Headmistress May Bennett stood at the top of the grand staircase, hands clasped in front of her, looking down into the main foyer of her school. In mere hours the tranquil silence of Halcyon Hall would be shattered by the presence of 120 teenaged girls. Miss Bennett shuddered at the thought, her lip curling with repulsion as she envisioned the feminine evil that would be returning to her charge. She would freely admit to anyone who asked that she reviled young women. They were mouthy, impulsive, and hormonal. Many of them, though wealthy graduates of some of the toniest New England grammar schools were unforgivably ignorant, yet equally willful and entitled. She hated them. But then that was why she opened her school; to stem the flow of feminine darkness released into the world.

Miss Bennett’s mother had also hated female children, including her own. The elder Mrs. Bennett had never wanted children at all, let alone a daughter, but she had married into a prominent New York family and her husband’s parents expected an heir if they were to consider loosening the purse strings. Mrs. Bennett had put off her husband as long as she could but eventually the inevitable occurred and May was born.

The child quickly became the apple of Mr. Bennett’s eye and the man spoiled his young daughter until the day he died—on her seventh birthday. A week after her father’s funeral May watched as her mother packed a child-sized red suitcase with a stack of plaid jumpers and skirts, knee socks, and turtlenecks. May tried to sneak in the stuffed elephant her father had given her as a gift but her mother scoffed and chucked the elephant to the floor in May’s closet.

“You’re too old for toys girl,” Mrs. Bennett had said without even looking at her daughter. Neither did she explain to May why she was packing the suitcase, but the child was certain they would not be going someplace fun. Uniforms did not exactly spell fun, even to young May. Shortly after latching the suitcase, Mrs. Bennett pulled the plainest, blackest dress from May’s wardrobe and ordered the child to put it on. It turned out there was a car waiting at the curb outside their building; waiting to take little May away to a new school. Mrs. Bennett deposited her daughter into the back seat and put her hand out to close the car door.

“It’s a school for girls,” her mother explained. “You’ll live there.”

May was confused by her mother’s words. Live at school? “But mum, I live here don’t I?”

Her mother smiled, but it was not a smile of motherly warmth like May would see the other mothers bestow on their children when they picked them up from school. This was a smile that told May her mother was thinking something untoward, something she knew would upset her daughter and she reveled in upsetting the seven-year-old.

“Not anymore you don’t.” With a sneer, Mrs. Bennett shoved the door closed and turned away without even so much as a wave.

Being only seven years old May had no idea what town she ended up in or what the name of the school was as she had not yet learned to read. All she knew was that it was very dreary and equally drab. She hated it on sight.

Looking back on her years at boarding school, May Bennett now understood that it was hatred for her mother that prompted her to lash out at her classmates. She was the bane of each of her teachers’ existence, putting frogs down the other little girls’ jumpers, leaving thumbtacks on the teachers’ chairs. May was sent to the headmistress’s office on a regular basis for pinching, biting, and kicking the other girls.

In the dorms she played terrible pranks on them—she let snakes loose in the showers, stole the girls’ homework, put honey on their pillows. Eventually she was ostracized, which simply intensified her hatred of her fellow students. That loathing then generalized to the school itself and May developed an irrational view of same-sex education as a form of medieval torture.

As an adult, May found she had no patience. Not just for women, but for human beings in general. If women were responsible for the evil in the world, then men were responsible for coddling and perpetuating the evil. Men spoiled their women and encouraged them to continue to be lazy and ignorant, not to mention money hungry and materialistic—all the qualities May Bennett had come to despise in human nature-- thus her mission to “educate” women in a new way.

When she first founded her school in Irvington, New York, May set out to prove that depriving young women of as many creature comforts as possible would force them to develop a thicker skin, perhaps even begin to emulate May’s hatred of human kind. For a few girls, May’s methods were quite effective, though she noticed that those were the girls who came to her already jaded and angry.

When Halcyon Hall in Millbrook went up for sale, Miss Bennett cashed in the remainder of her inheritance and decided to move her school to the former hotel where she planned to continue to deprive her girls of material wealth in their private quarters, while surrounding them with luxury in the rest of the building. Perhaps dangling power and prestige over their heads might encourage them to work harder while eschewing the values their parents had tried to instill in them—the wrong values, certainly.

As she stood at the head of the stairs and watched the newest class flood her hallways, May Bennett smiled silently to herself, then turned and headed to her office, already anxious to escape the ear piercing chatter.

