Ashley Mullins's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Ashley Mullins found the third note taped under the keg, and she still could not read it. Not the words. The words were plain enough. But the note talked about a sister who left the house in the spring of some year Ashley had never heard, and a punishment nobody ever named. Ashley wanted one thing: to drag whoever wrote these notes into her next party and tear the mask off in front of every rival sister on campus. She could not do that until she knew which secret they wanted dug up. And she didn't know. That was the problem. She was the party girl. She had never cared about the house's old history, and now the history was the only thing that mattered. She found Ms. Barbara Rhodes in the front parlor, straightening a frame that was already straight. Rhodes ran the house and sat on the Greek life board. She was the one person who knew every year this place had ever had. "Someone's leaving notes," Ashley said. She held it out. "This one's about a sister. Spring, some year. A punishment. What punishment?" Rhodes read it in two seconds. She set it face-down on the mantel. "Girls leave," she said. "Happens every year. This is nothing." "It's the third one." "Then it's the third nothing." She smiled with no warmth. "Don't go digging up ghosts, Ashley. Keep the music down and keep it off the board's desk. That's all I need from you." Ashley watched her walk off. Rhodes knew. She had read it and known exactly what it meant, and she had buried it face-down on the mantel. Ashley stood there, stuck. Then a voice behind her, quick and choppy. "She's lying. I mean—I think she's lying. I don't know." It was Hannah Trell. Hannah lived on the hall upstairs. Her sisters called her the sleepwalker, the one who imagined things. She stood in a wrinkled sweatshirt, hugging her cracked camera to her chest like it might run off. "How would you know?" Ashley said. Hannah's hands shook. "Because I saw something. Months ago. The back door. Everyone said I was sleeping." She turned the camera over. "I wasn't sleeping. I took pictures." She pressed a button. On the little cracked screen was a photo. A back hallway. Two figures. Something heavy between them being dragged across the floor. Ashley leaned in. "Who is that?" "I can't tell. The faces are dark." Hannah's voice dropped. "But look at the wall behind them." Ashley looked. On the wall hung a plaque of names. Old sisters. One name was circled in marker. It was the same name from every note. Ashley's stomach went cold. The notes weren't about an old scandal. They were about something that happened here, recently, and Hannah had a picture of it. Suddenly the person leaving notes wasn't her only problem. Now there was a photo, and whoever was in it would want it gone.