“What’s wrong, Matt?” asked Cliffe. He was concerned but not afraid, as he knew his co-mayor and friend very well.

“I don’t know,” he responded with stuttered hesitations in his voice. “Something’s wrong. Something unsettling’s brewing up.”

“What makes you so sure?” said Archibald.

“I’ve been feeling it in the air, Archie.” Matt grabbed a stress ball to fiddle with and throw around while he was talking. “There are thin light grey clouds covering the whole sky today. It’s that perfect temperature of eerie cold. Wind is blowing. Trees are rustling. Leaves are falling. I keep getting chills.”

“Did you leave your window open again?”

Cliffe muttered, “Could be, but it’s also the middle of October.”

“Oh criminy, you’re right; something is going to happen.”

“Don’t know what it is yet,” Matt said, “but it’s inevitable, I can feel it. I say we warn the citiz—”

“No! Bad!” Cliffe Rhubis screamed and tackled Matt before he could get another word in. He picked himself up, cleared his throat, and said a calmer, “Sorry, No. I’m sure we’ve all learned never to tell them until we got a good understanding of the stuff. ‘Member last time we didn’t? We lost two trees and a house.”

“In their defense, they were very ugly trees.”

“No, I say we wait it out and see what happens. Don’t wanna do too much and start something unneces-scary.”

“Waiting it out has never been helpful. I have my own suspicions, and I’m going to do something about it for once! Eileen doesn’t believe me, and you two seem to just shrug it off, I have no one left to talk to other than the source.”

Cliffe and Archie stared, showing off no feeling other than blank confusion. The source? They would always get stumped whenever Matt would go off in tangents like this because they would never have any evidence themselves to go off of. Guessing the source as being a cat behind a dumpster or the Pope would make as much sense as what he believed to be the actual person behind everything.

“Who? Captain Skillets?” Archie guessed.

“My new neighbor!”

“Go on…”

“They move right next to the hand house, right when I start getting chills again. Are they solely responsible for this? Are they the main cause?—Eeeeh, maybe?—I need to get to know them more, but! the big but is that they live on Riverside. Never trust anyone who lives on Riverside. Besides me and Eileen, of course. Never trust Vivian and Dawn is what I’m getting at. I lost my train of thought. …In any case, you can’t just live on Riverside without an ulterior motive. So I’m gonna head on over, probe them, see what makes them tick. Could be dealing with something within our realm of control or not. Either way, it’s still a good idea to get to them before the Fays do and they all run around yelling incantations like ‘The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!’ and all that.”

“Matthew, you are the most passionate person I’ve ever had the pleasure of being friends with. I am not letting you probe an innocent woman.”

“I have my own free will, dammit! I’m the one in charge of public relations here, and if accusing someone of causing paranormal hysteria helps us better ourselves as a society, I will stop at nothing to do it. That’s the life of a mayor! That’s the life of a Plainwooder! That’s the life of Matthew freaking Kennett!”

“It’s always fun to watch your occasional patriotism, Matt,” said Archie.

“I’m just hoping he doesn’t go so far as to pull a Kyle,” Cliffe muttered to him.

“Isn’t that legal here, though?”

“Doesn’t mean it’s right.”

“Matt,” Cliffe stood, “had the founding fathers intended one person to make decisions for the whole state, they wouldn’t have made a triumvirate.”

Matt’s balance in his legs began to give way. He leaned onto a wall above a chair. “You really think it’s a bad idea?”

“You’re basically indoctrinating a new immigrant.”

“You’re right, I probably shouldn’t do it, then.”

Archie grabbed his cane and stretched up from his seat. “I actually like Matthew’s idea.”

“Never mind, I am going to go over, then. Thank you, Archie!”

Cliffe stood and stretched his interest in the conversation out from his muscles, “Whatever. As long as we wait for proof before doin’ anything serious, it’s all the same to me.” He swiveled his head around and exhaled. “Alright, I’ll see you two.”

Matt left for his office but then peeked his head out. “Oh, before I forget: Archie, could you confirm the venue for the welcome party, and Cliffe, do you mind if I keep that salt rock?

*****

You’ll find many times in life that talking about your problems makes them much less worrying. Getting things off your chest is half the battle. The other half, of course, is getting the thing to stop clinging to your chest entirely and hopefully killing the thing so it won’t lay its parasitic stress eggs in your ribcage and evolve into full-grown anxiety. For Matt Kennett, however, that thing had been fully hatched long before, and now talking about his problems only worsened the deal. Maybe when you talk about something that stresses you, you hear it out loud and realize how silly it actually sounds, like something as absurd as your town on the verge of paranormal hysteria. But Matt Kennett heard what he said and only clung to the idea more, because hearing what he said out loud made him realize how dire it actually was. It may seem like he was overacting more than he should have, but as a matter of fact, he was the only one who had enough paranoia in him to actually give a crap about any of the real oddities going on in Plainwood.

