tobacco, the girls stood at the top of a steep concrete staircase that ran precipitously down the bluff to the street below. The James River flowed through downtown Richmond, just to the west and marked by a cluster of short skyscrapers and parking decks, past the industrial quarter on the south side, and then between the wooded banks which lay below Church Hill.
Alice pointed out the new flood wall on both banks up towards downtown and to a stretch of the southern bank opposite Church Hill that was lined with a massive granite wall. Fishermen stood on the stone blocks and cast their lines into the brown water. "Those are the old slave docks. They cleared that area a few years ago when they were building the flood wall. Now there's a trail that runs through the woods from the end of the flood wall down to the docks. Dirk and I went on a hike down there once and we found the head of a goat lying by the trail like somebody had done some kind of ritual sacrifice. It was nasty."
Elizabeth made appropriate gross out noises and they walked back down the street to Alice's car, which was sticky and pink. Someone had doused it with cranberry juice.
"Dammit!" Alice yelled. "If Dirk did this, I'm going to kill him."
She cursed again and stamped her feet, while Elizabeth found a hose under the porch and connected it to the spigot on the front of the house. They rinsed off the car as best they could, but faint pink stains still marred the hood and roof when they gave up and left for work. After nearly running down a jogger, Alice tried to calm herself but continued to mutter about Dirk and his suspected perfidy.
"I thought you two were best friends," Elizabeth said.
"So did I, but he's all of a sudden turned into, like, Mr. Hyde."
Elizabeth looked out the window. "I don't think he'd dump his juice on your car and then accuse you or anyone else of drinking it. Even if he's mad at you about his jacket, and you're not the one who messed it up, it doesn't make any sense. You still have to live together."
"I don't know what's going on with him. He's never done anything like this before. Maybe it was some jerks from the neighborhood. Somebody broke a bottle of beer over Bob's car once."
Then how did the juice jar get in our kitchen trash basket? Elizabeth wondered silently. She was ready for the subject to drop.
When they got to the bookstore, they found Miss Price wearing a set of cat ears and fussing over the window displays. She was arranging a fan of children's books, all featuring black cats in the cover art, around a plastic ghost holding a jack o' lantern. A group of Wicca books was prominently in front. "You girls are late," she said by way of greeting.
They apologized and Alice made their excuses while Elizabeth escaped upstairs to her data entry. She had made a fair dent in the pile of folders over the past three days. This afternoon she would sort and print out the first batch of labels.
She assiduously plugged away at the mailing list. The morning passed ever more slowly as clouds blew in from the south and hid the sun. When she found her eyes straining over the scrawled handwriting of the address list, Elizabeth scrounged up extra lamps from other parts of the store. A dreary rain began to fall shortly before lunchtime and when she went out to get a sandwich and find a mailbox for Penrose's letter, she got so bedraggled that she didn't mind when her hopes of meeting Trip were dashed. She ate sitting at her desk and her only company was a book from the store propped against the computer.
The pale Cadillac pulled up in the alley and parked crosswise in the spaces allotted to the bookstore and shoe store. The driver's door opened slowly and an enormous, bat-like umbrella unfolded over the door. The driver emerged, shrouded in rain gear. Elizabeth recognized Marla only by her shambling walk, every other part of her was covered with black waterproof fabric or rubber. Her hair was tucked up under a rain hat and a black scarf was wrapped around her face up to her eyes. She even had black platform galoshes.
Hydrophobia? Maybe her problem is that she has rabies.
Another car, a red Volkswagen convertible which she recognized as Dirk's, pulled up beside the Cadillac and its horn honked. Marla swept from view and presumably into her shop. Dirk leaned on his horn a few more times, but when Marla did not reappear to park her car in a more civilized manner, he pulled on around and drove away down the alley.
Several minutes later she heard Dirk's voice down in the shop. Wanting to see how Alice dealt with him, Elizabeth saved her file and went downstairs. He was delivering an armload of pumpkins to Miss Price.
"How are these?" he asked. "I've got the big one out in the car. It's nearly fifty pounds. I hope you really like pumpkin pie."
Miss Price chortled with joy and gleefully relieved him of the smaller pumpkins which she added to her displays. The smallest she placed with an assortment of international seasonal treats by the register. Dirk went back out to his car for the big pumpkin and Alice followed him. When they returned, Dirk carrying the pumpkin and Alice holding the door for him, she was telling him about the juice on her car.
He looked as perplexed as Elizabeth felt. He had to admit that Alice would not have dumped it on her own car and graciously included Elizabeth in his amnesty. "Did y'all have anyone over who might have done something like that?"
"No," said Alice. "Did you?"
Dirk shook his head. "Maybe Bob is trying to drive us insane as part of an experiment so he can write a paper?"
"Not Bob." Miss Price emerged from the front window display. "I'm sure he'd get your informed consent before trying anything on you."
