THEY SAT IN A CIRCLE around the blazing fire, their features distorted by the dancing orange and yellow flames. Their heads were down, their jackets pulled tightly around them for warmth.
They called themselves the Others.
Norman dropped to a crouching position. The firelight played across his thin, pale face, casting eerie shadows that turned his skin to reddish-orange and lit a menacing yellow light in his eyes.
Thunder sounded in the distance, and an ominous black cloud swept across the half-moon overhead. An owl hooted a question. Bat wings fluttered in the tall, black trees.
Someone giggled nervously.
Molly studied the way the dancing flames seemed to change Norman’s bone structure. His face reminded her now of a tall, narrow jack-o’-lantern her grandfather had once carved on Halloween. She’d been upset because pumpkins were supposed to be round, and this one wasn’t. “You can’t make a jack-o’-lantern out of that skinny thing!” she had cried.
But he had. And thanks to his cleverness with the knife, the resulting work of art had been the scariest Molly had ever seen. Its mouth opened as if in a scream. Its crooked, pointed teeth, its slanted, narrow eyes, had looked far more sinister than any round pumpkin could.
That was how Norman’s face looked now as he began to explain the purpose behind the Others. His face seemed sinister, menacing … An optical illusion, of course, created by the wavering yellow and red flames.
“And now for our initiation,” Norman said, rising to his feet.
They all rose with him.