1. Josie

1

Josie

" T hat's not enough blood, Tillie. Here, let me do it."

As soon as I hear my eight-year-old brother say those words, I bolt up the stairs and round the corner just in time to see three Halloween costumes lying flat on the floor, covered in red splatters that I can only assume are food coloring. And they got some on the carpet, too. Fantastic.

"Does anyone want to tell me why you're not wearing your costumes?" I ask. "And maybe also why you've covered them in fake blood?"

"It's not—" Tillie starts, but Milo steps forward, effectively stopping her. He's younger by two minutes, but Tillie hates confrontation almost as much as I do, so she lets him take the lead. And the fall.

"We're Frank and Patricia Cartwright, two of the most famous serial killers in North Dakota," Milo tells me, as though I'm a fool for even asking.

I begin silently counting to ten. I only get as far as four before saying, "Levi told me you guys were going as zombies. That's why he had to take you to Goodwill to get clothes you could tear up."

"We changed our minds after we watched the series about the Cartwrights on Netflix," Milo informs me. "And before you ask, Levi wasn't mad. He watched it with us."

"Technically," Tillie interjects, "he watched cartoons with us until he fell asleep and then we switched the channel."

"Technically," Milo agrees, using air quotes. "Anyway, that's how we decided on the Cartwrights. Because they were twins, too."

"And I'm the detective who caught them," Iris pipes up in her still-sweet five-year-old voice. "But then they murdered me. That's why my uniform had to get bloody, too, Josie. But don't worry. It's not s'posed to stain."

I tug playfully on one of her pigtails. "Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but food coloring stains everything it touches." I survey the room, and honestly, most of the red dye is on the clothes, so it could be worse.

And, of course, that's when it starts to get worse.

"It's not food coloring, Josie. It's blood," Iris corrects.

"Yep, but pretend blood is made out of food coloring. Now, come on. We're almost late." It's two weeks before Halloween, but the kids' school is having Trunk or Treat tonight. The back of my SUV is filled with enough candy to induce a sugar high in half the state of Maryland and all the supplies necessary to simulate a zombie apocalypse.All I need now is for my three youngest siblings to get moving. "Are your costumes dry?"

Milo touches his and his finger comes away clean. Good enough for me. "You've got one minute," I tell them. "Suit up." Iris and Milo nod, but Tillie won't look me in the eye.

My older brother, Levi, and I have been guardians to our younger siblings—all four of them—for nearly five years now, so I know Tillie and I know her tells. She's about to tattle on these two.I love a juicy confession just as much as the next gal, but time is ticking. "It's okay, Tillie. We'll clean up the mess as best we can when we get home. I'm sure #CleanTok has a solution for removing food coloring from rugs."

"But it's not food coloring. It's blood."

I open my mouth to correct her, but she keeps on talking. Tillie may love true crime, but she'd make a terrible criminal.

"It's real blood. From real people and we bought it on the internet. We tried fake blood, but it just looks fake and we wanted to be authentic because Mariah Carlsson is going as the Little Mermaid this year and she has a tail that moves and she said her dad is buying her a talking crab. I don't believe in talking animals, but I wouldn't put anything past Mariah Carlsson or her dad." As soon as her tirade is over, Tillie bursts into tears. We have that in common, too—we're both criers.

"It's true, Josie," Milo says. "And Tillie really wants to beat Mariah. And she deserves to, especially because Mariah totally cheated at the Spelling Bee and you know it. Justice for Tillie," he adds, then picks up his stranger's blood-stained shirt and starts to put it on.

"Stop!" I yell, and they all freeze. I'm not a yeller by nature, but something has me on edge. It's the blood. The internet-purchased blood has me on edge.

"I have questions," I say as calmly as I can manage. "And I need answers, okay?"

They nod and I can tell Iris's eyes are getting leaky.

"This is real blood?"

They all nod again, then Milo looks up. "It better be," he says plainly. "It was not cheap."

"Where did you find it? And don't just say the internet." My voice is much calmer than the rest of me, as I try to recall every bio class I've taken and every statistic about blood-borne pathogens I've ever read.

Again, it's Milo who answers. "We got it as part of a kit for an online forensics lab. You had to sign up for the class to get the kit, so we did. But we used all the blood on our costumes, which kinda stinks because I really wanted to take that class. They give you a crime story and everything and you have to solve it."

He reaches for a discarded box on the floor and hands me the packing slip he found inside. I scan it quickly and my blood pressure slides back into normal range when I see the words synthetic plasma .

"How on earth did you sign up for a high school level forensics class?" I ask, almost afraid to hear the answer. Eight is too young for a fake ID, right?

"We used Zane's bank card," Tillie says, her lip trembling. "He lets us buy Robux sometimes when we do his chores for him."

At fifteen, Zane is the middle child, and I can definitely see him bribing these three to do the dishes or run the vacuum. But I can't see him okaying any purchase this expensive. Or any purchase that involves blood—synthetic or otherwise.

"Ok," I say, taking a deep breath and making a plan. "You will clean this up when we get home. You will pay Zane back and you will no longer have access to his card—thecard he has for emergencies only, by the way. And, you are going to tell him everything and apologize. But right now, you are throwing on your bloody costumes and getting in the car. And let's be clear: the only reason we're still going to this party is because I'm on the PTO and I promised I'd be there to help supervise. Got it?"

They all nod glumly and do as they're told. Tillie still looks teary, so I pull her aside and drop a kiss on her head. "I'm not mad, Tillie. I'm?—"

"Disappointed," she finishes. "But that's even worse. Zane gets mad at us all the time, but he gets over it pretty fast. When you and Levi are disappointed, we feel bad for days."

"Feeling bad for days doesn't help anyone," I say gently. "You three know better. If you have to sneak to do something, you shouldn't do it, right?"

"Right," she says, sighing.

"But what if we had to do it, Josie?" Iris asks, her voice small.

"You will never have to buy blood on the internet," I tell her. "And if it's part of a course you are legitimately taking because you actually are in high school, then you can tell Levi and me and we'll order it for you."

"Will you and Levi still be taking care of us when we're in high school?" Milo asks, looking young and innocent, like he was that night five years ago when all our lives changed forever.

"Of course we will," I say, because it's true. In the aftermath of the accident that killed our mom and dad, Levi and I made two promises: one to each other, and one to the four siblings left in our care. "We take care of each other. Always."

As they tackle me with a hug, I remind myself that they won't be this little for too much longer and that I'll miss these days when they're gone.

I really will.

But I won't miss the blood, even if it is fake.