Cordelia stared at the paper in her hand. '74%: C' was written in red at the top. As she looked at the grade, its image began to waver. Cordelia blinked and frowned, then realized her hand was shaking. She sat on the low stone wall surrounding one of Wainwright's fountains; it was a beautiful day, but she felt a sudden chill, as though a cloud had passed over the sun. She jammed the assignment into her backpack and sighed as she stood up.

"Hey, Cordelia."

She turned to see Kelli Collins approaching and waving. The blond cheerleader wore khaki shorts and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the waist tied off. "Oh, hi, Kelli."

"Did you get your math assignment back?" Kelli came to a stop and shrugged her shoulder to resettle her backpack. "I got a C."

"Me too." Cordelia slipped the straps of her own backpack over her arms. "I guess we're not in high school anymore."

"Eh, it's no biggie." Kelli scrunched her absolutely adorable nose. "Not everybody's a straight-A student. There was this old comedian, he was like a hippie or something, that my dad used to listen to, and he had this bit about how there's a guy who graduated at the bottom of his class from the worst medical school in America and you know what they call him? Doctor."

"That's a perspective." Cordelia cocked her head. "What does your dad do?"

"Oh, he's a doctor. I think that's one reason he thought that joke was so funny." The girls began walking toward the dining hall.

"What about your mom?" Cordelia half-turned toward Kelli without breaking stride.

"Oh, she taught English at the high school."

"You had your mom for a teacher? That must have been tres awful."

"No, thank god. She taught English III, and when I was a junior she switched grade levels for a year so I wouldn't be in her class." Kelli grinned. "What about your folks?"

Cordelia blinked. (You idiot, you asked about her parents, of course, she's going to ask about yours! No wonder you got a C on that assignment.) "Uh, you know, my dad, uh, he's, like, a financial advisor (Who stole from his clients and cheated on his taxes… and my mother) and my mom stayed at home (and drank like a fish before she bashed in his skull with a whiskey bottle)." The quasi-lies burned her throat.

"So, how did you end up at Wainwright?"

Cordelia almost sighed with relief. "My coach, my high school coach, sent my tape out and Wainwright was the most interested."

"Is your coach the Amazon lady who was talking to you after the game They probably let you in because they were scared she'd beat them senseless if they didn't." Kelli giggled.

"Yeah (Ha! You know nothing of the weapons locker in her basement)." Cordelia nodded. "What about you?"

"My uncle went here, always talked it up, I thought I'd like to get out of Michigan, go someplace where the winters are warm." Kelli shrugged. "I guess I"m sorta legacy-adjacent."

"Better than being loser-adjacent (and I would know)."

"For sure. Hey, I'm going to over to the Old House tonight. You wanna come?"

"Sure," Cordelia replied. The Old House sat in the far northwest corner of the Wainwright campus. It was part of a sprawling estate that had originally been built as the mansion of a silent film star. He died five years after Wainwright was founded and left his property to the school. The bequest substantially increased the school's acreage. For a time, there had been attempts to integrate the old mansion into school life, but the correct purpose could never quite be found. It was used sporadically for fundraising get-togethers and community interface because of its enormous and ornate early-century ballroom. There was also something of a tradition of students sneaking in after dark.

"Okay," Kelli said, an enthusiastic nod punctuating her speech. "On the lawn next to Sartor at eight-ish. See you then."

The Old House was four stories of Art Nouveau and Queen Anne running into each other at full speed. Seven students stood at the base of the wide staircase leading up to the porch. Since the Old House stood at the top of a slight rise and had turrets on either end, the effect was of craning one's neck to take in a giant that loomed over and threatened to fall on the observer. Cordelia felt slightly woozy as she looked up; the clouds drifting by in the golden hour twilight did not help.

"Weird, isn't it?" Kelli wore a maroon sweatshirt with the word Wolves silk-screened beneath a wolf's head in maroon and white with bright blue highlights. Cordelia bit her tongue; she thought it was about the most hideous color scheme she'd ever seen.

"Yeah," she said. "I keep waiting for Gomez and Morticia to come out on the porch and invite us in."

