Stitch by Samantha Durante Page B

that had draped itself about her after that strange dream, Alessa had been able to fall back asleep, and the next morning she woke feeling rested and refreshed.  The prior day’s excitement – and the emotional toll it’d taken on her – seemed almost surreal.
    After a solid night of sleep, Alessa’s muscles were eager for a little movement.  She indulged in a long feline stretch, finishing with a gratifying shiver as she rolled over to face the window.  Sunlight streamed through the windowpanes, catching on the countless little flecks of dust floating lazily through the air.  Alessa watched absently for a few moments, breathing deeply and enjoying the unseasonal brilliance of the sun.
    She tossed the covers to the side and sat up, swinging her feet to the floor.  Sliding into her desk chair, she gave her email inbox a cursory glance, scanning the subject lines for anything that might be important.  As was usually the case, there wasn’t much there besides a lot of insubstantial chit-chat on her sorority’s discussion alias.  As she finished skimming the list of messages, a new one popped to the top of her inbox:
     
    [Z-E-Pi Action Required] Party Prep Assignments!
     
    Alessa groaned.  On her way into the house last night she’d thought she’d overheard Lizzie and Co. discussing a party, but she had been hoping she was wrong.  Now her suspicions were confirmed.
    The last party Z-E-Pi threw over Halloween weekend had attracted a crowd of 300.  The house had been overrun with a rowdy jumble of drunken coeds decked out as everything from a bloody vampire to a sexy bumblebee.  By the end of the night, the acrid smell of vomit had wafted under the door of Alessa’s room all the way from the bathroom down the hall.  On that occasion Alessa had been stuck on cleanup duty.  The smell of stale beer still gave her flashbacks.
    She made a quick decision to ignore the email and continue on with her day, rationalizing that she couldn’t possibly feel guilty for neglecting her “sisterly duties” if she didn’t know what they were.  If anyone asked, she’d just pretend she hadn’t seen the email yet.  Hopefully no one would ask.
     
    The rest of Alessa’s day was unremarkable, as was the next.  She went to class and did her best to pay attention.  She chipped away at the bulk of the reading she’d amassed.  She checked in to see what Janie was up to every so often.  And whenever she found her mind unoccupied, her thoughts unfailingly drifted back to the ghost.
    Her last encounter had been nothing short of disturbing, but after a couple of days, the unpleasantness had faded and she found herself anticipating her next opportunity to see the ghost.  Alessa knew that looking forward to that sort of harrowing emotional experience probably wasn’t healthy, but she couldn’t help herself.  If the encounters continued getting more and more intense, she couldn’t imagine the toll it might take on her, but it was no use trying to resist.  Alessa’s curiosity had overtaken her sense of self-preservation.
    She’d been meaning to make it back to the library to finish the search for the house’s previous inhabitants, but had yet to find the time.  William, Isaac, Albert… Alessa rolled their names on her tongue, wondering if her ghost was one of them.  At this point, all she really had to go on to narrow down the time period was the style of his clothes, and it seemed to her like any of them could be a fit.  Albert was probably a stretch given that the records showed he’d survived well past his teenage years, but she was still hesitant to cross anyone off her list just yet. And then there were the remaining volumes of records to consider.  Who knew how many other potential names she might uncover?
    Once she had compiled a list of possibilities, she planned to research each one to see if she could discover the manner of each person’s death or any other major events in their lives.  If there was