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There’s a faded ‘Beware of Dog’ sign bolted to the front gate of the property.
Theo snorts when he sees it, then nudges open the rusty gate, its hinges squealing. Corey flinches at the sound. Mason grimaces but follows behind him, still heeding Theo’s earlier advice not to turn on his flashlight until they’re inside the house. Wouldn’t want the neighbors to see and call the cops about teens trespassing at night—which they are, but Theo’s had enough of dealing with the law and would frankly like to get through this night without getting arrested.
Liam takes up the rear of their group with his video camera. When Theo glances back at him, he can see the little red light that means it’s recording and rolls his eyes.
“Really, Liam?”
“What?” Liam frowns. “If we get possessed tonight, I want video evidence.”
“Please don’t say that,” Corey mutters with closed eyes, his face a little pale.
“No one’s getting possessed,” Mason says. He wrings his hands around his flashlight, a big industrial thing that looks heavy enough to hurt if he took a swing with it. “There’s no ghosts, we’re just gonna take a quick look to see if there’s anything supernatural going on in this abandoned house. No big deal.”
“And ghosts aren’t supernatural?” Corey says with a raised brow.
“It’s probably just some stray animal,” Theo says. “Now can we go inside and get this over with already? I have work tomorrow. I’m sure Deaton’ll be real happy to know the reason I came in late is because I was babysitting you guys on your little Buzzfeed Unsolved adventure.”
“You watch Buzzfeed Unsolved?” Liam asks.
Theo ignores him and tries the front door. It’s locked, but it’s nothing he can’t deal with. The wood makes an ominous cracking sound when he pulls, but whatever.
“I’m surprised they haven’t dedicated a whole season of Unsolved to Beacon Hills,” Liam whispers to Mason.
Mason nods thoughtfully. “Beacon Hills Unsolved.”
“Hey, we could do that. This could be our first episode.”
“I am not making this a regular thing,” Corey says.
“Me neither.” Theo crosses his arms. “Are we going in or what?” Then to Mason, “And you can get the flashlight now.”
“Oh, right.” Mason clicks it on.
The light illuminates a statue of a wide-grinning clown standing right beside the door.
Mason starts to scream but Theo, thinking fast, slaps a hand over his mouth. Liam laughs and brings his camera closer to the statue. Corey has disappeared entirely.
This is all going so well.
“Is that a clown statue? Oh, this place is cursed,” Liam cackles.
Mason pushes Theo’s hand off his mouth and says with an edge of desperation, “What kind of psycho puts a clown statue at the front door? That’s just wrong.” He darts outside and waves a hand around until he pats Corey, who evidently went invisible and pressed himself against the outer wall of the house after fleeing the room. He looks ill when Mason drags him back in by the wrist.
Quickly getting tired of this, Theo shuts the door behind them all then rounds on Liam. “Remind me again why we’re here in this hell house?”
“Uh… Well, it’s mostly rumors.” Liam rubs the back of his neck. “There’s been talk from the neighbors about loud noises and lights flashing in the windows. Someone mentioned a child laughing?”
“Wonderful,” Corey mutters.
“Sounds like kids messing around to me,” Theo says.
“I thought so too, until Mason said he saw something weird.”
Theo turns to Mason with a raised brow.
Mason takes a breath. “I drive by this house every day on the way to school. I know it’s been abandoned for years, and by now I definitely know what it looks like. Two stories, four windows on the front.” He swallows. “But this morning, I saw a third story. An attic, with a fifth window. I swear this house always had two stories.”
“I’ve seen it before, too,” Liam says.
Theo frowns, says slowly, “There were five windows outside just now.”
Mason gives a shaky nod. “So whatever freaky magic’s happening in this place… It’s still here.”
Theo exhales and clicks his tongue in annoyance. He’d really prefer it was just some freakishly fast construction workers that built a third story overnight. But Mason’s rarely wrong about these things; Theo has come to know that well since Scott and most of his pack went their separate ways out of Beacon Hills for college, leaving the rest of them to keep this hellhole of a town standing until they return.
It’s not Theo’s problem. Not really. Truly the only thing that’s brought him here—and to every little escapade Liam’s begged him to come along with for “extra werewolf muscle,” as he phrases it—is the fact that these three’ll get themselves killed without him. And after all that Theo went through to keep them alive, to keep Liam alive, it’d be such a waste.
So he’ll investigate the abandoned house with the clown statue and possible ghosts. He’s faced worse.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says and strides ahead.
“Uh, you want this?” Mason offers the flashlight.
Theo just gives him a smirk and flashes his yellow eyes.
“Oh, right. Of course.” Mason looks at Corey. “Can you—”
“Nope,” Corey says and slides his hand into Mason’s, the one that isn’t holding the flashlight. “That’s why we’re sticking together, babe.”
Mason smiles kind of dopily at that. Theo snorts and turns away.
Liam leans in close to Theo and mock-whispers, “I could hold your hand too, if you want.”
Theo, not one to miss a beat, says sweetly, “Why thank you, Liam.”
He claps his hand into Liam’s hard and loud enough to reverberate through the room. Liam yelps and snatches his hand away, shaking out his stinging fingers.
