Five Stories High

by Jonathan Oliver

  “It’s a white elephant, Harry, and I didn’t ask for it.”

  “You did, though. In ways you were probably not aware of. In the way you lit up when we went to your parents, the way you revelled in space, the way you sometimes looked at me with disappointment.”

  “I never –”

  “We can’t leave, Tara. This is home, this is going to be home, and I’m not going to be chased out by a few tricks of the light.”

  Tara points towards the door. “Adrienne’s vomiting was not a trick of the light. The writing in our books is not a trick of the light.”

  “I admit there’s been an odd reaction for all of us, but –”

  “It’s not odd. It’s dangerous. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  Harry picks up his laptop, closes it and walks out, furious. He is not sure which part of it is because Tara is right or because he has no arguments left.

  But there will be no leaving. Whatever is in the house or is wrong with the house will have to be dealt with.

  HARRY LOOKS THROUGH the circular window he had installed on the second floor. Cory and Adrienne play in the garden, though he cannot discern what game they are playing. It looks all too sane, with too much talking and not enough frolicking. Children should frolic.

  Though he cannot hear them, Harry knows Betty and Tara are in the lower sitting room talking. He feels they are talking about him. This is a frequent impression whenever they get together.

  He returns to his research. He has been reading the “Report on the Census of Hallucinations” from 1894 in something called Studies in Psychical Research. Apparently William James had something to do with it. It basically studies the occurrence of apparitions in humans. It is dizzying, so he returns to the collated document.

  This is difficult. He gathered all the information, yet he cannot remember the contents. He then tries to read the document, but the information either does not stay in his head, he dozes off, or he gets distracted, like when he went to the window to look at the children.

  Would be sensible to print it, but when he tries that it comes out blank.

  Harry has a feeling of sinking dread when he reads the document because it seems so unfamiliar each time he reads it. He even has a sinking suspicion it might be... growing longer. He has not told Tara because she’s worried enough. He has started to make notes of what he remembers in the document, hoping that this will fix it in place. Each time he returns, the new document matches what he has written down, but the sense of difference persists.

  It worked. My blanket of bugs and creepy-crawlies kept the little darlings out. Silence, golden silence ever since. Of course the nature of bugs and the like is they walked away. They also had a tendency to eat each other. I had to make several replenishing trips. I found that the best strategy was to deposit them in the attic on the fifth floor. From there they made their own way. As a result, there were insects and reptiles all over the house. I got the occasional sting, but it was a small price to pay.

  I found papers that belonged to my great aunt. More in common with her than I thought. She apparently ran the house as a foster home of sorts. One hundred and forty nine girls lived here at one time or another. She kept meticulous notes. Where they came from, what floor they lived on, where they went after staying here.

  The last entries do not have the detail of the previous ones, and it does not say why she stopped fostering.

  There was a letter among her papers from the Society for Psychical Research, but couched in vague terminology like “crisis apparitions” and claiming “methodological kinship with the investigators of Leonora Piper”. The letter was, as far as I could determine, unanswered. It all seemed so Vincent Price to me.

  The next part is difficult to swallow, Harry. Are you sure you are ready for it?

  Harry inhales, sharply, and blinks. The sentence that mentions his name is gone. He rubs his eyes. Did that really happen, or is he being influenced by what happened to Tara?

  It all seemed so Vincent Price to me.

  The house was silent for two hundred and thirteen glorious days.

  I kept count.

  Then.

  Well, then one night I saw people lurking outside the gate, just outside the property. Lurking isn’t the right word. They just stood there in shadow, human shaped, but not moving. I looked at them, they looked at me, we all did nothing. I called the police that first night, but they were gone by the time the meat wagon arrived.

  Nothing happened for a week, then I started to see them on the fence out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and they were gone, but I knew they had been there.

  Day eight after I first saw the lurkers, I was asleep when I heard a knock. I thought perhaps my bugs needed replenishing, but that wasn’t it.

  It was a break-in. I had underestimated the filthy little girls, the noisy ones, the cheats. Oh, the kids who came in didn’t know what they were getting into, and they paid for their misdeeds soon enough, just not soon enough to save me.

  See how I die, Harry, because I die for you.

  (Harry no longer even notices his name in the text. It is invisible. He is hot, sweating, and one part of him knows there is knocking at the door, which he has locked. There is an itch at the base of his skull and behind his eyes, but he keeps reading.)

  They killed me slowly. They beat me with sticks, broke my limbs against the floor, smashed my skull against the wall so hard that my left eye exploded and leaked down my cheek. This was funny to them. I tried to run, I tried to fight, but the good Lord did not see fit to make either my arm or my leg strong.

  I was not dead, but they thought I was. They wrapped me in the Persian rug I bought the summer before and put me in the back of my own car.

  They set fire to my house, which I don’t think the children bargained for. Ha-ha, who’s laughing now, blood clots? Well, not me, because I could not laugh at that point. I do not know where they drove to, but it took a while. My broken ribs poked into my lungs with every speed bump, every turn in the road. It was autumn, but I warmed the car with my blood.

  They got out, laughing like the little girls, I should add, and I heard splashing noises. Then a kind of muted explosion like God farting. Then this heat, this searing pain. I found my voice and screamed.

