I’m not scared of seeing a house.

In fact, I’ve done a lot of scarier things. I’ve gone to my ex’s wedding even when he said he still had a thing for me (so scary). I’ve dropped off my little girl on her first day of school (so cute scary). I’ve even slept in a van overnight in the middle of the woods with the door open. Granted, I had my strong husband to balance out the fear, but that’s beside the point (so sexy scary). 

So, visiting the scariest house in the cul-de-sac on Halloween?

That should be peanuts.

Should be.

But when my step-daughter yells, “Saria, let’s do that one next!” and points directly at the house I’m trying to keep a solid fifty foot radius away from, I realize that should and will are entirely different concepts.

“Which one?” I ask, turning to the house beside it. “The one with the kind old lady?”

“No, the one with the spooky man in the yard.”

“Oh. That one. Of course.”

I’ll give the homeowners credit. They were creative when they decorated. There are no zombies or growling werewolves or even little gravestones. I could handle that. No, instead, standing in the middle of the yard, among the haze from a hidden fog machine, in the light of a slow strobe light, is a man robed in all black with a skeleton mask and skeletal gloved hands.

Staring.

And waiting.

Come here, Saria, the house and the man say, Don’t a scaredy cat.

I can just feel it.

“How about…” I hear the familiar, calming sound of my husband’s voice behind me. “How about we go to that other one first? Maybe save the spooky one for last.”

“There’s only three houses in this cul-de-sac,” I whisper.

He chuckles in my ear. “Sorry, princess.”

Before I can debate further, Cara and her two friends are already ready to conquer. They dart toward the totally normal house with white spiderwebs and the grandma sitting in a rocking chair.

“Walk, please!” Harry calls.

Cara’s tiny legs slow to a quick shuffle. A walk-run will have to do. Her two friends that are tagging along slow down as well. One girl has painted-on whiskers and cat ears with a tail that drags behind her. The other friend is a croissant.

“What parent approved that,” Harry says. “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, you’re cute,” I say, patting his head. “It’s a meme.”

“What? I’m not the crazy one,” he says with a laugh. “From what?”

Social media is still a foreign concept to him and memes will never make sense. I never knew I could be so attracted to an oblivious man. But a croissant meme blows up two weeks before Halloween and you’re bound to see fifty kids walking past with it in.

Though, to be honest, I don’t really get it either, but I don’t dare show that I’m confused. The taunting of a first grader is almost as bad as that haunted house.

Harry wraps his arms around me with warm hands snaking over my clanking costume chainmail to hook at the front of my chest. His costume’s parachute-like fabric swishes all around me. I see a yellow cartoony eye from his inflatable dragon head beside my face. I plant a kiss on the dragon’s wonky blow-up teeth.

“Your dragon face doesn’t scare me,” I say. “I’m a brave knight.”

Cara insisted we dress as a medieval family this year. She recently started reading and princesses, knights, and dragons are her new obsession. So we dressed as such.

“I may not scare you, but that guy does.” Harry juts his chin toward the very house I’m totally not scared of.

“Psht.”

“Don’t ‘psht’ me,” he says with a laugh.

“I’m totally ‘psht’ing you,” I say. “I can ‘psht’ all day long.”

“You’re so scared.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be slaying you?” I ask, lifting my cardboard cut-out of a sword and tapping him on the cheek.

Harry bares his teeth in a faux intimidating snarl.

He’s a cute dragon, I’ll give him that. Whereas I’m a knight with zero gumption.

We wait in the cul-de-sac as Cara and her friends get their pillowcases filled with candy. The energy tonight is buzzing, fueled by a full moon and far too many children hopped up on pixie stix and chocolate. Basically child drugs. The sidewalks, the streets, and each driveway has pirates, mummies, and a plethora of new trendy costumes from shows or movies.

But my eyes drift to that house with the man and the fog machine.

“Do your followers know you’re a big ol’ baby?” Harry asks.

