The House on Wren Lane

Every town has a house like it.

The house on Wren Lane had been empty for six years. Everyone knew this the way everyone in a town knows the things nobody officially discusses. The windows were boarded on the ground floor and the garden had gone completely wild, brambles and tall grass eating the path, and the gate had rusted open in a position that made it look like an invitation nobody wanted to accept.

Marta and Dev had walked past it every day for two years on the way to school. They had a rule about it, unspoken but solid: you looked straight ahead when you passed it. Not at it. Through it, if you had to, the way you looked through a mirror in a dark room.

The dare started because of Callum Brice, who was new to the school and did not know the rule and said at lunch one Friday: "Has anyone ever gone inside that derelict house on Wren Lane? The one with the brambles?"

"No," said Marta, before she had decided whether that was true or not.

"Obviously not," said Dev, who was also not sure.

"It would be brilliant though," Callum said. "I dare you."

"We do not do dares," Marta said.

"Everyone does dares," Callum said. "I dare both of you. First one to go inside and bring something back wins."

"Wins what?" Dev said.

"Respect," Callum said.

"I have plenty of respect," Dev said. But he was looking at Marta and Marta was looking at him and the look said: we are not going to do this and also maybe we have always wanted to do this and also this is absolutely a terrible idea.

"Saturday," Marta said. She did not know why she said it. The word came out before she had decided to say it and then it was there, in the air between them, and she could not take it back.

"Saturday," Dev said, with the tone of someone who was also not sure how he had ended up agreeing.

Callum grinned. "I will watch from the gate," he said. "For safety."

"You are not coming in?" Marta said.

"It was my dare," Callum said. "The darer does not have to do the dare. That is the rule."

"That is absolutely not a rule," Dev said.

"Saturday," Callum said firmly, and went back to his lunch.