A quick glance around makes it obvious they’re in a living room. Most of the furniture is covered in a substantial layer of dust, and it hovers through the stale air thick enough to make Theo bring one sleeved arm up to cover his mouth. It reeks—of decay and mold and rotting wood, of old plastic and forgotten things. He wrinkles his nose.
There’s an upright piano tucked into one corner, protected uselessly by a threadbare blanket draped over it. A tattered couch, a TV stand without its TV. Aside from the clown statue at the front door, the rest of the place seems almost normal.
Then Theo glances at the walls, finds peeling wallpaper and dusty framed portraits of more clowns.
“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters while Liam shuffles over with his camera.
“Maybe,” Liam says, in a low, narrator-like voice while he pans over the portraits on the walls, “whatever spirit haunts this place was a clown too, one that died before delivering the punchline of a joke. He cannot rest until someone hears it.”
Mason stifles a laugh. Corey is looking uncomfortably at one portrait of a sad clown. “Well,” he says, “as far as ghosts go, I wouldn’t mind if it was that.”
“There are no ghosts,” Theo says firmly. “Now how are we doing this? Should we split up?”
“Split up?” Mason squeaks.
“It’s a big house. We can cover more ground that way.”
“Yeah, but… What if something’s here? What if we get lost?”
“It’s a house, not the Preserve,” Theo scoffs. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“Let’s go in pairs?” Liam suggests.
Mason sighs. “Yeah, okay. It’s just a house. A house full of clowns. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Corey rubs Mason’s shoulders soothingly while they walk towards one hallway leading out of the living room.
Guess that leaves Theo with Liam, then.
Theo tilts his head in the direction of the staircase leading to the second floor. “Let’s look upstairs.”
The floorboards creak beneath their steps, and these too are covered in thick, undisturbed dust, as if no one’s tread them in years. The stairs end at a narrow hallway, decorated with the same faded wallpaper as downstairs. No clown portraits, thankfully, but rather an array of doors leading in various directions, all closed, all worn with what can only be time.
“Want to take a guess at what’s behind door number one?” Theo drawls, reaching for the closest door handle.
Liam fiddles with the settings on his camera and says, “Hm… More clowns would be anticlimactic, I think. Taxidermy?”
Theo shudders. “Please no.” He opens the door.
It’s almost disappointing to find an ordinary-looking bedroom.
“This won’t do for Beacon Hills Unsolved,” Liam says.
“You still hung up over that?”
“Dealing with the supernatural all the time has to have some kind of pay off.” Liam pouts as he examines the room. An empty bed frame takes up most of the space, and there’s a dusty dresser beside it. Not much else besides that.
“Next room,” Theo says.
The next one is even more exciting: it’s completely empty.
“This sucks,” Liam says and puts his camera away with a huff.
Theo snickers. “Wouldn’t you rather deal with nothing than some actual demonic spirit?”
“I guess.” Liam looks thoughtful. “Say, Theo.”
Theo grunts.
“Do you believe in that kind of stuff? Ghosts, I mean.”
“Never seen one,” Theo says. “So why should I?”
“Do the Ghost Riders count?”
“... No?” Theo furrows his brow. “I mean, they weren’t really ghosts, even if it was in the name.”
Liam squints, not looking entirely convinced. “I guess. But you used to live with the Dread Doctors.”
“Yeah. And?” Theo scowls, never enjoying this particular topic of conversation.
“In all those years with them, you never saw anything… otherworldly? Paranormal?”
“I saw all sorts of shit, Liam,” Theo says, tiredly. Those memories always make him tired.
“Er, right.” Liam fidgets with his fingers.
Theo suddenly feels a little bad, in that annoying way he does whenever he says something to Liam with unintentional bite. Sometimes Liam deserves it—Theo’s never been one to respond kindly to having his past pried into and any sensible person knows not to try—but most of the time Theo doesn’t mean to do it. It’s just harder to watch his tongue around Liam. He wishes he knew why.
He drags a hand through his hair and sighs. “All the stuff I saw there was probably worse than ghosts.”
Liam blinks, like he didn’t expect Theo to say anything at all.
Theo goes on, “But in the end, all of it was real. There was science and biology behind it, even if it was twisted.”
He glances down at his hands, his open palms, the stiff angles of his fingers.
That seems the right word for it. Twisted.
What Theo doesn’t say: he never believed in the possibility of ghosts until the night he fell. When Tara’s hand wrapped around his ankle like a shackle and pulled. And afterwards, in the hospital, spending every waking moment running and running and running until eventually he stopped. There was no escaping it.
Back then, he didn’t think she was a ghost. He didn’t know what to make of her except that she could only be a part of whatever sick, endless nightmare he fell into. Real or ghost? Did it really matter in the end? He knew Tara was dead with as much certainty as he felt her fingers digging into him, seeking, and finding every time. Dead or not dead, real or not real—the pain was the same either way.
When Theo pulls his gaze back up to Liam, he’s looking at Theo with a strange expression. Something about it makes Theo turn away again, clearing his throat.
“Next room,” he says.
They walk out the door and to another one in silence. Theo glances down the hallway and inwardly groans at the number of doors still left to open.