"Okay, everybody, listen up." The speaker was a reed-thin girl with wiry, dark hair. "Stay on the ground floor, that way if Pub Safe comes by, we can all scoot out the back door. If you get caught upstairs, you're on your own."

"Really?" Cordelia turned to Kelli. "I mean, we're all standing out here in the open. We're practically carrying signs saying 'About to sneak into the Old House'. It's not exactly covert opps."

"It's kind of a bargain." The girl in front of them turned around; she was slightly pear-shaped with long, straight blond hair. She was accompanied by a boy a head taller with glasses that screamed 'I have worn corrective lenses since second grade'. "Admin knows we sneak in, but it makes for a cool tradition and lets us blow off steam, so they kinda turn a blind eye as long as nothing gnarly happens."

"Define 'gnarly'," Cordelia said. She wore a zip-up hoodie over black yoga pants.

"Y'know, smoking weed, orgies, stuff like that."

"Has that ever happened?" Kelli scrunched her nose.

"Orgies, who can say, but a couple years ago a couple got caught screwing."

"I think they got put on academic probation," Glasses Guy opined.

Cordelia looked at the house again and, again, vertigo rippled through her system. "How long are we supposed to stay in here?"

Blond Girl shrugged. "Eh, twenty, thirty minutes, tops. You kinda walk around, look at the paintings, go ooooooh at the stuff on display…" She made a face. "Not really a lot in there."

"What kind of stuff?" Kelli asked.

"Ah, I think there's some memorabilia by the guy who built the house… I heard from somebody that there's a great collection of vintage movie posters." She stuck out a hand. "I'm Annette, by the way. This is Wendell." She shook hands with Cordelia and Kelli; Glasses Guy nodded.

"Here we go." Wire-haired Girl waved her hand and disappeared around the side of the house.

"Where's she going?" Cordelia asked.

"Well, it's not really sneaking in if you go through the front door." Annette briefly raised her hands, palms out, then went around the corner.

"Weirdly, that makes perfect sense," Cordelia said as she and Kelli followed. They skirted around a shoulder-high hedge until they were close to the rear corner of the house. There was a small gap in the barrier. Wire-haired Girl held up a hand.

"This is where they used to deliver the coal. When we open these doors, there'll be some stairs. You go down those and you'll be in the coal cellar, through there and you'll be in the main cellar. You'll see a staircase, that goes up to the ground floor." She beckoned to a stocky boy with long hair parted dead in the middle, an unfortunate choice for a face as wide as his. He stooped beside Wire-haired Girl and Cordelia heard a short screech, then a flapping thump. "Okay," WHG (as Cordelia had begun to think of her) said. "Let's go." Wendell and Annette pushed ahead and trooped down the wide stone steps, followed by a boy wearing a Howard the Duck T-shirt. Cordelia and Kelli exchanged glances.

"Hey, Barbie, Stacey, wanna get a move on?" WHG snapped her fingers. "Chop chop."

Cordelia's lip curled. "Rude, much? And maybe a little racist."

"Come on." The blond cheerleader grabbed Cordelia's hand. "Let's go."

At the bottom of the steps, Cordelia turned to Kelli. "Do you smell that?"

"What?" Kelli sniffed, her perfect nose forming the cutest wrinkles. "No, it's just kind of old house basement smell. Not even really that bad. Come on." She pulled away and followed the others headed toward a smaller door in the opposite wall. Cordelia followed, but her skin prickled. Her nose was not assaulted by the mildewy odor of an old cellar; what she smelled was earthier, thicker, more pungent. The other students had reached the foot of the stairs and started up; Kelli waited for her. The floor was cool, dry concrete; the walls appeared to be stone, and not decorative stone either. A chill radiated from the walls. As Cordelia looked up toward the first floor, a wormy sensation of dread shuddered up her spine. She swallowed hard and reached for the railing. The iron quivered as she touched it and she jerked back her hand.

"What's wrong?" Kelli asked.

"I- I don't know," Cordelia said, frowning. "I think it shocked me."

"Yeah, maybe." Kelli tugged on the brunette's arm. "Come one, everybody else is already upstairs."

