Cora sat on her porch swing, a huge blanket around her shoulders, her legs curled up under her. She hadn't wanted to talk about this indoors. "Did you bring it?"

He stood down at the bottom of the hill, his cheeks rosy in the cold, his hair hovering before his eyes in a curtain he constantly pushed back. She knew he had every reason to be reticent, in some ways couldn't believe he'd actually come over.

"Are you going to come down here and talk to me?"

"Can you . . . come up?" But before he could respond she hurried to add, "No, no. You're right. I'll come down." She stepped carefully off the swing, looked toward the door, quietly reassured the house she'd be right back.

Brian watched from the sidewalk, unable to hear her but sure she was saying something. By the time the girl slid down the frosty little hill and met him, still wrapped in her blanket, Brian had begun to feel more worry than anger. He'd walked up the street in answer to her texts (after days of silence from her), determined to give her an attitude as chilly as the weather, but seeing her concerned him.

For a moment, Cora stood looking up at Brian, the gray, flurrying Sunday morning enveloping them like a death shroud. She felt awkward being away from the house, even if it was just a few yards, almost as if she was having some sort of withdrawal. She knew it'd perceive her actions with suspicion and just hoped it wouldn't do anything adverse.

"Thanks for coming," she said at last.

Brian continued to study her, frowning. "I don't really feel good about this."

Cora had expected some kind of pushback. She shifted her weight a bit. "I know."

"Why do you need it?"

"I can't . . . I can't really tell you. I mean, it's not that I can't, more that it wouldn't make a lot of sense to you."

He sighed, and Cora suddenly realized he looked tired, was haphazardly dressed, as if he hadn't been sleeping properly. "Cora--"

"I'm sorry, Brian," she beat him to it. She looked down at the ground. "I know I treated you really terribly by never responding to you." She took a deep breath, turned back to meet his eyes. "I don't know why I didn't. It's like, I feel . . . different inside there, in my house. This is going to sound so weird, but . . . I don't think it wanted me to talk to you. I think it's probably mad right now, even."

Brian furrowed his brow.

"I know it sounds crazy, all right? But you were sort of right, ok? My mom talked to Niecey, next door, and apparently someone used to live in my house, and she had a baby, but then she lost the baby somehow and she went crazy. So it'd make sense, right? That you saw a baby a long time ago? That there's definitely something up with my house?"

"Cora--"

"No, Brian, listen." She glanced at the house, lowered her voice and turned to face the street before saying, "I just think . . . something's coming. Something's going to happen. And I want to be ready, if that's possible. That's why I asked you for it, all right? I'll just feel better if I think I have some control over the situation."

Brian's breathing was growing heavier. He looked up at the entirely unassuming building, then turned back and said firmly to Cora, "I have no idea how this will help. You can't just knock yourself out and hope it goes away. What you actually need is to get out of there. I want you to come back with me. Come over and stay at my place for a while."

"Oh, no." Cora laughed a little unkindly. "That's not going to happen."

"Why? I won't--I'm saying it as a friend, not because of anything else."

She looked at Brian's hurt expression and immediately erased her smirk. "No, no. That's not what I meant. I . . ." The house suddenly shifted from the forefront of her thoughts and she drew nearer to the boy next to her. She tried to pull up the blanket as it dropped a little from one shoulder. Entirely softening, Cora swallowed her nerves. "Why did you say you want us to be more than friends, anyway?"

Her sudden demureness did something to him. Brian reached out, gently grasped the velour blanket and drew it close under the girl's chin. Cora sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers touched her neck.

"You're different," he informed her. "You--you're interesting. I knew when I first saw you, in all your dark stuff, like some black butterfly. And spending time with you . . . I just love being with you, really. You're the first girl I've really felt connected to. You--you make me want to be better."

Cora smiled. "Do I get to read your writing, then?"

"Only if I get to read your poetry."

Forgetting where they were, what was behind her, Cora unwrapped her blanket, which was like a cloak around her shoulders, and brought Brian into it with her, putting her arms around his neck. The nearness of him sent everything spiraling inside. She'd always sort of felt something for him, but never like this, now that they were so close.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. "I'm going to stop dealing, all right? I am."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, his breath warm against her cold cheeks. "I've been online, looking into schools, applied for financial aid. Maybe we can get out of here together, when you graduate."

