Page 4 of Magpie
As high school came and went, and the three of us started college in the fall, the numbness planted deep roots inside of me. I smiled and laughed alongside my friends, though I was too cold to feel the joy of it. Jessica was an expert at reading my moods, but I became even better at faking happiness. If I didn’t acknowledge the chilling darkness that was claiming more and more of my mind, then I wouldn’t have to fight it.
The fake smile I painted across my face became like a second skin, but eventually the numbness claimed that too. It was harder and harder to muster the energy to pretend to be excited alongside Tim and Jessica. They are content to continue to live in our small town, in our small lives. The truth of the matter is that I can’t remember the last time I felt content. I can’t remember the last time Ifelt. I began to find it impossible to stomach the idea of continuing this life. I thought that maybe if I got out, it would unplug this well inside of me and the darkness would drain out.
I applied to multiple colleges out of state, even one in Ireland, sending the application letters in late one night and feeling like a traitor for it. I never heard back, not even a rejection letter. Itried to hide my disappointment, tried to push down the longing to be out of this town, out of this dull life, out of myself entirely. But the feeling refused to die, festering deep in the pit I shoved it in, rotting me from the inside out. I knew they sensed it. I even caught them on more than one occasion whispering behind my back, when they thought I was well out of earshot.
“—something’s not right, Tim.” Jessica’s voice filters out of our dorm, the door left slightly open. I slow, looking up from the game I’m playing on my phone and listening.
“She won’t talk to me about it,” Tim says, his voice pained, and guilt grows inside of me at the sound. “I’ve tried to get her to talk to a counselor, or an adviser. Fuck, I even tried to get her to just talk to her doctor. But she insists she’s fine.”
“Then she gives you that fake smile…” Jessica muses, and my hands hang limply at my sides as the gnawing cold steals more of me.
It’s easier to be numb than to face my friends, and the fear and worry I know will be etched on their faces. So I turn from them, and I walk away.
I made an effort after overhearing that conversation. At least, I tried to. I told myself if I pretended hard enough to be the Maggie that Jessica befriended and Tim fell in love with, then maybe I would truly become her again. So, when they sat before me, showing me a viral video about a haunted house somewhere close to us, I smiled and demanded we all go as a group. They were giddy, almost jumping out of their seats as they explained the famed nature of the House, and how lucky we were to have it show up so near us.
I closed my eyes and decided to try, try to be happy for them.
I didn’t really have any desire to spend an evening in the cold just to have bad actors in costumes jump out and try to scare me. Yet I was the one to follow the clues in the video, to decipher the exact location of the House. It was a few towns over, but we allquickly agreed to attend on Halloween night. The two of them became obsessed with the House, sharing endless videos and posts about it. If I’m being honest with myself, I think they were just excited that I was responding to them again.
I felt like a monster. I was able to sit alongside my best friend and my boyfriend and start our lives together like we always dreamed. I should have been happy, thrilled to be living this life. But I could only think of Ireland, or New York, or any town that was far away from this one. As Tim moved inside me, his was not the face I saw, my traitorous mind wondering what another’s touch would feel like. Would it chase away the cold that had settled so deeply inside me I was no longer able to find my way out?
The first time Tim touched me, his fingers were so soft and tentative, yet they ignited a fire in me, a fire I wanted to burn in forever. Then his embrace began to feel too tight, his hands trying to hold me like I was water slipping through his fingers. The heat couldn’t reach me, couldn’t ignite me like it used to. The pain in his eyes was too hard for me to acknowledge, and his worried lectures only made me angry, so I pulled back from him. And, eventually, he began to pull away, too.
I knew he could feel it, each time I rolled away from him or pulled back from his touch too quickly, the same touch I used to melt into. I could see it in his eyes each time I ended our kiss too quickly, dipping my head to keep myself from seeing the hurt in his eyes. He does not deserve my disdain. Neither of them do. But I still can’t help but let that growing darkness fester within as I shiver in line for a haunted house I care nothing about.
