Secret Sorority Party

"Alpha Kappa Pi! Ride or Die!"

"Shut up, Jen."

"Just getting into the spirit. What's the problem." Jen's once athletic legs stumbled over a log in the drive. "Jeez. No wonder we had to park on the road."

"It's certainly fallen into disrepair," I said, gazing up at the once majestic sorority house, my sisters' and my home for a wild four years."

"Beth, are you sure Margie said the party was at the house?"

I guided Jen around another obstacle. "Yup."

"But no one's lived here since..."

"Since..."

We both stopped dead as the old Alpha Kappa Pi house loomed over us like a rising beast from our pasts, one we had thought we packed away with our signet rings and formal gowns. A waxing gibbous moon, pregnant and glowing, rose behind the tower with its boarded-up windows.

Jen's sneakers planted firmly on the carpet of dead leaves, refusing to take another step. "Beth, do you think Margie is setting us up?"

I thought for a moment. It was possible. Margie was always the prankster. I shuddered as I recalled the mayonnaise in my hair stunt she pulled the day of finals, not to mention her bordering-on sadistic Hell-Week pranks, but perhaps I shouldn't go there.

"Danny," Jen whispered.

I squeezed her arm a bit too hard. "What did you say?"

"I just have a feeling... Hey! There's a light." Suddenly, Jen the athlete was back as if twenty years hadn't passed since her track team days, and she was sprinting toward the house. Indeed, a light illuminated what remained of the wavy leaded glass panes from within.

I followed her reluctantly, trembling that she had mentioned the name we sisters swore on that fateful night never to utter again, as if refusing to speak the truth would somehow change it, rewrite history, bury it beneath a mound of dirt.

The familiar front door made from heavy carved wood, was partially ajar.

"Welcome, my sisters. Come inside." Margie's face, always prettier than the rest of us, appeared deeply shadowed in the amber cast of the candelabra she held. Time had removed our freshness, but Margie seemed to have aged more than the rest of us. And she was so obsessed with her appearance, and now she appeared bloated and tense; even her bouncy blond locks had lost their luster with what looked like too many bad dye jobs.

"What's with the candles?" Jen panted. "Never mind. Of course, no electric." She crashed into the old green velvet sofa, freeing a cloud of ancient dust.

"Don't get too comfortable. The party's downstairs," said Margie.

"In the basement?"

Margie swept the candlelight toward me. "That's where it happened. So, that's where we must return."

"To the scene of the crime?" The words flew from my mouth before I could draw them back.

Margie's blue eyes glowered. "If you want to put it that way, then yes. The scene of the crime, where Danny breathed her last breath."

Jen sat up straight and repressed a sneeze. "See, I knew it had something to do with—'

"Danny." Margie turned in a wide arc. For the first time, I noticed she wore an Alpha robe, those weird white garments passed down through the ages that smelled of mothballs.

"I thought we weren't supposed to mention her name," I said, hating how meek I sounded. Despite my corporate job and assertiveness training sessions, I still cowered in the presence of Margie's dominant personality. The only person who ever stood up to her was Danny, I thought grimly, and look what happened to her.