“Not that it matters to me, but are you planning to go outside dressed like that?”
“You have a problem with it?”
“I’d just hate for people to think you were a six-year-old girl.”
“You’ll pay for that…”
“Anyway, we’ve had our breakfast. Maybe we should hang out in the area. Relax a little.”
“You know, if you’d already figured out what the sancta was, you could have told us last night.”
“I was out almost the entire day, so I hardly witnessed the paranormal phenomena. I wanted to spend a night here to make sure. Besides, you looked so tired, Miss Riviere.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re so considerate,” she said. “All right, you two, we’re going.”
I heard a chair creak, and then:
“Whaaat?” Elaina said.
“Well, now,” said Riviere, surprised.
I looked up. “What’s the matter?” I asked. Hello? But the only answer I got was silence. Neither of them said anything; they both just looked at one particular spot.
Namely, the doorway at the end of the hall.
I followed their gazes, and that was when I saw it.
“Guh-wuh?” I said.
The front door was grown over with roses with sharp thorns—almost as if they meant to trap us here so we couldn’t run away.
My feeling that something was off got noticeably more intense.
“Does something seem, uh, strange to you?” I asked.
“I think I’d pick a stronger word,” Riviere said.
It was suddenly very tense in here. Riviere was looking around, alert.
I heard a hrrn somewhere, a trumpet-y noise perfectly common in any old house. Except that suddenly it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
Hrrrrrgh, the house seemed to groan.
And then the living room where we were standing began to change form and appearance.
“Wait… This is what the newspaper talked about, isn’t it?” Elaina asked, a bead of sweat running down her cheek.
I remembered what the house’s previous occupants had said.
“It was the most awful thing. This went beyond furniture shuffling around. The house changed shape and attacked us!”
The father had said that the walls collapsed in on them, the ceiling fell down, and the hallways twisted around so windows that should have looked outside showed another part of the house. It was something that, as he had said, I couldn’t imagine.
As if re-creating the events of the past, the hallway leading to the front door began to twist around on itself. I turned to the window, thinking we might be able to escape that way, but I saw to my astonishment that through the window there was another room, exactly like the living room we were standing in. It was like we were being sucked into a maze.
“It means to trap us in here, doesn’t it?” Riviere said quietly.
“Yeah. I think we can assume it’s not friendly anymore,” Elaina said, her brow furrowing.
Hrrrrrrgghh! the house groaned again, as if angry at what they were saying. Boards popped off the walls and fell toward us; we scuttled back out of the way to avoid them. We looked at each other, then looked toward the front door.
“MacMillia, Elaina—we’re getting out of here!” Riviere said, and then she raced down the twisted hallway.
“Sounds good!” Elaina said, running after her.
But me, I just stood there, staring.
Maybe I was the only one crazy enough to think this—but something about the whole thing just seemed strange.
The little girl in this house had offered a prayer. She’d knelt before the statue of Cururunelvia and prayed that she and the house could be friends, and it had come true. At least, if I was understanding the old materials correctly.
She prayed that they could be friends. “So why would the house attack people?”
The girl had tried to get closer to the house, and it had responded with years and years of bizarre happenings. It just didn’t make sense. The house terrified the people it was supposed to be making friends with. How was that helping anything?
Could we be missing something?
“MacMillia, hurry!” Riviere shouted, and I snapped back to myself. The other two were at the door and looking at me, afraid.
Hrrrrrghhh! The whole house heaved and groaned, and everything that wasn’t nailed down seemed to jump into the air—glasses, cups, books, even chairs and tables.
I could definitely see how it might look like a display of anger—but I was still puzzled.
To me, it almost looked like a lament.
The house well remembered when its first occupant moved in. It was not long after the house itself had been born.
This person had gone out one day, laughing to herself in a most unsettling fashion and muttering about how it would rain today. No sooner had she left than she returned with someone else in tow. She took this person to the basement and strangled them. This was the very first occupant the house had welcomed.
Every day, the house wept. It was simply too cruel, how the young building was forced to witness one innocent life after another snuffed out within its walls. But the house could not express how it was feeling, nor force these things to stop. The deeds might have been immoral, but in the end the house was just an object. It couldn’t interfere in human affairs.
The house’s first occupant expired in the basement herself not long after that. Then the house was empty and alone for many years.
After a little while, though, another family moved in. A husband and wife and their daughter, who chose the house even though they were afraid because a murderer used to live there. Their daughter wasn’t afraid, though; she approached the house with abundant curiosity.
Sometimes she would say, “I wish I could be friends with you, house,” and give it a friendly pat. That always made the house very happy. The house fervently wished to be friends with her, too; they were about the same age, after all.
Then one day the girl told her family, “I prayed at the cathedral today.”
She had made a simple and innocent wish.
The house discovered that it could now really move the objects within it. The prayer the girl had offered had been granted by giving the house freedom.
The house was overjoyed. Now it could forge a relationship with the little girl who wanted to be its friend.
“Say, house! Let’s play house today!”
The little girl was sitting in her room and talking to thin air. The house heard what she said. In response, it produced a doll right in front of her.
The girl was very happy. “Okay! I’ll play with this dolly today!”
The house couldn’t speak as such, but in some mysterious way, it almost seemed to be holding a conversation with the girl. Perhaps because they were almost the same age, they thought in much the same way.
“House? I can’t reach that book up there,” the girl said one day, straining to get to a high bookshelf. So the house dropped the book for her. “Thanks!” The girl smiled.
Once, the girl was peering into her closet, pondering. “I wonder what I should wear today, house,” she said. The house thoughtfully dropped an adorable dress on her. “Thanks!” the girl said, and she smiled again.
Every day was full of these little joys.
Around the same time, however, the girl’s parents began to seem less and less happy.
“Dear, don’t you think there’s been something strange about this house recently?” the wife asked.
“I do,” her husband agreed.
The young house had only been standing for a few years and couldn’t imagine what the matter could be. But it wanted to help if at all possible.
“Now, where did I put those papers?” the husband asked himself as he was working one day. He seemed to be looking for something, and so, helpful as ever, the house dropped the papers right in front of him.
“Eep!” For some reason, the husband looked stricken.
One day, sitting in the living room, the wife let out a sigh. “So many strange things have been happening around here,” she groaned. The house, remembering the behavior that had surprised and delighted the little girl, nudged a book off the bookshelf.
The wife, however, screamed. “Ahhhhhhh!” She stumbled backward—very much not the reaction the house had expected.
After that, things in the house started to get worse.