Chapter Text
The sun is hanging low in the sky and wind is howling in his ears as he makes his way up the wooden staircase.
Creak.
It’s that damn stair – the fourth one from the top – that when you step on it, it sounds like it’s going to cave in. Send you straight through to the ground below.
Scott shivers at the image of being trapped underneath the staircase and instead of thinking about it any further, he makes a mental note to fix that step the next time he’s here as he stops in front of the door.
It looms in front of him, sturdy and made of oak with a large brass knocker that’s heavy and cool in his hand, and he knocks it against the wood. It startles him so much, even though he should’ve expected it, that he yanks his hand away and stumbles back.
The mansion itself is massive and white. Ivy crawls up one side, arching below the third story’s bedroom window. Fake cobwebs are wrapped around the porch, taking the place of the hanging flower baskets that are usually there, and the soft hiss of a fog machine is the only sound that fills the eerie night sky.
Fog floats through the front yard, weaving around the plastic tombstones and the fake skeletons that are placed there as it inches toward the street.
“Who’s there?” booms a voice from . . . somewhere above him, he honestly isn’t sure.
“It’s me,” he replies, and the door opens sharply.
Tessa is standing on the other side, and her bright red lips part into a smile when she sees him. Her hair is loose around her face, parted straight down the middle. Her makeup is breathtaking, skin painted pale and eyes heavily rimmed with grey, making her brilliant green eyes even more stunning. “Scott! You’re here!”
She opens the door wider and he glances at her costume, which is a long, black dress with a V neck, bat-winged sleeves that fall to the floor. The ends of the dress fan out into a circle, half solid black fabric and half spider webs printed onto translucent pieces of fabric.
He’s been asking her for months what she’s dressing up as, but each time she’d simply smiled with a shake of her head and considering that she watches The Addams Family multiple times a year, he supposes he should’ve guessed that she’d be Morticia.
Truth be told, he doesn’t know why she hasn’t been Morticia sooner.
He grins at her, presses his lips to hers before pulling away. He saw her this morning before she left to finish setting all of this up, but it feels like it’s been twelve years and not twelve hours. “Hi, Tess. You look stunning, and you’ve truly outdone yourself with the decorations this year.”
She swats him lightly on the arm, but blushes. Accepting his compliment even though he knows what this looks like. Their dining room table has been covered in various notebooks, plans, posters, and a giant whiteboard since the start of the planning process almost five months ago. “I couldn’t have done it without you. And it hasn’t even started yet, what if no one shows up or everything falls apart?”
The annual Halloween bash that the Virtue’s throw is nothing short of spectacular. Kate, Tessa’s mom, has been hosting it ever since he could remember, but this year she passed that honor down to Tessa, who has been deeply involved with the planning pretty much ever since she could talk.
The party, held at an old mansion Kate inherited from her grandmother, isn’t just a regular party with food and scary movies playing in the background. There’s always a different murder mystery game played at the party that involves every single one of the guests, and playing it is a requirement for attending.
“Tessa.” Scott grabs her hand and squeezes it, the grin staying on his face. “That isn’t going to happen! You’ve been involved in planning this for the majority of your life, and if your mom didn’t trust you with it, she wouldn’t have let you plan it yourself.”
She exhales loudly, nodding a little to herself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
When he steps inside, he takes a moment to look around. Even though he was here yesterday, helped with the decorations so that he knows what it looks like, he’s really proud of the work that he and Tessa put into it.
The foyer looks as it normally does – the staircase is so wide that it wraps around all four walls until it reaches the top; the immaculate crystal chandelier shines brightly at the center of the room, the crystals glittering onto the walls and reflecting off of the windows.
It’s when they reach the living room that everything starts to change.
Maroon and black velvet tapestries have been hung over the normally white walls, billowing in the wind created by the fan hidden in the corner of the room. There’s a sofa pushed to one wall, dark brown and covered in precisely folded throws. A speaker sits in the open armoire at the opposite wall, rotating through a carefully curated playlist of creepy songs that he and Tessa spent the whole day before looking for.
