The first week of summer, nothing happened.

I fell into a schedule of waking up, eating pizza bagels, checking my email (which contained a bunch of pictures from the fallen Marzipan, my vacationing best friend), and falling asleep after watching one episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Studying took the back seat in the car ride that was my summer and, while I spent seven days inside the house, my brother lived for me.

Surprisingly, David was popular - although for all the wrong reasons - and he had three parties to attend in that one week, all of which had him coming home late, drunk, and high at the same time.

My mom was no different, going out all night to what she called 'happy hour.' It was happy hour, an hour for her to get 'happy,' when she had no children, no home to come to, and no work to go to the next day. Happy hour was my mom's Eden.

So, for most of my summer, I lived alone.

For a few days,  Marzipan tried calling. I didn't answer, so she'd try texting. I didn't answer then, so she tried emailing me, and I promptly ignored that too.

She was asking how my day went, how my life was, as if a lot had passed between the seventy-two hours she'd been gone. My days were her months, my months were her years.

I had nothing to look forward to, nothing at all, until Levi called.

We didn't really talk after sophomore year, back when we on the same level of the school's hierarchy and enjoyed solving mysteries. The both of us operated under 'LeDore,' a neighborhood detective agency.
Things were cut short when he got accepted into the football team and I became invested into my studies. We never really talked again, his life filling with popularity and mine filling with S.A.T. prep.

Even then, we were still somewhat friends.

"Did you see what was happening next door?" he said, his nasal voice grating against my eardrums. He was frantic, and I could hear the loud clicking of keys in the background.

"Yeah, Levi! I'm having a great day. The sun's out, the birds are shining.." I trailed off, hoping that he'd get the idea.

He snorted. "Yeah, I get it. Good morning." The more he talked, the faster he typed. "Anyways, look outside."

I rushed to the window, tripping on a few of my clothes along the way. Outside, the sunrise drenched the neighborhood with an orange glow, a fire that didn't flicker, but instead burned bright. Down below, moving trucks were stationed in front of a house, a pair of laborers carrying some furniture out of each one.
People moved all the time, so I didn't recognize the issue.

"What about it?" I asked, scoffing at the thought that I left bed for this.

Levi grunted. "You don't recognize the house?"
It was Addams-style, black everything. We lived in suburbia, and that house was on the edge of the road - desolate and ominous, not even the sunset could fix it. It struck a cord in me, plucked a string, but the familiarity was lost.
I must've been silent for a long time, because Levi had to clear his throat to clear my head.
"I don't remember," I said quickly.
"You really don't?" his voice pressed on. "Does the Mulberry case mean anything to you?"
Alright, let me just say that I lied.
Our social lives weren't the things that ended our detective work.

It was the Mulberry case, the mother of all cases, the case to end all cases. Not only was it that, but it was our first time actually dealing with the law, which spooked us into never dealing with it again.

443 Mulberry Road was where the house was, and it was notorious. Mulberry House had a curse, in which the daughter of the family - the people that moved into the house always had a daughter - would die, get maimed, or fall under circumstances so unfortunate that the family would have to relocate.

Maya O'Conner, blow to the head. Lorelei Thompson, cancer. Paulette Choi, heart attack. Every single circumstance would be mysterious - Paulette was the epitome of health, Maya's blow to the head had a ninety nine percent survival rate, Lorelei hadn't a history of cancer in her family.

Those were the three we knew about, and the three that intrigued us enough to get involved. We took the case our neighbors offered us, and that was it.

We couldn't find anything significant to tie the three women together. They all had the same hair stylist, but so did everyone in Ridgemont County. They shopped at the same grocery store, used the same deodorant...  There was concrete enough to warrant an actual, in depth investigation from Ridgemont's finest (which actually wasn't me and Levi).

However, using our skill of word-of-mouth, we passed on the knowledge of the curse to my brother, who passed it onto his crazy, paranoid friends, who passed it all around the state and most of the country.
Mulberry was haunted, and no one should move there.

