Charity ran her flexed shoe across the floor, a graceful ballerina move. “The wood floors in these rooms look like they were re-done recently. I took a peek in the kitchen earlier, and the wood flooring in there is, like, knotty and old. Kind of warped. It would make sense if the walls hadn’t quite dried out.” She shrugged. “I’m no renovator, though.”
“Ya’ll are delusional,” Marion said. “We’re in a haunted house. It’s trying to tell us something. Don’t you know anything about ghosts?”
“What’s it telling us?” Linda asked.
“That’s what we have to find out!” Marion said. “It’s some spirit who didn’t get to profess his love—or some child who misses her mother. That’s common.”
“What if it’s evil?” Charity said. “A man who didn’t get to exact the vengeance he desired.”
“Or a woman who hated the color of curtains here but never got to change them,” Linda said.
“Exactly.” Charity walked to the red velvet curtains and ran them between her fingers. “These are hideous, if I say so myself.”
“I think they’re charming,” Sabrina said.
“Ladies, I doubt this is the last we’ll hear from this house,” Tristan said. “From what I’ve read, stranger things than oozing walls have happened here.”
“Like what?” Linda asked.
“Noises, apparitions,” Tristan said. “Your standard haunted fare.”
“Yes, yes,” Charity said. “The starter pack.”
“Deja told me a man murdered his family. Chopped them up into little pieces.” As Linda said the words, her stomach twisted, remembering the description of his drunken rage.
“That’s not what she told me,” Tristan said. “Told me it was used as an orphanage for troubled kids, and they died here.”
Linda’s body froze, a cold tremor shooting down her spine.
“Told me a story about a mom who drowned her baby…” Sabrina fiddled with her fingers, a nervous habit that left them in need of nightly repair. “Sounds like she gave each of us our own cliché.”
Tristan laughed, but the women didn’t crack a smile. Linda forced a laugh, but it sounded more like the beginning of a choke—and her breath was heavier than usual in her chest. Deja’s stories were meant to provoke, and in her case, they had succeeded.
“Stop making it a joke! It’s always the ones who don’t take it seriously who get fucked up first,” Marion said, pleading. “Do y’all even watch any scary movies?”
“I love scary movies,” Linda said.
“Me too,” Sabrina rushed to add.
“I love the good ones. Not the same ones that you love, Tristan,” Charity said, looking at him from the corner of her eye. It was like she understood that she was moving farther away from him with every conversation they had here. What was she doing? She’d be sent home if she weren’t careful. “But I’d watch them to make you happy.”
The air in the room stood still and silent. Linda was glad for a break, though she wished the pus smell would go away, that her lungs would open and let her deeply inhale clean air.
Tristan slapped his hands on his thighs, the way he did when he was done with a conversation. “I think it’s time to have a little one-on-one time, don’t you?” Tristan stood and offered his arm to Marion. “My lady?”
She giggled as she joined him, and together they made their way from the parlor.
“Do we have to stay in here?” Linda asked. She examined the closed window; outside, there would be air, and even if it smelled like the creepy woods, she longed for it. The cameraman nodded. They had to stay. She slouched.
“Do you think she’s the frontrunner?” Sabrina stared at the doorway through which Tristan and Marion had disappeared. She tore at her cuticles until Linda placed a gentle hand on hers.
“Do you care?” Charity said.
“Of course, I care,” Sabrina said. “Tristan’s kind and funny and interesting. He makes me excited when I see him.”
“He’s cool.” It was the only thing Linda could think to say.
“Anyone can be kind and funny and interesting and cool if they’ve got money.” Charity laughed.
“Do you have money?” Linda asked, then reprimanded herself for the intrusive question.
“I’m tired of sitting around like this,” Charity said. “Let’s play a game.”
“What game?” Linda said, relieved.
“Light as a feather, stiff as a board!” Charity laughed again. “It’ll be like old middle school slumber parties. Which is exactly what this experience has been like, to be honest.”
Linda hadn’t experienced middle school slumber parties. She had been closed off from those worlds. Like any child in a turbulent home, she clung to her mother’s hand long past her youngest years. The one sleepover she went to ended with her calling her mother halfway through the night, begging her to take her home. Her homesickness was like a stomachache that could only be cured by the presence of her mother and father. If she didn’t keep watch over her family, if she allowed herself to be distracted by friendship, bad things might happen.
The women knelt on the floor, and it was Linda who lay on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. Charity and Sabrina sat on either side of her body and shoved their fingers under her back. Together, Charity and Sabrina chanted: light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as a board. Linda relaxed under their shadows. She felt safe—and light. She breathed in and out, unbothered by the smell of pus so long as she was being touched.
The image of the taxidermy creature flashed before her closed eyes.
She coaxed herself to chill out, pushing the nightmare fuel away. She breathed in, then out, and time stilled for her.
The women’s fingers left the back of her dress. She jerked back into the reality of the room, the smell, the manor, the situation.
“Who’s next?” Tristan said. When her eyes flew open, he stood above her. “You look comfy.”
