Mallory wasn’t sure what she had expected, but that wasn’t what she had been prepared to hear. She stared for a moment at Isaac, watching his ears turn bright red. Samanda and Sampson moved past him to settle near Mallory’s perch, making her feel slightly crowded. “Every day, it’s like we hear about nothing else but Eliza,” Sampson explained.

“She’s so perfect!” Samanda mimed.

“She’s got such beautiful brown hair!” Sampson added.

Isaac refused to turn around to face us. His ears were absolutely scarlet. “For the record, Eliza says her hair is auburn.” Mallory clarified. Watching the Sams put their friend through some good-natured ribbing was calming her down quite a bit. There was something humanizing about it. How evil could they be if they teased their friend over having a crush? “But yes, I understand the frustration. It’s been non-stop on my end as well.” Mallory pitched her voice up, mimicking Eliza’s tone. “He’s so dreamy!”

Isaac finally slowly turned to face Mallory, a slightly dazed look on his face. “She really said that?” Samanda erupted in laughter and Sampson audibly groaned, slapping a hand over his face.

Usually, Eliza went to eat lunch in the cafeteria and then joined Mallory when she was done. She took longer than usual before arriving, so lunch was almost over when she turned the corner of the hall to join Mallory. She froze at the sight of the four of them sitting together amicably. Mallory watched as Eliza approached, her face tilted down and her skin turning pink. Mallory waved as she got closer. “Turns out he likes you too,” she said by way of greeting.

Eliza turned to look at Isaac in surprise, who had audibly spluttered at Mallory’s statement. They stared at each other silently for a ridiculously long moment, prompting Samanda to begin snickering again. It was funny to Mallory too, and she would have loved it at any other time. But something still felt off… She had honestly expected some other reaction from Eliza. There was something almost too reserved in her nature, and there was the slight frown furrowing her brow, as though she found something concerning. The bell saved them from having to interact further, and the Sams cheerfully said their goodbyes as they dragged Isaac away to class. Eliza watched them leave. “I would have thought you’d be happier to hear that,” Mallory said, standing and brushing off her pants.

Eliza frowned. “It’s just… I started thinking about some of what happened yesterday a lot more.”

“Ah,” Mallory said, not prompting an explanation. She felt a chill run down her spine. She had been doing such a good job avoiding thinking about it, hoping that she was overreacting or being crazy suspicious.

Eliza looked up at her. “Mallory…”

“We’re going to be late for class,” Mallory cut her off. Eliza looked disappointed, as though she wanted to speak more, but she nodded and left. Mallory watched her go for a moment as the hall became more crowded.

Eliza shrieked and Mallory turned to look back at her friend, whose foot had gone through one of the stairs. She turned back to help and suddenly the world fell out from underneath her.

It was chaos and cacophony. The flashlight beam flipped through the air, briefly highlighting falling wood and dust and Mallory shut her eyes tight and clamped her jaw shut as she heard Eliza screaming. The thought crossed her mind, ‘I’m dead.’ She felt a slight shock at how ambivalent she was about the fact – accepting even. It took seconds, though it felt longer. She felt strong arms envelope her, felt her stomach give a confused lurch as gravity righted itself, felt her feet placed firmly on the ground. Coughing in the falling grit and sawdust, a moment of panic overtook her as she wondered who was touching her, and she remembered the dark shadow at the top of the stairs. She reached for her knife, grabbed it, flipped the blade out, and slashed – all in a practiced, smooth motion, as she had been taught.

Further confusion – the arms pushed away and she felt like the nerve endings of her fingers all fired at once, the pins and needle feeling of a sleeping limb coming back to life, only a hundred times worse. Mallory cried out as her knife flung out of her hand of its own volition. “Is that any way to thank the person that saved you?” a strangely accented voice admonished.

Mallory looked up, but her eyes were drawn first to what was caught in the light. The flashlight had fallen just right to perfectly illuminate the scene, and with the dust twirling in the air and catching the light it gave everything a more ethereal feel. Standing directly in the beam of the light was Isaac (or so Mallory assumed), his arms tightly around Eliza. He must have caught her, Mallory realized. He was staring straight into her eyes with an expression that communicated surprise and wonder. He did not appear to be bothered by her weight, and was holding her effortlessly, pressed tightly against him. The two stared at each other wordlessly.

Mallory breathed in deeply, which turned out to be a mistake – with all the dust in the air, she burst into a sudden and uncontrollable coughing fit, breaking their reverie. She opened and closed the hand that had seared with pain moments ago, and then started rubbing her palm with the thumb of her other hand – it felt fine now. As Eliza and Isaac sheepishly separated, Mallory looked to her own rescuer, a thin youth of moderate height, with long black hair.

There was something about his features that reminded Mallory of a trickster spirit like Puck – maybe the arch of his eyebrows, or the sharp point of his slightly upturned nose. Mallory was still coughing horribly in the dust, much to her annoyance. Is no one else affected by this shit? she thought to herself. “We should get out of here,” Isaac said, and led Eliza by the hand off toward the stairs to the kitchen.

