The Planter House (Party Girls, vs3)

The party was going nowhere fast. It was the first party of the year, the first party of high school. It was supposed to be monumental, but the party was tame with the parents on stand by. Tessa and Madison clung on to the hope that it was the adult presence that kept the party so blasé, because if all high school parties were this lame they had been seriously misled by the television shows they had idolized in junior high.1

Tessa Bryar and Madison Tanner had talked all summer about how high school was going to be the best four years of their lives. And the best way to ensure that was to be popular, popular kids never seemed to have any problems on TV or in their favorite books. 2

They had spent the entire summer worshiping the stories from the glamorous books and idolizing the risqué tales of their favorite fictional people. Between slathering themselves in baby oil to obtain their tans and spritzing their dark hair with Sun-In they had read aloud their favorite inscriptions from the books and magazines they had spent their minimal money on.3

They had promised themselves that they would move up in the social hierarchy of school by any means possible, it only made sense that they would jump when Amanda Honey candidly mentioned the first party of the year. 4

They had broken open their reserve bank in order to buy dresses from the sales rack at Bloomingdales. Of course they were unpleasantly surprised when they noted that no other girl in the house was wearing a dress or fancy top; it was all jeans and stretching the last use of the summer tank tops. It had made them noticeable, but they didn’t receive the attention that they had wanted, only snide snickers behind their back. The two mortified girls felt so inexperienced.5

They had couched the entire party and left ten minutes after the first person did. They had made a bad first impression but they didn’t want to make it worse by being the only remaining freshman to still hold a curfew.6

Which was technically true, but with the night bus only running once an hour it simply wasn’t fair to expect them to leave at 9:15 in order to be home by ten. It was a big moment in their short high school life’s; lying to their parents and getting away with it. 7

The two walked in the cold night, the remaining warmth had left with the night before school and it wouldn’t be long until the town woke up to frost on the grass. 8

“Maddie, let’s cut through the woods. We’re gonna miss the bus if we don’t,” it was getting dangerously close to 10:25. Not only was it the bus they needed to get home in time for curfew, it was the last bus out of that part of town.9

Tessa grabbed Maddie’s hand and tried to steer her towards the woods that were behind Amanda Honey’s house. The town was small and it was almost possible to draw a line that separated residential Haverton from business Haverton, these woods helped create that line.10

“Tessie,” she stressed the childish nickname, they had been over this before. Being part of the upper crust of the social scene meant they had to fit in not only by looks but by name as well. Names were important, “it’s Madison and you know those woods creep me out. Besides, they’re filled with bugs,” Tessa smirked as her friend pulled out her ever-present bottle of hand sanitizer. For as long as Tessa could remember, Madison was terrified of contracting a fatal disease from some germ passing by. 11

Madison was scared of a lot of things. Needles, dogs, bugs, the dark, small spaces, heights, choking on food, thunder storms, earthquakes and the monsters under her bed and in her closet. The list went on really, but Tessa had more important things than to remember her friends every growing list of fears. Getting a boy’s attention at school being one of them, specifically one in a higher grade. Dating your own grade was so two years ago.12

“Planter’s Woods is not haunted,” Tessa began walking towards the small strip of woods that blocked the bus stop from the two girls.13

“Young girls were burned at the stake here during the witch trials, how could it not be haunted?” Madison retorted. It was a common myth among Planter Middle and the fear it had produced was obviously following some of the incoming freshman to Haverton High.14

Planter was an old family that had left decades ago after they had supposedly put their own young daughter on trial and burned her in the woods behind her house. Others said that her father had killed her when he caught her kissing one of the boys from town, a boy who was below her in class. In the town’s short history book Lea died from a sudden illness. 15

Everyone believed a different story, “It’s so Romeo and Juliet,” Tessa said, pining away at the tragic tale she believed in.16

“Being burned at the stake fits historically, Tessa. And Haverton was an influential town back then, Lea would have to go a long ways away to find someone below her class,” Madison had countered, “Could you even imagine being burned to death? Just think of that burn from the straightening ironing you got two days ago… now multiply that.”17

