Poison Tongue by Nash Summers

without noticing. Standing on the edge of the rickety pier stood a man with a flashlight in his hand. He waved it back and forth over the swamp waters before finally letting the light land on me. The dog barked, and I squinted against the light as I held my hand up to shield my eyes.
    “What the hell?” he said. In the next moment, he’d hopped off the wooden pier and waded through the water. When I dropped my hand from my face, I saw that the man was Monroe.
    “What are you doing out here?” he snapped.
    Instinctively I wrapped my arms around myself. My body continued to shake violently, the coldness of the water seeping deep into my bones. Water dripped down my face and neck, pooling in the small divot of my collarbone.
    Monroe reached out, but I stumbled back. He sighed heavily when he looked at me, wiping his hand over his face. He waited a moment before putting his hands up, palms open, in front of his chest.
    “I won’t touch you, all right?” he said slowly, as if talking to a spooked animal. “But you gotta get out of this swamp. You’re soaked through and shaking.”
    I nodded, keeping my eyes locked on his face.
    “Come on,” he said with a flick of his head toward the house.
    I followed him through the swamp to the edge of the water. He climbed up onto the bank, went to reach out to help me up, but thought better of it. Coin stood next to him, barking and wagging his tail. Without another word, Monroe walked to the back door of the old house, Coin and I close behind him.
    The closer I got to the Poirier house, the slight prickle in my stomach turned more and more violent with each step I took. I stared up at the second-story windows, the rusted hinges of the dangling blinds. The outside of the house had once been painted navy and white but had long since faded to the color of rotten wood and chipped flecks of blue. The once-white windowsills still had a few old clay pots sitting on them, no life inside. Inside there was nothing but darkness. There was nothing—no one—but the fine hairs on my arms stood on end. I kept staring at the black depths inside the second-story windows, expecting to see something—someone.
    Monroe opened the back door and stood to the side, motioning for me to go first. I hesitated for a moment.
    I was afraid. I was afraid, and more curious than I’d been in a long time. I wondered what the inside of the house would look like—if ghosts played with white drapes that covered old pianos, or if glass chandeliers creaked on high hinges as if prepared to crash into the wooden floorboards below. I imagined there would be ancient, moth-ridden floral rugs, different in each room, and a massive oak wardrobe in the foyer with etchings of wizards and butterflies carved into the sides. Maybe an endless staircase into the basement abyss, a tunnel that led to a cellar full of cherry-colored wine bottles.
    I wondered what he was doing living in a place like this. I wondered what I was doing following him inside. But most of all, I was just curious about the person holding the door open for me, the man with the crystal-blue eyes who looked like he was trying to hold back a floodgate when his eyes met mine.
    The moment the door closed behind us, I felt warmer. There was a heat throughout the house I hadn’t expected—hadn’t wanted.
    Monroe walked down the hall toward a flickering light, and I followed him.
    The wooden floorboards were cracking and splintered in places. Around the edge of the hallway, against the walls, thick dust sat layered like a cake, tiny footprints on top of its surface. Empty picture frames hung against flaking, wood-paneled walls, crooked on their nails.
    In the living room, flames from a fireplace flickered, its heat and light too inviting for me to do anything but walk over to it. I sat down on the wooden floorboards as I warmed my hands and pleaded with my body to stop shaking and my eyes to stop stinging.
    “What were you doing back there?”
    “Just going