Page 107 of Touch the Sky

“I should go do the barn chores.”

I trudge down the porch steps, but I pause when I hear the front door creak.

“Let me get my coat,”Mamansays.

I spin around to face her. “No,Maman. You stay. I can handle it.”

She shakes her head and pulls the door open wider. “I feel good today, and dinner has half an hour left in the oven. I’m coming to help you.”

I suck in a breath and do my best not to raise my voice.

“Maman—”

She lifts a finger to cut me off.

“You know, if you want to do this boarding thing, you’re going to have to practice letting people help you.” She props a fist on her hip, and I can tell she’s not budging until I say yes. “So start with me.”

It takes a few seconds of standing there glowering while I try and fail to think of a comeback, but eventually, I give in.

“Fine.”

She beams at me.

“And maybe act a little more happy about it,” she chirps.

I keep glowering. “That’s pushing it.”

Chapter 23

Jacinthe

Tess is wearing glittery red devil horns, and it takes all my brain power just to keep from staring at her all night.

I’m wearing a dorky plastic headband with a little Styrofoam jack-o-lantern on top, so I doubt Tess is having the same problem with me.

We just stopped at Balsam Inn for some trick-or-treating. I was supposed to stay at the inn all evening handing out candy with Maddie and Natalie, but when Shel begged me to come along with her and her mom, I couldn’t say no, especially when Maddie and Natalie insisted I go too.

We must have covered almost the entire town by now. My feet are aching, but it’s been worth it to see Shel bouncing around with her bag of candy.

Tess pulls her over at the end of the inn’s driveway, and I watch her face fall when Tess tells her it’s time to go home now.

At least, I think that’s what her face does. She’s all done up in bright pink face paint dotted with intricate patterns of swirling yellow accents. She’s wearing huge round black sunglasses on top, so it’s hard to read any of her expressions.

“But we still have, like, five streets left!” she protests, the yellow pipe cleaners sticking out the top of her head bobbing.

I’ve never met a kid who wanted to be a moth for Halloween, never mind a specific kind of moth, but Shel spent two whole weeks working on her rosy maple moth costume. I didn’t even know what a rosy maple moth was, but she showed me some pictures of the fluffy pink and yellow bugs after putting on her costume tonight, and it turns out she’s done an excellent job with nothing but some fabric paint, a spare bed sheet cut into wings, and a fuck ton of pipe cleaners. Tess must have wiped out every dollar store in Saint-Jovite.

“We need to get back for Gabrielle,” Tess explains, bending down to get closer to Shel’s height. “She’s all alone at the house, and we promised her we’d be back by eight-thirty so we can watch Charlie Brown together.”

All around us, kids in costumes are traipsing up the sidewalk in packs. There are some classic options like witches and superheroes, along with some more unique takes like the Michelin Tire guy, a human disco ball, and even a giant toothbrush, but I haven’t seen any other moths tonight.

My chest swells with pride at being out with one of the most original kids in La Cloche.

“We could squeeze in one more street,” I offer.

Maman’s MS was acting up extra bad tonight. The only way I convinced her to stay home and get some rest was by promising we’d all watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special—specifically, the badly dubbed French version she has on a bootleg VHS—when we got home.

She watches that movie at least five times every fall and made me do the same thing my entire childhood, so it was a very generous offer on my part.