The leaves changed early that fall, the reds and oranges cascading through the trees like hot cider. Abby held her camera at her side, watching the goings-on around her at the park. It was midday on a Saturday so there were a number of parents with their small children, bundled up in their jackets; people walking their dogs along the tree line at the edge of the park. Abby watched as a large golden retriever broke loose from his owner and bounded toward the sandbox on the playground. Lifting her camera to her eye, she snapped a dozen or so shots, catching the shaggy yellow dog just as he dove head first into the sand, much to the surprise of the group of children who had been digging quietly just a moment before.

School had not yet started and Abby was making the most of the last few days of her summer vacation. Luke had left for graduate school the first week of August, leaving Abby to her own devices. After thoroughly cleaning her apartment and rearranging the furniture in every room, Abby began to realize that she had very little to occupy her time without Luke around to go exploring, so when her parents offered her a room in their cottage in Maine, Abby decided to take a bit of a vacation.

The vacation was much deserved after the fiasco at the cottage on Blackbird Road. For the second time in just one short year, Abby and Luke managed to find themselves in the middle of a sordid mystery when they explored a tiny white house on a quiet country road. The quiet was shattered when a neighborhood girl, Nicole Hollings, was kidnapped and hidden in the slave tunnels below the house.

For the first few days in Maine, Abby drifted in and out of antique shops with her parents, trying not to think about how close she had come, once again, to being far more seriously injured than she was, perhaps even killed, after sticking her nose into what should have been strictly a police matter. Then of course, there was the matter of the police, and the detective who had tricked her into letting him in, figuratively and literally.

Abby sat down on the closest park bench and stretched her legs and arms. Her ankle still ached occasionally, as did her arm though both had healed quite well according to the doctor. Falling off of a ladder rarely had positive results, but if you could escape with only minor injuries that healed quickly, you were lucky. Abby had certainly been lucky. So had Nicole Hollings whom Abby had managed to free from the tunnel and from her kidnapper. Sadly, finding Nicole also meant finding the bodies of thirteen other girls who had been kidnapped and murdered, then buried underneath the Murray farm.

Pulling a book out of her bag, Abby set her camera aside and found her page. The weather was just beginning to get nippy, perfect sweater weather, and she had no desire to head home just yet. After reading a few pages, Abby looked up into the trees and watched the leaves shaking themselves loose, fluttering slowly to earth. She had been happy to see the summer end, hoping that the change of seasons would bring what the psychologists referred to as “closure”. Abby was just hoping that at some point the burning humiliation would fade away.

Detective Chris Benson had played her for a fool. From the moment she had stepped into the police station Chris had used her to protect his brother, Michael, who had kidnapped Nicole Hollings. He had sweet talked her, he had taken her to dinner, and Abby had fallen for his charm, truly believing that Chris liked her. Of course both Luke and her mother had warned her that there was something not quite right about the detective, but Abby had chosen to ignore their concerns. At first she had been hurt, but then the hurt wore off and she was simply embarrassed by her naivety.

The air was growing colder and slightly damp as the day wore on. Abby gathered up her things and decided to head home to her apartment. After the last two incidents, both Westwood and the Hollings kidnapping, Abby had decided that her apartment held too many bad memories and she had decided it was time to move. She no longer enjoyed coming home to her third floor apartment even though she would certainly miss her round bedroom and her spacious office.

She had been looking online for apartments for weeks now but had found nothing that really jumped out at her. After her day at the park, she felt refreshed enough to start the search again. Making herself a cup of tea, Abby sat down in front of her computer and opened up the housing listings in her area, but she couldn’t focus. Instead, she opened up Opacity, a website that listed abandoned buildings throughout the United States. She always enjoyed sifting through Opacity’s vast catalog of buildings to explore.

The photographs on the website were hauntingly beautiful, neatly organized by the name of the location. The website’s creator had even taken the time to list the historical details of each location featured. One in particular caught Abby’s attention: The Bennett School for Girls. The building looked like a Victorian house of horrors, leaning precariously to one side, gables and turrets poking out of the roofline in the oddest places. She scrolled down to see a collection of vintage photographs that detailed the luxurious interior of the school which the website noted had once been a high end hotel.

The original Miss Bennett’s School for Girls was built in 1890 in Irvington, New York but was moved to Millbrook, New York in 1907. The hotel, called Halcyon Hall, was enormous, certainly not what Abby would expect to house an all girls’ private school, but it was intriguing nonetheless. She searched for more information about the school online, finding a number of references to the building on other explorers’ websites, but then she found a few articles about the school’s closure in 1978.

None of the articles seemed to have a concrete reason for the school shutting down. Some cited budget issues, others quietly alluded to a minor scandal that brought the school to its knees. It seemed that no one reporter had a handle on the true cause for Miss Bennett’s school failing after having operated for more than seventy years. Of course, Abby’s natural curiosity was peaked; it was difficult for her to resist any whiff of mystery. After spending another hour searching for information about the school’s closing, Abby was no further informed than she had been, but she was now convinced she wanted to see Miss Bennett’s School for Girls.