The living room leads to the kitchen, which is lit by yet another, smaller chandelier. In the kitchen, there are tables that form a semi-circle, half-filled with various bowls of different snacks. There are Halloween-themed finger foods on one side and desserts on the other, all spread out and ready for the guests, who aren’t due to arrive for another hour or so.
“You know,” Scott muses as Tessa hands him another bowl to set on the tables, “If you would’ve told me ahead of time that you were going as Morticia, I could’ve been your Gomez.”
“I’ve been keeping my costumes a secret from you for twenty years, Scott,” she says with a roll of her eyes, walking beside him with a tray of zombie-shaped cookies that smell like pumpkin. “And besides, we’ve never done a couples’ costume.”
Once he sets the bowl down, he rests a hand against her waist and brushes his lips against hers before pulling away, although his hand stays in place. “It could be fun, you know.”
She’s about to answer when a cold draft blows through, the chandelier swaying with the wind.
His eyebrows crease together as he wanders over to the window. “Did you leave it open, T?”
But when he reaches the other side of the room, the lock on the window hasn’t moved.
“No,” comes Tessa’s voice and he hears the sound of her setting down the tray of cookies as he turns around. “That’s been happening all day, though. I think the heating is having trouble kicking on.”
“Have you checked it at all?”
“No,” she repeats, chewing on her bottom lip as she makes her way over to him. “You know how scary that attic is.”
It’s true; the fourth-floor attic is never used, since the manor itself is only used once, maybe twice a year: for this Halloween party and any parties that need a ballroom (which is the only room he hasn’t seen decorated yet). Two years ago, shortly after they started dating, Tessa had a surprise birthday party that doubled as a masquerade, which was one of the only times he’s been here outside of Halloween.
Her hand finds his and Scott realizes that she’s slightly spooked by this old house.
“I know, but someone should go see what the problem is. I’ll be right back, Tess.”
The attic spans all of the fourth floor, and the only thing that’s up there is the boiler, the air conditioner, and a side room with a locked door that no one has ever seen the inside of. Kate has said that her grandmother, Esmeralda, lost the key and that they haven’t been able to find it for years, but as far as he knows, no one has even tried to open it. Not that Scott blames them; just walking past the door creeps him out.
He gets to the top of the second floor, and it’s colder than the first floor, the third and fourth floors are colder still.
What the fuck?
Scott reaches the attic and it’s freezing. He walks past the locked door toward the air conditioner unit. The sun has almost set, so he has to use his phones’ flashlight to see the thermostat. It’s showing a normal temperature, but there’s no way that’s right.
The sound of a nearby door slamming makes his blood run cold.
“Tess?” he asks.
There’s no answer.
Honestly, he knows that it isn’t her; he would’ve heard her come up the stairs, or she would’ve called out to him, something.
His heart is in his throat as he turns around, already suspecting what it is that he’s going to see.
The door that’s been locked for as long as anyone can remember?
Yeah, it’s wide open.
Scott likes to think that he’s a pretty calm guy. There are very few things that he’s afraid of, and it takes a lot to scare him.
Right now, he can’t get down the stairs fast enough. He’s reached the first floor before he even realizes he’s started running.
“Tessa!” he calls out, hands on his knees as he catches his breath.
“What’s up?” she replies, coming around the corner into the foyer.
“The door . . .” Deep breath. “The door is open.”
Confusion colors her features. “What are you talking about? The locked door? That doesn’t make any sense, Scott.”
He grabs her hand. “Come on. I swear it’s open, I’m not making this up.”
She follows behind him without a word, and the door is still open by the time they get up there.
Scott sighs in relief. Well, not relief. He’s scared out of his mind, because he has no idea how the hell that door opened, but he’s slightly relieved that it’s still open. He’d wondered for a moment if his mind was playing tricks on him.
“You see it too, right?” he asks, and Tessa nods, gripping his hand tightly.
