SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2023
Alice
“Come in, come in.” Alice ushers her friend Libby through the front door and pulls her in for a hug.
They haven’t seen each other since the day Alice moved away from the city.
More than a month, when they used to see each other at least once a week.
Feeling her friend’s familiar embrace, smelling her musky perfume, Alice becomes overwhelmed with emotion.
“Oh my God. I could cry right now, seeing you,” she says, pulling away from her friend with a laugh.
“Me too!” Libby laughs, but her eyes are also glassy with tears.
“You two old broads are pathetic,” Libby’s husband, Ralph, says, pulling Alice in for a hug. She’s almost as excited to see him.
She tugs on his beard, which seems to have grown exponentially since the last time she saw him. “Going for the crazed-lumberjack look these days?”
“He always lets himself go when he’s off work,” Libby answers for him, and he gives her a playful swat on the ass. “Sorry we’re late. Looks like there are quite a few people here already.”
“There are,” Alice says, with a flinch. “But I don’t know any of them, so it’s a little awkward.”
“You just need to drink more.” Libby passes her a bottle of red wine.
“My God, I’ve missed you!” Alice didn’t realize how much she missed her friends from the city until this very moment. They’ve spoken on the phone a few times, but Alice had spared her stories about the dead animals and the carvings in Polly’s floor.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have moved out of the city,” Libby snaps.
“Don’t mind her,” Ralph pipes in. “She’s been in withdrawal since her best friend moved away. I’ve missed Geoff myself, but my liver is happier.”
Libby shoots her husband a death glare. “He’s only joking. He drinks just as much without Geoff around.”
“And on that note,” Ralph says, squeezing past them away from the front door, “I’m going to go find the old bastard and say hi.”
“I’m so glad you guys came,” Alice says. “The neighbors are nice and all, but a bit stuck-up.” She lowers her voice at the last part.
“Well, I’m here now,” Libby says, putting an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “Let’s play a little round of deepest dirt, shall we?”
It’s a game that she, Libby, and their close friend Kathy like to play when they meet new people. Whoever gets the most dirt on a person wins. “Kathy will be mad that we played without her,” Alice says.
“Kathy is in Spain on a beach right now, so I think she’ll get over it. But first, give me a tour of this beautiful new house. And I may have to run naked through those amazing woods of yours later, if that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay! I’ll join you and then Ralph and Geoff will finally have the proof they’ve always wanted that they’re married to witches.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Libby says, jutting her chin out defiantly. “Witch is just another word for a powerful woman getting shit done.” Libby always finds the feminist angle to something. “No wonder men have vilified them.”
“On that note,” Alice says. “Let’s get you a drink.”
Two hours in, and the party is still going strong.
Alice hopes this means that word will spread—the house is lovely, with good people living there, not murdery at all.
When guests first arrived, she saw their curious, quick glances all around, as though they might spot bloodstains on the wall, or a dead body, or a ghost floating at the end of the hall.
Fortunately, her mother has distracted them with a custom-made charcuterie board from the nicest deli in town, fresh oysters from the fish market, an olive bar, and platters of butter-chicken sliders.
Beverley also made sure there was a variety of wines and local craft beer on offer, along with her martini station.
When Alice balked at the cost of it all, charged to her credit card, of course, her mother had reminded her that it was their one chance to overturn the murder-house reputation.
Her mother is on martini duty now and has a small crowd of people around her as she works the cocktail shaker like it’s a musical instrument.
She’s wearing a simple red dress, with lips to match, her hair in a tight bun and bangles up her arm—a fairly conservative outfit for her.
As far as Alice can tell, she’s being nothing but the accommodating hostess.
You never knew what you were going to get with her mother.
She could be gracious, engaging, and magnetic; aloof, judgmental, and antisocial; or even worse: drunk, flirtatious, and inappropriate.
Tonight she is magnetic.
Speaking of drunk and flirtatious—Geoff is both.
She hasn’t seen him without a bourbon in his hand since the party started.
It became his drink of choice when he started writing, claiming that it was what all the greats drank.
Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.
It certainly didn’t seem to be helping him with his writing.