Liam opens the next one this time, and inside is—
Well. If there’s anything that’s going to cut through the tense atmosphere that’s fallen over them, it may as well be a room full of porcelain dolls.
“Of all the—really?” Theo throws his hands up. “Dolls? Who actually collects antique dolls? No, who collects antique dolls and clown portraits?”
Liam is full on bent over laughing, hands on his knees, wiping tears from his eyes.
“It’s not that funny, Liam.” Theo tugs him up with one hand under his elbow. “Get up.”
“Sorry,” Liam wheezes, gasping for breath between laughs. “Oh, man.”
Theo shakes his head and, despite himself, feels the corners of his lips twitch while he watches Liam giggle. “Come on, already,” he says and tugs harder.
“Okay, okay.”
Finally composed again, Liam makes a sweeping shot with his camera around the room they’ve just entered: a bedroom lined by bookshelves, upon which are rows and rows of porcelain dolls. Shiny hair, frilly dresses, unblinking glass eyes. A truly unholy number of them in various sizes, somehow untouched by the disrepair that plagues the rest of the house. They’re all angled towards the door as if to greet them with their frozen, placid expressions.
Honestly, it’s more unnerving than the clowns.
“I’m getting out of here,” Theo says, already turning towards the door.
“Wait! Come on, we gotta check every room, right?”
“I don’t see anything suspicious. Unless you want to check underneath every single doll.”
“Of course not,” Liam says. “But we can look a little closer, right? We might as well.”
“I’m staying over here.” Theo moves towards the corner of the room with the least dolls. “You have fun playing.”
“I’m not playing,” Liam hisses. Theo just smirks and makes a shooing motion at him.
He examines his corner of the room. There’s a twin-sized bed pressed up against the wall, with more dolls resting atop it. Weird that this room is furnished while the others aren’t. There’s an actual mattress with blankets and a pillow. Theo looks closer and brushes a finger against the sheets. No dust.
Really weird.
Just as he opens his mouth to comment on it, his ears catch faint sounds of music.
Theo straightens, head angling towards the door. Piano notes, horribly off-key and strung together in bare semblance of a song, float in from downstairs.
“What’s that?” Liam asks. “The piano?”
Theo growls, “Those two idiots. Probably got bored and started messing around. If the neighbors hear—” He strides to the door.
The door swings shut.
“What the?” Theo grabs the knob. Locked.
Liam’s eyes go wide. “What’s happening?”
“You think I know?” Theo turns the knob with a force he knows should bend it entirely out of shape, but it doesn’t budge. He slams the butt of his hand against the door. Nothing. He stares at his hands in betrayal.
“Come on, Theo, open the door.”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Theo gives it a violent kick, not caring anymore about noise.
“Move, I’ll break it down.” Liam steps back, lines himself up in front of the door and bends his knees in a starting position.
“Liam, I already tried hitting it. You’re just gonna hurt yourself.”
“Move or I’ll run into you, too.”
Theo sighs and steps aside.
Liam takes a few quick breaths then sprints at the door.
The door flies open.
Liam sails right through and crashes into the hallway with a screech that Theo's going to make fun of forever.
When Theo pokes his head out, he finds Liam in a splayed heap on the ground. “You alive?” Liam gives a weary thumbs up. Theo grins and walks over to help him up. “Told you you’d hurt yourself.”
“How was I supposed to know the door would magically open?” Liam rubs one of his elbows, wincing. “Ouch.”
Theo reaches out, pauses. He still doesn’t have much experience with this, but— “Here, idiot.”
He places his palm on the bend of Liam’s arm. Liam’s mouth shuts so quickly Theo hears his teeth click, and he snorts before focusing on the task in front of him. He squeezes his fingers gently and inhales. Black lines race inwards from his fingertips and up along his arm, away from Liam, towards himself. Pain stings at Theo’s senses but it’s easy to ignore. This pain is nothing.
When the lines fade away, he lets go. Liam brings a hand up to brush his fingers against where Theo just touched.
“Thank—” he starts to say, then stops, his eyes widening even further. Theo panics, fearing he messed up somehow, when Liam says, “Theo, where are the stairs?”
“What?”
Liam points over Theo’s shoulder. Theo turns.
It’s the same hallway. Except where one wall used to open up to the top of the staircase, now there is none. Just one closed hallway that leads nowhere.
Theo stares for a long second, brain desperately trying to pull together a rational explanation.
He turns silently back to Liam.
“They’re gone,” he says.
Liam is panicking. It’s obvious in his eyes and the tight line of his mouth, the way he’s bouncing on his feet like he doesn’t know whether to stay or bolt. Theo feels it too, the beginnings of panic, but pulling it back is a skill he’s long mastered. Getting Liam to do the same, though—that still takes practice, but Theo’s found it comes to him more easily than expected.
“It’s okay,” he says. “We’ll just find another way.”
“Another way?” Liam buries his hands in his hair. “This house is cursed! What if we’re in some pocket dimension now? What about Mason and Corey? What about—”
“There are three other doors here.” Theo walks up to the closest one that they haven’t opened yet. “There’s bound to be something.”
