When I was standing smack in the middle of the living room, I shouted at the top of my lungs, in a voice you could hear all over the house: “I’m not scared!”
No matter how hard the house tried to threaten me, no matter what bizarre phenomena might occur, I wasn’t scared of anything. I stood there, looking like nothing was happening.
“You can move stuff around and drop things, but it won’t frighten me!” I puffed out my chest.
I’d first felt like something was out of place when I was investigating the second floor. I’d noticed that Carrie’s room, and it alone, had been neat and tidy. There was no sign that anything had been dropped there. Which meant there was no need for the paranormal phenomena to occur when it was just her.
That meant the house had been able to be friends with her.
I recalled how the family had looked when we had come here to deal with this request. Had Carrie seemed scared of the strange happenings? No. Only her parents had acted terrified.
Them, and us, when we heard the story.
“It’s scary to know people are afraid of you, isn’t it?” I said.
Carrie and the rest of us: There was the difference between a child and grown adults.
When people seek to make themselves understood by others, they proceed by trial and error. For this house, maybe these paranormal phenomena were the only means it had at its disposal.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I won’t be afraid of you.” I spoke as if comforting a child. Objects continued to go everywhere around me. The house continued to warp and bend.
Hrrrrnnnnghhh, the house said, still groaning. The flying household objects didn’t slow down in the slightest.
Maybe my words weren’t reaching the house.
“Please,” I said. “Listen to my voice.”
What was missing? What did I need?
“I won’t be afraid of you. I won’t reject you.”
If it was true that the little girl long ago had simply prayed to be friends, then the only thing standing between us was a misunderstanding. If the house wasn’t malicious, there was no need to disenchant it. If it was harmless, it could just stay like it was.
So please, house, don’t fight.
I continued to speak, my voice like a prayer. But the howling never stopped.
What was I supposed to do now?
I stood there.
That was when a voice came from behind me.
“Yes, yes! I remember. You fought just the same way all those years ago.”
The voice sounded…almost fond, somehow.
It belonged to an old woman who stood in the living room with me.
The house had always known that it had done wrong. But it had never been able to apologize or try to make things right, because it didn’t possess speech. It hadn’t been able to connect with anyone.
Instead, it had simply flailed around, hardly knowing what it was doing.
“Oh, come now!”
The woman rapped the house’s floor with her cane.
It didn’t hurt. Even so, the house stopped throwing things, dropping things, and changing its shape. It felt, somehow, that it had to. For some reason, it felt like it had to obey the old woman who had wandered in.
“You can’t throw tantrums like a child forever. You’ll be nothing but a nuisance to people,” she said sharply.
It was strange—the house had the distinct sense that it had met this person before, long ago. The old woman had a familiar feel. And yet the house couldn’t remember who she was.
“Who are you?” MacMillia asked, voicing the house’s very question.
The old lady smiled. “Why, I’m the occupant of this house.”
That wasn’t possible.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but this house belongs to Madam Olivia and her family now…”
“Back before that, then.”
“Before…?”
No. That wasn’t possible.
The house looked at MacMillia, who was perplexed, and at the woman, who stood with a smile on her face.
The occupant before.
It was her. The very girl who had first prayed and given life to this house—decades ago. She was standing right there in the living room.
The woman had always known that she had done wrong.
Decades ago, her family had disintegrated in this house. Her father had gone mad, and her mother had taken their daughter and raised her in her own parents’ home. Throughout her life, the girl had wondered how the house was doing, but she had never gone to see it. She knew that if she were too caught up with their previous home, it would only hurt her mother.
So time went on, and she never had the chance to apologize or make things right.
The little girl had become a young woman, and then an adult. She had married, bought a house of her own, had children, and raised them while holding down a job. Her life had been busy, but fulfilling.
Finally, her children moved out, and her house became a little bigger. She and her husband lived a blessed life together. When he passed, the house came to feel bigger still. She was content there by herself, in a place full of happy memories.
It was there that she began to forget.
She forgot what she had eaten yesterday. The memories of times spent with her family slipped away. She went for a walk to try to make herself feel better but found she had forgotten the way home. Then she thought she had found her house, only to discover she was somewhere entirely different. She began to get frustrated with her aging self.
After that, she slowly started to end up at the same place after each of her walks.
It was a house. It felt familiar, but she didn’t remember it. She opened the door purposefully but then found she didn’t know what she had wanted to do there.
She kept up her walks, though, almost every day, never quite sure why.
And then today had come.
Just as she’d walked up, she had seen a woman come rushing out, leading a little red-haired girl by the hand. They looked like a mother and daughter.
Inside, she spotted objects flying around.
It was just like something she had seen, oh, very long ago.
Everything about the house was painfully twisted, and objects were falling like rain. She could hear what sounded like a distant howling.
She remembered.
It was exactly like when she was little, when she had taken fright at the house for the first time.
“But you were just trying to protect me, weren’t you?”
The woman knelt down and let her fingers brush the floor. Gently, the way one might stroke a child’s hair.
Words poured out from her most secret heart, words she had forgotten long ago.
“I’m so sorry. Thank you so much.”
Instantaneously, the objects stilled and the howling stopped.
Those were the words the woman had wanted to say her whole life long. They were the words the house had always wanted to hear.
The woman had prayed to be friends with the house.
And on that day, her wish came true for a second time.
The day after all the excitement, I went to Riviere Antiques as usual to find Riviere back in her adult body. Disenchanting objects could make her shrink down, but she went back to normal with the passage of time. As usual, when I arrived, she was there with dark tea in hand to greet me. “Good morning. That was some fine work you did yesterday. Thanks to you, everything ended well.” She patted me on the shoulder and congratulated me again.
I gave her a shy chuckle. “I took a peek at Miss Olivia’s house today.”
“Oh? And how does it look?”
“Seems like things are going great. I mean, it’s only day two, but they seem to be used to it.”
“Good.” Riviere nodded.
It was just yesterday that we had resolved the case of the paranormal phenomena—thanks to the elderly former occupant of the house, we had finally been able to have something resembling a real conversation with the place.
The house had never wanted to harm the people who lived in it. Which meant we had two choices: disenchant the building so it could be used as just a normal house, or leave it and let the family live inside a very unique sancta.
“So that’s the story, Miss Olivia. What do you want to do?”