There was evidence throughout of people having visited the house, such as the pyramid of soda and beer cans on the kitchen counter. Mallory briefly entertained the notion of knocking them down, but didn’t want to fall too far behind Eliza as she was making her way out of the kitchen and into the next room. After all, Eliza had the flashlight. Cigarette butts and broken bits of glass, the remains of beer and liquor bottles, littered the floor, glinting in the light’s beam. It smelled faintly of mold, mice, and piss.

From the spacious living area, there was another arched entry to the dining area. Eliza swept the flashlight back and forth, checking the room carefully. There was no furniture remaining in the house. What little of the carpet was left was rotted and it was impossible to tell what the original color had been. The living room had a wide fireplace darkened with soot and containing the charred remnants of an old fire.

They stood for a moment in the silence. Mallory strained to hear anything that would give away where Isaac and his friends might be, but there was nothing – no voices, no wood creaking under footsteps, not even the faintest breath. Despite that, she felt something… like a presence. Like she was being watched. A chill ran up her spine – Eliza had mentioned feeling the same thing a few times over the summer. Maybe that’s why the thought had even entered her mind.

“Maybe they decided to hide from us?” Mallory said, her voice barely above a whisper. After a moment, she said “Hello?” loud enough to be heard through most of the house. Eliza jumped, then turned to her wide eyed and panicked and making shushing sounds, but there was no reaction otherwise. Mallory grinned at Eliza and shrugged, and then made her way to the stairs. There was a hallway leading off of the staircase that led back to a first floor bathroom and bedroom, but the bathroom had fallen into the basement years ago and the bedroom flooring was also unstable. Mallory doubted anyone would be back there.

As her fingers touched the rail of the stairs, that feeling of being watched overcame her again, so overbearing that she felt the hair on the back of her neck raise. She couldn’t see anyone in the scant light they had, and of course they knew that Isaac and his friends were somewhere in the house… but it felt more foreboding than that. It was like pure and stifling malice. She had to resist the urge to reach into her pocket where she’d put her knife. Instead, she forced herself up the stairs.

Eliza followed her, mumbling something under her breath. Halfway up, Mallory glanced up – for a moment, the bouncing light of the flashlight’s beam caught the outline of a man standing at the top of the stairs. She gasped and froze, but had no time to react because at that exact moment the stairs shifted and there came the loud, alarming sound of cracking wood.

Mallory slowly eased to a stop next to the other car. She glanced over at Eliza, who had sunk far down into the seat, her eyes wide and her entire face flushed a deep red. “They’re not in the car. They must’ve gone inside.”

“Let’s just go! Please, Mallory!”

Mallory shut the engine off and began to calmly reason with her friend. “Listen, let’s just go inside. We can act surprised to see them here and tell them we wanted to explore the place – we’ve done it before. And it gives you a chance to get to know this Isaac guy outside of school.”

Eliza looked halfway convinced, but still hesitated. “You know I’m awful at lying. How am I going to act surprised?”

Mallory shrugged. “How many words have you even said to this guy since the beginning of school?” Eliza frowned. “Come on. If he’s so perfect, let’s go change that.” Mallory opened her car door and stepped out, glancing back at Eliza as she shut it behind her. Eliza scrunched her face and begrudgingly exited the car as well.

From experience, Mallory knew that the inside of the Miller house got quite dark because all the windows were boarded up. Luckily, she kept a flashlight in the trunk of her car. Her father had always lectured her to keep a toolbox, a blanket, and a few emergency supplies with her at all times. “It’s better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it,” he had always warned her. She popped the trunk open and grabbed the large flashlight, handing it over to Eliza. As Eliza fiddled with it, she also grabbed a folding knife she kept in the toolbox, slipping it into her pocket surreptitiously. She wasn’t expecting any sort of trouble, but at the same time… better to have something you didn’t need, after all.

Together, they approached the house and made their way up the steps onto the large ranch-style porch that wrapped around the building. Mallory opened the door and Eliza shone a beacon of light in through the doorway. They both paused for a moment and exchanged nervous looks. “Clear so far,” Eliza said, ending her sentence on a nervous titter. She was still bright red with embarrassment, but Mallory knew the Miller house itself also made Eliza nervous.

They entered what had once been a large and spacious country style kitchen. The wallpaper was faded and peeling, but had once had a floral pattern that was still visible in some places. Some of the cupboard doors had been broken off or stood ajar at odd angles. There was a large arched entryway that led into a formal dining room off to the right, and a smaller arched entry that led to the living area straight ahead. The last time Mallory had been in the house, a half-sized swinging door had occupied the living area entrance, but it had disappeared since then. The kitchen also had a large walk-in pantry, its door slightly ajar, set next to the stairs leading to the basement. They both stopped for a moment to shine the light at the basement entrance – it no longer had its door, so the stairs descended below into a dark gaping maw.

Another shared glance, and they turned away.