Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
It’s the sign of a true best friend that when you tell him a bizarre story about the world freezing and a stranger electrocuting you with a touch and transporting you from a Halloween party to a haunted mansion, he doesn’t even bat a beautifully long-lashed eye.
Asher doesn’t question my logic, my sanity, or my sobriety. He simply hugs me and reassures me that no matter what the world throws at us, he’s here and we’ll face it together. Everyone deserves an Asher.
I twist, holding up my phone. “I’ve got no signal. You?”
He pulls out his cell, shifting it in the air. Only the faintest glow of moonlight spills into the foyer through a tall stained-glass window over the door. “Nope. Nothing.”
I slide my phone back into the thigh pocket of the stretchy shorts I’m wearing under my costume.
The place is dark, dusty, and gives off haunted slaughterhouse vibes like every horror movie ever seen rolled into one. It’s terrifying to think about how we got here, but what makes my skin crawl with hot nettles is wondering why we were brought here.
“Is this a Halloween prank thing?” Asher steps over to the door and grabs the smooth brass knob. He gives it a turn, and the door swings open again without a fight. “Huh, I was half-expecting to be locked in.”
I move to stand next to him, and the two of us peer through the opening. It’s still the middle of the night, so the covered front porch and the stairs leading down to the landscaped walkway are all dark.
“I say we flee this creepiness and go find an all-night McDonald’s. We can use their free Wi-Fi to figure out where we are and feed our need for drunk calories.”
“An excellent plan, P. Let’s get the hell gone.”
I’m already moving, already stepping forward into the frame of outside.
And then something very not normal happens: my foot keeps moving, but I don’t. It’s like walking into a glass door I didn’t see. There’s a soft pressure across my shins, and then my thighs, and my whole body says, ‘Nope, hard stop’.
There’s no pain. No impact. More like refusal.
I try again. I even get fancy and do a little hop. Why not? The extra momentum might help. It doesn’t.
The invisible resistance stretches, but doesn’t let me step beyond the threshold of the front door.
“Huh.” I step back and give Asher access to the doorway. “I don’t think we’re allowed to leave.”
Asher reaches past me to test the air with his hand. He pushes at it, the skin on the back of his knuckles going white with his efforts. He frowns, tries again higher, then lower, then sideways. “Is it a force field?”
I shrug. “I have no idea how to explain it.”
“Maybe it’s a static barrier… or magic space jelly?”
“Space jelly? That sounds super scientific.”
He grins, which is ridiculous and comforting. “It’s a working title.”
We spend a full minute doing the adult equivalent of those cats on YouTube batting at invisible boxes. The door is open. The world is right there. We just can’t go out into it.
“Okay.” I let the door swing gently shut, and it settles into the frame with a soft click. “So not locked, but we’re trapped just the same.”
Asher rubs his knuckles, looking alarmed. “Maybe we’re not prisoners and there’s a… policy about leaving in the middle of the night.”
My brain trips over that. “Whose policy?”
“The guy with the blue eyes? If he can freeze an entire party of people, I’m sure he could force field the door so we can’t escape.”
“How is this even a conversation we’re having? I don’t disagree, but I don’t see how he could’ve gotten us here.”
“Wherever here is.”
I look around the dimly lit foyer. The chandelier throws spots of light onto the walls. The shadows look like they have their own opinions.
“Or maybe it’s the house itself,” Asher says. “Maybe you haven’t seen what you need to see yet, so you’re not allowed to leave.”
I swallow, and my skin prickles. I’d swear the house shifted fractionally when he said that. As if it liked being understood.
Asher must notice it too, because he looks at me and widens his eyes.
“Okay, cool.” I turn, scanning the interior again with a new level of freak out building. “Well, hello. I’m Poppy, and this is Asher. We’re friendly. Thanks for having us.”
“Yeah. We’re not here to, you know, start a fight with your space jelly.” Asher is speaking in his don’t-anger-the-AI voice. It’s the overly calm tone he uses when Alexa can’t find the song he requested. “If you want us to stay, we’re good to hang for a bit.”
The air shifts, and it feels like someone tuned it, like a guitar string plucked and the vibrations are expanding outward into the darkness.
Asher looks around the entranceway, and frowns. “Please tell me there aren’t bats.”
