I guess our similarities could be chalked up to us being twins, but we weren’t identical. At least, that’s what we’d always been told. There was a lot we didn’t know about our birth origin or family history, which gave us no solid ground for any arguments.
We couldn’t remember shit before the age of ten, and our adoptive Mom claimed she didn’t know much either. After a while, we’d stopped asking.
One of those ancestry kits was our next step in trying to get answers ourselves.
“And look at you!” Jacob exclaimed as Bellatrix walked through the doorway that connected our shared set of rooms.
She let out a slight squeal when she saw my completed appearance, making me feel like I’d dressed up for a pageant and not another festival outing. Her bright blue eyes held mine as she came up behind me.
“You nailed the braids.”
“No touching.” I smacked her hand away before it could connect with the left side of my head. “Sorry,” I apologized with a small smile. “They took me forever, and I haven’t reinforced them yet.”
“Then we need to do that immediately.”
As she reached for the bottle of hairspray I had sitting on the countertop, I surveyed her outcome. Usually, we helped each other through the dressing-up process.
Since three guys were waiting for us, she’d gotten ready in the other bathroom to save time. Her shoulder-length hair was in two loose pigtails beneath her Scarecrow hat. The main portion of the costume was a cute patch-worked dress that fit her upper body like mine did, snug at the top and flaring out at the hip.
She’d completed the ensemble with knee-high boots she had bought to match. Adorable straw socks peeked over the tops. Her make-up was so flawless against her porcelain skin it almost looked natural.
“You look amazing, Trix.”
“I beat her face,” Alex boasted proudly, walking through the door with Tyson and Collin behind him.
“If you let me answer, I was going to give you credit,” Bellatrix quipped. She shielded my eyes and quickly spritzed my hair with the spray.
Jacob jumped up and adjusted his silver headpiece. He and Alex had done a gender-bender of the good and bad witch. Even as big a ‘diva’ as he was, he wasn’t on board with wearing a giant metal crown. Tacky was the word he’d used when it was mentioned.
“Okay!” Tyson implored appreciatively after checking me out. His handsome face was all you could see of him in his lion getup. “You should’ve brought Ragnor. Then you’d have a Tootsie.”
“It’s, Toto,” Bellatrix corrected him.
“I was close. He’s a black dog. That’s what matters most, right?”
“He’s also seventy pounds too big to pass as an ankle biter and hates crowds. And your mom would’ve been heartbroken. He’s her favorite grandson. They needed some quality time together.”
“He’s her only grandson. You might as well marry me and make it official. She’d love that even more.”
“Whatever, shut up.”
“Ohhh, Collin didn’t like that. I think he remembers what a massive, colossal, epic, ginormous mistake he made,” Alex goaded jokingly.
“I remember that every day,” Collin retorted, sounding way too serious.
His unexpected reply had an awkward silence blanketing our group. Bellatrix turned and gave him a flat look. I knew all her grievances when it came to our tragically short-lived romance.
There were many.
I smothered a laugh and gently nudged her side, turning away from the mirror.
“Don’t start,” I chided Alex playfully, completely ignoring Collin’s off-the-wall remark. I moved towards the center of the room and stood beside Tyson. “Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Alex replied.
“Let’s do this!” Ty clapped his furry hands and then offered me his arm.
“I got my camera,” Jacob sang, looping the carrying case over his head. He was a professional photographer for a living, deeply passionate about shooting in general. He took his Nikon everywhere.
We gathered whatever else we would need and placed it securely within the wicker basket I’d be carrying. Filing out of the room, we emerged onto the upper balcony that ran around the perimeter of The Cthulhu Inn, where we were staying.
It was a decent-sized lodging, adorably cozy and surprisingly modern—shitty cell and internet service aside. There wasn’t any obnoxious partying all through the night, just some obnoxiously loud fucking once.
We made our way to the first floor and through the lobby’s rear courtyard, passing by a squad of minions in the pool.
Immediately upon leaving, the road that led to the inn was only a few yards away from the heart of the Seven Days of Sin festival.
I liked that we didn’t need to drive. It saved us the hassle of finding an uber or nominating someone to be the sober DD. I wasn’t sure if ridesharing was even a thing here.
The village was decent sized but far from massive, and the turnout much higher than any of us had anticipated, which meant a shit load of drunks, among other things, were flooding the sidewalks and cobblestoned streets.