The house stayed empty for years. No one dared to go near it. Not even the paper boy would bike within its vicinity (he threw the papers from the furthest sidewalk).

Now, there were new victims.

"Are we gonna do anything?" Levi's voice was accompanied by the rapt tapping of a pencil on something hard.

"Like, warn them, perhaps?"

I continued to look out the window, eyes scanning the ground below for any sign of imminent danger.
   

Nothing. I couldn't even spot the family.

I watched the men continue to unload the trucks. "Who's living there, anyways?" I asked.

More clicks and clacks. "I'm doing the research now," said Levi. A final, hard clack! and he hummed like he were mimicking Sherlock Holmes.
   

"The Ashantis. Weird name, weird background. Says that they came here from California-" (Who'd come here from California?) "- and they own a video game store down the street from here."
   

I was gonna have to check it out. "Any kids?" I asked.

"Yeah." He sighed. "Lemme check."

More clacks.
"F***," groaned Levi.

I gasped. "Don't tell me."

"Yep," he said. "A girl."

I sighed and dropped down on my bed, leaning onto the wall. “What would possess someone to move into that place?”

From the other side, Levi was freaking out. I could hear more frantic clacks on the keyboard. “Jesus Christ, Theo. I’m not a f***ing psychic, alright?”

“I never said you were,” I muttered.

He sighed, and I could practically see him rub his temple (the way he always did when he was vexed by my curiosity.) “Then don’t ask me questions like those and expect an answer.”

I chuckled, even though I didn’t really find it funny (these days, I don’t find anything funny anymore.) “Calm it, Thompson,” I said, using his last name to ease the tension. “It was just a question.”

“It’s okay, Suarez.” His usage of my surname assured me that he wasn’t angry. “Anyways, more on this girl. She’s our age, I think.”

I sat up further. “How’d you know?”

“Well, okay.” Levi took a hard sip from a drink, then began speaking again. “I found the dad’s Facebook profile. He looks sick. Tats, piercings, the whole shebang. Anyways, there’s a picture of him, his wife, and his daughter posted a week or so ago.”

I couldn’t hold it in. “What does it say?”

“F*** off, Suarez,” he said. “I was getting to that. It says, and I quote, ‘Sorry to leave you all! It’s been a blast, but this trip home opens new beginnings and-’”

“This is relevant because..?” I asked, trailing off.

I could practically hear Levi roll his eyes. “Because this picture has her tagged. Her name’s kinda ugly, though.”

“What is it?” I asked. “Barbara?”

“Worse,” he said. “It’s Ivette."

I winced. “Ouch.”

“She’s hot, though,” he continued. I’ll give her that.”

Now, I was eager. “Megan Fox hot?”

“You could say that,” he said. “She’s dark, though. Way dark. Like Naomi Campbell, but with piercings and a hand tattoo.”

I shouldered my phone again and grabbed a pair of jeans from my floor. Putting them on, I hobbled down the steps. When I was two steps above the base, I hopped off, launching my phone onto the floor. It collided the carpet with a muffled smack, and I could hear Levi’s “F***!” from where I stood.

“God damn!” he yelled. “What was that?”

For once in awhile, I couldn’t stop laughing. I picked up my phone, did a quick check of the screen (which wasn’t cracked), and laughed my guts out.

His rage seeped through the receiver. “It’s not funny, man! I spilled chai on my lap!”

“Take a shower, then,” I said. “And head over to Mulberry.”

    Levi let out a snort, which was soon followed by a sharp “Ha!”
    “Are you seriously chickening out?” I asked.
   

“Hell yeah, I’m chickening out!” Even after Levi yelled, I could hear him shuffling in the background.
I grinned. “You’re getting your clothes, aren’t you?”

“I hate you,” said Levi.

“Oh,” I said. “I know.”