“The guy with the blue eyes? If he can freeze an entire party of people, I’m sure he could force field the door so we can’t escape.”
“How is this even a conversation we’re having? I don’t disagree, but I don’t see how he could’ve gotten us here.”
“Wherever here is.”
I look around the dimly lit foyer. The chandelier throws spots of light onto the walls. The shadows look like they have their own opinions.
“Or maybe it’s the house itself,” Asher says. “Maybe you haven’t seen what you need to see yet, so you’re not allowed to leave.”
I swallow, and my skin prickles. I’d swear the house shifted fractionally when he said that. As if it liked being understood.
Asher must notice it too, because he looks at me and widens his eyes.
“Okay, cool.” I turn, scanning the interior again with a new level of freak out building. “Well, hello. I’m Poppy, and this is Asher. We’re friendly. Thanks for having us.”
“Yeah. We’re not here to, you know, start a fight with your space jelly.” Asher is speaking in his don’t-anger-the-AI voice.It’s the overly calm tone he uses when Alexa can’t find the song he requested. “If you want us to stay, we’re good to hang for a bit.”
The air shifts, and it feels like someone tuned it, like a guitar string plucked and the vibrations are expanding outward into the darkness.
Asher looks around the entranceway, and frowns. “Please tell me there aren’t bats.”
“Given our current situation, I think bats are the least of our problems.” I wander over to a decorative bronze plate on the wall and—assuming this house of horrors has electricity—work to turn on the lights. “Besides, bats are just goth birds that can’t fly straight.”
Asher grunts, wandering deeper into the foyer to peer down the pitch-black corridors beyond. “Do you think the guy with the blue eyes intended for us to be here? Like specifically in this house?”
“No idea.”
“What did he say again?”
“He said he came to give me a gift and then corrected that to say that he was returning a gift to me. Then he asked if I’m curious about who I am and where I came from.”
“And you don’t think he was blowing smoke out of his ass?”
“No, it felt like he actually knew things about me.” One of the little knobs mounted through the brass plate turns like a dimmer switch, and a weak, golden glow illuminates the foyer. “Huzzah! Let there be light.”
Asher turns so we can get a better look at where we are.
The foyer is fancy and boasts an air of old money that makes me want to straighten my posture. There’s a high ceiling, a chandelier dripping prisms, and a staircase that curves up like it’s posing for a magazine. There are also runners stretchingdown the halls both left and right that look handwoven and insanely expensive.
Everything is soft-lit and quiet. Not dead quiet—more like library quiet, where sound exists, but the house is being polite by muting the volume.
“I’ve never been a person who thinks,‘Ooh, let’s trespass in the spooky mansion,’and yet, here we are.”
Asher snorts. “Yep, here we are. And yet, are we here?”
I blink. “That’s deep, dude. Do you think we’re sharing a joint hallucination? Or maybe Roadkill Danny drugged us?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think this is real… I just don’t know how to explainhowit’s real.”
I blink and point to the round table in the center of the foyer. There’s a vase of fresh-cut flowers—peach roses mixed with bright red poppies.
The water is clear. The petals are perfect. There’s no dust on the table. No cobwebs in the chandelier above.
“Those were not there a second ago, were they?”
Asher stares at the pretty bouquet and shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I fight the urge to take Asher’s hand like I’m five. Instead, I grab two umbrellas from the stand beside the door and point to the hall. “Shall we explore?”
