“But, again, not you.”
She shakes her head. “There is a big difference between walking a dog around the park and performing surgery on it.”
“I mean, but they sound so similar.”
“So close. But it’s that fine little margin that’s giving me pause.” We laugh, and she goes back to looking ahead. “I’ve thought about being an anthropologist. Study people and where we came from.”
“That’s not a career aspiration you hear every day.”
Wren lets out a long sigh. “Nope. And not one my parents love hearing me talk about. But, either way, Harvard is not for me.”
“Why do I think I detect some relief in those words?”
Our eyes meet for an instant before she looks away again. Between us, our hands brush against each other. I move to let the connection last a little longer, but she turns to face me and our hands part.
“I never got a chance to thank you,” she says.
“For what?” I ask.
“Helping me when my heart was acting up.”
“You say that like it’s a spoiled toddler.”
She smiles. “Sometimes that’s what it feels like. If it’s tired or doesn’t get enough of its sippy cup; it throws a temper tantrum. I really do appreciate you coming to check on me. How did you know I was there?”
“Your car was still at the house when I came home from school,” I explain. I gloss over noticing she was missing from class and Isaiah waiting for her with the flowers.
“I’m glad you were there. I hate waking up from that by myself. It’s really disorienting.”
“I hate Valentine’s Day, but I have to say, you did at least give me something to laugh about,” I offer.
“Um. Thank… you. I’m glad my medical condition is amusing to you.”
“I meant it was funny for all the days it could happen, it did on the day where everything is covered in hearts. Maybe it just didn’t think it was getting enough of the attention,” I say.
Wren laughs. “That’s probably exactly it.”
She looks in front of us and gasps. I follow her gaze and see we’ve gotten to the house. It’s big and old and probably crumbling, and vines have started their crawl up the columns. The place is beautiful but also looks like the kind of place you’d expect in a creepy movie.
“Here we are.”
“You want to go in there?” she asks, pointing to the cobwebs covering the steps.
“That is kind of the purpose of exploring abandoned houses. You can’t really accomplish it unless you go into the house,” I shrug.
“It’s just…” she hesitates, then shakes her head, “never mind.”
“It’s just what?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she shakes her head.
“Tell me.”
She sighs. “It’s just this place kind of has a reputation for being… haunted. You’re going to laugh at me now, aren’t you?”
“Nope. Not going to laugh. But if you run into a ghost in there and it tries to drag you down to the netherworld with it, make it let you leave a note first. I’m not catching the blame for that.”
I climb up onto the massive veranda as she sighs behind me. “Thank you, Talon.” I laugh and reach down for her hand. “See? I knew you were going to laugh at me.”
Pulling her up onto the porch, I reach out to catch her when she almost tumbles back. One arm wraps around her waist and pulls her close against me. Our faces are close, our bodies touching. We’re almost as close as we were that evening in the kitchen, but something has changed. The air isn’t as tense. It’s almost warm.
I jerk my head away from her.
“We should probably go inside now,” I murmur.
She nods, and we step back from each other. Carefully stepping over fallen pieces of decorative scrolling and branches of nearby trees blown onto the porch by many storms over the years, we make our way around the veranda trying to find a way inside.
“So, the story goes that a man built this house because he was desperately in love with a woman in town. He’d known her for only a short time, but he fell for her and wanted to marry her. The problem was she was betrothed to someone else. That didn’t stop him. He believed if he built her a house, it would prove he could provide a life for her, and she would choose him. The day the house was finished, he brought her here and showed it off. He’d furnished it beautifully and included every detail he could to make it everything she wanted. Only after he showed it to her, she told him she had eloped with the other man.”
I find a window sitting low to the porch and push it. The French-style panes swing open toward the inside of the house, and I smile at Wren over my shoulder. The sunlight filters inside just enough to illuminate clear patches of floor. I climb in first to navigate a safe path, then turn around to help her inside. She shivers when she lands, looking around at the dusty, cobweb-covered interior.
It’s ravaged by time, but still beautiful, full of antique furniture and artwork under what must be a solid foot of dust. Taking out my camera, I snap a few pictures before we continue picking our way over the pieces of broken furniture and decorations tossed to the ground by wind and other forces over the years.
“What happened to them?” I ask.
“To whom?” Wren asks.
I smile. “The man and the woman in the house.”
“Oh. He was heartbroken. He flew into a rage and imprisoned the woman in a hidden chamber somewhere in the house, believing eventually she’d realize she really did love him. Her husband came by looking for her a few days later, and the man killed him and buried him behind the fireplace.”
“That one?” I ask, pointing to a huge stone fireplace against one wall.
She stepped closer to me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That.”
“Point out features of the house? Again, that’s kind of what exploring is.”
We continue through the house. I snap a few more pictures and pick places I want to sketch the next time I come back. We’ve just made it to a bedroom upstairs when I hear something on the bottom floor. Wren is in the middle of describing something to me, and I hold up my finger against my lips to quiet her.
“What?” she whispers.
“I hear something downstairs. I think it’s footsteps,” I explain.
“Talon, stop trying to scare me.”
“I’m not. Listen.”
The sound comes again, and she turns to me, eyes wide with fear. “What do we do? Do you think it’s the murdered man?”
“I think it’s the police. Someone must have seen us coming in here,” I tell her.
“Who could have seen us? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” she asks.
“I don’t know. A hiker, maybe. I don’t want to wait to find out. Come on; we need to get out of here.”
We start down the hallway, but before we can get to the stairs, the footsteps come up toward us. Wren and I hurry in the opposite direction, and I pull her into the deep shadow of an alcove I imagine once held a statue. Pressing her against the back of the alcove, I pull my hood up over my head and tuck close to her. I fully envelop her, my black clothes helping us blend into the shadows.