"ARE YOU SURE this is the right address?" I asked my Uber driver as her car squealed to a stop.

"54 Dunbury Lane, that's what it says on the GPS."

On one of my cell phone's many dating apps, I opened the messages I'd exchanged with Date 27, wondering if I'd relayed the wrong street name. But there, on the screen—54 Dunbury Lane.

The driver leaned across the center console and surveyed the property to our right. "Is this a Halloween party?"

"In July? No."

She cocked an eyebrow. "So you wear that kind of thing on a normal day?"

I frowned at the bohemian dress I'd bought from the 1970s section of my favorite store.

"It's vintage" was the best defense I could whip up.

A nod to the window. "So is this house."

Indeed. With a vine-choked facade and sagging roof, the property at 54 Dunbury Lane all but screamed its age. The Gothic style was a rare sight in this city, even for the very outskirts. A few decades ago, it might have been charming, but its darkened windows and overgrown yard suggested its owners had abandoned the place. Or fled from it.

Across the street, rows of bright citrus trees stretched all the way to the horizon. Looming over the orchard was a sky painted in pastels and spotted with cotton candy clouds. But all of that beauty meant nothing under the pall of this decrepit house.

The driver cleared her throat. "And if you keep me waiting much longer, I'll be vintage, too."

Biting back a retort, I climbed out of the vehicle, long sleeves ruffling with each movement. After twenty-two years of living in Los Angeles, I'd come to one conclusion: its people were either pleasant beyond measure or complete assholes.

After transferring money to the driver, I strapped my purse over a shoulder and said, "Wait here for a moment. I just want to make sure someone is home."

I ignored her exasperated sigh while passing through the wrought-iron gate set beyond the sidewalk. A brick path that held evidence of earthquakes unraveled toward the porch, and I carefully watched the placement of my feet.

All was quiet, nothing but the scrape of my knee-high boots on loose stone and the soft humming of the car engine.

Gooseflesh crawled up my spine the closer I got to the mansion. Two naked oaks framed it, swaying and creaking as dead leaves blew across the yard's dry, weed-speckled grass. I crossed my arms to retain a bit of body heat. So much for California's spectacular weather.

As I walked up the steps to the door, I had the distinct feeling that this place was perpetually trapped in autumn. Nothing else explained the uncanny temperatures, though the theory was too absurd to be true.

Realizing there was no bell, I lifted the ornate knocker to signal my presence. When I slammed it down, the door creaked open. I froze, watching until it crashed into an interior wall.

I waited. Nothing happened.

Mentally scolding myself for the shudder that ripped through me, I poked my head inside and called, "Hello? Is Donnie home? It's Suzi—your date."

Silence and shadows were all that greeted me. After another few seconds of waiting, I concluded this entire date had been a hoax. Probably some kind of prank. Why else would I have been sent to a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere?

Sighing, I wheeled around, intending to return to my Uber, only to discover that she'd vanished.

"Definitely an asshole," I muttered, fishing my phone from my purse.

My finger was hovering over the transportation service's app when I heard it—static, indistinct voices, more static. Heart ratcheting, I whipped around.

Bluish-white light now streamed into the mansion's foyer from a room on the left, illuminating a carpet with an elaborate design. Beyond it rose a wooden staircase that flared toward me like a pair of opened arms.

"Donnie?"

The static grew in volume, and I shivered as another current drifted across the porch.

That wind nudged at my shoulder, saying, Enter. See.

I stepped forward as electronic voices surged from the source of that light—as though someone was flicking through the channels of a television. A glance back toward the road, the empty space where the car had been parked, and I realized I was utterly alone. For miles and miles, not one soul would be found.

Alone. Stranded. Trapped.

As those words sank in, my heart became a hummingbird inside my chest, the thump-thump-thumping of its wings growing stronger. Faster.

A northern wind blew across the yard, pebbling my skin. I pushed back a sleeve and held my arm before my face. Hairs protruded from the golden smoothness like an army ready to fight.

I was about to race down the porch steps when the TV blasted, "Wait!"

I looked over a shoulder. Was it talking to me? No, that was a ridiculous idea.

"Please!" said a woman's desperate voice, followed by a low, male monotone: "I need your help."

Again, I felt that cold nudge telling me to go inside. In the back of my mind, I knew I shouldn't, but something had me stepping over the threshold.

