Revels: A Halloween Novella

By Molly Cochran

A Halloween camping trip goes hopelessly awry when Katy Ainsworth and her boarding school friends decide to make the outing a party, only to find themselves surrounded by an uncontrollable mob of ghouls, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies who’ve shown up as uninvited—and lethal—guests!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Molly Cochran
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310813368

Molly Cochran

Molly Cochran, author of the teen paranormal romances LEGACY and POISON, has written 26 published novels and four nonfiction books under her own name and various pseudonyms. Her books include New York Times bestselling novels GRANDMASTER and THE FOREVER KING, coauthored with Warren Murphy, and the nonfiction DRESSING THIN, also a NY Times bestseller. She has won awards from the Mystery Writers of America (Best Novel of the Year), the Romance Writers of America (Best Thriller), and the New York Public Library (Outstanding Books for the Teen Age).SEDUCTION, the third installment in the Young Adult LEGACY series, is scheduled for release later this year through her publisher, Simon & Schuster. Two novellas in the series are also coming in 2014: WISHES, due April 29, and a Halloween novella, REVELS, tentatively scheduled for September release.Three eBooks, THE TEMPLE DOGS, THE FOREVER KING, and GRANDMASTER, are currently available through online retailers.Molly has lectured extensively and has taught writing at the college level as well as at a women's prison (where she was NOT an inmate). She also writes a blog on writing technique which appears on her website, MollyCochran.com. She is also on Facebook at facebook.com/MollyCochranBooks and Twitter at Twitter.com/mollycochranYA.She lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Book preview

REVELS: A HALLOWEEN NOVELLA

by

Molly Cochran

Copyright © 2014 Molly Cochran. All Rights Reserved.

Official website: http://www.MollyCochran.com

Official Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MollyCochranBooks

Published by Molly Cochran at Smashwords

Cover artwork by Devin Murphy

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed or your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my son, Devin.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Also Available

About The Author

CHAPTER ONE

I was putting the last of the pumpkin pies on a cooling rack when Hattie bustled into the kitchen with a stack of the night’s menus.

Let me help with those, I said, cleaning off a spot on the metal counter.

Are you still here? Hattie made it sound like an accusation. It’s nearly dark out. When’s this party of yours going to start, anyway?

I grabbed the menus and started stuffing them into the leather folders Hattie liked to use. I don’t think it’s going to be much of a party, I said.

Now, you hush, Katy. After you and your friends made such a fuss about having your own Samhain celebration and not being stuck with your families, you better have the time of your life tonight, you hear? She took a step backward. Is that what you’re wearing?

I spread my arms so Hattie could get a good look at my sweatpants and waffle-weave turtleneck. I stuck my knit beanie on my head for good measure. "Indeed it is, thanks to the decision that the first annual all-school Halloween party would consist of a lively evening of camping."

Well, you can’t complain about that, since it was the decision of the students.

Correction: It was the decision of two students, namely Verity Lloyd and Cheswick Fortescu, the two nerdiest students in the school, and possibly the universe.

Honestly, Hattie, I’d rather stay here and work.

Every Halloween since I came to Whitfield, I’d served dinner at Hattie’s. The costume party here at the restaurant was what you might call the social event of the year. That is, if you were a witch.

Whitfield, Massachusetts was founded by twenty-seven witch families in 1658, and now boasts the largest concentration of people with paranormal abilities in the United States. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not almost printed that in its 1932 edition, but the hot type used to print the book inexplicably melted as it was going to press.

Cowen—ordinary people—live here, too, but they don’t know about witches, and we don’t tell them.

As I was wheedling Hattie to get me out of the camping trip, Peter, my boyfriend and fellow work-study student, walked in from the dining room. All the tables are set up, he said, picking up his gear: A tent, two sleeping bags, a canteen. You’re coming, aren’t you?

I sighed.

Of course she is, Hattie said, poking me hard with a wooden spoon.

Okay, I relented. I’ll take one of the sleeping bags.

You’re not sharing that tent, are you? Hattie boomed.

Not with Miss P chaperoning, I said. I’ll be bunking with Becca.

I looked through the round porthole-like windows in the double doors separating the kitchen from the dining room. A foursome was coming in. One of the women was dressed like Glinda the Good Witch of the North, the other like Elvira, Queen of the Night. The men wore elaborate historical costumes. I think they were supposed to be noblemen from the Middle Ages.

On this occasion, no expense is spared for costumes, food, or anything else. Halloween is the biggest holiday of our year. It’s the witches’ New Year, in fact. We don’t even call it Halloween. The descendents of the twenty-seven founding families still refer to it by its ancient name, Samhain, pronounced SOW-en.

People are already coming in, I said, adding hopefully, Maybe I should stay, after all."

At that moment my Aunt Agnes materialized beside me. She can do that, wink in and out of whatever space she likes at will. She was wearing a pointy black witch hat. Nonsense, she said. "I’ll be serving