Halloween night, fifteen years ago Lily Dale, New York

"Okay, one more house and then we're done." Julia Garrity teeters across the small patch of wet lawn, her heels sinking into the damp earth.

"Three more," Kristin Shuttleworth amends, walking several steps ahead. "I didn't even get any Milk Duds yet and they're my favorite."

“One," Julia insists. "I mean it, Kristin. That's it for me. You can keep going on your own ff you want."

“That would be stupid. My costume doesn't make sense without you, Jul. I need you. Please."

Kristin is very good at pleading. Most of the time, she can talk Julia into just about anything. But tonight, Julia shakes her head. She's had it with this whole scene.

For one thing, at fourteen, they're getting too old to be trick-or-treating, free Milk Duds or not. For another, Julia's feet are killing her in her mother's pointy old satin pumps. She can't wait to change into sneakers and jeans and wash this gunk off her face.

Why the heck did she ever let Kristin convince her to dress up as the female half of a bridal couple?

Kristin, as the groom, gets to wear her father's old tuxedo and a pair of flat, comfortable black shoes. Her long blond hair is tucked beneath a black top hat, and only a fake mustache mars her pretty face.

Meanwhile, Julia is decked out in a long white gown with a train that she keeps tripping over, her vision obscured by multiple layers of illusion. The veil is attached to a tiara, which is pinned to the teased brunette wig that conceals Julia's mop of boyish brown hair. The wig--and full makeup--was Kristin's idea, to make Julia look more feminine.

"If I'm so masculine, why can't I be the groom?" Julia had asked grumpily when they were getting dressed.

"Because my mother doesn't have a wedding dress I can wear. She had on some crazy short, psychedelic hippie dress when she married my dad in that freaky flower child ceremony," Kristin pointed out impatiently.

True. Not that Julia's mother has a wedding dress, either, having never married Julia's father, whoever--and wherever- he is.

Kristin continues, “And your grandmother is freaked enough as it is about us borrowing her gown for a costume. She definitely wouldn't want me to be the one wearing it."

True, again. Julia's grandmother isn't crazy about Kristin. And Julia's mother, who is usually laid-back when it comes to parenting, can't stand her. She thinks Kristin's a bad influence.

Julia can understand why. Strong-willed Kristin, who smokes and curses and never studies, isn't the kind of girl parents like. But she's a loyal friend, and she's loads of fun. She's adventurous where Julia is cautious, outgoing where Julia is reserved. A teacher once said the biggest difference between them is that Julia tries to avoid making waves, while Kristin thrives on rocking the boat.

That might be the biggest difference, but it's far from the only one.

Often mistaken as being much younger than her fourteen years, Julia is an athletic but petite freckle-faced, jean- clad tomboy--not unattractive, but she certainly doesn't turn heads the way leggy, slim Kristin does.

Kristin's wide-set eyes, high cheekbones, and full mouth are striking even without makeup, though she hasn't been in public without it since sixth grade. Naturally, she' s thrilled when strangers assume she's several years older. She even recently started dating college guys from the state university a few miles away in Fredonia. They all think she's eighteen or nineteen.

Of course her parents have no idea what Kristin is up to. Julia can't help worrying that she's going to get herself into trouble one of these days, but her self-assured friend never seems to waste a moment on apprehension as she slap-dashes her way through life.

Kristin is so utterly opposite in temperament and appearance that even Julia herself sometimes finds it hard to believe that they're still so close. But there aren't many girls their own age in a community the size of Lily Dale, with only a handful of year-round families. They've been basically thrown together since they were toddlers, and for all Kristin' s faults, Julia loves her like the sister she never had--and will never have, judging by the way her mother goes through men. It doesn't look as if she's ever going to find one she likes and settle down.

"Come on, Jul, let's go," Kristin says, striding up narrow Summer Street, her plastic orange pumpkin swinging from her hand. "Looks like the Biddies are home."

Julia hesitates, glancing at the two-story Victorian cottage ahead. "I don't think we should go to their place, Kristin."

"Why not?" Kristin doesn't even break her stride. "It's not like we have a lot to choose from, Jul."

She has a point. Most of the homes in Lily Dale are deserted at this time of year, windows covered with plywood, owners settled far from the harsh winds and snows that batter western New York from October until April.

But Rupert and Nanette Biddle, like the Garritys and the Shuttleworths, have always stayed in town. Though they tend to keep to themselves, they seem friendly in a distant sort of way when Julia sees them at Assembly services.

"Their porch light isn't on," Julia points out. “And we've never gone trick-or-treating here before."

"There's a first time for everything," is Kristin's glib reply. She's already halfway up the steps.

Julia sighs, following her friend as the wind gusts off nearby Cassadaga Lake. Dry leaves scuttle along the gravel walk and a chorus of wind chimes tinkles forlornly on the breeze. As she climbs the steps Julia gathers her train in one hand and grasps the wooden railing with the other, wobbling in her shoes, her dress whipping precariously around her ankles. Above her head, suspended from an ornately carved bracket that matches the scrolled trim lining the porch eaves, a wooden sign sways in the wind.

RUPERT BIDDLE, REGISTERED MEDIUM.

A floorboard creaks beneath Julia's weight as she crosses the porch to join Kristin, who is already reaching for the antique doorbell.

Like most of the other cottages in Lily Dale, this place is probably a hundred years old. But Rupert Biddle is one of the more successful mediums in the Spiritualist Assembly, and his home is one of the few that have been restored to its former pristine state. No peeling paint, missing spindles, or lopsided shutters here.

None at the Shuttleworths' home a few blocks away, either. Kristin's father, Anson, is a nationally renowned psychic medium whose fame has grown considerably ever since he helped the police up in Buffalo track down the bodies of several children who were murdered by a serial killer almost three years ago. He's just published a book about that experience.

Kristin doesn't like to talk about that, or about her father in general.

Nor does she waste much breath discussing her older half brother, Edward, who lives down in Jamestown with his mother, Anson's first wife. Julia remembers him coming around more often when they were younger, but he doesn't anymore. Kristin once mentioned in passing that he'd had a big blowout with her mother, Iris. Julia sometimes forgets he even exists, and it certainly seems as though Kristin is an only child, the way her parents dote on her.

Julia is an only child, too. But her mother is far too busy and self-involved to dote. Nor will she discuss the circumstances of Julia's birth. Even Grandma, who lives with them, won't reveal her father's identity--if Grandma even knows. Julia figures it's possible that she doesn't. And whenever she asks Grandma about it, Grandma says that she shouldn't concern herself with that. She tells Julia how lucky she is to have a mother and grandmother who love her.