Chapter 21
I haven’t been able to stop watching Stevie since the phone call with her parents or the conversation with Wren.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could feel Stevie tensing beside me, sense the way whatever was being said had bothered her.
I wondered if Wren saw it, too, if she cared.
From what Stevie has told me about her, she’s a great person, and they are closer to sisters than friends.
But I know from personal experience how siblings can hurt one another for good reasons.
And so I’ve kept my focus on her throughout the day, and I’ve told myself it’s just out of concern.
I’m lying to myself, I know that. I am concerned, but I also like the way her hair looks in the waning sunlight and how her lips curl in the barest of smiles.
I like the curve of muscle beneath her clothes and how she smells earthy and almost a little masculine, but it’s intoxicating nonetheless.
“I feel like I need to eat something with substance,” Stevie says, hours later. The sun has set, taking the warmth with it, leaving the air crisp but still comfortable beneath our layers.
Stevie’s nose is red above her paper cup of cider, steam billowing above it.
“I saw a booth for fried corn on the cob earlier,” I tell her.
She shoots me a sardonic look. “Not quite what I had in mind.”
“I doubt you’re going to find a salad here.”
We’ve made our way through town, stopping at booths selling homemade crafts and baked goods, and warmed up by the bonfire in the park. We wandered for too long in a corn maze, unable to find our way out. And we’ve eaten. A lot.
There hasn’t been a single nutritious option, unless you count the potato salad they were selling at a barbeque truck.
She huffs out a breath of air, and I can see it in the cold. “You’re right. I should probably just get a funnel cake.”
“That’s the attitude.”
Her eyes land on mine, pointed. “You still haven’t bought anything.”
She bought several items as we wandered around. A quilted coaster. A pumpkin scented beeswax candle. A vintage silver ring that she slipped onto her thumb.
“And I won’t,” I say. Not for the first time.
She juts out her bottom lip, and I can’t help but laugh. It feels like taking a shot of whiskey, warming me from the inside out.
“We’ve already discussed this. I only have as much stuff as will fit in my Jeep. I travel too much and don’t have a permanent address.”
Her shoulder bumps into mine. “You need something to remember your trip here.”
We’re walking slow, meandering through the crowd of people at a snail’s pace. Touching from shoulder to hip. It’s how, even in only the dim glow of the streetlights, I can still pick out the shades of green in her hazel eyes.
“I won’t forget this trip.” My voice is a scrape of sandpaper, and I wonder if she can read between the lines of what I’m not saying. I’m not sure I want her to.
She swallows, a thick bob of her throat, and I can’t help it. The way my eyes dip to her lips for just a moment before settling back on her eyes.
“Still,” she says. “You need something from Fontana Ridge to take with you when you leave.” Her eyes are soft, her smile even softer. There Re freckles beneath the redness on her cheeks. Light glowing beneath her irises. Streaks of gold in her dark hair.
And maybe I’m falling harder than I thought, because when she looks at me like that, I find myself saying, “Okay, fine. Pick something out for me.”
Her grin breaks free, wide and unfettered. “Really?”
I’m smiling, too, at her sheer delight, despite trying to look stern. “You’ve worn me down.”
She holds my gaze for one beat, two, before turning away, continuing to walk in the sea of people. I follow after her.
“Aren’t you going to pick something?” I gesture at one of the boots beside us. A local goat farmer selling handmade soap.
Her nose wrinkles. “I’m not sending you away with soap, Jeffrey."
I roll my eyes at the name, but she continues on.
“It has to be something good. Something you’d really like. It will take me time to pick it out.”
“So what do you want to do now, then? Get your fried corn on the cob and funnel cake?”
She shakes her head, coming to a stop in the middle of the closed off street.
She turns, pointing at one of the houses.
It’s decorated for Halloween like all the rest of the houses on the street.
They’re all old, mostly Craftsmans, Victorians, and Colonials.
This one is Victorian, painted a deep purple with white trim and shutters.
And in the yard is a sign that says Haunted House, $5 entry.
Fake cobwebs string from the windows, and behind one of the shutters, a light flickers ominously.
Creepy piano music is playing from a speaker in the yard.
Someone in a grim reaper costume is collecting money from the people lined up in front of the door.
“Really?” I ask, looking down at her.
She nods. “I’ve always wanted to go with my parents, but they were never interested.”
“The last time I went to a haunted house, I peed my pants.”
“How old were you? Six? Nine?”
“Fourteen.”
Laughter rockets out of her, and she grabs me by the arm, pulling me up the concrete steps leading to the walkway. “Come on, you can hold onto me if you get scared.”
And suddenly, the haunted house doesn’t seem too bad.
We pay the few dollars for our tickets and move past the grim reaper through the fog pouring out the front door.
It’s dark in the house, with only flickering candles in the chandelier illuminating the foyer.
They must have the air conditioning on, too, because the air is much more frigid than it was outside.
