Halloween III - Season of the Witch Read Online Free Page B

stormfront of negativity moving across her tidy universe, ready to repel any intruder.
    Bella, who was taller, clamored to get her paper bag away from him while Willie scooted his hands up under his father’s jacket to find the other bag.
    Enter the wife.
    Challis glanced with painful casualness over their heads at the dark woman who now stood on the far boundary of the carpet.
    “Hi,” said Challis. “Sorry. Bad timing.”
    She did not smile.
    Her hair was vaguely restyled, still curled but now brushed more to one side. This new emphasis threw the asymmetry of her thin features even further out of balance. One of her eyes seemed unable to locate him.
    “I’m used to it,” she said. “Remember?”
    She waited a beat, pretending not to notice his shoes. My move, he thought. He resisted an impulse to wipe his feet on the rug. He would not give her the satisfaction. He allowed himself to be distracted by the children.
    “All right,” he said, “all right.”
    He handed one of the bags to his daughter. Her face was drawn, longer than he remembered. He had not realized how fast she was growing.
    “Here.”
    He gave the other to Willie. Little Willie-boy. He wanted to scoop the boy up in his arms but felt inhibited by Linda’s glaring, which he could not ignore.
    He and Linda, separated by the children, watched them tear into the bags.
    Two masks, the smaller, dollar-fifty variety, dangled from four small hands. In the lamplight they looked crude and sloppily painted. Oh jeez, he thought, as the masks drooped in unison to touch the floor. I knew it. I should have gotten the bigger ones.
    “What’s wrong? Don’t you like them?”
    Bella, she of the liquid eyes and perpetually quivering lip, looked at him in disbelief, as though he had just served them up Lassieburgers on a bun. She could not bring herself to speak.
    “Mommy already got us masks,” said Willie, always the diplomat.
    Of course, thought Challis.
    Bella’s eyes darted past him, her attention refocused. “Yeah, Silver Shamrock. Look!”
    His face fell as the children’s expressions became animated. They scampered for the sofa.
    Challis was left alone in the middle of the room.
    His ex-wife moved closer to him as a brilliantly painted skullface emerged from behind the cushions. Seconds later Bella, a bilious green witch’s head in place over her own, joined her brother.
    “Silver Shamrock!” they shouted through the rubber mouth openings. Their voices were muffled wetly. He might not even have recognized them. “Silver Shamrock!”
    They danced around the room, mimicking that ubiquitous TV spot.
    Without looking at him Linda said, “Nice try.”
    Challis stooped to pick up his dollar-fifty masks and stuffed them under his coat. Thank you, he thought, for that. He faced her.
    “So. How you been?”
    She met his eyes but seemed to be viewing him from a great distance. Her expression was veiled and detached, noncommittal. She moistened her lips with that lizard tongue of hers and opened her mouth to speak.
    Suddenly one of the children cranked up the TV volume. It had been on all this time, glowing silently in the corner. An announcer with a clipped, proper voice spoke from the screen. It was the Cable News Network. Challis and his ex-wife turned and observed the newscast disinterestedly over the heads of their children.
    He noticed her profile as she stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder now but not touching, her arms folded, her chin high and proud. She was smaller than his memory of her, and thinner. Her bones poked sharply through her clothing. He knew instinctively that were he to touch her she would feel like no one he knew. The curves and surfaces his hands remembered were no longer there.
    “. . . LEAVING BRITISH AUTHORITIES STILL BAFFLED AND WITHOUT ANY SUBSTANTIAL CLUES NINE MONTHS AFTER THE THEFT. THE BLUESTONE WAS ONE OF NINETEEN BELIEVED TO REPRESENT THE NINETEEN-YEAR CYCLE OF THE MOON. IT WEIGHS MORE THAN FIVE TONS, MAKING ITS