There’s a bright light inside the otherwise dark room, although the two of them stay rooted to the spot.
“I’m not going in there, Scott. Neither of us are,” she says resolutely.
“Should we just head back downstairs? Maybe call your parents and ask them to come over early to check it out?”
She swallows thickly, looking back and forth between him and the door, which still stands open. “Yeah, okay. That sounds like a good idea.”
Before they can move, however, a figure appears from the room. Okay, it’s not really a figure, now that Scott’s gotten a better look at it. It’s more of a white orb, flickering on and off like a light.
“W-What . . . is that?” Tessa asks, pointing a shaky hand at the orb, which is now glowing brightly, like opening your eyes to see light after being in a dark room for a while.
“Um, it looks like a light,” he answers dumbly, and she glances over at him as if to say, duh.
When he turns back to look at it, it’s gone, and the door has slammed shut.
Scott and Tessa don’t even look at each other before racing down the stairs.
“Hello?” Kate Virtue calls out as they reach the first-floor landing, further scaring the two.
“Mom!” Tessa yells, jumping about four feet in the air. “Uh, how’s it going?”
She holds up a stack of envelopes. “I brought the cards that you’ll need for the murder mystery.”
“Oh! What’s the theme this year?” Scott hears himself ask, although the thought of playing a murder mystery in a house that holds more mysteries than any of them had ever expected sends a chill down his spine.
“Mom, there’s something you need to know,” Tessa interjects, and she looks at Scott before telling her mother what they saw on the fourth floor not five minutes ago.
“It flickered once more before it was just gone, the door shutting again behind it.”
“Did you try the handle?” Kate asks, looking intrigued and only a little bit nervous.
“No, but aren’t you concerned about the fact that we saw a ghost?” her daughter exclaims, her eyebrows raising. “Not an actual ghost but . . . an orb.”
To Scott’s surprise, Kate shrugs. “It was probably just a trick of the light. Besides, we’ve all been wondering what’s in that room for years, I’m surprised that you two didn’t investigate further.”
“The ball of light that emerged from the room flickered multiple times, and the sun has pretty much set. The moon isn’t high enough in the sky for it to reflect into a room on the fourth floor.”
“I didn’t see a window in there, either. Did you?”
He shakes his head at Tessa’s question.
Kate looks uneasy now, even though she just heard this and the story hasn’t really changed. “All right, maybe I dismissed it too quickly. It sounds like you two are shaken up about this.”
“It’s this house, Mom; something’s off about it this year. I’ve been here by myself all day since Scott still had to work, and there were cold drafts of air floating in and out of the kitchen.”
“Do you want me to go investigate?” she asks, looking back and forth at Scott and Tessa, who nod.
“We’ll come with you,” he tells her, and they do.
Minutes later, the three of them are standing in front of the door, which is open just a crack.
Kate reaches forward and pushes it open. The room is as dark as it was five minutes ago, and the orb is nowhere to be seen.
She glances at them before stepping into the room, using the light from all of their phones’ flashlights to light the room.
The room that’s been a mystery this whole time is empty. Windowless, with peeling floral wallpaper on it.
Tessa is the one to break the silence. “There’s nothing in here.”
Scott feels disappointed. They’ve all talked about it various times over the years, what the room could be hiding, and the fact that it’s nothing is more than a little bit of a let-down.
“Not everything has been set up yet,” Kate replies, and in the darkness he can see that she’s nodding to herself, although she hasn’t said anything on the contents (or rather, lack thereof) of the room. “We should head back downstairs.”
The three of them back out of the room and Scott is the last one out, so he closes the door behind them.
If only they’d peeled back the wallpaper on the leftmost corner of the back wall, but that will come into play later.
Since he came straight from work, Scott hasn’t had time to change into his costume, which he does now that they have time before people start arriving.
He’s going as a vampire, which admittedly isn’t the most original of ideas, but he thinks he’s managed to do his makeup pretty well. He covers his face and neck with white face paint, and then paints around his eyes with black paint.
