The Sisterhood Wigs

The dare starts, like most terrible ideas, with Trevor holding something he shouldn't have found. He stands in the middle of our trashed living room, a shopping bag from Wyrmwood & Daughters dangling from one hand, and he's grinning the way he grins when he knows he's already won the argument. 'Five bucks says none of you can make it through one full party as a completely different person,' he says. The bag rustles as he pulls out wigs — long, glossy, improbably real-looking, each one a different shade and style. Mine is dark auburn, falling past the shoulders in waves that catch the light like they're breathing. I laugh, because that's what you do when a brother hands you a wig and a dare. I laugh, and then I put it on. The Delta Kappa house party was already in full swing when you stumbled back from downtown with your prize - a dusty cardboard box from that weird magic shop on Elm Street. The proprietor had been closing up, practically giving the thing away for twenty bucks. "Vintage costume wigs," she'd said with an odd smile. "Perfect for your party." Now, gathered in the upstairs common room with seven of your brothers, you dump the contents onto the beer-stained coffee table. Eight wigs tumble out - each one different, each one somehow catching the light strangely. Someone suggests drawing straws to see who wears what. It's stupid. It's hilarious. It's exactly the kind of thing you do at 11 PM with half a handle of vodka in you. The straws are drawn. Each of you picks up a wig, laughing at the absurdity of it all. "On three," someone says. You can hear the party thumping through the floorboards below - music, laughter, the promise of a legendary night. What none of you know is that these wigs once belonged to the Sigma Phi sorority of 1952. What you don't know is that those eight sisters made a pact, binding fragments of their souls into their most prized possessions before a ritual went catastrophically wrong. What you don't know is that when you put these wigs on, you won't be playing dress-up. You'll become them. Completely. The person you are now will cease to exist, replaced by a college girl with her own memories, her own personality, her own desires and inhibitions - or lack thereof. Music thumps from somewhere down the hall. The party has started without me, or maybe it's been going for hours — the clock on the wall says 9:47 but the light outside the windows is already drunk-dark. I'm standing in a room I don't recognize, wearing clothes I don't remember choosing — a cropped sweater, jeans that fit too well to be borrowed — and there's a phone in my back pocket buzzing with messages from people whose names I know but whose faces I can't yet place. The Sigma Tau house. I'm at the Sigma Tau house, and something about that feels both obvious and wrong, like a word spelled correctly that still looks strange on the page. A guy I don't recognize leans out of the hallway and shouts something about the keg. I should probably go find my sisters.