“I bet you’re wondering why I’m naked in your room right now, huh?”
“You’d win that bet,” I replied, trying to suppress a laugh.
His broad shoulders were still glistening from the shower, water tracing down the perfect lines of his muscles. He clutched the towel tighter around his waist and I had a sudden urge to try and rip it off him. Make him chase me around the room for it. Tackle me to the ground. Pin me there.
“Casey,” he said, breaking through my thoughts. It was the name of my very unpleasant roommate.
“Casey?” I echoed, trying to connect the dots.
“I’m dating her…Casey,” he clarified, his lips curving into a beautiful, disarming smile. And while Casey and I only shared that shoebox of a dorm room for another two weeks before she dropped out, Hayes and I stayed close. I met the rest of the gang through him. I’ve always had a little crush on him, but we’ve never been single at the same time.Life works like that sometimes.
I look around, wondering where his girlfriend is.
“You all must be our guests for this weekend,” a hoarse, brittle voice calls out from behind me. “I’m Agatha. Welcome to the Everwood.”
I spin around to see Agatha, a woman who looks like she wandered out of a horror movie casting call. She’s in her early fifties, with stark white hair pulled back tight enough to hurt, and oversized glasses that perch on the bridge of her nose. She’s dressed in a plain, dark cotton dress, a crisp white apron tied neatly over it, with a single pearl brooch pinned to her collar. My smile falters as a sickly-sweet odor—like the stench of rotting meat—wafts around her, wrapping around me. My stomach churns, the remnants of last night’s alcohol swirling uncomfortably as the nauseating smell claws at the back of my throat. “Come along, let me show you all around,” she says, her voice unwavering as she links her arm through Tessa’s and gestures for the rest of us to follow.
I stand there, feet glued to the floor, staring after them. Does no one else smell that?
“She looks like a half-dead housekeeper from the 1950s,” Marissa whispers to Jonathan as they pass by, both chuckling.She looks like your mom, the adolescent in me wants to scream.
“Um…so we don’t get to put our things in rooms yet—we just drag them with us?” Griffin asks, his voice heavy with irritation.When Agatha doesn’t respond, he sighs loudly. “Good talk. Thanks.” He follows the group, huffing loudly.
Hayes shakes his head, giving me a wink, but his usual charm does little to ease the growing knot of anxiety in my stomach. I mean, the woman smells like death.
“Do you smell that?” I whisper, grabbing his arm, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah, smells rancid,” Hayes says, a teasing grin tugging at his lips.“Someone needs to tell Griffin he has to shower. Tag, you’re it.”
I snort, but the unease keeps crawling up my spine.
To our left is a grand living room filled with enormous, dark gray couches facing each other in front of a wide stone fireplaces.A bloom of warmth hits me as we pass.
On our right, French doors open to a rustic flagstone terrace overlooking a dead lawn. The flowerbeds are autumn-colored but wilted, trapped beneath a mess of withered trees and overgrown bushes. It’s like someone tried to stage a fall postcard but then just gave up halfway through. The whole scene is just… sad.
“We only have two rules you must always abide by here,” Agatha’s voice cuts through the eerie stillness, drawing my attention back to her. “No screaming, whatever you see. In the Evermore, screaming wakes the dead.”
Right.
“And rule number two?” Griffin asks, his brow furrowing.
“Always do what the spirits ask of you,” Agatha replies, a smile curling at the edges of her lips, her eyes shining with an unsettling gleam. “So,” she claps her hands together, way too excited, “let’s begin our ghost tour…”
Her words hang in the air as she leads us deeper into the mansion, her voice taking on a low, resonant tone that echoes off the dark gray walls. “The Evermore is a twenty-seven-room chateau built in 1916 by millionaire and railroad car builder Alexander Hadley,” she explains, her words lingering as we move through the hallway.
We step into a long, over-the-top ballroom, and Agatha launches back into her spooky tale. “This mansion,” she says, her voice dripping with dramatic flair, “was a wedding present given in 1916 by Alexander Hadley to his beloved daughter, Liliana.”
Her footsteps are soft as she guides us through the room and into a narrow hallway lined with faded portraits, their colors dulled by time and maybe a lack of decent housekeeping. "Liliana was sickly all her life," Agatha continues, her fingers gliding along the dusty frames. "Her father, devoted and wealthy, showered her with anything she desired. But being so frail, she rarely ventured out. All she ever wanted was to find love."
We turn a corner, and Agatha pauses by a grand, ornately carved door, her hand lingering on the handle. "Desperate to fulfill his daughter's wish, her father promised a man named Harold Weiss all the riches he could ever want if he wooed and married Liliana. Harold, seeing an easy path to wealth, agreed. After a short courtship, he proposed, and they married."
The door creaks open as Agatha pushes it, revealing a dimly lit sitting room draped in shadows. Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper as she steps inside, drawing us into the gloom. "But Harold never truly loved Liliana. He was in it only for the money. A year into their marriage, tragedy struck. Liliana's father died during minor construction at the house. This was his sitting room."
“Do people see his ghost here?” Tessa asks, her voice high-pitched, strained.
“Sometimes,” Agatha replies, her eyes gleaming with a sinister edge as she winks. "But more often, it's Liliana who lingers here.Anyway, one evening soon after her father’s death, Liliana discovered Harold with another woman, a secret lover he had been sneaking into the mansion through the hidden passageways."
We move deeper into the room, our footsteps muted by the thick, dusty carpet. "Liliana, heartbroken and enraged, confronted them," Agatha says, her tone intensifying with each word. "But the other woman just laughed at her, mocking her frail state. In a fit of fury, a struggle ensued, and the woman pushed Liliana down the grand staircase."
