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“To be honest, what kind of hand-made jewelry isn’t?” Isabella sighed. “Perhaps, but then I’d be disappointed in her; it’d be better spent on something real, like a gold necklace with a ruby sitting in it. If a gaudy broach is what she’s looking for, than Mr. Sherman’s life insurance policy wasn’t exactly well-saved.” Her eyes wandered across the crowd aimlessly, looking for anything of interest to pull her from her boredom. “I would say that this ‘festival’ is all too quiet for me. A little chaos might do it good.”

Salinger would be hard-pressed to remember a time that’d he’d be randomly addressed & the outcome had amused him. Typically intolerant of small talk, or of others in general, he found the sentiment similar to his own if not long-winded. “I’m glad you prefaced ‘hand-made jewelry’ with ‘bad’.” He smirked. “But maybe a gaudy turquoise broach is just what Sherman’s widow is looking to spend his life insurance policy on.”

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Maybe, but it’d be a spectacle I might actually enjoy. At least the dead would find that their bodies are going to good use, being used as decorations at a god-awful festival." Isabella mentioned with a sly grin. “Unless you’re referring to using live people, which would only make it that much more fun.”

“I suppose it’s either this or they string up corpses in the town square. Then again, wouldn’t that be quite the spectacle.”

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"I have to disagree. Hope is really a useless thing, there’s no guarantee that it’ll lead to anything. For instance,” she kneeled down into the dirt and grass at their feet, spying up a stray daisy that had grown between the bushes. “I can hope that by plucking this daisy that it’ll die, but unless I actually rip it out...” She clutched the stem between her fingers and pulled it from the ground, crushing it slightly in her hands. “There’s no guarantee.” Isabella just chuckled. “I certainly don’t blame the dead, I just wonder if they’ll get restless knowing this is the best we can offer them in honor of their lost lives.” She placed her hand on her hip, intrigued by this girl’s utter sense of enthusiasm and -- as the girl put it, hope -- for everything that Isabella retorted her with. “Do they have apple cider donuts, because that might make it worth it.”

“Because something is always better than nothing. People should have something to hope for.” It beat drowning in despair. Emptiness had never been something Mia herself had handled very well although she was starting to be a little bit better with it these days. “Hey, don’t blame the dead for the sins of the living. Not their fault the vendors don’t know how to cook simple carnival food. Though there is a small little vendor that has a great apple cider and not too bad donuts for when you get desperate. Or just skip the food and stay for the lantern ceremony.”

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Isabella laughed for once, staring off at the horribly-themed festival game booths, remembering when she was a kid and used to actually enjoy them. But now, she couldn’t see anything other than slimeball people collecting as many five’s from their latest victim as possible. “Definitely not the inflatable ones. If it was at least furry, maybe. But either way, you’re still getting cheated, so we might as well sacrifice them.”

“You’re telling me. Maybe one of those game booths could stand to be burned down. Like the ring toss or one of the like. Everyone knows those things are rigged anyhow. And if you’re lucky enough to win it, you get, what, one of those giant inflatable Minions? Not worth a nickel.”

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Isabella turned to face the girl next to her, and she can’t help but pity her. “I won’t argue with you on the truth that some people need it for their happy moments or whatever. But the second they come to terms with the fact that their so called ‘loved ones’ aren’t some kind of spirits that float around making everyone feel more comfortable with their sad little lives, that they’re really lying in a ditch somewhere, covered with soil and rotting out of their own skin... when they drop that attachment to some kind of romantic idea of death like they’re god damn toddlers, that’s when they’ll truly feel better.” She shakes her head, staring at the vendors around them. “It’s not ignoring them, it’s coming back down to reality. And if they can’t deal with that, they’re in the wrong town at the wrong festival.”

          The woman’s words strike Wynne deeply, and she can feel her cheeks flushing as she glances at the paintings that surround her. The woman made it seem like they were taking advantage of those grieving, that they were commercializing death. “I never thought about it like that,” her voice is soft, hardly above a whisper. She looks at the woman with wide eyes, adding, “It’s just – I guess that, this festival, it’s better than ignoring the memories of those who’ve died. This is meant to be a time for reminiscing of happier moments. If a trinket makes someone grieving feel better, I can’t see it as an entirely bad thing.”

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“Finally, someone who understands my own point of view...” Her eyes light up, just picturing the mayhem. “It would bring some excitement to it at least, one of the lanterns coming down in flames, bringing down a few of the annoyingly commercialized booths while it’s at it.”

“Wouldn’t you believe it, about a billion lights out here and not a single booth has accidentally caught fire. I mean, objectively, that’s a good thing, of course, not saying it isn’t. But I sure wouldn’t say no to the excitement of something like that.”

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She threw back the overly-enthusiastic girl a scoff as she turned around, already annoyed by one short sentence of a greeting. “That depends, are you any good at getting barbecue sauce out of a tweed coat?”

Pre-Festival

❝Hey there! What’re you doing? Do you need help? I’ve got a free hand.❞

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"I think people want to believe that something, however horrible, is always better than nothing. Which is just not true. Sometimes a little emptiness can suit you.” Her fingertips twirled absentmindedly throughout her hair, as she watched the various festival workers and volunteers fumble about in their own thoughts. “It might make it a little more bearable if it came with good food, but apparently, the dead have no tastebuds in regards to the “delicacies” enjoyed for their celebration.”

