Em gasped; her knees buckled. Ali was here. She was laughing at Em—at Em’s stupidity, at Em’s delusion that the Furies were escapable. If Ali was here, the Furies, all three of them, were probably here.
She sucked in a deep breath and started toward the other side of the fire. She was going to find out what the Furies had in store—for her, for tonight, for Ascension. She might have heard Gabby saying her name, but she wasn’t sure, and didn’t care. She stumbled on a pile of rocks, nearly losing her balance, swaying dangerously close to the fire. She’d lost sight of Ali, but she could still see that sick smile. It seeped through her mind, turning her thoughts into tar.
She was at the other edge of the party now, where the crowd thinned out and the trees were closer together. A few steps away, in the woods, she heard something—a snapping branch, as from a footfall. She moved cautiously toward the noise and paused. Silence.
Em knew she should turn around. She was going to get lost out here if she kept going. But there was movement up ahead, she was sure of it. The flapping of a dress? The sinuous motion of a scarf? It was her. It was Ali.
She just knew it.
She pressed through the trees, branches springing back and stinging her face. A muddy trail, barely discernible, materialized below her feet, the underbrush parting just slightly; she followed it almost blindly, feeling roots and rocks through the soles of her boots. She went deeper and deeper, her path twisting and winding. As she walked she found herself thinking of a camping trip her family had taken with JD’s years ago. Their parents had granted them permission to follow the river until it reached a small waterfall, but they’d strayed away from the water and gotten turned around in the woods. Em had gotten scared, but JD had reassured her. “Just be still for a moment,” he’d said. “We’ll hear the river.”
With a flash of conviction, she realized she would follow this path to its conclusion, wherever that was. She had to. She held still for a second and listened.
How was it possible for a place to be so silent and yet so full of sound? Her breath was ragged in her ears, and the twigs, leaves, and icy slush whispered ominously. There was a low drone in the distance—a generator? The highway? She was completely disoriented now, not sure that she could find her way back to the party if she wanted to.
Then, at her feet, she saw something move. With an involuntary shudder, she realized there was a snake writhing right in front of her, off to the side of the path. It was almost as though—and she knew how crazy it was to even think this—it was leading her. Beckoning to her. So she followed it a few more steps before it disappeared under a bush. And as it did the trail opened slightly. Em found herself in a clearing. Looming and lit by the half-moon was an enormous house—Colonial, boxy, once beautiful, now ruined and dark.
The hairs on the back of Em’s neck prickled.
Suddenly there was no doubt in her mind: The Furies were here. This was their home. She could feel them all around her.
I can do this. I must do this. Drea’s face, and JD’s, and Chase’s—they crashed into her mind like waves, pulling her toward the door.
“Hello?” she called out. No response.
Creak. The front door swung open at her touch, and she stepped cautiously into a large, empty foyer. An acrid smell immediately seeped into her nose. It was the smell of burnt hair, like when Gabby left a tendril wrapped around the curler for too long. Em fought an impulse to gag, and instead brought her sleeve to her nose and breathed through it.
She looked for a light switch by the door reflexively, and then shook her head. Like there would be electricity in a place like this, which looked torn from the pages of her history textbook. She could practically feel the presence of mice in the walls, termites nesting in the wood: a house crumbling to decay.
The moonlight trickling in from outside was enough to illuminate rooms off to either side of the grand staircase. She took a tentative step into the one on her left, digging her cell phone out of her pocket and using it as a makeshift flashlight. This room was empty too, except for a wooden chair and a drop cloth laid below a wall that was covered in a garish shade of red paint. The paint reminded Em of something, but in her distraction, in her fear, she couldn’t put her finger on what.
Beyond that: a kitchen with a swinging oil lamp hanging over a rickety table. Em circled around, taking in the layer of thick dust on every window, the black smudges that crept up every wall. The odor of ash and burnt wood was everywhere—but this wasn’t like the bonfire she’d left at the party. No. This was different—sharper, fouler. She saw the remains of ivory curtains, just shreds, their edges curling and brown. There had definitely been a fire here, a bad one.