Cora's heart pumped behind her ribs. "I love that plan so much! And--"

But he kissed her, cutting her off.

Cora lost herself in his warmth and his lips moving against hers and his hands pressing against her back and it was several seconds before she felt something beyond pull her away. Putting a bit of distance between their faces, Cora looked intently at Brian, feeling happier than she could remember feeling, even when it'd been Ben kissing her. But then . . .

"What? What is it?" Brian's smile morphed into a frown.

It'd been the thought of Ben, which had returned her mind to the house. Darting a quick glance at it, the girl felt her stomach drop. She gently pushed away from Brian, reclaimed her blanket for herself. "I . . . I'll come over tonight, all right? I'll stay with you. But I need to talk to my mom, and I need to take care of some stuff."

"You're shaking, Cora. Don't go back in there. Just come with me now."

"No, no. It's fine. I'm just--" she smiled mischievously, "--you gave me kind of a rush, is all."

He couldn't help but return her grin.

"Let me have it, just in case, though. And like I said, I promise I'll be over. I promise."

Brian reached into a pocket and handed Cora a ziploc bag. Then he brushed his fingers against her cheek. "You want me to come in with you?"

She shook her head. "No, no. The house doesn't like you."

His hand fell. "Cora, you shouldn't be in there either--"

"No, trust me. It likes me. I'm totally fine. I'll call you if I need you, ok?"

He didn't feel good about it, said as much, but Cora insisted. She was up on the porch, heading in before he could do anything about it.

The second Cora was back inside, she felt the house's disapproval. The very air was heavy with its reprimand. But she was sure she could calm it with her touch, by moving slowly and allowing her fingers to draw invisible lines on the walls, by flattening her body against the plaster. It knew she was bluffing, though--it must have, because the heaviness didn't lift, and in fact, as she was reconsidering Brian's suggestion, to get out and go with him now instead of later, a noise came from the basement. It took only a moment for Cora to register it as Ben's phone, again, ringing after all these days, his unique ringtone discordant against the quiet stillness.

She froze where she stood, arms outstretched, fingertips just barely grazing the walls on either side of the hall. The floor warmed beneath her feet, the heat evident even through her slippers, and Cora could see, past the kitchen, the door of the basement slowly creak open.

Her breath was the only sound she could make out over the continuous chaotic ring of Ben's phone. The girl was sure it would be a bad idea to go down into the basement, knew she would regret it, but knew, too, that she had to do what it wanted; she had to comply. What it'd done to her, what it continued to do to her--she'd thought she had some slight upper hand--knew that the house appreciated her attention. But her dreams and that encounter in the closet, which she'd tried to ignore, tried to pretend hadn't really happened . . . they'd told her otherwise, hadn't they? She had no control whatsoever over this house. It lived in her perhaps more than she lived in it. It didn't appreciate her attention; it expected it.

Through the hall, down the basement stairs, everything as if in slow motion, as in an old movie of corridors that grew only longer and stairs that descended into darkness. And while there was nothing out of place in that basement, nothing at all concerning in its gray-lit space beyond the incessant ring, Cora knew the house had brought her here for a reason. It was going to punish her for what she'd done, for leaving, for planning to leave, for being near Brian.

Compelled as she was, the girl followed the sound into the back of the basement, where the carpet and wanting furnishings gave way to bare concrete floor, where the furnace rumbled in its attempts to heat a house already heated by its own anger, back, back, back.

And when she reached the far wall, where shadows were thick and cobwebs draped from the beams above, the noise stopped.

The sudden silence was almost more upsetting than the continuous ringing. Unsure what she was supposed to do next, Cora lifted shaking hands and placed them against the rock wall. She felt the cool smoothness against her palms, but there was nothing else worth noting . . . why here? What was its intention? Was the phone on the ground? But no, her eyes were adjusting to the shadow, and there was no trace of anything down there, nothing out of the ordinary. A chill crossed Cora's shoulders, moved down her spine. There was something, she thought, there--to the right, about level with her shoulders. She moved a bit over, closer to the small protrusions, noticed their strange arrangement: eight or nine of them, in two sort of arcs, two lone protuberances beneath the others, poking each about an inch out of the rock like . . . like . . .

Cora's fingers brushed against them, found them soft underneath, harder on top--drew nearer and saw, on the nails, the black polish she'd always known Ben to wear.