“Given our current situation, I think bats are the least of our problems.” I wander over to a decorative bronze plate on the wall and—assuming this house of horrors has electricity—work to turn on the lights. “Besides, bats are just goth birds that can’t fly straight.”
Asher grunts, wandering deeper into the foyer to peer down the pitch-black corridors beyond. “Do you think the guy with the blue eyes intended for us to be here? Like specifically in this house?”
“No idea.”
“What did he say again?”
“He said he came to give me a gift and then corrected that to say that he was returning a gift to me. Then he asked if I’m curious about who I am and where I came from.”
“And you don’t think he was blowing smoke out of his ass?”
“No, it felt like he actually knew things about me.” One of the little knobs mounted through the brass plate turns like a dimmer switch, and a weak, golden glow illuminates the foyer. “Huzzah! Let there be light.”
Asher turns so we can get a better look at where we are.
The foyer is fancy and boasts an air of old money that makes me want to straighten my posture.
There’s a high ceiling, a chandelier dripping prisms, and a staircase that curves up like it’s posing for a magazine.
There are also runners stretching down the halls both left and right that look handwoven and insanely expensive.
Everything is soft-lit and quiet. Not dead quiet—more like library quiet, where sound exists, but the house is being polite by muting the volume.
“I’ve never been a person who thinks, ‘Ooh, let’s trespass in the spooky mansion,’ and yet, here we are.”
Asher snorts. “Yep, here we are. And yet, are we here?”
I blink. “That’s deep, dude. Do you think we’re sharing a joint hallucination? Or maybe Roadkill Danny drugged us?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think this is real… I just don’t know how to explain how it’s real.”
I blink and point to the round table in the center of the foyer. There’s a vase of fresh-cut flowers—peach roses mixed with bright red poppies.
The water is clear. The petals are perfect. There’s no dust on the table. No cobwebs in the chandelier above.
“Those were not there a second ago, were they?”
Asher stares at the pretty bouquet and shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I fight the urge to take Asher’s hand like I’m five. Instead, I grab two umbrellas from the stand beside the door and point to the hall. “Shall we explore?”
He takes his umbrella and gives it a few practice swings and a few fencing jabs into the empty air. Seemingly satisfied, he straightens to his full height. “We shall.”
Now that we have a course of action, we’re off.
We go to the right first. The hall is lined with old, historic portraits.
Not the stern ‘founder of the university’ type, but family shots—a couple seated together looking regal, a woman in a deep green dress with a collared neckline that makes me think of pilgrims.
Her hair is pulled back in a bun, her eyes that hazy green you only see in expensive glass. Her expression is not kind, but it’s also not unkind.
It’s more like she knows secrets and thinks you might not deserve to share in them.
“Who do you think she is?” I ask.
“Elenora Hallowind, I suspect.” Asher taps his finger against a badly tarnished bronze nameplate embedded in the bottom edge of the frame.
“Hallowind,” I repeat, letting the word drift in my mind.
“Do you recognize the name?”
“No, you?”
Asher shakes his head. “But I don’t think this is about me. Blue Eyes came specifically for you.”
We continue on. The hall opens into a parlor that is pretending it isn’t a parlor.
There are books everywhere, but it’s not a library, not officially.
Shelves line the walls, yes, but there’s also an upright piano with a well-worn stuffed bunny on the lid, a pair of low velvet sofas facing a cold fireplace, a Settlers of Catan board lain out on a table like somebody got called away mid-game and never came back.
I run my finger along the edge of a book. No dust. The book itself is a field guide to poisonous plants of North America, which is a very specific and slightly disturbing read.
A thin datebook sits closed on the piano bench, a fountain pen laid across it. I don’t open it. I want to. But this place feels like it would know if I did, and I am not ready to be yelled at by a house.
The closer I get to the piano, the quicker my heart beats, until the hair on my arms stands on end. There’s something happening here… “Hey, come put your ear near the piano.”
“Put my what near the what now?”
I fold over the glossy lid and listen. “It’s humming. Do you hear it?”
Asher does as I ask and makes a face. “No.”
Huh. Maybe I’m still drunk, but I’d swear there’s a thin note, a faint cord of a sound. I pull back, and the sound fades. I lean in, and it’s there again.
“Okay.” I straighten. “Maybe the house has tinnitus.”
“More likely an electrical system that isn’t up to code.”
I blink at him. “Why would a piano have electrical?”