“Theo—”
“The longer we dilly dally, the longer Mason and Corey are left alone. Come on.”
“Okay, okay!” Liam sighs. “You’re right. Guess there’s nothing left to do but keep checking doors.” He follows Theo. “By the way, I can’t believe you said dilly dally.”
Theo flushes. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing! It’s just—I didn’t expect it. It’s cute.”
Theo covers his burning face with a hand. “You did not just say that.”
Liam just shrugs, but there’s a smile on his face that’s a touch more smug than usual, and Theo would be more annoyed about that if he wasn’t concerned with more pressing matters, or trying to ignore the disgusting flutter in his chest. But moving on—
Theo tries the door knob. It gives, thank god.
The room within is empty except for an old rug in the middle of the floor. It’s plain and frayed like all the other forgotten furniture in the house, besides that oddly untouched doll room. But after all that’s happened in the last few minutes, Theo’s on edge. He hovers by the door, ready to stop it if it closes again.
Liam seems wary too, in the way he approaches the rug like it’s a cornered animal. He nudges the edge of it with his shoe. Nothing happens.
“I think it’s normal.”
“I don’t think anything in this house is normal,” Theo says. “If there’s nothing here, let’s move on.”
Liam tilts his head and ventures to stand fully in the middle of the rug. “Why would they just leave this here?” he mutters.
The floor beneath Liam’s feet starts to tilt. Theo sucks in a breath.
It’s a hidden panel, the perfect size to be covered by the rug.
“Liam!” Theo lunges forward.
Liam flails and tries to step off the rug. Theo’s faster. He hooks an arm around Liam’s waist and yanks him away, pulls him in close. In the quick panic of it all, Liam grabs Theo’s shoulders like a lifeline, gasping. The floor panel falls completely open and the rug slides off into the darkness below.
Theo’s heart is racing in his chest, and this close he not only hears Liam’s doing the same but feels it, the quick thump thump thump beating against Theo’s own chest. He still has his arms around Liam’s waist. Liam is still holding Theo’s shoulders.
Their wide-eyed faces are only inches apart.
“You okay?” Theo asks hoarsely.
“Yeah,” Liam squeaks. Is there red on his face? From the adrenaline, probably.
“Good.” Theo clears his throat. Should definitely let go now, but some freakish part of him resists, still wanting to keep Liam close and safe from… well, nothing really, now that the immediate danger’s passed.
Theo swallows and unwinds his arms. Liam drops his hands from Theo’s shoulders, takes a step back to leave a friendly amount of space between them. Theo resists the urge to shake out his hands as if to rid them of some residual static.
He says, “Let’s see what the hell house’s given us now.”
The floor opened up to a secret staircase. Unbelievable.
“It’s too convenient,” Theo says immediately.
“What?!” Liam gestures at it. “It’s the exact thing we’re looking for, we have to take it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this house is trying to kill us. The first room we check after the stairs disappear and it’s a secret staircase into darkness? What else can it be but a trap?”
“You said we have to hurry to make sure Mason and Corey are okay.”
Theo falters. God, he hates when Liam uses his own words against him.
Liam continues, “Literally what other choice do we have? The other rooms might just be more dolls or something, who knows. Let’s just go, dude, we can handle whatever we find.”
Theo runs a hand through his hair, sighs. “Alright, fine,” he says. Liam beams. “But—” Liam frowns. “—I go first.”
Liam shrugs. “Fine by me. I’ve played Silent Hill, dude, I know how this goes. The last thing I want is to end up face to face with Pyramid Head.”
Theo, from where he’s crouched by the hole in the floor and peering inside, mutters, “Think I’d rather fight Pyramid Head than whatever sadistic fucker made this house.”
He jumps in; it’s only a few feet deep. Liam drops down right after.
“Okay, first of all—” Liam says as they begin the trek downwards. The narrow passageway is pitch black save for the faint glow of their yellow eyes. “—you’ve played Silent Hill? And second, are you crazy? Pyramid Head is frightening.”
Theo looks back at him incredulously. “You’ve fought the Dread Doctors, the Beast of Gevaudan, the Ghost Riders, and the Anuk-Ite, but you’re scared of a butcher with a triangle on his head?”
“And you’re scared of a clown and doll collector,” Liam scoffs. “By the way, I was scared of all those other things, too. But I’d like to keep Pyramid Head off the list of things that have tried to kill me, thanks.”
“We are not going to find Pyramid Head down here, and I can’t believe I’m even saying that.” Theo hurries down the stairs with a renewed sense of get me the hell out of here.
He halts when a familiar sound creeps through the walls. Liam walks into his back. “Oof—what the heck, Theo?”
“Shut up.” Theo holds up a hand. Liam frowns but stays quiet. “You hear that?”
Liam tilts his head. His eyes widen in recognition. “Music. It’s the piano again.”
“Yeah. Last time we heard it, a door closed on us. Then the stairs disappeared.”
Liam’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Let’s hurry.”
They bolt down the stairs. Theo knows this house isn’t exceptionally tall and they were only on the second floor, so why does this staircase feel so endless? He places his foot down on the next step.
It lands on nothing. His stomach drops.