A week ago, he’d left his laptop sitting open on the dining-room table, and she’d snuck a peek at what he was working on.
Her heart sank the more she read. It wasn’t good.
Not exactly “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” but not far from it.
She’d liked his earlier writing, back when he first started, but this new stuff was confusing, self-indulgent rambling about a middle-aged man and his midlife struggles.
Staring at him now from across the kitchen as she refills the cracker bowl, she clocks all his drunk tells.
Leaning in too close when speaking to people, totally unaware of personal space.
Excessive hand-talking. Beard-rubbing and droopy eyes.
The rage it provokes in her is unusually intense.
She chalks it up to the fact that this morning she woke up with cramps in her lower belly and back and a dull headache.
When she found spots of pink blood in her underwear a few hours later she almost howled.
It was the first time she’d bled in months.
The spotting didn’t last, but the mood swings and headache have.
She looks away from Geoff in an effort to quell the rage and sees Libby moving through the crowd toward her.
“Hey, I just heard an interesting story,” she says, coming to stand so close to Alice that she can feel the heat from her body and smell the red wine on her breath. “Not sure it’s deepest-dirt worthy, but it’s intriguing.”
Alice puts the crackers next to the charcuterie board, refills her glass of wine, and gives her friend her full attention. “Do tell.”
“See that guy over there?” Libby points to a man sitting down across the room, who appears to be in his late seventies, wearing a navy-blue blazer and an actual ascot.
“You mean Thurston Howell the Third from Gilligan’s Island?” Alice whispers.
Libby laughs. “My God you’re a bitch, but yes, him.
He’s lived in this neighborhood for thirty years.
Not on this street but one over. His son”—Libby points to a man whom Alice recognizes from the Labor Day barbecue—“lives on this street, and he came with him. Anyway, the old guy told the entire story while looking down my dress.”
“Can you blame him?” Alice asks, glancing down at Libby’s cleavage. Alice has always been slightly envious of Libby’s curves.
“No, I guess not,” Libby says with a satisfied smile.
“So, the old guy said that even before the Gordon murders, the house had a reputation. One of the daughters of the family who originally owned the whole lot apparently went nuts. Her husband and daughter moved out and she started performing animal sacrifices or something. Then she disappeared. And get this.” Libby puts a hand on Alice’s arm and leans in close.
“Some kids playing in the woods one day said they saw her. Word got around and then people started calling her the witch in the woods.” She widens her eyes with excitement.
“Alice! We were just talking about being witches in the woods!”
Alice doesn’t like this story one bit. In fact, it floods her with a sense of dread, the same kind she felt when they found all those dead animals.
She can feel the dread start to mix with that low-level anxiety, never not thrumming through her body like swirls of paint, slowly rolling into each other to create a new color that will coat Alice’s mood for the rest of the night and beyond.
Is there a crazy old woman living in the woods? A witch who long ago carved symbols in her daughter’s floor?
“Oh my God, you don’t actually believe it, do you?” Libby asks, picking up on what’s happening inside of Alice. She can’t hide much from her friend. “It’s just an urban legend.” Libby rubs Alice’s arm. “I mean, a witch in the woods, it sounds like a fairy tale. Right?”
Alice nods and forces herself to laugh, though inside she wants to cry. “Right. I know. It’s just that rumors like that can be tough on the kids. You know how shitty teenagers can be to each other. I want Quinn and Polly to love this place, see it as a fresh start.”
Libby keeps rubbing Alice’s arm. “Who knows, nowadays kids think this kind of stuff is cool. Look how many true-crime TV shows there are, and podcasts and creepy TikTok trends.”
“How do you know about TikTok trends?” Alice asks.
“I got on there to see what Olivia was consuming every second of every day.” She shrugs. “Don’t tell anyone but I’m fully addicted to the damn thing now.”
Libby has only one daughter, Olivia, who is Quinn’s age. They used to play together when they were little, before their differing genitalia made them suddenly act like strangers.
“I hope you’re right about creepy being cool.” Alice takes a sip of wine, glancing around the room at her guests laying waste to the expensive charcuterie board and throwing back the martinis. Her eyes land on Geoff, who in the last few minutes seems even drunker than before.
Geoff