*****

Matt Kennett was a man of intention and high expectation. If he knew what he wanted, he would put in all his might and power to achieve it. He had started running for mayor twenty-something years ago and finally got elected around five years ago. He was a serious man fueled by a burning passion for everything he would set his mind to. He would never intend to settle for less than his best, which made him one of the most sincere and hellbent mayors in Plainwood’s history. In fact, even if it brought back so many terrible, horrific memories to cross the street from his side of the road to Eileen’s side of the road, especially so close to her cursèd house, he pushed himself to trudge through knowing it meant getting to know Natalie more. It took much of his mental battery to do so, but carrying his salty, handy placebo was enough to give him that much needed boost of confidence. He had his one goal in mind, and he was not going to distract himself by the sight of the statue on Eileen’s house. His mind was focused, his limbs were jelly, his brain was locked.

“Hello. Matt, right?”

And all of his sturdy courage completely toppled down.

“Mm-hmm!” he squeaked. “Nice to finally formally meet you. I’m Matt Kennett. I want to apologize in advance, I’m never used to new faces.”

“Yeah, neither am I,” the corners of her mouth rose little by little.

“Oh, we talked yesterday, didn’t we? How was school? Learn anything interesting?”

“I did, but I’m not a student. I work there.”

“You do? Oh, you look so good for your age!” He coughed in his elbow. He continued to fill the silence. “So! Wholeheartedly welcome you once again to Plainwood. You mind if I come inside?”

“I’d rather you not.”

That response stunned him back a few steps. “Understandable.” Ask her why she came here. “So, I was walking around town, talking to my colleagues, practicing mindfulness, as one does, when I realized I completely forgot to properly greet you! …which I guess now isn’t really the best time. But,” he struggled to pick up his enormous basket, “I did make you this this gift basket of goodies and these clover-shaped cookies.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Mister Kennett!”

“Oh, it’s the least I could do. In fact, we’re setting up a welcome party for you as we speak! It’s gonna be a huge gourmet buffet all on the house, courtesy of town hall.” Ask her why she came here. “Oh, also it’s Matt Kennett, not Mister.” She’s not saying anything, ask her why she came here. “Oh, I don’t know if I told you this, but you know that house next door?”

“The one with the bad omens?” her eyelids lowered as she said unsurprisingly skeptically.

Matt was about to eagerly agree, but noticed her skepticism, and, while slightly offended, continued. “ ’Kay, so I did. Of course. Listen, I’d hate for you to be more stressed than you probably already are, so I’ll put this as lightly as I can. Just… be wary. We get a lot of oddities here, that’s all I’m saying. Get to know your different charms and omens so the spirits won’t be as intrusive, because I can feel them penetrating our private areas already.” Like before, the two ended up in awkward silence and an awkward position. “I did not mean for that sentence to come out like that.” Matt squeaked embarrassedly. “But the point is: I care about everybody’s wellbeing here, so just try to do your part and counter all the—y’know, the juju that may come here. Salt your clothes or something like that. Rub the Buddha, whatever. You scraping what I’m treading in?”

A soft red glow emanated from the black salt rock in Matt’s pocket, just as a soft purple glow emanated from behind Natalie’s back. She backed up an unnoticeable amount of centimeters. “Yes sir, Mister Kennett. Very nice to meet you.” It was hard for her grin to be genuine.

Ask her why she came here. “Wai-wait.” The door almost closed until he casually held it back open, to Natalie’s dismay. “All Hallows is coming up,” he grinned, very sincerely at that, “Find a costume, carve a pumpkin, stay indoors, don’t forget all that fun stuff!”

Natalie’s façade was going on for so long that her foundation would have collapsed had it gone on for any longer. “Sounds fun, will do. Thank you, sir.”

Ask her why she came here. “Cool cool! Well, it was nice finally meeting you, even though I was sort of hoping for a more formal meet-up, but I’ll let you rest and get adjusted for now. Then we can actually get to know each other better—talk about taxes and kale! So then, I guess I’ll see you soon, Natalie, ah…”

“…Aureole.”

“Aureole! Got it!” Ask her why she came here. “Well, see you soon, I guess. Enjoy your gift basket and have a terrific time in Plainwood. Make our town motto, ‘Home of the Average Joe’s Status Quo,’ live up to its name!”

“Thank you, sir. Take care.”

She politely waved goodbye, though it was interpreted as being far from polite. Matt stared into her left palm, eyes wide open, mouth agape, body completely paralyzed.

Natalie retracted her arm back behind herself. After all of her other experiences in town, she expected to have learned by now. But if you spend your entire life used to acting one way, it takes much more active effort to break out of it.

An empathetic rush of fear jumpstarted within her. “Are you okay, sir?”

Matt leapt back a step in self-defense and swallowed. “I’m fine. Just, uh… Just be careful who you use that around, okay? You really gotta know the people you’re with, here. L-luckily, you’re friends with Eileen, so as long as you stick with her, you’ll be safe. But… still…” he grimaced.

“Sure thing, Mister Kennett.” She simply nodded to avoid any other faux pas.

“That’s my girl.” At this point, Matt Kennett’s foot was so far up his mouth he began choking. He cleared his throat and merely said, “Well, have a terrific day, Natalie Aureole. See you around.”

He firmly nodded goodbye and speed-walked back to the other side of the road, as if in desperate need of a bathroom. Meanwhile, the salty glow from Matt’s pocket drove Natalie dashing to her own private room.