Clutching my phone and purse to my chest, I followed the stream of light. Wooden floorboards creaked underfoot until I paused in a living room with dusty, antique furniture and a bay of windows framed by curtains. The white lace flapped in the breeze. Beneath the windows was a smattering of glass and a foot-long stick that seemed to have broken the pane.

I sighed in relief and approached the mess, aiming to pick up a TV remote that lay face down on the floor. But the moment I touched it, the colors emitting from the monitor shifted, and a young man's voice spoke: "Suzi?"

Shock, and then fear, slithered through my veins as I beheld the face on that screen. It was him. Donnie. The handsome brunette from Date 27's profile photo.

I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, as I soaked him in.

His brown eyes—a pair one might find on a puppy—widened, and he held his hands up. "I know this seems weird, but if you'd just let me explain—"

I surged to my full height and backed away, unable to conceal my stammer as I said, "Th-this isn't f-funny."

My elbow rammed into a lamp, which I barely caught before it fell, then I continued retreating for the exit, trying not to think about how it was even possible for him to see me.

"Suzi, please don't go."

"Leave me alone," I spat out before whirling around and spearing toward the foyer.

I was halfway there when the floor opened beneath me. A scream caught in my throat as I dropped, gravity tugging on my stomach. The mansion's interior vanished and impenetrable darkness replaced it.

I crashed sooner than expected, ankle twisting before it lost my weight altogether. A second later, I was flat on the ground—the cold, smooth, rock-solid ground. My hip barked in pain as I sat up and gazed skyward.

Ten feet above, the floor—now the ceiling—was closing with a mechanical hum.

"Oh, shit." I scrambled to my feet, wincing at the twinge in my ankle. "No!" I bellowed, reaching for the last sliver of light before the doors shut completely, before their locks whirred and clicked.

The silence that followed was deafening. The darkness, smothering.

What the hell did I get myself into?

• • •

IT FELT LIKE the trash compressor scene from A New Hope—only worse, because a) I couldn't see a damn thing, and b) there were no droids to save me. The one consolation was that these walls didn't appear to be moving, but I wouldn't rule it out just yet.

I had no time to panic before light flashed. My eyes stung as it blasted me, as a soft purring filled the space. I stepped out of the onslaught and took in the sight of a movie projector. It sat atop some kind of wheeled cart, illuminating shelves of electronics and computing devices from various eras, as well as a few pieces of covered furniture.

"Please, don't be afraid."

I jumped at the voice, then screamed when I beheld the figure behind me. It was Donnie—this time in the form of a hologram.

"I don't want to hurt you!" he hollered above my screaming.

It grew hysterical as I shrank down and hugged my legs to my chest, mind racing with all the creative, gruesome ways this man would murder me.

I was in the midst of begging, offering money, favors—anything—if he'd let me go, when he said, "Yes! That's all I want: your help. I promise you can leave within the hour. Just . . . let me explain."

He was crouching beside me when I lifted my head, vision blurry with the impending tears. I studied his face, which flickered as the projector whirred and clicked. It was a sincere face, a kind one. But wasn't that the ruse?

Donnie's forlorn expression didn't fade until I slipped a can of pepper spray from my purse and aimed it at him.

"Don't! This room is small, with only one vent," he said frantically. "If you spray that, you could blind yourself."

I glanced around, realizing he was right. So instead, I chucked it at him and bolted toward the area where I'd fallen. Little good it did, however, for the can clattered on the concrete floor after passing straight through him.

But I didn't it let it distract me as I jumped, fingers splayed out to grip the frame of the hidden door. I missed by a mile, gravity pulling me down again. I was too short.

Meanwhile, Donnie pleaded that I stop, that I hear his story. I'd done well to ignore him until he exclaimed, "If you help me, you can speak to your father!"

My joints locked up. My gaze slid to his flickering figure.

"You could finally say goodbye." He extended his palms in supplication. "All you need to do is listen."

It was an effort not to scream again. I'd messaged Donnie frequently during the past twelve hours, but I'd never mentioned my dead dad to him. Not ideal conversation material for a first date.

"How," I demanded, trying and failing to conceal the tremor in my voice. "How did you know about him?"

Between flutters of the hologram, those puppy-dog eyes widened further. "Does this mean you'll help?"

I studied him, then tentatively swiped my arm through the semi-transparent image of his body. A curious part of me wondered how it was possible, and how many cameras had been hidden in this horror-show of a house for him to see me.