"Okay, okay." Cordelia laid her hand on the metal again; this time there was only the faintest tremor. The girls went up the stairs and came out next to a much grander version. A great parquet-floored entryway spread out before them and extended away to their left and right. Multiple doors opened off the grand hall. Paintings in gilt frames hung on the walls and there was no ceiling immediately above them; three stories of open space ended in a ceiling that glimmered faintly gold in the thirty feet above them.

"Huh," Kelli said. "This isn't what I expected."

"It still gets used from time to time, so the school maintains it." Wire-Haired Girl's voice caused both of them to jump. Cordelia was first to get her breathing under control.

"The school keeps this up?"

WHG shook her head. "The money comes from the guy's will who built the house and left it to the school. Wainwright just has to supply the labor, you know, custodial, electrical, like that."

Kelli turned in a slow circle, looking up at the railing that ran around the second-floor landing. "Wow. This place is awesome."

"The school just cleans this place and keeps it up?" Cordelia looked skeptical. "That seems suspish."

WHG shrugged. "The school gets to use it for functions, you know, when admin really wants things to look fancy and high-class. Press appearances, awards ceremonies, that kinda stuff."

"Hey," Kelli said, "I'm going upstairs. Wanna come with?"

"Well," Cordelia replied, "the alternative is standing around looking at a lobby, so… sure."

"Hey, hey," WHG said, waving a hand. "You're supposed to stay on the first floor."

"Wait." Cordelia held up a hand. "We're sneaking into a building, but then we have to stay inside the lines?"

"It's kinda the deal we make." WHG's lips puckered. "The school ignores this as long as we don't mess anything up."

"So, are you saying we can't go upstairs?" Kelli asked.

"Like, if I do this-" Cordelia slowly and deliberately went up two steps "-am I an outlaw?"

"I just want to see what's up there," Kelli said. "Just look around. Come on, we're not gonna commit any vandalism. We're cheerleaders."

"Oh, well, if you're members of that great sorority-"

"And fraternity," Cordelia said. "There are guys on the team. That's sexist to go along with racist from before."

WHG rolled her eyes. "Fine, act like kindergartners. We're outta here in twenty minutes."

"Ooooooooh," Cordelia observed drily. "Nothing screams student rebellion like a strict timetable."

"If Pub Safe comes by here and you're on the second floor, you're on your own. I don't know you."

"Sure. Don't worry, you wouldn't be my one phone call." Cordelia shook her head. Kelli was already halfway up the steps, so the brunette hurried to catch up. She reached the landing and paused, standing beside her blond teammate.

"Wow," Kelli said. "Nice."

"Yeah," Cordelia said, "if you like haunted mansion chic."

"Huh?"

"Never mind." Cordelia looked to her right. The landing stretched away, the ornate dark wood railing and the deep crimson wall narrowing in the distance, and it was pretty distant. Up here there was a better sense of just how large the house was, although something about the way the hallway receded caused her scalp to tighten.

"I'm going this way." Kelli pointed to her left. "I think those are the posters I heard about. You coming?"

"I'll go this way." Cordelia pointed in the opposite direction. "Meet you across the way."

"Cool," Kelli said and headed toward a framed poster of what looked to be, maybe, a desert sheikh and a woman in a belly-dancing outfit. The woman appeared very blond and pale in the poster. Cordelia stood in front of another framed example of cinematic promotion, this one depicting a man with dark, slightly wolfish good looks who wore a tuxedo and held a revolver while a young woman in a cloche hat cowered behind him. Cordelia frowned and glanced back; it appeared that the same actor was in both posters. The women were different. She looked down at the credits. The title was Dark Secrets. The name above the title was Ramon Valenzuela. She moved past a heavy door of dark wood and came across a second one-sheet. In this one, Valenzuela (it was easy to see it was the same guy) was in an old pilot's outfit, complete with flowing white scarf and goggles, while another young woman in a bobbed haircut and a long black coat open over a short, spangled dress looked at him with great yearning in her eyes. This masterpiece's title was Danger in the Skies.

"Oooookay," Cordelia said. "Looks like we have a theme here." She shook her head and turned to look down the hallway. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes grew wide.

