Scene 18 - October 31st

Exterior Mansion, Early Evening

Quinn Kaufman

“Holy shit, Holly!” I said in amazement as I stared at her home. “You never mentioned you lived in a mansion!”

She shrugged. “It, uh, never came up?”

“How did I bump into you in a thrift shop?” I asked, still gaping.

“I like finding things online and then looking for similar stuff at a lower price,” she explained. “Sometimes magical research is going nowhere and I’ve got art block and I’m already done with my schoolwork, so... I go shopping and try to rack up as many savings as possible.”

The world twisted next to us and Simone appeared from nothingness. “Hey dudes, what’s up?” Chris and Peter would have been quite pleased by her costume - assuming they liked women who could bench press them. She was dressed as Lara Croft, a tight cropped tank-top and rather abbreviated shorts plus a pair of Nerf pistols strapped to her thighs.

“I invited Simone along too,” Holly said nervously. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” I assured her, even though a pang of sadness shot through me - I had hoped that this was meant to be a date, but it seemed not. I offered a hand to Simone. “It’s been a while! Good to see you again.”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She clasped it and pulled me in to a hug. “Yeah, they managed to arrange a week-long cross-country trip for me despite the short notice, to recharge my batteries. Bossman told me rather strictly not to let them get so low again.”

“It was a little bit of an oversight,” Holly admitted. “And your costume is, um...”

“Don’t like it?”

“No on, it’s just... you don’t usually wear anything quite so revealing.”

Simone shrugged. “It’s not my usual style, no, but Halloween is all about being someone you’re not, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Where’s your costume, Holly?” I asked.

She raised a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow. “You’re asking an illusionist where her costume is?”

“I thought it wasn’t actually illusions?”

A shrug - my eyes darted down to her collarbones for a moment, exposed by the off-the-shoulder sweater she was wearing tonight, then back up to her face. “It isn’t, but I do understand that there’s not much difference for colloquial purposes. And ‘illusion’ is shorter to say than ‘light- and sound-interacting magical construct’, which is what they actually are.”

“That reminds me - how is it that they can interact with sound and not physically with anything else? I mean, sound energy is kinetic, ultimately, so...”

“Well, from a magical perspective -”

“Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh!” Simone cried, laying a finger on both of our mouths to silence us. “No nerdy magic talk tonight. Halloween is a day to go to a party, flirt with hot girls, and show off a little. Put your costume on, Holly!”

She rolled her eyes, but nodded as she stepped back from Simone’s finger. There was a brief shimmer, and she was suddenly an elaborate clockwork robot, her face appearing to be a porcelain mask and plates of something that might be ceramic and might be painted cardboard. I couldn’t help but be amazed by her artistic sensibility.

“Alright you two,” said Simone, grabbing us both together again. “Time for a selfie!”