Donnie continued staring with a look of such stupid hope that I wondered if he spoke true., he couldn't touch me, couldn't physically harm me. Unless, of course, he starved me to death by keeping me trapped in this basement.

After surveying the room, I concluded that the trap door was the only way in or out. Had the shadowy corners not gaped at me like the space between the stars, I might have scoured them for a ladder or stool.

I looked at Donnie. "Are you cat-fishing me or something?"

"Cat-fishing . . . That sounds like a modern colloquialism. Hold on."

I blinked, and he vanished. Dread dropped like an anchor inside my stomach as solitude devoured my senses. But Donnie returned a heartbeat later, confusion plastered across his holographic face.

"I just looked up cat-fishing. What an odd thing to call it! I suppose, to a certain degree, yes, that's what I'm doing. But I'm not in love with you. And while it seems like I've stalked you because I know about your father's death, that's not the case. I promise, there's a good reason for my meddling."

"And what would that be?"

"I couldn't ask just anyone to help me. I need someone who's lost a loved one."

Crazy—Donnie was crazy. And I was crazy for tolerating this.

He gestured to an old chair covered with a tarp. "Will you take a seat?"

I kept one eye glued on Donnie as I moved to the chair and took off the tarp. It was plush, hugging my curves like a warm glove. Donnie offered a smile, a host pleased to be pampering his guest.

But he promptly returned to grimness, clearing his throat. "There's no easy way to say this, but . . . I'm a ghost."

My laugh was not amused, merely manifesting the panic and terror that now billowed inside me like a mushroom cloud.

"You're a psychopath," I hissed at Donnie. And I was dead. So fucking dead.

"Sometimes, I think being a psychopath would be easier. Maybe then I'd enjoy the loneliness."

Even with the choppy image, I could make out the sorrow that guttered in his eyes. The desperation.

"Ghosts aren't real."

"Not in the stereotypical ways, no. We aren't reanimated corpses, we can't walk through walls. Each of us is a collection of memories, a roaming soul on a sea between the land of the living and the land of the dead. And lost spirits can communicate with the living through technology and electricity."

"How?"

A huffing laugh. "The detailed answer to that will turn your brain to putty. But in essence: what if there's a reason that quantum mechanics and dark matter are still so mysterious, even after decades of study? What if those areas of physics aren't physical at all, but . . . metaphysical?"

"Donnie, I majored in literature. You lost me at quantum." I frowned. "But technology—that's how you made a dating profile?"

I couldn't believe I was buying into this nonsense. But seeing as it was the only thing to distract me from the fact that he'd locked me in a basement, I was willing to indulge him for now.

Donnie nodded. "It's also how I learned about your father—social media posts over the years. From all the data I collected, I figured that you weren't too overwhelmed with grief but also still missing him enough to make contact."

"Make contact? Like a seance?"

"Exactly."

I gaped. "No way in any world—be it living or dead or somewhere in between—am I touching a Ouija board."

"You won't have to."

Bracing my head in my hands, I hoped this was all a nightmare from which I'd soon awaken. But when I glanced at Donnie again, nothing had changed.

"You're really a ghost?"

"Yes."

"Is it rude to ask how you died?"

His eyes grew distant. "I was in the kitchen upstairs, making a sandwich, when I slipped on the floor and hit my head. I don't remember much beyond the sensation of my soul peeling away from my body . . . like a reptile shedding its skin."

During the silence that followed, I couldn't help imagining how terrifying it must have been. Wondering when that day would come for me, too.

"It was 1973. I was twenty-nine years old. I had a beautiful wife named Caroline and a six-year-old son. That was the scariest part, the reality of leaving them behind. I was so afraid of doing it that a man—or maybe an angel—appeared and offered me a choice: pass into the afterlife or become adrift on undead waters." Donnie's gaze met mine again, and a chill gripped my bones. "I chose the latter."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, along with the information.

"It took years for me to learn how communication works. By then, my son had grown up. He refused to believe that I was a ghost, thought Caroline was seeing and hearing things. Eventually, he had the doctors put her on schizophrenia medication, which led to depression, and . . . She passed away six months ago. So now I'm trapped. In this house, between worlds. And I need you, Suzi, to free me, so I can reunite with Caroline and rest in peace."

"How?" I managed.

"Like you said—a seance to reach your father, to create a bridge. While you say goodbye to him, I'll cross that bridge and complete passage into the afterlife."