Next, he sticks his finger in the red paint and smears it in a line going from the corner of his lip to his chin, trying to make it look like blood. He’s not sure if it has the effect he’s going for, but he’s decided to leave it as-is.
Tessa appears behind him and he catches her eye in the mirror, grinning.
“How’s it going in here?” she asks, setting her chin on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him.
“Good, I think. Is the eye makeup too much, though?”
“I don’t think so,” his girlfriend replies, running her hand through his hair. “I’d let you suck my blood.”
At that, he laughs and turns around to kiss her. When he pulls away, he sees that some of the red on his chin has gotten onto her chin, so he puts white face paint in his hand and dabs at her chin to fix it.
“I accidentally got some of the red onto your chin so I’m just patching it up for you,” he explains after seeing her look of confusion.
“Okay.”
They stand there in silence as he finishes what he’s doing, and then he washes his hands before turning back to her. “I know I said this earlier, but I want to make sure you know: you look absolutely stunning, Tess. And this party is about to be the best damn Halloween party this mansion has ever seen.”
She laughs. “I don’t know about that.”
At that, the light above the mirror flickers so fast that he almost misses it.
“See?” Scott grins at her and gestures to the light. “It agrees with me.”
Tessa rolls her eyes. “If you say so. Don’t you think it’s weird that all of this stuff keeps happening?”
“I think it’ll be just fine, T, as long as all of us are together.” He's not sure he believes that, but she looks really anxious and all he wants is to calm her down.
“The house has never had this many problems before, maybe we should get it looked at before next year.”
He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her in close. “If you say so.”
Crash.
A scream pierces the air followed by a laugh, and the two of them run so fast to find the source of the noise that Scott doesn’t think his feet even touch the ground.
“Mom?!” Tessa calls as they make their way into the kitchen, only to see that Kate isn’t there. “Where are you at?”
They find her at the front door greeting guests as they walk in. Two of Tessa and Scott’s friends from high school, Eric and Chiddy, are standing in the doorway, along with Chiddy’s wife and their two kids. Jordan, Tessa’s sister, is walking in the direction of the kitchen, hand in hand with her girlfriend, Becca.
“Why do you two look so frightened?” Eric asks them.
“Yeah,” Chiddy agrees, tilting his head to the side, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
That’s not entirely wrong, Scott thinks, but Tessa replies before he can.
"Is everything okay? We heard someone scream."
Kate waves a dismissive hand. “Chiddy's children are dressed adorably, it was a delighted scream, Tess." She turns back to Chiddy and Eric. "Tessa and Scott were just telling me about this glowing orb that they saw, but when we went back upstairs to look, there was nothing–”
“Guys!” Jordan shouts, sounding panicked, and it’s another second before she’s standing in front of them. “There’s something you need to see.”
“What now?” Tessa mumbles to her boyfriend, who shrugs and shakes his head.
He doesn’t really want to know either.
They follow her to the foyer, which is dark, the chandelier lying on the ground. Pieces of crystal are scattered across the floor, and one rolls towards Scott, who stops it with his foot.
The rings that held the chandelier together are smashed. The biggest one is bent in half, like someone took the chandelier off of the ceiling and bent the middle, biggest piece, so that it would break.
Except there’s the fact that no one is tall enough to reach the top of the chandelier; it had hung from the vaulted ceiling and was impossible to clean. Kate has tried to contact several cleaning companies in years past, but once they would come take a look at it, everyone would shake their heads and say that they couldn’t do it.
“Look.” Chiddy points up to the ceiling as he starts up the stairs. “The hooks that helped support it are still in place.”
Scott squints, only to see that he’s right, and him, Chiddy, Kate, and Tessa make their way up the stairs to further inspect it.
As they’re standing on the landing that leads to the fourth-floor attic, there’s the loud creak of a door.
“What was that?” Tessa hisses, grabbing ahold of Scott’s arm.
The bright beam of Chiddy’s phone light swings from the ceiling to the hallway, submerging them in darkness. None of them miss the shadow that dances across the wall, the way that the door has opened of its own accord again.