“Shushhhh. My fear is irrelevant. I posted a picture of your hot self dressed as a dragon. Our family was all the rage.”

His smile turns to a full-bodied heart-filled grin. It’s because I said the word ‘family.’ His face goes all cute and pink and he always gives me a little squeeze when I do that, like the word thrills him. I love it.

“Ready, Olly?” Our friend Grace and her husband Cameron escort their two-year-old, Oliver, up the driveway, each one holding a hand. They’re dressed as Fred and Wilma from The Flintstones. Their cute son wears a dinosaur onesie.

Since we have Cara, I don’t really get baby fever. I’ve got a daughter and that’s all we need for now. Plus, I fear her tween years will come faster than we like. But, dang, if that isn’t a cute kid. I know Harry feels the same because he gives my waist a little squeeze.

Cara and her friends come down the driveway–passing a toddling Oliver and parents–and then weave back up again to the next house, giving us a quick high five as they pass, like some marathon runners hitting the final mile. Her pink princess dress billows out behind her as one hand grasps her pillowcase, lumpy with candy, and the other holds on to her crown.

“Remember to say thank you!” Harry calls after her.

“I know, Dad,” Cara says, flipping her hair.

She does that a lot lately. She thinks she’s too cool for either of us and honestly she totally is. But last I checked she’s the one who wanted the whole family dressed up like medieval characters so she’s all talk.

“Hey, you should have been a helicopter for Halloween.” Ian says with a laugh. He has one arm slung around his wife Nia. “You know. Cause you’re a helicopter parent.”

“I’m sorry, was it yesterday you went to the school to drop off a juice box for her?”

Ian shifts from one foot to the other, running a hand through his curls.

“Cara texted me at lunch,” he says with a shrug. “Can’t say no to a frowny emoji.”

Ian and Nia don’t have kids yet, so they’re just here to hang out with us. Plus I don’t think Ian can resist getting dressed up. This year he’s crafted himself into a pretty convincing Beetlejuice with Nia playing the gothy girl he tries to marry at the end of the movie. Nia looks totally out of her element in a black messy wig and heavy eye makeup, but every time Ian impersonates Beetlejuice’s raspy voice, she has to hold her stomach from laughing too hard.

It’s their neighborhood we’re commandeering. We still live above our auto shop and Cameron and Grace own property outside of town, so our friends offered their community.

Friends.

I’m still getting used to the fact that my husband’s sister is now one of my closest friends. Or, at least as close as Nia lets anyone get to her.

She leans over at that moment to whisper, “If he wouldn’t have dropped off the juice box, I would have.”

They’re probably gonna announce she’s pregnant any day now, if you ask me.

“Scary house. Scary house. Scary house!”

I hadn’t realized that Cara and her friends wrapped up the last three houses and had started bouncing around us. Well, mostly Cara doing the bouncing. The cat and croissant friends seem far less excited now.

I follow their eyesight to the man in the yard with smoke rising all around him, a harbinger of bad times ahead. It’s like he knows he’s the only house left.

“Uh, Cara…” the cat kid starts. “I don’t think I’m gonna… I mean–”

The croissant jumps in saying, “Yeah, I have more than enough candy, I think.”

Cara’s fists land on her hips. “Oh, you wimps!”

“We’ll go with ya, pumpkin,” Harry says, putting a hand on the small of my back, sending shocks of warmth through my costume and up my spine.

“We will?”

“Of course we will. As a family.”

Right. Time to put on the big girl pants.

The three of us walk to the end of the driveway, looking back to see…absolutely nobody else joining us. Not even Ian and Nia who are now waving like a couple of assholes.

I give them a thumbs down. Grace returns an equal and opposite sarcastic thumbs up while bouncing Oliver on her hip.

Dang it.

“I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared,” Cara offers. 

I look down at Cara’s outstretched hand and then back to her friends.

“You sure?” I ask. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

“Nah, they’re being a bunch of lame-os,” she says. “And they wish they had a mom as cool as you.”