Liam cries, “Theo!” and grabs him by the back of his jacket. In the split-second of weightlessness, Theo appreciates that Liam tried.
Together, they fall into the darkness.
They don’t fall into a bottomless pit like Theo expected. In the midst of undignified tumbling and Liam screaming in his ear, Theo realizes it’s a slide. The passageway still slopes downwards as it did when it was still a staircase, but it now leads them on a curvy, roundabout path. And the floor isn’t made of concrete like the stairs but rather smooth, unbroken metal.
Oh, they better not have fallen into a trash chute. That would just be swell.
“What is up with this insane house?” Theo yells over the rush of air as they barrel onwards.
Liam’s stopped screaming; he must have realized they’re not dead. Theo doesn’t hear the music anymore, but he does hear, very distantly, the bright ring of child-like laughter.
The slide is almost over; he can see an opening rapidly approaching. It looks like a doorway. They’re sailing through it before he can make out where it leads.
He covers his face with his arms in preparation of colliding with a wall or the ground, but he’s surprised to land on something soft and springy. But before he can appreciate it, Liam slams bodily into him. Liam is considerably less soft and springy.
Theo wheezes while Liam scrambles to his feet, breathless and haggard. His hair is a wild mess.
“Holy shit, we’re alive,” he says.
“Barely,” Theo grits out, clutching where Liam’s elbow jabbed him in the ribs. “Fuck, Liam, why are you so pointy?”
“What? Oh shit, sorry.”
Liam kneels beside him. Theo realizes he’s lying on a mattress, one that was perfectly placed to catch them at the end of the slide. The doorway they flew through was apparently one of the closet doors in an empty room.
“Did I get you in the ribs?” Liam hovers his hands over Theo, not quite sure where to touch.
“You sure did.” Theo tugs his shirt up to assess the damage. There’s already a bruise forming, but it’s nothing he can’t walk off.
Liam brushes his fingers against it.
Theo flinches back from Liam’s touch. Despite the briefness of the contact, his skin is tingling.
“Sorry!” Liam says. “Sorry. I, uh, should’ve asked. Can I?”
Theo stares at him for a moment, breathing hard for reasons besides residual adrenaline. It’s really not a big deal—he’s bounced back from considerably worse with nothing but his sluggish healing abilities to hold him together. But Liam’s brow is furrowed and his eyes are apologetic and Theo is so frazzled by everything that’s happened, that perhaps his judgment has lapsed enough to allow this one thing.
He gives one shaky nod. Liam exhales and lays his hand fully against Theo’s side.
Theo wonders if he’ll ever get used to this. Unlikely, as he’s not on the receiving end of it often, though he knows in his bones that isn’t the truest reason why. Liam looks deep in concentration, eyes focused on this point of connection between them, his skin on Theo’s skin, and it doesn’t take long for his touch to have its intended effect. The pain ebbs away like an ocean tide, and Liam keeps watching the black lines work while Theo simply looks at him.
The gentleness of Liam’s touch, coaxing until something within Theo yields—Theo will never understand how any of that is real.
“That feel better?” Liam asks, meeting their gazes. He must see something in Theo’s expression because he turns a little pink and looks back down, except he sees his hand still on Theo and turns a little pinker.
It’s… really charming.
Theo parts his lips to say something when the door slams open.
Mason and Corey tumble inside and close the door behind them by slamming their backs against it. Panting, they double take when they see Liam and Theo.
Liam tears his hand away. Theo hastily tugs his shirt back into order.
“Oh, sorry to interrupt your moment,” Mason says sarcastically.
“Dude!” Liam stands and runs over to them. “You’re okay!”
“Yeah, no thanks to you guys. Where the hell have you been? Haven’t you heard us screaming bloody murder down here?”
“What?” Theo frowns. “We haven’t heard any screaming. If anything, you should have heard Liam shrieking like a banshee.”
“I was not shrieking—”
“Mason could give Lydia some fair competition,” Corey says, looking weary as he slumps down against the door until he’s sitting on the ground with his legs out. “You won’t believe what we ran into. Or what ran into us, I guess?”
“That clown statue from earlier? It was moving! It chased us!” Mason has a bit of a crazed look in his eyes. He grabs Liam by the shoulders and Liam leans back fearfully. “Do you understand how terrifying that is? I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
Liam pales a little. “Bro… That sucks. We just got locked in a room full of dolls and then the stairs disappeared so we couldn’t come down to find you and then we found a secret staircase that turned into a slide and that’s how we ended up here.”
Mason stares while he processes that. Corey blinks then nods slowly, as if figuring that that might as well happen. Beacon Hills, and all.
Theo flops back onto the mattress, because why waste it while it’s here and he’s exhausted?
“Wait.” Theo squints. “So was it not you two playing the piano?”
“You heard that too? We thought that was you,” Corey says.
Theo sits back up, slowly, as some sick, anxious feeling settles in his gut. “I think we should get out of here.”
“But we’re all together again,” Liam says, gesturing at the sad lot of them in their various slumped positions. “Whatever it is, we can take them now.”
“I don’t know, man, I think we’re a little out of our depth here,” Mason says. “I’m not sure we’re ready to take on something that can control the house and everything in it.”