Mia looked at the girl a moment. “It is better than nothing at all, don’t you think?” Sure people took advantage of it but it was a cool thought stripped of all the flash and pomp. She figured some people got a lot of comfort out of the actual lantern part of the festival. “Sometimes I think the people of this town need something else to do or think about for even a night. Bad jewelry and even worse food combined.”

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The crisp fall breeze nipped at Isabella’s fingertips and nose, whispering foreshadowing secrets of winter, which was very soon approaching. Her overcoat billowed in the wind, yet no part of her felt the chill riding the breeze; instead, she relished in the cold and welcomed winter with open arms. At least once the trees finally succumbed and became empty skeletons, Isabella could relish in the fact that most people stayed in their houses during the day and early night, and she would have the streets to herself.

But today, the town of Bentley was lit with false joy and revelry, all while throwing a festival celebrating the fact that dead bodies painted the history of Bentley red as crimson. It might have been the slightest bit bearable, if not for the irritating argumentative greeting by the woman at Isabella’s side.

Somehow, she always reminded Isabella of those wine mothers that had peaked as the cheerleader in high school and now basked their days away wearing juicy tracksuits, despite the fact that she was considered “successful” by most in their small town.

She wouldn’t argue, the bitch was well known for her skills in business throughout Bentley, but no one, no one, spoke to Isabella as if she were nothing. She raised an eyebrow to accompany her pursed lips. “Sorry about that, I seem to have mistaken you for my pet dog, I used to tell him everything. But strangely,” she looked her up and down, as if considering Audrey’s visual relation to her old cocker spaniel, Rufus, “the resemblance is absolutely uncanny. But don’t worry, Rufus was always an uncalled for pain in the ass too, at least until I took pity on him and gave him my leftovers.”

Acrylic nails tap-tap-tapped precisely against the LCD screen of a smartphone held by a woman who couldn’t have possibly seemed less interested in the festival beginning to take shape around her. Why she had even left her house was a mystery, but nothing could change the fact that she was standing at a crosswalk looking entirely overdressed for the occasion of – - god, what was it? Some kind of memorial thing. That’s what her secretary had insisted, anyway, and what led her to believe the occasion might be a little more somber instead of looking like a picture between the pages of a book about weird small town festivals. God forbid she hold Bentley to some kind of standard; expecting them to mourn like normal people was too much.

Her own annoyance might have led one to believe that she would take any opportunity to complain about the goings on in Bentley. Unfortunately, this was far from the case. Audrey would rather have been on her way, phone in hand and e-mail half-finished while she navigated through crowds of people hanging lanterns and ribbons on streetlamps. Instead of that, she was left to look up from the screen and address a woman who seemed share the same sentiment as she did about the Spectacle. Had she not already been inconvenienced and agitated, Audrey might have agreed with the stranger. As it was, however, she sized the girl up and regarded her with silence while her eyes narrowed.

❝I’m sorry, was I speaking to you?❞ A succinct sentiment followed by a quick once-over of the brunette,  ❝Because I don’t really recall asking for someone’s opinion on about …❞ The curl of her lip betrayed her distaste for the festival itself, an indication that she did agree with the other woman to some extent. The lazy and dismissive motion of her hand would’ve done the same, but she still sneered a description of all the decorations and camaraderie,  ❝… all of this.❞    

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Isabella walked into the town center, just hoping to grab a burger and fries before things got too crazy and filled with commercialized booths and gooey feelings of loss and compassion for the festival. It made her a little sick, and yet, unless something better came along, she would certainly find herself there once the lights came up and the food trucks started cooking. “So… this is what they call ‘honoring the dead’, huh?” She asked with her fingers making dramatic quotations in the air. “Seems more like an excuse to sell bad hand-made jewelry and lanterns to wandering visitors and old cat women who haven’t left their home since their husbands, Sherman, died.”

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After a moment of silence, Isabella finally decided to give in and popped from around the corner of the bookshelf. She stared down at the book on the ground, then at the person who’d found it; Lyla. Isabella was still, a painted picture of quiet contemplation, until she broke the space between them and slowly reached down to pick up the book, an old textbook on American Literature with doodles and notes scribbled all along the margins. It was flipped open to the opening of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, and drawings of ink-darkened birds danced around the edges of the pages.

Isabella’s lips turned up into a smile at the memory of it, but whether it was one of joy or of coldness was anyone’s guess, even to her. “Yeah. Sorry, I must have dropped it or something.” She wasn’t sure how, really, she was never much of a ‘butterfingers’, but it seemed to have slipped out so easily. “What’s wrong? You seem a little... jumpy.” Her smile widened.

The sound of a book falling to the floor caught Lyla’s attention as she was leaving.  It wasn’t like the place was empty, given her shift was ending midday, but there was a bit of chill when she looked to see a lone book on the floor but no one there.  More than likely it had just fallen off the shelf, but given her paranoia as of late, her mind instantly went to a more…. paranormal thought.

Laughing at herself and the foolishness of the thought.  Ghosts weren’t real, someone just didn’t put it back into the rows of books how they were supposed to and it’d finally fallen free.   She moved over to pick it up but paused as someone walked up.  Picking it up and straightening back up she held it out,”  This yours?”

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