My heart swells right at the same moment Harry takes my other free hand and, together as a family unit–the princess, the knight, and the blow-up dragon–we march forward.

The man in the yard watches us as we advance, his head turning through each beat of the strobe light. I don’t break eye contact with him. He can’t scare me if I watch him. If he’s still. If he doesn’t–then he takes one step forward.

I find myself stopping before I even realize I’m doing it.

Cara tugs at my costume. The makeshift chainmail on my shirt makes a harsh rattling noise and I jump. She jumps. Harry jumps.

Both of them squeeze my hands at the same time.

“Totally fine,” I whisper.

“Totally,” she whispers back. 

“Let’s keep going,” Harry says, walking forward and passing both of us. He pauses and turns to look back. “One more step, ladies…”

“For sure.”

“One foot in front of…”

Cara says, “I know how steps work, Dad!” almost at the same time I screech, “I know, baby!”

He chuckles. “Well then take them, you scaredy cats!”

Gripping our hands tighter, we turn onto the final walkway with the front porch only 20 feet away. And then the man shrouded in black starts to walk. More than one step. Like, a lot of steps. Right toward us.

All three of us bust out into a run. First Cara, then me, with Harry carrying the rear. We stumble onto the porch. I ring the doorbell, pressing the button over and over. Harry is grabbing the cardboard sword from my hand and wielding it. Cara is banging on the door yelling, “TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT, PLEASE.”

When I finally turn around, there he is at the edge of the doorstep.

The man with the skeleton mask.

He stares at us and the only sounds are my and Cara’s labored breathing. We grip each other’s hands like it’s the last lifeline on Earth. Harry is poised to attack.

He should be the one wearing the knight costume, not me.

A light shines from behind us and we twist to find the door opened. A woman with a bowl of candy in her hands is shaking her head.

“He’s harmless, dears,” she says, giving a tut of disappointment in his direction.

I turn to find him shrugging and waving.

Cara timidly waves back. 

Harry lowers the sword and takes a step forward to reach out his hand as if to shake it. I don’t miss the slight falter in his step. My strong man was terrified too and he’ll never live it down for the rest of our lives, I guarantee you that. And not from me, but from our group of friends who are cackling in the cul-de-sac. Cameron and Ian are bent over at the waist. Even Cara’s little friends are rolling on the ground hysterically laughing.

They will never understand the terror.

The skeleton man shakes Harry’s hand with his boned glove and then gives a cute nod to the woman putting candy in Cara’s pillowcase before returning to his position in the middle of the yard. So nonchalant. As if I wasn’t about to prepare for the afterlife.

We leave the front porch and I unwrap a piece of Cara’s candy and plop it in my mouth. She doesn’t object.

“Is that your reward?” Harry asks, digging into her pillowcase and finding a piece for himself.

“Yes, is that yours?”

“Oh, you bet.”

“Me too,” Cara says, grabbing a gummy candy and chewing.

When we get back to the group, Cara instantly runs off with her friends. At first they were continuing to laugh but she effectively halted that by barrelling past them as they called, “Hey, wait!” and runned after her.

“Way to be adults,” Grace laughs at me and Harry as we still tightly hold each other’s hands.

“We were just playing along,” Harry says with a shrug.

“I hear there’s a scarier house down the street with a chainsaw,” Ian says.

Harry shrugs, “We’ll meet you there.”

They all walk on and then Harry wraps his arms around my waist again, picking me up to twirl me around. I lean back to rest my head on his chest and laugh. It’s exhilarating.

He places me down and I twist around to kiss him. His lips warm me to my core. He smells like pumpkin and candy corn and maybe a little bit like kevlar and canvas. The crisp wind blows around us and the leaves rustle down the sidewalk.

And as we kiss, serenaded by my chainmail and his swishing costume fabric, I feel at peace.

But then further down the street I hear a chainsaw.

Harry pulls away and looks at me with wide eyes, “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh,” I echo.

I think our night is just beginning.