I couldn't deny the hope and yearning with which Donnie expressed himself. Nor could I deny the echo of it in my own heart, the desire to see Dad once more.

"So, Suzi Sparrow," Donnie said, mouth quirking, "will you help me die—for real this time?"

The word was out before I could stop it: "Yes."

• • •

SITTING CROSS-LEGGED ON the living room floor, I lit the last of three candles. The flickering flames, and the flashing television set, were the only sources of light now that the sun had vanished behind the horizon.

After I agreed to do the seance, Donnie provided me with a ladder to climb out of the storage room. Then we'd spent the fifteen minutes that ensued gathering the necessary items. I followed him from monitor to radio, or even with my cell phone, to navigate my way through his spooky house. By the time my arms were full of the bizarre ingredients, I was more than glad to return to the front room with the broken window.

When I shook out the match, Donnie's eager face materialized on the TV screen before me. "Are you ready?" he asked, voice muffled by static.

Part of me hoped that all of this was just a bad dream, and at any moment, I would wake up. Each time that thought crossed my mind, I'd wait for it, for the rousing.

It never came.

I took in the materials scattered on the floor, trying to remember the instructions Donnie had rapidly given while I collected them.

"I may need you to guide me through it," I admitted.

Interference drowned out the beginning of his response. Then: "Light the sage and spread the smoke around."

Picking up the wad of herbs, I struck another match and did as he directed. My throat and eyes were burning by the time he continued, "Now, put the photo of your father in the bowl."

I obeyed, but not before indulging in a wistful glance at the small, worn photograph I carried in my wallet ever since my father had passed away.

"The next part is most important," Donnie said. "While reciting the chant, add the ingredients to the bowl. Pay attention to the energy in the room, reach out to the vibrations and forces surrounding you."

It was an effort not to scoff. "Where did you get all this from? Wicca-pedia?"

He killed my amusement with a disapproving gaze. I should've guessed—it was a sure sign of deceit when guys claimed to have a 'wicked' sense of humor on dating profiles.

I dug out a grocery list from my purse, saying, "My ex always said that I needed to try new things, be more open-minded and all that. If only Ashley could see me now . . . "

"Focus, Suzi. Don't let your emotions cloud your mind."

I turned over the crumpled paper and scanned the incantation Donnie had forced me to record earlier. The tremor in my hands was strong enough to cause earthquakes. Silently, I prayed this seance would fail.

"Eerie chant. Weird ingredients. Now what?"

His brows furrowed. "Let's just say you'll know when it works. And remember: if you speak to your father for too long, you could let loose other spirits into the living world. Blow out the candles at one minute—not a second more." A pause, then his voice softened. "You can do this, Suzi."

I snorted. "Are you sure? You know nothing about me other than what you read online."

"Ghosts can sense things. I know you better than you think."

Creep, I almost said, but the eyes staring back at me were nothing of the sort.

With a deep breath, I straightened my posture and picked up a fistful of gardening soil from the cloth sack to my left. Its earthy scent clashed with the spice-riddled smoke that wafted through the room. Holding a fist over the photograph of my dad, I began:

"O spirits of stone, watchers in the south, hear thy bidding: Come ye to this house."

Every grain of dirt that fell into the shallow, brass bowl clanged like a gong upon impact. I waited, holding my breath. How, exactly, did a girl 'reach out' to something she couldn't see, smell, or touch?

Whatever I was doing, I appeared to be doing it right, because Donnie whispered, "Keep going."

"O spirits of air, masters of the north, fly freely around me and come ye forth."

Despite how ridiculous it felt, I leaned forward and blew onto the soil that now covered my father's smiling face. When nothing happened, the skeptic in me protested to this nonsense—until a wind colder than death gathered from the shadows, spiraling around the room and rattling the bowl.

Gooseflesh formed on my shoulders as distant moans and cries echoed from wall to wall. Mingled with them was the hiss of feet along the floor, and the whoosh of movement over my head.

"It's working," Donnie whispered, his dark eyes wide with hope.

Next, I poured a jug of water into the bowl.

"O spirits of sea, maidens of the west, flow through this channel, come be my guest."

Gleeful laughter swept down on me, followed by the roaring of a river. I flinched as saltwater sprayed onto my skin, its origins definitely supernatural.

I gaped at Donnie for a moment before graininess replaced his face. Then the strain of a violin flowed from the TV's speakers, somber in mood and crawling in volume.