“Come on. We haven’t even checked the third story yet. If things go wrong—”
“And they always do,” Corey mumbles.
“—all we have to do is stick together. And besides...” Liam looks at the mattress with a thoughtful expression. “I think whatever’s here doesn’t actually want to kill us.”
Theo stares. “Seriously, Liam? It locked us in a room full of dolls. It turned the stairs into a slide.”
“It made a clown statue chase us!” Mason adds.
“But none of us actually got hurt. We got spooked, sure, but look—it put a mattress here so we wouldn’t get hurt. The slide led us here, back to you guys. And in a way, the clown led you to us.”
They’re all quiet after that. Theo mulls over Liam’s words like a stone tossed from palm to palm. Instinct tells him to get out of here; no point dealing with trouble like this when they’re all unprepared and entirely clueless about what faces them. Uncertainty isn’t Theo’s game. If it were up to him, they could regroup with Deaton, tell him what they’ve seen and plan a course of action to take care of it.
But it’s not up to him. Theo knows he’s not beholden to Liam in any tangible manner; those shackles were tossed away long, long ago. Theo stays, listens, follows for other reasons, all the reasons that matter.
“Okay,” he says, and feels something within him soften when Liam’s expression washes over with relief. “If you think we should stay, we’ll stay.”
Liam looks at Mason and Corey. Mason heaves a sigh, but it’s not a reluctant one. Theo doesn’t have to listen to his pulse to know he’s calmer now after Liam’s words. Corey shrugs and rises from his seat on the ground.
“Alright.” Liam breathes in, stands a little taller. Theo resists a wry smile. “Let’s check out the attic.”
They move to the door Mason and Corey came through earlier. But before Liam can even touch the doorknob, a sound drifts over them, seeping through the walls. It’s intimately familiar by now but no less ominous: a discordant, limping strain of song.
Only this time there’s a melody of laughter laced through it, a child’s laugh, the same that Theo heard on the way down the slide.
They all freeze as it rings around them.
“Something freaky is going to happen,” Mason whispers.
“Something freaky is already happening,” Corey says.
Theo nudges both of them forward with a hand on their shoulders and says, “Just stay alert. Stick together.”
Liam pulls the door open.
It opens to a hallway. A long one. One that stretches nearly as far as Theo can see. One that definitely can’t fit in the house as they know it.
Liam stands stiffly at the doorway with a familiar expression. It reminds Theo of that moment in the police car with the Ghost Riders on their tail, when Liam opened the case full of keys with no clue how to pick out the single car key among them.
Mason and Corey peek over Liam’s shoulder, and Mason groans, “Please, I can’t.”
“Nowhere to go but forward,” Theo says grimly. When Liam looks back at him, Theo gives a nod.
Liam takes a breath then nods back. He steps forward.
Liam’s approach to this newest puzzle seems to be if I hurry through then nothing can attack me, which Theo can’t really fault him for. It’s not like they have the time to check each of these doors, and their best bet will have to be the one at the very end of the hall. Liam doesn’t break into a run so much as a suburban mom’s brisk power walk, and Mason and Corey follow close behind while Theo watches from the end of their marching order with mild amusement.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The sound of a door slamming shut startles all of them, and when Theo shoots a glance back, he sees the door they initially came through is now closed. The doors beside it burst open, rattling as if some gale is pushing through them. The doors ahead of those fly open, then the next ones, then the next, barreling towards their little group with alarming speed.
Theo says, “No more power walking, run,” and the others don’t need to be told twice.
Liam tears down the hall. Corey’s more augmented stamina sets him slightly ahead of Mason, but he grabs Mason’s elbow and urges him along faster. It doesn’t take long for the line of opening doors to reach them, and Theo surges forward and slams his shoulder into a door that nearly opens in Mason’s face.
“Hurry!” he says, his mouth full of fangs.
Wind whips at his hair, his clothes. It’s like fighting a hurricane, like whatever force dwells here is doing its damnedest to keep them from leaving. Liam reaches the end of the hall and wrenches the door open. He turns to usher Corey through, then reaches a hand out for Mason sprinting towards him.
The wind gusts even harder, making Mason’s steps falter. He starts to skid towards an open door.
“No!” Theo says and grabs him by the waist. With a growl, he manages to pull Mason back and shove him towards Liam. Liam catches him in a fumbling grasp then pushes him through the door.
Theo feels the wind tugging harder at him. He can’t fight it, his feet are slipping against the floorboards. He falls to his knees and digs his claws into the ground. Well, this is familiar.
He squints through the storm and sees Liam looking at him with wide eyes.
“Theo!” He’s barely audible over the rushing winds. He holds a hand out.
Theo wants to reach out to him, wants to—
“Get out of here,” Theo says. His claws slip from the floorboards and he’s sucked backwards.
After that: darkness.
Theo wakes up in a chair.
A part of him is surprised he isn’t bound by chains to it, or something equally disturbing. But when he comes to, he’s settled in the chair like he’d fallen asleep in it by accident.
As soon as he realizes he’s not dead, he snaps to full alertness, jolting forward. He freezes when he sees what’s in front of him.