The truce of the juice, as Elizabeth thought of it, lasted until after suppertime when Bob, home in the evening for a change, opened the freezer and demanded, "Where's my hamburgers?"
The others dashed to his side and looked into the freezer.
"Where're my pizzas?" asked Alice, rummaging among the frost-covered bags of frozen vegetables. "And my ice cream?"
"Should I be offended that no one's been stealing my peas and carrots?" asked Dirk upon finding his frozen foods untouched.
Not having any food of her own in the freezer, Elizabeth stood back and watched the others accuse each other of food theft. Goosebumps prickled down one arm and she found Penrose standing beside her. Softly she murmured, "I don't suppose you have anything to do with this."
"I don't eat. And I haven't been playing jokes with their food. Did you mail that letter?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. That's one less problem for us. I'm trying to figure out what's happening with the food. They," he indicated her housemates, "won't get anywhere. Why don't you get them away from the freezer and off the subject? Your sister and Dirk were planning to carve pumpkins tonight. Do you think it will be safe for them to wield knives in each other's vicinity?"
"I don't think they're violent."
"Of course we're not violent," Alice said. "We just want to know what happened to our food. I know you guys know better than to touch the Ben and Jerry's."
Bob said, "It was Phish Food. I hate Phish Food. Too much marshmallow fluff. I don't know why you even like it."
"Alice and I are vegetarian. We wouldn't eat your hamburgers," said Dirk. "And if Elizabeth had been up all night pigging out, it would show."
They stood there looking at each other for a long minute.
Bob finally broke the silence. "So either someone is breaking in and stealing our food, or it's the poltergeist who messes with the Velvis."
"He doesn't eat," said Elizabeth.
"They'll think you're mad," Penrose warned her.
"I mean, ghosts don't eat," she said quickly. "A poltergeist might throw food around, right? But this food has simply disappeared."
"She's right," said Alice. "It must be something else. We might as well carve the pumpkins."
Dirk and Bob exchanged a glance that said, "Women."
With great alacrity, Elizabeth ran to get newspapers from the recycling bin and Dirk and Bob hauled the pumpkins in from the back porch. Elizabeth spread the newspapers over the kitchen table and the carving commenced. Grumbling about how the slimy jobs always fell to him, Dirk collected all the pumpkin guts in a dish and separated out the seeds for roasting while the others designed their jack o' lantern faces.
Elizabeth and Alice used felt-tipped pens to draw outlines on their pumpkins, but Bob cut his out freehand with a slender filet knife. Elizabeth drew a simple face with triangular eyes and nose and a broad toothy grin. Alice was more artistic and drew a picture of a witch on a broom. Penrose walked around behind the pumpkin carvers and delivered a blistering critique on everyone's artwork that had Elizabeth in spasms, mostly because of how true it was. The coughing she used to cover her laughter got out of hand and she had to run to the sink for a glass of water.
"You're not getting sick, are you?" asked Bob.
"No," she gasped. "It's just pumpkin fumes."
"Pumpkin fumes? You'll have to do better than that, my girl." Penrose clicked his tongue.
"Are you off on Halloween, Bob?" asked Dirk.
"Yes, there was some fluke with the scheduling and I actually ended up with a night off."
Alice was pleased. "Great. You can help us pass out candy. You wouldn't believe how many trick-or-treaters we get. What are you going to dress up as?"
"Dress up?" Bob looked evasive. "I guess I could wear some scrubs and a stethoscope."
"It's Halloween. You're supposed to dress up in a costume, not your work uniform," Dirk told him.
"I haven't had time to think about a costume," said Bob.
"That's okay. We can find you something from the attic. There are tons of old clothes up there and a bunch of trunks that I haven't even gotten into yet," said Alice.
Bob looked less than thrilled and attempted to distract her. "What about Elizabeth?"
All eyes turned to her and she jabbed her knife into her pumpkin.
"Yes, Elizabeth," said Alice. "How about you? Or do you have a date for Halloween?"
"I haven't been asked out for Halloween," she said loftily.
Her sister grinned with a wickedness that set every suspicious bone in Elizabeth's body to vibrating. "You can help us hand out candy too, and we've got something fun planned for later." Alice took the filet knife from Bob and began hacking away at her design. "Oh no! I chopped off her leg!"
By the time she was done, Alice's witch looked like a Dachshund, even after Bob administered remedial plastic surgery. They arranged all the pumpkins in the front windows, including Alice's despite her protests, and trooped up to the attic.
Elizabeth was curious. As a child she had always fantasized about exploring a mysterious attic filled with old things: toys from latter days, clothes for playing dress-up, and maybe even a journal written by a long-dead hand. If any house had an attic like that, it would be this one. Her curiosity was heightened because Penrose tagged along. She bet he knew where the really good stuff was hidden.