Asher frowns and then raises a finger. “Point to you.”
We leave the parlor, following the wide, burgundy runner to a doorway that smells like the simmering of butter and thyme. The kitchen dispels all my preconceived ideas of this place being a stodgy old haunted house.
This room is lived in—or was, anyway.
Warm oak cabinets. A farmhouse sink big enough to bathe a Great Dane. Copper pots hanging like a chorus line. The big gas stove is off, but the oven light glows, and the little red dot on the thermostat says it’s still warm.
A small wooden bowl of apples sits on the marble-topped island. The fruit isn’t wrinkled like it was left here and forgotten. The apples are glossy, red, and look crisp.
There’s a loaf of bread on a cutting board, and a knife sits beside it. Asher leans in close to smell it, and his stomach lets out a long rumble of appreciation. “It smells too fresh to be decorative. Do you think anyone would mind if we cut ourselves a slice?”
I shrug. “We’re locked in. Peeps gotta eat.”
“Wisdom of the ages, girlfriend.” Asher picks up the knife and cuts two chunky slices, one for each of us. Little flakes of crust flick off as he cuts, but the inside of the bread is soft and fresh.
There’s a little decorative bowl with whipped butter next to the cutting board, and I slather a tasty layer on each to get us set up.
When I hand Asher his slice, the two of us chow down.
“Ugh… it’s still warm.” Asher drops his head back and groans. “Why does this taste so good?”
I’m chewing my bite and have no words. I am wrapped in a cocoon of comfort-food bliss. “Drunk carbs?”
“Nah, this is more than that.”
As we devour our bread, Asher approaches the fridge like he’s expecting to encounter a bomb. With his neck stretched back, he pulls on the handle, looking like he’s ready to bolt.
Light spills out, yellow-white and domestic. Milk. Eggs. A full cherry cheesecake. A couple of pounds of maple bacon. Raspberry lemonade. Babybel cheese.
“Wow, this fridge is stocked with all your favorites, Poppy.” He checks the dates on the cartons. “And everything is fresh.”
“Who do you think lives here?”
“Someone who knows the way to win you over is through your stomach.” He wanders to the pantry, and I follow him into a space the size of our entire kitchen back home. “I bet there’s a shelf of Oreo cookies and Ritz Crackers in here.”
He flips on the light inside the door and points, chuckling. “Yep. This is all catered to you. Look, they even have a supply of mini Skor bits for when you’re jonesing during your time of the month.”
I shoot him a look. “Do you think you might be finding all of this a little too amusing?”
He scoffs. “No. I think the house is linked to your past and is happy you’re home. The flowers said it all.”
I frown. “What did the flowers say?”
“Peach roses symbolize gratitude, and the poppies were obviously a reference to you. The house is grateful you’re here.”
My mental hamster tumbles off its exercise wheel on that one. I take another bite of bread and am dazzled by the stocked shelves. Asher is right. All my favorite things are here. “Is there such a thing as dry goods heaven?”
“Brown rice, white rice, there are like twenty different pastas, sugar, flour, weird flour, other weird flour…” Asher lifts a jar and holds it out for me to read. “Oat groats? Is that a thing you like?”
“It sounds like a rash a pirate might have.”
He snorts. “Arrr matey, he was at sea for four long years and when he finally returned to port, he had a wicked case of oat groats.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Yeah-no, I don’t think those are for me.”
“Well, either someone lives here, or the house is DoorDashing pantry staples.”
“More likely the two of us are starring in a modern retelling of Goldilocks, and the bears are going to come home and eat us any moment.”
Asher pulls off the bald cap from his costume and runs his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair. “I doubt it. As crazy as it sounds, I think the house is welcoming you. And since I’m your bestie and have taken care of you and watched your back for the past five years, I think it’ll like me too.”
He moves back to the fridge, closes his eyes like he’s making a wish, and then opens the door. His expression breaks into a brilliant grin, and then he reaches in and pulls out a peach Snapple iced tea. “Thank you, house. Your delicious bread made me thirsty. I appreciate you, too.”
I don’t even know how to process that.
The window over the sink is a big old thing with thick glass that warps the world a little like it’s drunk. I reach to push it open, and it sticks for a second, then slides, and cold air bleeds in, clean and damp.
And beyond that…
“Holy hell, Asher. Check this out.”