Striking a match, I raised my voice above the moans, laughter, and rippling wind.

"O spirits of flame, guardians of the east, burn brilliant and true, come ye and feast."

I dropped the match into the watered dirt, half-expecting it to wink out. Instead, it burst into a plume that nearly melted my nose off. Cringing away from those angry, dancing tongues of fire, I watched in awe as they shifted from orange to green, green to blue.

"Almost done," Donnie urged, though I couldn't detect which machine he was speaking from.

Hair whipping around my head, I gripped the paper and shouted the rest of the incantation:

"By darksome night and splendent day, I call ye spirits, and come ye that may. Round this cauldron writhe and swim, hearken to thy sacred hymn. Hearken, Father, 'tis Suzi who calls; ride on the wings of the angel that falls. Earth and fire, water and air. The veil between death and life doth tear!"

A crescendo of noise billowed around me, but it couldn't silence the ZAP! as the mansion's power snapped out. I choked on the scream that rose in my throat, for the vibrations, the energy Donnie had spoken of—they consumed me.

Electric currents rippled along my body, snagging my dress and hair. Each tiny pulse was alive. And they knew me.

The temperature plummeted, so hard and fast that my breath crystalized in the air, only to shatter as the house rattled. As cabinets swung open and slammed shut, as lightbulbs burst and windows exploded.

Then it all stopped, and the silence that crept into existence was perfect and powerful. Not of this world. I could've sworn it rent space and time apart, for that was the only way to make sense of the depthless, throbbing breech that formed in the middle of the room.

Perhaps it was a portal to another galaxy, or a black hole to swallow the universe whole. It didn't matter. All I could do was watch as it gaped wider, exposing a sea without a surface or a floor. A sea of a thousand colors, of shadowy skeins that darted through it like eels.

I almost forgot—what I'd been doing, who I'd been with—until my father materialized inside that otherworldly ocean. Until Donnie appeared behind him, embracing a young woman that could only have been his wife.

"Suzi?" Dad said, the picture of bewilderment as he took in the surroundings. "Where am I?"

My heart might have cracked in two, and if so, I would repair it later. For Donnie's warning pressed on my mind. One minute—not a second more.

"There's no time to explain," I said.

Dad glared at Donnie and Caroline. "What's going on?"

"He's a friend," I assured, knowing that look all too well. "He's the reason we're talking right now."

Fear rippled across his features. "Are you . . . "

"No!" I huffed a laugh. "I'm still alive. I just wanted to see you again . . . To tell you I love you and miss you."

A soft smile. "Me too, sweetheart."

The urge to hug him was overwhelming, but when I reached out, the image eddied like steam in the wind. I pulled back, afraid that he'd vanish.

Behind him, holding his wife's hand, Donnie warned, "Ten seconds left."

I nodded, wiping the tear that spilled down my cheek, then meeting my father's gaze. "Goodbye," I whispered. He repeated it back as I blew out the candles on the floor.

With a whoosh, they were gone. But Donnie's voice lingered like an old echo: "Thank you, Suzi Sparrow."

• • •

AS I HALTED on the sidewalk outside of the mansion, absorbing the warmth of a summer night and the chirping of crickets, I scarcely wrapped my mind around what had occurred. But if I let the profundity of the experience occupy my thoughts for too long, I knew I would never survive it. So instead, I dedicated myself to a new obstacle: getting home.

My movements were robotic as I retrieved my cell phone and dialed my best friend, Trystan.

"Hel—"

"It's me." My voice was thick and weary, barely recognizable. "Will you pick me up? I'll text you the address."

Trystan winced. "That bad, huh?"

"It's certainly one of the more memorable dates."

"Well, I'm glad it sucked, because my friend, Pat, has agreed to go out with you tomorrow, and trust me, you're going to love this one."

My stomach growled like cracking thunder. "Let's talk about it in the morning. Right now, I just want to eat."

Another rumble from my belly echoed the sentiment, so I ended the call to message him my location. And as I waited, gazing back on that withering house, the ghost of a smile crept onto my face.

THE END

Author's Note:

This one-shot is part of the 31 Blind Dates anthology from more than two dozen Wattpad writers including members of the Stars program, published authors, Ambassadors and Wattys winners. If you want to start at the beginning, go to the profile of rskovach. You will find the next story in the collection on the profile of mestrin.