The Bennett School had successfully distracted Abby from her apartment hunting. It was almost dark and she had accomplished little, her to-do list still sitting next to her computer with not a thing crossed off. Next on her list was to begin searching for publishers who might be interested in looking at her book. She had finally finished writing a fictionalized version of the events at Westwood Asylum and it was time to sell her story. However, at the moment, Abby was too excited to concentrate on anything but the school so she decided to find someone who might take Luke’s place on a bit of a road trip to Millbrook, New York.

Abby searched through her contacts wondering who might be available on such short notice as she had decided she didn’t want to wait—she wanted to go the next morning. She decided to get in touch with Dave Kooning whom Abby had met months ago when exploring an abandoned state school. The first thing she noticed about Dave was that he had the straightest, whitest teeth she had ever seen in her life. He had been there with his girlfriend, Elle, who had equally straight and shiny teeth, as well as shiny hair, and a perfect figure. She was also dumb as a brick and had almost no personality. Abby found her to be rude, condescending, and exceptionally ignorant while claiming to be an expert on everything.

Of course Dave was more than willing to accompany Abby but as she expected, he asked if Elle could come along and Abby didn’t have the heart to say no. She hoped that someday Dave would realize that Elle was a terrible match for him. She couldn’t understand how he tolerated her attitude and her incessant complaining. The girl wore high heels on exploring expeditions and then griped about getting dirty. As expected she showed up with Dave the next morning decked out in high heeled boots, skinny jeans, and what looked to be a cashmere sweater. Her makeup was flawless and she carried a Chanel purse the size of Canada. Abby tried her best not to roll her eyes and sigh, but the girl looked ridiculous and not at all prepared for climbing in a window or hopping a fence, never mind possibly running from security.

Since Elle did not offer to give up her perch in the front seat, Abby squeezed herself into the back of Dave’s brand new Camaro. She had to tuck her legs under her as Elle pointedly moved her seat all the way back. Abby spent the entire ride in virtual silence as Elle had commandeered the radio and turned it up just far enough that Abby could not participate in whatever conversation was happening in the front, which she was sure was nothing more than Elle nagging Dave about something.

Once or twice Dave did look over his shoulder to verify directions, but Elle quickly redirected his attention. It was like being on the playground with two children fighting over a toy. Except Elle was the only one fighting. They finally crossed the town line into Millbrook, New York and Abby let out a sigh of relief, anxious to get out of the car and stretch her aching limbs. The cramped car ride had done nothing for her recently healed leg injury. She unfolded herself from the car and joined Dave at the edge of an expansive lawn that swept up to meet the many porches attached to the Bennett School. The porches seemed to go on forever, as did the turrets and gables, rambling across the crazy pitches of the roof line.

The Bennett School looked a lot like the house on the Addam’s Family, gothic and imposing, Abby half expected Uncle Fester to pop his head out one of the hundreds of windows. In a harsher light, she could also see it as a house of horrors.

“Ugh. I just stepped in something squishy.” Elle was standing off to the side, one boot in the air, inspecting her heel which had collected a pile of soggy leaves wrapped around the stiletto point.

Abby shook her head, then started down the path that led to the closest porch. Vines and tree branches wrapped themselves around the columns holding up the roof and the porch was leaning slightly away from the building. Dave caught up to her and they climbed in through an open window, leaving Elle bunny hopping behind them, squealing and complaining at the touch of every tree branch and stray blade of grass.

“Eww! Spider! Ugh! Spider web! God dammit!”

Abby turned to see Elle wiping frantically at her face yelling about a spider web. The scene was comical, made even more entertaining by the fact that Abby could see the spider, who happened to own the web, dropping slowly towards Elle’s perfect coif. Elle looked up to see the eight legged homeowner descending toward her and tumbled through the window after them, still swatting at her face, her boots making an unholy amount of noise on the ancient wood flooring.

“Why don’t you just call the police and tell them we will be in here a while?” Abby snapped, as Elle clattered around in the semi darkness.

Elle sneered at Abby and tossed her hair over her shoulder to demonstrate that she was still far classier than Abby could ever be. Dave had already made his way to the main floor of the building, the grand foyer of what was once the Halcyon Hall Hotel. The rich wood banister that curved up to the second floor was bright and shiny as if it had just been polished by unseen hands. Abby gazed around the foyer at the elegant wood paneled walls and the wide planked floors. Most of the heavy wooden doors that surrounded them were closed tight except for one that was slightly ajar. Above the door was a sign that read OFFICE. While Abby knew there would be much of interest in the main office, she was hesitant to head towards it with Elle in tow.