After the family moved, the land was sold to the city and the middle school was built on a portion of it when the town began expanding. There was no grave marker for Lea Planter and the public was led to believe by the town gossips that the young and beautiful Lea was buried in the family’s small tree covered land. 18

Despite the wisdom that was supposed to come with their freshman ID card Madison fully believed that the ghost of Lea Planter haunted the land and in spite of the fact that the trek through the woods would cut their travel time in half Madison was still hesitant of going through them.19

“Come on Madison, it’s five minutes straight through, if we walk around it we’ll miss the last bus,” she turned towards her friend and pushed her dark hair behind her ears and held firmly to her shoulders, “We’ll both get grounded if we miss curfew. If we’re grounded till college we will never become popular, if we go through these woods the worst that will happen is we see a few spiders or a raccoon—“20

“Or the ghost of Lea Planter,” Madison mumbled, crossing her arms in front of her chest stubbornly. While both Madison and Tessa wanted to be popular, Tessa had always been the leader and the one to take the initiative. Tessa had always been able to convince Madison of her plans, no matter how fanatical or inane. 21

“Fine, Maddie, walk around the woods, I’m going through them and I’m not going to wait for you when the bus comes. If you have to call your dad for a ride home I don’t want to hear it Monday at school when you need to borrow my cell phone because yours got taken away. I can become popular without you, more room for you under the Loser’s Tree,” Tessa spit out referencing the tree the two had seen a group of nerdy kids eating lunch under.22

Tessa began walking into the woods, carefully placing her feet. If she was going to go through these woods alone she couldn’t sprain her ankle, not only would it hurt but it would kill her to have the tables turn on her and have her be the one calling Mr. Tanner for a ride home.23

Madison and Tessa had lived next door to each other their entire lives and when Tessa’s father had left Mr. Tanner had naturally taken his place, it had helped both Tessa and her brother Trent before he left for college, but also Ms. Bryar since she worked two jobs. By day she a nurse at the elementary school in town, working three days a week, by night she worked at the small, local hospital.24

Madison stood at the edge of the woods, pouting, she looked towards the sidewalk and then back to Tessa, “Wait up!” she yelled after her before tripping over a root and face planting in a pile of leaves.25

Madison laughed and went back to help her friend up, “Come on, it’s only 10:05. The block isn’t that long. I’m sure we can make it. We’ll just walk fast,” she said, smiling and looking at her bright cell phone screen. That had been another investment they had made with the cash they earned at Fred’s Ice Creamery, each girl had bought a new top of the line cell phone in order to help them obtain their spot in the top arena of their high school’s student population.26

The girls walked silently through the woods with their arms linked together, it was hard going since there was little light to go by. They each stopped dead in their tracks though when they came across a deep ravine. The two had forgotten that a creek had once ran through the town, but with the growing population most of it was under the streets now.27

“Remember that song we sang in nursery school? ‘Going on a lion hunt, gonna catch a big one,’” Madison said quietly.28

“’I’m not afraid, look what’s up ahead’?” Tessa continued.29

“Darling, we can go through the trees but Mrs. Lutch taught me well… we can’t go through the ravine, we have to go around it,” Madison squatted down and rested her head in her hands, “What are we going to do now, Tess? How could you forget about the river?”30

“Uhm, you couldn’t have reminded me? I was kinda focused on getting home. We’ll have to go around it,” Tessa said forlornly, they would now have to head back towards the sidewalk. Tessa tucked her hands behind her head and turned around, when she saw the light in the distance a bright smile grew on her face. The bus stop was not too far in the distance, “Maddie, stand up!” Tessa said exasperatedly. “We’ve been going the wrong way the entire time. Some sense of direction we’ve got!”31

Madison smiled up at her friend and pushed herself up, that was Tessa, always looking on the bright side of life. They began walking quickly towards the light in the distance, they may have spotted the correct route but they were still a ways off.32