A little round table, barely high enough to reach his knees. A white tablecloth is draped over it, and upon it is a delicate setting of plates and teacups, with a floral decorated teapot in the center.
And there is, more importantly, a chair across from him, where a little girl sits. She has dark hair and wears a dress with a bow on the front, and Theo can’t place exactly why but something about her seems off. Like her image flickers slightly with every blink of his eyes, or the light of the nearby flower-shaped lamp doesn’t illuminate her like it would any other person.
That’s when Theo realizes: this must be the spirit they’ve been searching all night for.
She smiles at him and says, “You’re awake.”
Theo stares, thinking very hard about what he should say and do here.
He settles on, “Yeah. Hi?”
“Hello.” The girl tucks her knees up under her chin, looking at Theo like he’s very fascinating. “It was getting boring up here by myself.”
Theo nods slowly. “Are you the one who brought me here?”
“Yes. Sorry if it hurt.” The girl fidgets with the bow of her dress. “I’m not so good at controlling it sometimes.”
“I take it you’re responsible for all the other shenanigans that happened in the house, too?”
She giggles. “That’s a funny word.”
Theo relaxes slightly. “Shenanigans? It is pretty silly, isn’t it?” He leans forward, examining the table setting in front of him. “You having a party?”
“A tea party!” She sets her knees back down, hums as she reaches out to pour a cup of tea for Theo. Nothing comes out of the spout but he plays along anyway, taking an imaginary lump of sugar from a little bowl and dropping it in. The girl giggles again. “You’re the first people to get this far,” she says.
“Is that so?” Theo notices that everything up here is spotless, completely free of the dust and wear the rest of the house is victim to.
“Most people get scared and leave really fast. It’s funny.”
“You certainly scared us downstairs.”
She grins. “But did you have fun?”
Well, Theo’s had enough surprises to last a lifetime now, but he thinks about Liam laughing at the dolls, Liam screaming hilariously as they barreled down the slide, and he says, “Yeah, it was pretty fun.”
The girl giggles again, and the chime of it reminds Theo so painfully of Tara that he swallows, takes a second to close his eyes and collect himself, pushing those feelings down and away.
“Are you okay?”
Theo blinks his eyes open, and the girl is staring at him, head tilted slightly in concern.
“This has been nice,” he says carefully, “but I really need to get back to my friends.”
She pouts and pours another cup of tea with a touch more aggression. “Why? You only just got here.”
“It’s late and their families are going to be worried about them. We’ve been here a lot longer than we meant to.”
“What about yours?” she asks.
“What?”
“You only said their families will be worried. Is your family waiting for you?”
Theo hesitates, struck by her astuteness. He says, “I—No. I don’t have a family.”
Her eyes light up. Her entire image lights up, really, a faint glow suffusing around her as her smile widens. “Then you can stay!”
Theo shakes his head. “I can’t.”
Her expression crumples, and Theo blinks at the suddenness of it. Her brow furrows, her mouth folds downwards into a pout, and her shoulders rise up to her ears. What’s more concerning is her hair, slowly rising around her like electric static beckons it. The furniture around them begins to tremble.
“Why not?” she cries. Her voice is freakishly loud and distorted. Theo’s ears ring with the force of it. “Why? Why?”
That last why reverberates around the room. Theo grits his teeth and slaps his hands over his ears. He manages to respond, “Because I have to go!”
“But why? You can stay here. You can stay here with me.”
“I can’t.”
The girl shakes her head and the furniture trembles even harder. Plates and teacups fall and shatter on the floor.
“I can’t,” Theo says, and then, desperately, “I’m sorry!”
The girl goes quiet. Slowly, the furniture stops trembling.
Theo cautiously opens his eyes. The girl is facing him but not really looking at him, her gaze far away. She says, “Oh. I can see them.”
Theo swallows, lowers his hands from his ears and asks, “See who?”
“Your friends. They’re looking for you.” Her voice is calm now, like reading from a book. Then she giggles a little. “I put them on another slide.”
“I don’t think Liam is a fan of those.”
“He must be the one screaming.”
Theo snorts. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“They’re looking for you.” She blinks and clarity comes back to her eyes. She’s properly looking at Theo now. “I thought you said you didn’t have a family?”
That hits Theo right in the gut, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He’s never thought… Could never…
“I…” he starts to say, and doesn’t really know how to finish.
There’s a quick gust of air, or perhaps a slant of light, all of it happening too quickly for Theo to comprehend, and the table in front of him has disappeared. The chair is gone, too, and Theo realizes he’s kneeling on the ground. The room is completely empty. It’s a dusty attic, with one tiny window on one side of the room.
The girl is still here, but she is fading, parts of her image gone see-through like gossamer.
She says, “They miss you.”
Theo sucks in a shuddering breath. How can she know that, how can she know anything about him—
“Don’t be sad, Theo.” She holds out one hand and touches his cheek. Theo doesn’t feel anything when she does, her fingers phasing right through him. Still, it makes him notice the wetness clinging to his eyelashes. He clears his throat, scrubs an arm over his eyes.
“I’m fine,” he says.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No. You must be lonely.”
The girl nods sullenly.