It was one thing to plaster a fake smile across my face as we drove the miles out of town to an abandoned farm, the house the only structure untouched by time. It is a lot harder to maintain that plastic happiness as I stand shivering in the cold and the damp, waiting to get this night over with. I don’teven like horror films, and the idea of Halloween has always seemed a bit childish to me. But I’m trying, so I force myself to laugh alongside Jessica, attempt not to pull away from Tim too quickly.
We arrived early, but the line for the House was already wrapping around the building. I was surprised to find it nestled in an abandoned Victorian-era farmhouse instead of set up in a big warehouse like the haunted houses in bigger cities. It’s nothing like I imagined it would be. It’s so…normal.
A tall man in skeletal makeup was the first actor we encountered, a doorman of sorts, although there were no tickets to be had. I wondered how the House survives when they don’t charge for admission. The skeletal man looked down at us with his glowing red eyes, and it took everything in me to not take a staggering step back. The makeup team must be incredible; he looked terrifying, and I felt my heart beginning to speed up. I was expecting a ghoulish painted-on face, or a plastic mask, but this man looked every bit like a dying soul.
His eyes caught mine, sending a stirring feeling snaking around my heart as he flashed me a crooked grin. He unclipped a velvet rope, allowing us to enter the queue for the House. As I passed by him, our fingers grazed for the barest of moments—and Ifelt. For the first time in years, something broke through the numbness in me, and made me feel again.
Tim and Jessica were already several paces in front of me, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the man staring down at me with piercing red eyes. He looked as if he was going to reach out to me, and all at once the cold rose up, terrified to be broken again, and I bolted from him.
Catching up with Tim and Jessica, I heard the last of the conversation they were having about the House.
“—you never know where it will be, or what kind of structure it will be in, so each year it’s a different scare,” Tim said. Hegripped my hand, tugging on it, and I realized I was staring at the strange man. Breaking my gaze, I let Tim pull me after him as he continued, “You can go every year of your life and live a different adventure inside this place.”
Now, the House looms before us, only a few patrons in line ahead. Our turn to enter will be soon. I can still feel the gaze of the skeletal man searing a hole in the back of my head, and can’t help but turn—just in time to see him clip a black velvet rope behind us, turning away another group that protests loudly before sullenly walking back toward their car.
“I guess we made it just in time,” I comment to Tim and Jessica, but they are too busy chattering away about what they think the theme of this year’s House is going to be. I feel the infection, the festering darkness, beginning to wake up as we wait, growing stronger as my mood sours. I’m damp from the misting rain and freezing from the autumn wind, wanting nothing more than to be back in my room, wistfully scrolling travel websites. Exactly what part of freezing my ass off in the middle of a field is supposed to be fun?
The line moves, and we step closer to the House, the evening dimming around us. Eventually we are the only ones left waiting, and I notice just how quiet the night truly is without the voices from the other groups around us. After the last group makes their way inside, I turn and notice the skeletal man is moving with us, keeping the black velvet rope just behind me the entire time. Almost like we can’t escape. I scoff at that idea, turning back to wait.
The rain turns from a gentle, if annoying mist to large drops, and I can’t take it anymore. I spin on the man, who looks as though he hasn’t taken his eyes off me the entire time I’ve been here.
“Excuse me, but are we going to go inside anytime soon?” I snap, gesturing to the House before planting my hands on myhips. Jessica and Tim gasp behind me, and I roll my eyes. I wasn’t being that harsh. I turn to tell them to calm down, and I see what they really gasped at.
The front door stands open.
Turning back to the skeletal man, I see he is grinning broadly, his long arm gesturing for us to go inside.
I turn away from the man and his intense eyes, unable to resist the call of the House any longer.It’s just a house.I tell myself that I’m just playing into their hands by letting myself feel the first real bit of fear. Then Jessica squeals, breaking the spell the House has over me, as she takes the porch steps two at a time, not hesitating a moment before she enters. The shadows of the House swallows her instantly, but I can hear her nervous laughter calling out from deep inside. Tim is following close behind. He turns and notices me still standing on the lawn, just looking up at the windows.
“Come on, Maggie,” he says, before rushing inside.
“The House is waiting,” the skeletal man says behind me, his voice deep.