Madison stopped walking, pulling Tessa to a stop as well. “Tess, what is that?” Madison pointed at the large dark mass in front of them. Her voice was weary, Tessa had always enjoyed a mystery and when Tessa smiled brightly back at Madison knew what was coming. Tessa had devoured the Nancy Drew books when she was younger and while she hadn’t convinced Madison to read the books she had coerced her into playing Harriet the Spy around town. This was before they had heard about Lea Planter and they had never explored these woods.33

“It’s a house,” Tessa squealed. She grabbed Madison’s hand and pulled her towards the house. It was dark and in shambles, the paint was missing leaving the raw old wood exposed, the glass was gone from the windows, “Do you think this was the Planter House?”34

It was large and ominous, they could see boards on the porch, which had obviously once barred the entrance of the house, but some past intruder had taken them down. Vines were growing up the side, swirling around the stain glass window that made up the one dormer window the house had.35

“I don’t know,” Madison said exasperatedly, “We don’t have time to figure it out. I’m pretty sure they tore down the Planter House, we’ll figure it out tomorrow though, when it’s bright outside. And we don’t have a curfew and bus schedule to deal with.”36

“Oh pretty please, Maddie. I’ll owe you, massively. Pinkie promise. Just five minutes inside, we can see the bus stop from here,” she checked her phone again, it read only 10:15. “We’ll be fine.”37

“Fine, but you’re buying me new ringtones, indefinitely.”38

Tessa hugged her friend excitedly, Madison couldn’t help but smile; Tessa was nearly shaking with anticipation. Although Tessa had promised Madison that she had left her spying and mystery solving days behind her, with this display of enthusiasm from Tessa, Madison wasn’t buying it. 39

Tessa ran up the stairs, Madison following closely behind. Madison knew that it was better to be near her friend than left out in the dark. Tessa tried the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. She bit back the urge to smack her forehead with her hand; the place had obviously been robbed in the past, how many robbers locked up after leaving an abandoned house?40

As they stepped inside the found that the interior of the house was just as run down as the exterior; it smelled terrible and a thick layer of dirt and leaves covered the floor and sparse furniture. Pieces of the floor had caved in and the girls could see the shelves in the basement still lined with cans of what once might have been food.41

The two girls explored the house a little further, they were tentative of where they stepped, as they were aware that with their combined weight the floor could easily cave in. “It reeks in here,” Madison complained.42

“Oh, it just smells a little damp,” Tessa chirped, “Three more minutes, come on,” Tessa opened a door and the old hinges groaned. She pushed against the rust and the two looked into the dark, dank room. Seeing nothing, they pulled out their phones and flipped them open casting a shallow light in the few inches ahead of them. They walked further into the room, gripping each other with fear that was swirling around them. They reached the room’s midway point, simultaneously the boards beneath them creaked and the lights on their phones went dim. They screamed, but the scream turned into laughter.43

They pressed on the keyboard of their phone and the screen illuminated; they began screaming again when the sight before them came into focus. The quickly let go of each other’s hands and ran to the door, ignoring the pain in their feet from their archless ballet flats.44

They quickly made it to the fence and began climbing it, the bus driver sat there with his door open and the bus bright with the dirty light from the lamps in the bus. Madison had no time to mourn the rip that occurred while climbing over the fence, the only thing on her mind was getting to the safety of the germ filled bus.45

They flashed the driver their IDs and passes and made it to the very last bench, the doors shut, the hinges creaking like those of the doors in the house. Chills ran down each of their spines and they gripped each other’s sweaty palms.46

The bus started and they caught their breath as it pulled out of the stop and made it’s way off of Planter Drive and onto Myrtle Lane. Tessa and Madison sat in the seat, holding their phones and IDs in one hand and keeping a tight grasp on to the other’s hands, each sat silently digesting their own individual thoughts.47

It wasn’t until the girls were off the bus and on their street lined with near identical houses and perfectly manicured lawns that they stopped and spoke. In front of the row of mailboxes that belonged to the people on the block they stared at their startled faces. All traces of tan and tanner were gone leaving each of their faces a stark and pale white. The wind and leaves had ripped through their long hair, leaving it frazzled, bits of leaves stuck up in odd spots.48

“So, are we going to tell anyone about the body?”49