He says, “It’s okay. But I’m sure you have people waiting for you too, right?”
“I’ve been here a long time.” She looks thoughtful. “It’s… hard to remember.”
“Then maybe it’s time you went home, too.”
She touches Theo’s cheek again. More of a poke, really, and she laughs when her finger goes through. “Thanks for playing with me.”
Awkwardly, he tries patting her on the head. His hand passes through, but she seems pleased anyway.
“Your friends are almost here,” she says. “I showed them the stairs.” Her image fades more and more, in time with the morning light slowly rising through the window.
“Wait,” Theo says, just before she disappears. “What’s your name?”
She smiles. “I’m Lily.” She waves a hand. “Bye bye, Theo.”
Then she’s gone, nothing left but dust particles.
Hardly a second passes when the door flies open, hard enough to leave a dent in the wall and make Theo flinch. Liam, Mason, and Corey tumble through.
Theo blinks at them, one hand still hovering where he patted Lily’s head.
“Theo!” Mason says at the same time Corey sighs, “Finally.”
And Liam—Liam launches himself into Theo’s arms.
“Li—ow.” Theo falls back against the floorboards but Liam still doesn’t let go. Theo wants to be annoyed but he isn’t, damn it. Damn it. He hugs Liam back.
“Oh my god we thought you were taken to another dimension and we’d never find you again, we had no idea where to go in this haunted house and all the hallways kept changing and the stairs led to nowhere and we fell into another slide, Theo, another slide, but we kept going—”
“Relax, Liam. Christ.”
Liam leans back, eyes roving over every inch of Theo’s face like he wants to memorize it, like it’s the only face he ever wants to look at.
Theo sighs, not bothering to smother the fondness in it, and says, “You found me.”
Liam smiles and opens his mouth to speak.
His expression wrinkles, nose scrunching up, and he whips his head aside to sneeze loudly.
A chorus of “bless you” follows it.
“Let’s get out of here already,” Theo says. He takes the hand Mason holds out to help him up. Corey pats the dust off his back as they shuffle out the door and head downstairs.
They pass by the rooms on the second floor that Theo and Liam investigated earlier, and Theo notices the one that was once filled with dolls is now empty, without a sign of anything having been there at all. The clowns downstairs are gone as well. That should unsettle him, he thinks, but it doesn’t. The house looks transformed with the morning light spilling through the windows, painting everything with a warmth it previously didn’t have. Left behind is a faint sense of goodbye, of memories long past, captured in dust and beams of light.
The others, though, gape when they see the complete disappearance of everything they saw earlier.
“What happened in there?” Liam asks. There’s a smudge of dust on his cheek that Theo resists brushing away with his thumb.
“It’s… a lot to explain,” he says, dragging a hand through his hair tiredly. “I can tell you over breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Corey lights up. “Can we go somewhere with waffles?”
“You know we always go to the same place,” Mason says. “So of course there’ll be waffles.”
Together, they all walk out the front door towards Theo’s truck parked by the curb, Mason and Corey arguing all the while about what is an acceptable amount of whipped cream to ask for on a waffle.
Theo walks beside Liam and says discreetly, “Liam, I am going to trust you with something I have trusted to no one else.”
Liam’s eyes widen. “Is it your first name? Because I already know it’s Theodore, actually, Stiles told me.”
“No, I— What? You know that?”
“Uh, I mean—” Liam stammers.
Theo sighs. “Whatever. Here.”
He holds out his car keys, the 6 ball keychain swinging from the hoop.
Liam gapes but holds a hand out obediently, looking even more shell-shocked when Theo drops the keys into his palm.
“I am tired,” Theo explains, “and have seen way too much tonight, so please: drive us to the diner without killing us.”
Liam nods a few times more than necessary. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks,” Theo says with an exhausted breath.
Liam reaches out to curl his fingers in the front of Theo’s shirt, not saying anything, just… holding on. Theo lets him, feels the tension drift out of his body.
“Hurry up, dudes,” Mason calls out. “Corey’s gonna start eating the truck from lack of waffles.”
“Shut up,” Corey hisses, smacking Mason on the shoulder while Mason laughs.
“Ready to go?” Liam asks, a smile on his face.
God, does Theo love to see it. “Yeah.”
Liam unlocks the car and Mason and Corey squeeze in the back while Liam climbs into the driver’s seat. Before opening the passenger side door, Theo glances back at the house. There are two stories, four windows on the front. And in a patch of dirt in the yard where he imagines a garden once was, there is a small leafy plant blooming, one he doesn’t remember seeing when they got here earlier.
A lily blossoms from it with white petals.
Theo blinks, feeling a strange emotion catching in his chest. Then he turns and climbs into his truck.
Mason and Corey immediately rope him into their argument about whipped cream, which is still going, apparently. Theo shuts it down quickly when he says he prefers zero whipped cream, actually, and the argument gets derailed by the sheer audacity of Theo’s taste buds.
He’s gonna be exhausted at work later today. But seeing Mason and Corey vehemently discuss the merits of whipped cream while Liam laughs and drives at speeds of approximately two miles per hour, Theo smiles a secret smile just for himself, and thinks it all just might be worth it.