In their few years as a married couple, Kim had never seen him this happy. Back in the city, prior to the sale of his screenplay, he'd been something of a homebody. Especially in those weeks leading up to its completion he'd been prone to mood swings and long silences. It'd disturbed her, made for the first significant disruption to their married bliss. The sale had turned everything around, however. They could afford to move out of that stifling unit, with its leaky roof and occasional ant infestations, and into this enormous house. This place had its share of aesthetic flaws and structural abnormalities, but in time they could all be fixed, and Julian could sense it. For almost a year he'd shopped around his screenplay and fretted over it. Now that it was out of his hands, he was back to living.
While up in the attic one day, remarking on the sheer volume of insulation, Julian came upon something curious tucked up against one of the rafters. The attic was not a large space, and the ceilings were low, so that in order for him to enter he would have to ascend a flight of stairs and stay hunched, walking carefully along the rafters lest he take a dive through them into the story below. He did so nimbly, keeping his hand on a ceiling beam and zeroing in on something amidst the pinkish fluff. Plucking it up, he hopped back to the stairwell, the beams beneath his feet groaning for their load, and took to dusting it off. He frowned as a little cloud of dust and insulation drifted off of it and then held it up to the dim-burning bulb that hung from the ceiling by a black coil of wire.
“Huh,” he said, looking it over. He made a face she'd never seen before. Kim was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, watching as he studied his find. His eyes were narrow, and the corners of his lips were turned up in a little smirk, but beneath it all there was something of fear. She could see it in the way his Adam's apple trembled, in the way he gulped and pushed on down the stairs without looking, but instead by guiding a shaky hand along the wall. By the time he'd reached the foot of the stairs he'd recovered, but a touch of the discomfort she'd glimpsed still plagued his expression.
He handed the thing to her and shot her an expectant look. “A photo,” he announced.
Kim unfolded the thing in her hands. It was curled up in on itself and not a little discolored, probably due to the changing of the seasons over the course of many years. How long the photo had been sitting in the attic they couldn't guess, but that it'd been a long time there could be no doubt. The reverse featured nothing, but the photo itself gave her pause. “What... what exactly am I looking at here?” she asked, turning it slightly and crinkling her nose as if she'd just smelled something foul.
Foul was about as good a word as she could think of for the sight she found in that photograph. There were six individuals pictured. The scene was grainy, rather dark, save for the far-off orange glow of some lamp. It almost looked like firelight, but the subjects had been photographed indoors and there was no sign of a hearth in frame. If not for the masks the subjects wore, they would have almost blended into the murky background, as was the case with their bodies below the neck. But those masks, made of a bright, white material like plaster and lent something of overexposure by the elements, waxed repellent as she took them in, one-by-one. They were all the same, featuring two clumsy, small eyes, a ridge of a nose, more fully-molded in some than others, and a wide, exaggerated smile. A small hole existed at the center of this smile to better allow the wearer to draw breath. Six faces crowded the frame, all of them close together and all of them baring their plaster-forged grins for the photographer.
She shuddered and handed it back to Julian in a hurry. “What is this?” she asked, running her hands along her arms as though looking to banish a nonexistent cold. “It's creepy.”
Julian regarded the picture from a slight distance and glanced up at her. “Honestly? I dunno.” He chuckled, teasing the curled edge of the photo and easing the attic door shut. “Probably, like... a Halloween picture from years ago.” He nodded, further convincing himself of this answer. “Yeah, you know, that's gotta be it.” He laughed aloud, the sound echoing somewhat discordantly in the hall. Noting her evident discomfort, he added, “Kind of weird, but old-timey pictures like this are always weird. You know, they didn't have the same technology we did growing up, so they made their own costumes and such for holidays. Sometimes, out of context, well... they just look eerie. My mom has this picture of me and my brother sitting with the easter bunny from, like, the mid-eighties, and the thing looks monstrous. You know what I mean? Google 'old Halloween pictures from the 60's and 70's' and you'll see what I mean.”
“No thanks,” she said, arching a brow. As she started down the stairs, hoping to rendezvous with her dogeared copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, she paused. “I wish there weren't so many little pieces of the previous owners in this house. I kind of liked it better when we didn't know anything about them. When they were just a story.”
He rolled his eyes and followed her downstairs. “I know, right? I mean, just look at what our search has revealed! They were true monsters!” He slapped the photo against her arm. “They liked dressing up in costumes and celebrating holidays! The nerve! The outrage!”
Their laughs filled the halls. It was a bit strange to think that their voices were the first to reverberate against these old walls for more than seven years. They were laughing and carrying on now. Someday these walls would be witness to their disagreements, and more.
As she settled back into her chair and picked up her book, Kim wondered just what the house had seen or heard in those days and hours before the previous owners suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Five
“I know what you're thinking,” he said, arms crossed. “It would be too perfect if this place, old and in the middle of nowhere, its previous owners having vanished mysteriously, ended up being haunted, right?” He waved his arms around wildly in mockery, as though he were a magician hyping up some trick on a stage before children. “But the reality is a lot less interesting than that.” Julian peered over at the bedroom door, which still sat ajar. “You say you shut it, but did you make sure it was good and closed?”