Off to the left of the main staircase was a hallway that Abby assumed led to classrooms. The three of them headed off in that direction, peering through open doors into classrooms filled with old fashioned desks, the walls lined with heavy slate chalkboards.

“Why do you always have to go to such disgusting places?” Elle was trying to grab at Dave’s elbow but he was too busy digging through the teacher’s desk at the front of the room.

“Elle, if all you ever do is complain, why do bother asking to come along?” Dave asked, seemingly as a joke, but Abby could tell he was irritated. “Why don’t you go sit in the car? I’ll even crack a window for you.”

Elle huffed. “Did you just compare me to a dog?”

Dave simply shrugged. “If the ridiculously expensive shoe fits…”

Outraged, Elle turned and started out of the room in a huff, but as she passed a floor to ceiling book case loaded with text books, a rather enormous volume shook itself loose from its perch and cracked her on the head, knocking her to the floor.

Dave and Abby stood, speechless, gaping at Elle’s motionless figure on the floor.

“Is she dead?” Dave whispered, turning his camera and snapping a quick photo.

“Did you just take a photo of your poor unconscious girlfriend?” Abby laughed.

Dave shrugged again. “You never know when you might need a new Christmas card photo.”

Elle stirred, moaning in pain as she tried to roll onto her side. “Ow. What happened?”

“You got hit in the head by…” Dave walked over to see just what it was that had hit Elle. “By the World Book of Knowledge. Hey maybe someone’s trying to send you a message.”

“Like what?” Elle asked, confused.

“Like maybe you should fill that empty head of yours with something other than Chanel fumes,” Abby muttered.

“What did you say bitch?” Elle sat up quickly, clutching her head.

Abby tried to look innocent but had a hard time concealing her smirk. “Nothing Elle. Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. Shit I broke a nail…” Elle held her hand up for everyone to see. “Do you know how much it’s going to cost me to fix this?”

Dave snickered. “You mean how much it’s going to cost me?”

As Abby watched them bicker, out of the corner of her eye she could have sworn she saw a figure pass by the open door, but by the time she looked up the doorway was empty yet again.

Dave helped Elle up off the floor and half carried, half dragged her out into the hallway. Abby pulled the classroom door closed behind her, more out of habit than anything else, but the moment they were just a few feet away from the room, it slowly swung back open. Dave and Abby stood there, puzzled, staring at the open door. Elle leaned against the wall, her eyes spinning, her knees a bit weak.

“Did that just…”

Abby nodded. “Yes I think it just…”

Dave shook his head. “Weird.”

“Can we puhlease get out of this place?” Elle whined. She was trying to stand on her own and looked very much like a baby deer attempting to walk for the first time. Her stilettos were hindering the effort and she stumbled back against the wall. There was an enormous cracking noise and a shower of plaster landed on the floor, covering her feet. She had somehow driven her elbow straight through the wall, destroying the plaster and leaving a gaping hole.

Dave grabbed her and pulled her away from the mess as Abby stepped forward to inspect the damage. There, in the blackened abyss left by Elle’s lack of grace, was something scraggly hanging from a piece of twine.

Abby reached in to grab it, hoping it wasn’t something dead, and drew it out to find that it was a porcelain doll with only one eye. She dropped the hideous thing on the floor and its delicate face exploded on impact. Elle screamed and tried to get away, but her head was still spinning and she fell, face first, into the pile of debris and began to cry.

Dave hoisted her up and over his shoulder, then grabbed Abby’s arm, leading both girls out of the building and back to the parking lot. Dave loaded Elle into the back seat of the car where she swooned like a Southern belle. He came around the passenger side to join Abby who stood, looking up at the school.

“Next time, leave her home,” Abby said, gesturing towards the drama queen ensconced in the back seat.

Dave hung his head, obviously embarrassed by Elle’s behavior. “Sorry. She isn’t usually this bad.”

Abby turned and stared at Dave, mouth open. “Seriously?”

“Ok fine. She’s always this bad. But every time I say I’m going exploring she asks to tag along. What do you want me to say?”

“How about, no?” Abby laughed. “I think that’s pretty simple.”

Dave shrugged. “It’s simple until you actually say no to Elle and she starts screeching like a rabid howler monkey.”

Climbing behind the wheel, Dave started the car. Abby continued to stare at the building, disappointed that they weren’t able to see more. As her eyes traveled from one window to the next, Abby could have sworn she saw a figure pass by, yet again. But when she looked again the figure was gone.