Light oozed from under a door two-thirds of the way down the corridor. Worse, it wasn't the right color. She wasn't sure what the right color would be, but it wouldn't be that. She fought to control her breathing; hyperventilating wouldn't be any help. She thought about turning and calling to Kelli, but her feet had already started down the hall, sliding along the carpet runner instead of taking full steps. As she drew closer, she could see that the light was unhealthy, sickly and greenish, seeping into the hallway like a bloodstain.

Cordelia shook her head. "Don't open the door. Don't open the door," she moaned, even as her hand reached out toward the crystal knob. The thick cherry panel swung inward to reveal a bedroom, the king-size bed covered with a satin spread. The room itself was murky; what she saw was visible by the light that seeped around the frame of a door set in the right-hand wall. More than anything in the world, Cordelia wanted to turn and run, to leave whatever was in that room unseen, but… run to where? Shaking, sweating, she turned the knob.

It was a bathroom, all white and gold with tiled floor and walls. An antique claw-foot tub stood in the middle of the floor. A hand draped over the rim, a slim, elegant hand with enameled red nails. Cordelia shook her head as her feet moved across the tiled floor as if of their own accord. She reached the tub and looked down. The dead woman was naked and beautiful, even under the water, lying on her back, eyes closed. She could have been asleep. Her long dark hair floated ever so slightly under the crystal-clear water. She opened her eyes, only there was no iris or pupil, just a dead, jet-black orb in each socket. For a heartbeat, those dark eyes stared at something only she could see, then her mouth opened and one large, viscous air bubble escaped. It reached the surface of the water and popped. The smell that overwhelmed Cordelia when it burst was rotten and foul, like suppurating infection and decomposing flesh. She thrust a fist against her mouth and took a step back.

And then the woman began to sit up…

Cordelia screamed, spun, and ran out of the bathroom. Her hip scraped the doorjamb and threw her off-balance so that, in trying to correct, she tripped over the end of the bed and sprawled headlong, sliding off and rolling, coming to a crouch facing the door. She pushed off like Donovan Bailey at the Olympics; she could feel the dead woman coming for her. She sprinted through the door and realized that she was only a step-and-a-half from the railing. She extended her hands as she jammed her foot down; there was a twinge in her wrist as her hands hit the polished wood hard, then she pitched forward. The railing caught her just at the bottom of her ribs and for one heart-stopping second she was suspended in mid-air as the entryway floor whirled below her, then she pushed hard and stumbled back. The memory of what she had witnessed caused her to spin around…

To see a perfectly normal open door and beyond that a bedroom with a king-sized bed and a dresser. The bedspread was slightly askew. Cordelia's eyes narrowed; it took a minute for the penny to drop. When it did, her eyes opened wide. The room was not the dark void it had been before; dim, yes, but lacking the inky corners and viscous shadows of the room she had entered.

"Are you okay?"

Cordelia's head snapped to the left so quickly that Kelli took an involuntary step backwards. "What?"

"Well, you went in there, I guess, and then you screamed and came running out here like your head was on fire."

"I saw-" Cordelia closed her mouth tightly and took a breath. "I saw something… in there."

"In that bedroom?" Kelli crossed the hall and reached inside the door. There was a click and light flooded the bedroom, revealing nothing more outre than questionable choices in fabric. Kelli looked around, went to the bathroom and opened the door, then stepped back outside. "There's nothing in there."

"What the hell?" WHG appeared at the top of the stairs. "Are you insane?"

Cordelia put her hands on her hips, her breathing ragged. "I just- I just saw something out of the corner of my eye. It caught me by surprise."

"What?" WHG took a couple of steps forward. "You saw something?"

"There's nothing in there now." Kelli shrugged. "Could have been a mouse."

"Jeezus." WHG rolled her eyes. "A mouse. And you screamed and almost did a header over the railing because you, maybe, saw a mouse out of the coner of your eye." She waved a disgusted hand. "You scared the shit out of everyone."

"Sorry," Cordelia said. (You want scared, how's this for scared: I just saw my dead mother lying in the bathtub).