"They camped out at The Pines?" Paula asked. "Lucas won't like that."

"Lucas is fine," I said, shoving Nolan's magazines into a paper bag and handing them to him.

"All right, no need to bite my head off, I'm just saying. If he has any trouble he should call me."

"He can look after himself."

"Doubt that," Charles remarked. "He checked your store every day while you were gone."

"Flattering, but not an indication of his dependence on me."

"Oooh, see, he goes to Chicago, comes back with a lot of big words," Nolan teased.

"You, scram, before I use some of them on you," I replied.

"Yes sir, city boy," he called, as he left.

"So," Paula came up to the counter and leaned against it, crossing her arms. "You went to Chicago. And...?"

I glanced from her to Charles to the three other townspeople in the shop, all of whom were listening intently. I sighed.

"I saw some doctors," I said.

"And?" Charles asked.

"They're still waiting on some tests, but apparently I'm fine," I said, not quite meeting his eyes. "And if we could all pretend," I drawled, catching a few guilty looks, "that Halloween never happened, I'd appreciate that."

Paula grabbed my chin and pulled me around to face her. She looked serious for a moment, but eventually a smile spread across her face.

"People talk," she said. "Don't dish it out if you can't take it, gorgeous."

"Duly noted," I replied. "Now, everyone, pay up or move on – I have errands to run. Go on, out."

The eavesdroppers sheepishly set down the books they'd been pretending to read. As they left, Charles handed me a mystery novel and took out his wallet.

"You're not telling us something," he said.

"Remind me to tell you about the hideous beast my ex-girlfriend married," I answered lightly. "Go on, Charles. Go ye and spread the good news of my continuing health."

He shook his head, but he put his hat on and stepped back out into the cold, briskly windy morning.

It wasn't long before I was walking out into the chill myself. It was a clear day, and clear days that late in the year were becoming rare. I could have kept the shop open and probably done brisk business, but people would still need books that afternoon, and I'd made a promise to Lucas. He probably hadn't slept very well.

On the way out of town I happened to see the boy; for whatever arcane reason children have, he was up in the branches of a snow-covered tree. I stopped underneath it and stared upwards while his progress down from the weaker limbs shook snow onto the street.

"What on earth are you doing up there?" I asked, shading my eyes against the glare off the overcast sky.

"Looking for you," he said. "Coming down!"

"Well, I'm not usually up trees."

"It's a lookout post," he said, unconcerned. He slid off the branch, landed on another one below, swung out to grasp a low branch over the sidewalk, and dropped the last eight feet into a pile of powdery snow.

"What did you want me for?" I asked.

"Thought you might be going to see the Friendly. Can I come?"

"Did your parents say you could?"

"I'm safe with you, aren't I?"

"That's not an answer," I said, but I shrugged and walked on. "Your funeral if you get grounded for it."

"I won't be," he said confidently, as we strolled down the narrow sunken path in the snow. "Will you see Lucas too?"

"I'm going out there to see him – have to open formal diplomatic negotiations between him and the Friendly, or he'll hide in his little den and they'll poke well-meaning sticks through the bars."

"Gwen's really nice."

"She is. He'll like them once he gets to know them."

"Everyone at school says their parents won't let them go out to the camp because they think they'll be stolen."

"I doubt it," I answered. "When I was a kid my mom threatened to sell me to the gypsies if I was bad. I always thought it sounded pretty exciting."

"Gwen says we're not supposed to call them gypsies."

"Gwen's very right, and I apologize in absentia."

"What's that?"

"Latin."

He scowled at me and ran on ahead, plowing through the snow. In the distance the Friendly's camp was already visible, a low and uneven black skyline of trucks and campers and shoveled snow. Smoke rose from a handful of cook-fires.

By the time we actually arrived, the boy was coated in snow from the waist down and happily windblown, eager to see everything and everyone. It was hard to deny that the Friendly camp was an adventure for a village boy, full of dark places to explore and unusual things to see.