Within a few minutes, Anna wished she had followed her first impulse and grabbed her coat instead of her jacket. The night was more raw than cold, but the brisk walk was doing little to compensate for the chilled humidity. She glanced over her shoulder at the sidewalk that looked even darker now than when they had turned down this street a few blocks earlier. Taking a deep breath, she looked ahead and jogged a few steps to catch up with the other freshmen.
"Are you sure about this party?" she called ahead to the trio. The other two girls made sloppy giggles when they looked back at her while clinging to Troy's arms.
Troy gave her a crooked smile. "Come on, I grew up here. And if there's no party, we'll make our own." He winked and opened his jacket pocket to show the flask of some cheap liquor he had managed to buy off an upperclassman. Or maybe Troy had gotten it from his parents, Anna thought to herself with a grimace as Troy went back to flirting with the two girls.
Not for the first time, Anna told herself she could find her way back to the dorm on her own if she had to. The darker the streets got, however, the less sure she felt. She wondered briefly if Troy had some Trojans in his other jacket pocket, then amused herself with the associations for a couple blocks.
When Troy stopped in front of a dilapidated house in the middle of a dilapidated street, it was obvious there were no parties here. It was unlikely there had been any parties here in under a decade. The girls' giggles were more nervous than sloppy now as they exchanged looks between themselves and the frowning would-be ladies' man.
"This is your haunted house party?" Anna asked in a dubious tone. By now she had drawn her hands into her jacket sleeves and crossed her arms in an attempt to stay warm.
Troy interrupted his frowning contemplation of the dark house to glare at Anna. She knew he was about a year older than she was, so nineteen. Maybe twenty. Definitely not twenty-one yet, or he would never have bothered with the freshmen girls and mere rumors of a party. In Troy's mind, that probably only made her challenge seem even worse. While warning bells chimed softly in Anna's subconscious, machismo took over Troy's. He shook off the two girls on his arms and climbed the creaking steps to the front door, which seemed to be standing more by habit than by any architectural integrity. He pulled at the door handle, then jumped with a yelp when the rusted hinges screeched in protest. He all but fell back down the stairs in an effort to get off the porch. The girls giggled again, mentioned the parties on Frat Row, and started to inch down the sidewalk the way they had come.
Troy scowled at Anna again as if she had personally upset his plans. Anna shrugged, then glanced up at the house. It had seemed there was someone watching them, but her search of the windows only found missing glass and the moth-eaten remains of a lace curtain that moved slightly in the draft of a window upstairs.
The boy donned a fake smile and raised his arms as he went back to the gigglers. "I promised you a haunted house, didn't I?"
Their whines about food, music and dancing faded as Anna approached the front door, still hanging open and a little askew from Troy's earlier attempt. A small voice in her head argued this was stupid. She should get a cab and find somewhere with interesting people and harmless fun, maybe one of the dozens of Halloween parties on campus, some more lame than others. A more primal voice replied the moon was bright enough to take a peek. And there was something calling her inside.
Anna could hear Troy swear as she stepped through the door into the devastated remains of a foyer. He probably considered this a humiliating test of his masculinity. Somehow he convinced the other girls to come with. By the time he got past the creaky door, Anna was examining the living room.
Mold and decay were everywhere, and litter had accumulated in every corner she could see. Anna was surprised at the lack of nests by human or animal. The appearance of the other freshmen startled her out of her exploration. The other three held their sleeves over their noses and looked around them with expressions ranging from fear to disgust.
"Can we go now?" one of the girls asked. Troy looked directly at Anna, perhaps hoping she would consent.
She would have laughed if not for some instinct that told her laughing would be dangerous. Instead, she looked at the three and shrugged again. "Go if you like. I want to look around." The flash of rage in Troy's face was enough to confirm her instincts.
Anna had no interest in Troy. He was just one more pea in the pod of all the pretentious boys she had known in high school, full of their own importance and power, and fearful others knew it was all a front.
She had no interest in the two girls, either, both of them easily fitting her caricature of the idiot girls who followed the pea pod boys. She had only wanted to hang out with other people for the night. Attend a party. Possibly meet people she could tolerate better. Troy's offer had seemed fine at the time.
The truth was, she enjoyed challenging the fake people of the world. She loved watching them squirm under their own pretensions and insecurities. In Troy, however, she saw a hint of danger from someone who might cross that line between contention and violence. Anna wondered if he had ever raped anyone. She then frightened herself with an urge to ask him. Instead, she turned away.
"This house must have been gorgeous once," Anna said as she stepped into the small kitchen, still full of its old ceramic and stainless steel. She heard Troy sigh before he fell into a fit of hacking from the dust and mold.
"This?" she heard one of the girls ask, contempt filling her voice. Anna turned back to see Troy's hard stare. She was about to say something when a voice came from the floor above. No one else reacted. Anna wondered if she had imagined it.
She started to move back towards the living room. Troy could not quite mask his relief as he tried to shepherd the girls back outside. Anna started to follow, questioning her secret reluctance when she heard the voice again. The others continued into the foyer.
Anna stared at the landing on the second floor. There were steps missing from the curved staircase where the weather had rotted away the wood, but the banister looked sound, and the remaining stairs seemed solid enough. She announced over her shoulder that she was going to look upstairs. She heard Troy swear again, but she was already moving toward the staircase. It almost felt like something was tugging at her, luring her.
She was only on the second step when Troy stopped at the bottom of the staircase and grabbed her arm. "Knock it off," he said in a near growl. "We're getting out of here."
Anna stared down at him, neither pulling away nor submitting. For a heartbeat, she thought Troy was going to hit her, but instead he threw her arm away from him with a nasty smile. "Suit yourself, bitch." Troy stomped out to the porch and grabbed the other two girls on his way down to the sidewalk.
When one of them protested about leaving Anna behind, he must have done something to stop the argument short. Their voices cut off, and their footsteps soon disappeared.
Anna continued to stand where she was, suspended between emotions. As she looked up the remaining stairs, she heard the voice again, more distinct and with a quality that could only be called seductive. She swallowed once, then step by step, she made her careful way to the landing.
The second floor had fared far better than the first. There were rotting corners where rain or snow had collected, but only dirt and dust cluttered the floors and windowsills. It was dark here, but she could see into what must have been the master bedroom where the lace curtains fluttered feebly in the single window. Heedful of her footing, she continued through the open door.
Furniture decorated the room, almost undisturbed by age. Dust coated everything. There was a tall wardrobe, its painted birds stained but intact. An old leather trunk lay in front of a four-poster bed frame, though the mattress and box spring had rotted away to almost nothing but old wood and rusted springs. A settee near the door was still covered in leather that looked like it had been quite fine and supple in its time. Anna reached out a hand to trail her finger over its arm, leaving a smudged trail along the embossing.
Next to the lace-framed window, a simple writing desk faced the wall. A small, backless chair was pushed neatly underneath. An ornate jewelry box sat at an angle in one corner, and two crystal perfume bottles stood behind it.
Anna felt drawn toward this desk more than anything else in the room. She approached it slowly with a feeling she was intruding, trespassing, but she felt unable to resist the urge. Despite the years of grime, she rested her fingertips on the wooden surface and stood there for a long moment, just staring at the desk, at the box, at the bottles. It felt so familiar all of a sudden.
"I wondered when you would finally ditch those fools downstairs," said the seductive voice.