“Who wants to go in there? Because it’s not going to be me,” Chiddy whispers.
For a second, no one moves.
Not even as a strong gust of wind blows from the direction of the shadows, making the hairs on Scott’s arms stand up tall.
“Someone has to,” Scott reasons, “But I went in there earlier so I’m not going back.”
“We’re all going,” Kate replies, leaving no room for discussion as she nudges them all forward.
Tessa is the first to peer around the corner into the room, and she gasps, looking back at all of them with several quick shakes of her head. “The wall is glowing. That’s not normal. None of this is normal. It’s the house, you guys, I’m telling you.”
The four of them crowd into the doorway and peer into the room and, oh yeah, there’s a totally normal rectangular patch of back wall, starting to the left of the wall to a foot or so below the ceiling, that is glowing bright green.
“Guess we don’t need the flashlight,” Chiddy mutters, sounding more horrified than Scott’s ever heard him, but he keeps the light on, nonetheless.
Kate is the first to take a step forward, and Scott can see that she looks very determined and very frightened.
“Why is it glowing?” he asks.
“There’s something in the wall,” Kate answers simply, as if that says everything they need to know. As if this is just an everyday occurrence.
She tiptoes closer to it and points. “There, do you see that the wallpaper is peeling?”
Reluctantly, Tessa, Scott, and Chiddy shuffle forward, to see that the leftmost corner of the wallpaper has come loose from the wall and is starting to curl into itself.
“Yeah,” Tessa replies, the word catching in her throat.
Scott marches forward and pulls it back to reveal a painting, the source of the glowing. It’s a woman who has very familiar electric green eyes and dark hair, which is pulled back into a severe bun at the top of her head, and she’s wearing a dull grey dress. Her lips are perched into a thin line and there’s a hollowness to her, an emptiness.
“Why does she look exactly like Tessa?” Chiddy breaks the silence.
The woman in the portrait looks similar to Tessa, but the only things that are the same are their eyes and the color of their hair. This lady has an entirely different way about her, something much more sinister, whereas Tessa is kind and has the biggest heart of anyone he knows.
“That was my grandmother, Esmeralda. She was the one who lived in this house.”
Kate’s voice is quiet, and she seems nervous, refusing to look at any of them as she talks.
That doesn’t really answer the question, but Scott is too scared to point that out.
“What’s the deal with your grandmother?” Scott asks, honestly not sure that he wants to know the answer.
His girlfriend’s mother looks at him now, although her eyes are filled with worry. “She got sick and passed away when I was very young. There wasn’t much I know about her; I don’t really have any memories of her. The only thing I remember is that . . .”
Her voice trails off as she glimpses at the portrait. “She always wore a green pendant, but it’s missing.”
Sure enough, there’s no green pendant to be seen.
The sound of footsteps gets louder and the four of them turn around.
“Mom, why is that picture glowing?” Jordan asks, joined by Becca, Eric, Chiddy’s wife Nina, and the two children, Chloe and Alexandra. They all step forward into the room.
But it isn’t Kate who answers, it’s Tessa. “I don’t know, but I don’t think we should be in here.”
The door slams shut and the distinct sound of a lock sliding into place is heard, even though all of them are standing in the middle of the room, nowhere near the door.
“It seems the house has other ideas,” Becca replies, hugging herself to Jordan.
Silence falls over the room, which is now bright with both the glowing painting and the light of several peoples’ cellphones.
And then the picture of Esmeralda moves, Scott swears that it happens. She blinks, and then one of her hands, currently resting in her lap, reaches up to touch her neck before she stops, like she remembers that there's no pendant to be found.
Nope, there’s no way this can be happening, he thinks, as he goes over to the door and jiggles the handle, only to find that it really is locked.
“What do you want from us?” Tessa practically shouts. “Why did you lock us in here?”
The portrait smiles slowly, the haunted look in her eyes unwavering. “Why, to play a game, of course.”