Kim was getting irritated with him now. “If you don't believe me, then fine, just get out of here and leave me alone! I said I closed the damn door and then it opened on its own, OK? Why is that so hard to believe? I never said it was, like, Jack the Ripper doing it, so fuck off!”
Julian sighed, placing his hands on her shoulders and peering down into her eyes sympathetically. “No, maybe not, but when I came in here, you looked spooked. And this isn't the first time it's happened, either. I mean, the door to the basement does this sometimes. And last night, when the house was settling, you woke me up because you thought it was--”
“Footsteps, yeah, yeah.” She broke away from him. “It's just weird, OK? I'm not used to... doors and stuff moving around on their own, you know? It makes me uncomfortable.”
“I get it. But you know this is an old house, and old houses have their quirks. These door frames have been warped over time. Changes in temperature, in moisture, can loosen 'em up till the door doesn't fit quite right. That'll make them swing open at the slightest breeze.” He smiled wide, pulling her into a tight hug despite her resistance. “Come on, babe. Don't worry about it. It's really nothing. I promise, when the more important stuff is out of the way, we can replace all those dumb old doors, too.”
The comfort she gained at this reassurance was fleeting.
Precisely when the change began to occur in her she couldn't quite say. Perhaps it was around the time she first took a good, long look at the woods behind the house, at the sordid stretch of bald and ashen trunks that went on for miles, that the worm of fear wriggled into her heart. The shadows that gathered in the house even during the daylight hours like cobwebs in the corners made it so that she had to use lamps at all times. The house made its fair share of noises, seemed to speak to her with a language all its own. Not fluent in this tongue, Kim couldn't help but read sinister things into the old home's creakings and chur
nings. The floors were given to loud squeaks even in those moments when the two of them were seated or in bed. Pipes rattling in ancient sockets would sometimes stir up fear in her, the metallic discord sounding like a prisoner shaking at the bars of a prison cell. Kim couldn't help but anthropomorphize the house's noises; it carried on a life of its own.
Julian was always there with the explanations. He was a master at digging up chestnuts about his time living in an old house as a child, and about the transition that would be necessary before she was used to living in such an isolated rural area. To his mind, every creak and thump had a reason behind it, could be explained away offhandedly, and without the slightest concern. His nonchalance was a comfort at first, but as the days passed and her mood worsened towards the house's many “quirks”, it became not a little grating.
Once, when the two of them were reading late at night in the living room, their feet up on an ottoman, the lights had begun to flicker. They did so in a most peculiar way by Kim's appraisal, the bulbs gradually dimming until they suddenly flashed back to life. It happened a few times in slow succession, and before she could even account for the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, Julian was rushing in with his expert opinion.
“The wiring in this house could stand to be replaced. Faulty wires, a good breeze messing with the power lines... could have been a lot of things.” He spoke so confidently.
She found herself thinking about the house, its reported age and the fragments of knowledge she'd gained about the previous owners with a good bit more frequency than was healthy. It wasn't such an old house, really. More or less fifty years old. Was it really so aged as to have developed these many curious defects? On this, too, Julian was quick to opine. He maintained that the house's lack of tenants in the past several years could have led to an atrophy of the house's infrastructure and fixtures.
Perhaps it was so.
Try as she might however, Kim couldn't beat back the subtle dread in her gut. It built slowly, a single drop trickling into the well each day. But then something would happen-- a strange knock at the door in the middle of the night, a sound like footsteps in the attic-- and she would find her fear reaching new heights. Daylight provided little comfort, as the shadow-swollen abode seemed to pay no attention to the hour. Its noises were not limited to the night, even if they were most concentrated in those hours after dark.
This move was shaping up to be something she hadn't anticipated. Something she hadn't signed up for. The source of her unhappiness and dread was difficult to pinpoint, and it was likely issuing from a series of smaller concerns, but that it was there all the same could not be denied.
Kim rolled over in bed, her body tensing beneath the plush comforter. She put Julian's subdued breathing out of her mind and tried to focus on the sound that'd knocked her out of a light sleep. It came from somewhere else in the house, and the distance made it muffled, doubtful.
She could have sworn it was the screaming of an infant.
Kim shook her head and blinked in the moonlight, fluffing her pillow. You know it's not a baby, she thought. No one lives around here. There isn't another person for miles around. Her mouth grew a little dry as she considered their utter isolation, and she was quick to change the subject of her thoughts. The strange crying sound that drifted up from one of the lower stories; what the hell was it, then? If I woke this jerk, he'd probably just tell me it was a bird that got stuck in the chimney, or maybe some other animal. She grimaced a little as she imagined Julian giving a self-assured grin and offering such an explanation. That's exactly what he'd say. I'm sure of it. But... but why doesn't it make me feel any better?
