The house stood as all the others did, joined with its neighbors on the left and right, and so on and so on down the row.
The row houses of Friendship Heights seemed to mirror the name of the town in which they stood; there were no bars on the windows, no fences in the front yards, no gates with “Beware of the dog” signs hanging on them. Though the neighborhood sat on the edge of the city of Washington, DC, the crime and paranoia that pervaded the rest of the city did not seep over, as if an invisible barrier protected Friendship Heights from the world.
In much of the city, Halloween simply passed by unnoticed. In those areas, it was unheard of to let children out at dark to wander the streets in search of treats, and the only tricks would be the ones standing on the street corners in front of the liquor stores. Anyone daring to wander the streets on those nights would be the ones with guns, the ones without fear, the ones who owned the neighborhoods.
In spite of all that, in spite of the undeniable sounds of the city that could be heard from this quiet borough, the traffic, the police sirens, the occasional gunshots, the neighbors of Friendship Heights had no fear. They would, this Halloween as they did every Halloween, let their children out into the streets, knowing that they were protected by the unseen barrier of safety surrounding their neighborhood.
Stephen Harlow considered this as he sat perched on the doorstep of his own house, waiting for his daughter to finish changing into her Halloween costume. There was something in the air of the little neighborhood, in the brilliant Fall colors of the trees that lined their quiet street, in the gray clouds the filled the darkening skies, something comforting, something peaceful. If there was anything Stephen needed, it was comfort and peace.
When Casey was finished trick-or-treating in his neighborhood, Stephen would drive her to her mother’s house, thirty minutes away in another quiet, suburban community of Maryland, to finish out her Halloween. It would be the first year he had to do this, the first of many to come. He dreaded even a short visit with his ex-wife, especially this one, since it would be on her turf, in her house, and he would have to leave his daughter once again.
Stephen’s heart dropped, his mood darkened. The three of them had once lived in the little town in Pennsylvania in which he had grown up, in the town where they had been a happy family. Before the arguments, before the fights, before the drinking. They moved to Maryland because of Stephen’s job in the city, and the pressure closed in, like being underwater in a submarine approaching its crush depth. And Stephen had buckled.
He rubbed a hand against his stubbled, angular cheek, his sharp brown eyes shifting up the street along the line of row houses. He threw a neighborly wave to the Hendersons, a younger black couple in the process of carefully walking their toddler, Jimmy, out on his first Halloween. Stephen smiled at the Incredible Hulk costume he was wearing, complete with little foam rubber muscles.
Reggie Henderson handed off his son to his wife and wandered down the sidewalk.
“Hey, Steve,” Reggie said, “your little girl here tonight?”
“Yeah, she’s inside putting on the finishing touches on. Not enough hours in the night when you’re a Sleeping Beauty princess, you know?”
Reggie laughed. He was an amiable man, and Stephen was glad to have him as a neighbor. He and his wife, Layla, had the kind of youthful energy that Stephen needed at this point in his life. When Stephen had first moved into the neighborhood, when he felt that he had hit absolute bottom, Layla and Reggie had shown up on his doorstep with a jug of fresh iced tea and a complete meal. It was the kind of simple, neighborly gesture that meant more to Stephen than anyone could have imagined.
“Well, when she’s done getting beautiful, send her on down. Jimmy will be thrilled to see her.”
“Will do, Reg. You guys have fun.”
“You bet.”
Reggie flashed a smile and took off down the street to catch up with his family. The street was beginning to fill with neighborhood kids and their parents, but Stephen’s eyes followed the Hendersons. He saw all three of them glance at the house coming up on their right, their faces uneasy, even little Jimmy’s. They skirted across the street and continued down the sidewalk on the other side.
Stephen frowned and stood up. He walked down the stairs and out to the sidewalk, his eyes locked on the house that the entire Henderson family had been so careful to avoid. Number Seventy-two.
Stephen was forty-two years old, and had lived in many neighborhoods in his life, especially as the son of a military man. In every neighborhood, there was always that house, the house that the local kids made up stories about, the house that people of all ages tried to avoid. Stephen still remembered the house from his hometown in Marietta, Pennsylvania. The kids always said that a witch lived there, that she hung horse tails from a clothesline in her dining room.
They were always incredibly silly rumors, nothing that Stephen had ever believed, even as a child, but it was simply the presence of those houses that helped keep people away. Number Seventy-two was one of those houses.
Most of the neighbors simply ignored the house, pretended that it wasn’t even there. The Hendersons certainly never spoke about it, as Stephen learned during their first dinner together. When he had asked about it, Reggie had deftly changed the subject without blinking an eye.
Stephen shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and eyed the house with interest. It was, by all outward appearances, just like all of the houses on the block. It was, in fact, as well cared for as the other houses; by comparison, most of the “haunted” houses Stephen had seen in other towns were run-down, desolate places. They were the houses that looked like houses in the movies. Windows full of cobwebs, rotten siding or peeling paint, broken, dirty porches.
The exterior of number seventy-two, however, was in as good condition as the rest of the houses, if not better. The light blue-colored siding of the house was not rotting, nor was its front porch. The windows were not barred, and they did not have cobwebs hanging over them. The inside could not be seen only because of the light, silky drapes hanging over the picture window by the front door. This was a house someone lived in, someone cared for, and yet no one was ever seen, and no one was ever heard.
The row houses were all colored in various pastel hues, harking back to a slightly Victorian style. It lightened the neighborhood, gave it a cozy, hometown feeling. But Number Seventy-two stuck out like a sore thumb, not because of its color, but because of its lack of light, its lack of feeling, its lack of heart, that basic homespun warmth that the rest of the neighborhood exuded.
A shiver ran up Stephen’s spine as he gazed upon the house. The only time he had walked past that house without crossing the street, he remembered feeling as if he were in a vacuum, as if the house itself were sucking all of the breath from his body. Along with the sensation came a feeling of loneliness and coldness that could not be attributed to anything in particular except fear.
“Daddy, where’s my crown?” came a sharp voice from the front porch.
Stephen shifted his gaze from the house down the street to his own house, where a tiny princess in a shimmering, iridescent gown stood on the porch, hands planted impatiently on her hips. He smiled at his daughter, though he couldn’t help but notice how much Casey resembled her mother.
“You look beautiful, honey.”
“I can’t look beautiful without my crown, Dad-
dy
,” she said, but despite the irritation in her voice, he could tell she was flattered. Stephen wished that he owned a camera so he could freeze this moment in time. Casey was ten years old, almost eleven, and in not too many more years, she would be a young woman, casting aside her princess costumes and her crowns.
“Your crown was upstairs on the table in the guest bedroom, last time I checked, hon. Hurry up, they just took Jimmy Henderson down the street.”
“Oh, Dad, Jimmy Henderson is just a baby.”
“You used to play with him all the time, remember?” Stephen knew he was reaching. Casey was growing up, and she was no doubt playing with older kids now. Older
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