Beneath my feet, a floorboard creaks, and as soon as I look down, the closet door beside me opens and a woman in a long white nightgown, her hair falling in greasy, black clumps around her shoulders, pops out and screams in my ear.
I jump, heart racing, and reach instinctively for Stevie, my arm a band around her middle, pushing her behind me. “Shit,” I breathe, as the woman disappears back into the closet as if she never appeared.
Behind me, Stevie repeats, “Shit.”
I glance at her over my shoulder. In the dim light, her eyes appear black, wide. “You good?”
She nods. “Just took me by surprise.”
My mouth hitches in a smile. “I think that’s the point.”
Her hand is gripping my bicep, and I realize I still have one on her hip, so I let go. Put enough space between us to let my heart rate return to normal. Turn back toward the doorway we were about to walk through when the woman popped out from the door. “You ready?”
“Ready,” she says. And then I feel the warmth of her body coming closer to mine. If I’m not mistaken, she grabs a handful of fabric on the back of my jacket, too.
We walk through the doorway and into a parlor.
The walls are full of vintage portraits, solemn looking people with eyes that feel like they’re following us.
The furniture is covered in heavy, dusty sheets.
Off-key music is playing from a gramophone in the corner, something haunting and scratchy.
Everything is still safe for the rocking chair in the corner that’s squeaking with each rock.
In the chair sits a little girl, brushing the hair of a ratty doll.
She looks up at us as we pass, smiling as she sings along to the music.
It would be less horrifying if her face wasn’t painted to look like half of it was missing.
A shiver runs down my spine, and Stevie shuffles closer to me, her grip tightening on my jacket.
When we slip into the next room, she whispers in my ear, “Well, that was horrifying.”
Her breath is warm on the back of my neck, and the music in this room is so loud that she has to speak directly into my ear, her lips pressed against the curve of it. It sends a very different kind of shiver across my skin, and I wonder if she can feel it.
We’re in a dining room. Music is playing loudly from a speaker I can’t find. The table is long and draped with flimsy lace that is full of holes. Decaying food rots on fine china, crawling with what I truly hope are some kind of fake insects.
I stare in disgust at the display, and when I glance at Stevie, her expression matches what I imagine mine must be. “This is nasty.”
I nod in agreement, but before I can respond, a teen boy dressed in an all black outfit painted to look like a skeleton comes running out of the hallway on the opposite side of the table, zipping the fly of his pants.
“Shit, sorry. I had to take a pee break. I was supposed to scare you,” he says. He glances between the two of us, his eyes pleading. “Don’t tell my boss. He caught me hitting my vape in here yesterday and told me I’m on thin ice.”
Stevie rolls her lips together to keep from laughing, and I have to fight against it myself. But I tell the kid, “Secret’s safe with us.”
“Thanks, man,” he says and runs to what I’m assuming is his mark at the head of the table. “Would you mind screaming? To sell it for the boss?”
I lift a brow, but Stevie lets out a blood curdling scream that makes me levitate. I turn to her, eyes wide, only to find her grinning, teeth bright in the darkness.
“You’re insane.”
She grabs onto my arm this time, abandoning my jacket, and pulls me toward the hallway. “This is fun.”
We make our way through the kitchen where a man covered in fake blood hacks at what looks like entrails on a red-stained cutting board, then through another hallway before heading up a set of stairs.
They’re narrow, forcing Stevie to let go of my arm, but I feel her at my back again, the tugging of her weight on my jacket.
Everywhere she touches sets off fireworks beneath my skin, making my blood heat despite the chill in the house.
When we get to the top of the stairs, she reaches for my arm again.
The upstairs is filled with childish laughter that seems to float from behind the walls.
A woman sobbing in a four-post bed, thrashing beneath the sheets and screaming at the ceiling.
When a door slams beside us, Stevie inches even closer, her hand slipping from my arm to grab my hand.
I can feel every place our skin touches, each pinpoint sparking, and I can’t focus on anything else as we make our way up another set of stairs to an attic that’s shrouded in darkness. It’s eerily silent. The door swings shut behind us, groaning on its hinges.
Stevie’s hand tightens on mine. I feel her tugging me back in the direction of the door, hear her fumbling for something.
All at once, dozens of candles, presumably fake, flare to light.
A man covered in deep gashes, fake blood oozing from them, stands in the middle of a pentagram, chanting unintelligibly.
“Nope,” Stevie says, decisive, pulling me handily back toward the door.
She rips it open and tears down the stairs, me in her wake.
We don’t stop until we’re back downstairs, following the signs leading us out the back door.
Cold night air rushes into our lungs as we stop on the back porch, catching our breath.
Stevie’s eyes lock on mine, and a slow smile builds on her face before laughter slips out of her. Music on the wind.
“I don’t think we’re cut out for haunted houses.”
“No,” I agree. “We’re not.”
We.
That’s new.
I think I like it. Too much.