Ratcheting up her nerves, she'd slipped half-way out of bed, preparing to open the bedroom door, when a sudden and ponderous silence fell over the house and made her reconsider. She didn't want to be a coward in her own house, to have all of these commonplace noises unsettle her like a child. But when the noise ceased, she scrambled back under the covers and closed her eyes. Kim shuddered, grit her teeth and pressed her face against her pillow. Well, the noise stopped, so there's nothing to investigate. I'm sure it was nothing.
Somehow, sleep returned to her.
Kim saw she was standing at the top of the stairs. Step by step, and with an airy grace, she descended. The stairs did not creak under her feet as they usually did; it felt almost as if she were the weight of a feather, her mass scarcely registering on the old planks that were ordinarily so noisy.
Then she was downstairs, rounding the bannister with its carved, staring cherubs and making her way into the living room. The living room was dark, black, and only a few bold shapes could be made out in the veil of night. Whether they were pieces of furniture as she expected or something that did not belong in the room she didn't give much thought. Instead, her bleary eyes locked onto a dim light registering in her periphery. She recognized it as the glow that came from the light above the kitchen sink. Had she left it on all night?
Kim drifted into the kitchen, and then stopped in the doorway. She cocked her head to the side, surveyed the room and tried to process the scene before her. Her mouth felt parched, dry, but she couldn't say why. Maybe you're feeling scared? she thought.
But she saw no reason why she should be scared.
All she saw in the kitchen, hunched slightly over the counter, was the profile of an old woman. The woman was completely naked and had her back to the doorway so that Kim could not see her face. A thinning shock of whitish grey hair snaked down the length of her pale, bony back as she busied herself at the counter. She seemed to be preparing tea, holding Kim's own stainless steel kettle in her quivering, arthritic hand. She was pouring a cup of tea into Kim's favorite glass mug. The woman moved with slow, measured gestures. It was like she was stuck in slow-motion. Even the water that poured from the spout of the kettle seemed to pour at the lowest possible speed.
Confused and vaguely bothered at the sight of this naked stranger in her kitchen, Kim tried to wet her lips, to no avail, and to call out to her. “What are you doing in my house?” she asked, her voice bursting forth from her lips and then hanging in the air as though suspended in molasses.
At this, the woman slowly set down the kettle and corrected her hunched posture, standing bolt upright. That she'd heard and was now aware of Kim's presence was clear, however she did not turn around. She stood at the counter, her back remaining to the doorway, and was still as a statue.
“Why are you in my house?” Kim asked again, her voice dribbling out nebulously, uncertainly. She felt in some way as though she'd forgotten how to speak, forgotten the English language entirely.
The stranger did not turn around. However, from somewhere close-by, perhaps from the old woman's unseen mouth, there finally came a reply.
“I told you we'd come back for it.”
Kim awoke with a gasp. The light of early morning stung her eyes as they burst open and she sat up in bed, her mouth so dry it hurt. Julian was awake, sitting at the foot of the bed and fiddling with his socks. He looked back at her confusedly, cracking a smile. His blonde locks were sticking up in odd cowlicks where he'd rested against his pillow. “You OK?”
Surveying the room and casting off the blankets, she nodded. Her breathing slowed and, when she'd drained the glass of water at her bedside, she finally found it in herself to explain. “I just... I just had the weirdest damn dream.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, throwing on a t-shirt and stepping into the closet for a sweater.
“I dreamt that I went downstairs and there was a woman down there, making tea in the kitchen. An old woman with long hair. And she was... naked.”
Julian laughed aloud at that moment. For Kim, though, it hadn't been amusing in the least. He hadn't seen the woman, hadn't glimpsed the bluish veins coursing through her papery white skin. He hadn't seen the length of wispy silver hair, or the way she'd just stood there, with her back turned. She understood why it might sound funny, but in reflection, it'd been a terrifyingly
life-like dream.
Kim sighed. The longer she sat in bed and sought to describe the dream, the more she found the finer details mercifully effaced by wakefulness. Wiping her eyes, she forced a little smile and stood up. “Never mind.”
When they'd brushed their teeth and dressed, the pair went down the stairs and set about preparing their morning coffee.
It was Julian who remarked on the kettle and half-filled teacups on the counter near the sink when they first entered the room. “Did you leave those out last night? I don't even remember you making any tea.” He emptied the cups, rinsed them out and set them in the drying rack. He replaced the empty kettle on the stove and stashed away the tin of tea with complete nonchalance.
He hadn't put things together. But from where she was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking to the sink with fearful eyes, Kim was thoroughly unnerved. No, she hadn't left those things there. She hadn't made any tea the night previous. But she had had that dream just then. And as she lingered in the doorway, staring across the room, she found it an eerie, day-lit analogue to the dreamscape she'd just emerged from. The only thing missing was the old woman.
Kim accepted a mug of freshly-brewed coffee and took it out to the living room. For the remainder of the day she stayed clear of the kitchen, opting to let Julian cook their meals. As the hours passed and her memories of the dream faded further, she worked at convincing herself that she had been mistaken. You left that kettle out. You must've made tea at some point yesterday and you never put the cups or tea bags away.
Black Acres- The Complete Collection Page 3