  That’s when they found out I was still alive, Harry. I was burning, and I would have died anyway, but they pulled me out.

  We were in the woods somewhere, I don’t know. The car lights were still on, even though it burned like a druid’s sacrifice.

  Then they strung me up. They wrapped a rope around my neck, and they pulled.

  This part was quick, Harry. But even as I blacked out, and my bladder and rectum gave way to shit and piss, I saw them, the children, gnawing on my legs, twitching with me as I died.

  They buried me in the woods. Well, they tossed my body near a mound which sort of eroded in the autumn rain and partially covered me with soil.

  Are you paying attention, Harry? You should, because this is exactly how you will die. Face black, gurgling, legs kicking, dancing the Tyburn jig, alive just long enough to see –

  Harry starts breathing again. The document stops suddenly, incomplete, but more menacing for being so. There is a banging at the door.

  “Harry!” Tara is behind the door.

  “What?” he says.

  “Betty and I are going out,” she says. “What are you doing with the door locked?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, well, we’re gone. The kids are in the garden.”

  “I know.”

  There is some muttering behind the door, then she is gone.

  Harry closes the laptop. He knows that if he should open it again, the document will be different. He does not need to prove this hypothesis.

  What now?

  12.

  BETTY LISTENS PATIENTLY until Tara runs out of words. Tara’s mouth is dry and though she feels emotionally drained and on the brink of despair, she does not cry or break eye-conta
ct. Neither does Betty. Tara silently dares her friend to show disbelief.

  “Is that everything?” asks Betty.

  “Yes,” says Tara.

  There is a squeal from outside and Tara checks on her offspring in the garden, then returns to her seat.

  Betty puts a hand on Tara’s shoulder for a moment. Tara holds it there and takes deep gulps of air.

  “All right,” says Betty. She pulls out an anachronistic flip phone and calls someone on speed dial. “Maddy? It’s Betty. I need to see him.”

  TARA HAS NEVER been to Portsmouth and she routinely mixes it up geographically with Plymouth. Betty drives them both in her modest little Civic. They career down the A3 southbound and Tara falls asleep. Betty wakes her and shoves a coke in her face – it reminds Tara of the woman in the hospital.

  They pass towns with vaguely agrarian names like Cowplain, Hindhead and Horndean. Then they are on the coast and driving inside Portsmouth. This strikes Tara as sexual, and she laughs out loud.

  “What?” says Betty.

  “Nothing.”

  “Just calm down, darling. Aunty Betty will fix you right up.”

  She takes Tara to a warehouse. No. It only looks like one on the outside. It’s been converted to living quarters. Betty knocks, and the front door opens.

  “Maddy!”

  They embrace. Maddy is a young, mixed-race girl. She has the face of a person who smiles all the time and Tara likes her instantly.

  “How’s your father?” This seems to be an in-joke with them.

  “How’s yours, dinny bitch?” She looks at Tara. “Is this her?”

  “Tara Newton.” She extends a hand, but Maddy wraps her in a warm embrace. She smells of elderflower.

  “Listen,” says Maddy as she ushers Tara towards a door. “Try not to stare. He’s a bit self-conscious.”

  Before she can protest, she is in a room, door closed behind her.

  It is not well lit, but there is a man in front of her. He is trapped in a white curtain or blind. Literally. The white material appears to have been sewn around him. His head, torso and legs are visible, but it’s as if he is half-way out of a linen womb, or caught in a spiderweb made of actual silk. He stands, and he’s smiling. The curtain appears to bisect the room and the echo of her footfalls reflects the emptiness. He is like Liberace in one of his more extravagant sartorial efforts, except the clothing extends to the floor, walls and ceiling, pinned with small tacks. Tara is nervous, but Betty would never steer her wrong. Actually, that’s not true. There was that time in uni with the dealer, but she doesn’t think that’s going to be a problem here.

  She wonders what is behind him, but all she can see are ephemeral movements of... shapes.

  “Hello, Mrs Newton.”

  “Hello...” She is unsure how to address him.

  “You are safe here, Mrs Newton. You can approach.”

  She stops about a foot from him. The room smells dusty and new at the same time, as if once decorated it has been locked and opened only for this purpose. New paint, like Tara’s house. Harry’s house. Their house. New paint and no smells of being lived in. He is black, and he doesn’t move much. Just breathing.

  “It’s customary to drop a token fee when visiting an oracle, Mrs Newton.”

  “How much is –” She fishes in her pocket and finds a five pound note.

  “That is more than enough. Just drop it anywhere.”

  She does.

  “Should I tell you my problem?”

  “What kind of oracle would I be if I needed you to tell me?”

  “All right. What next?”

  “We wait.”

  They do.

  Tara struggles, trying to figure out what to do with her gaze. The admonition not to stare is bouncing around her skull.

  Soon, there is movement on the other side of the silk screen, a shadow draws close to his left ear. Tara does not quite hear whispering, but she sees his attention divert and his eyes move down and to the left. He also nods, but says nothing. It takes two minutes for this non-conversation to come to a halt, then she senses more than sees the shadow move back into homogeneity behind him. He sighs.

  What the fuck is this?

  “I don’t know how to help you, Mrs Newton,” he says. “You should have told me that you are already dead.”

  13.

  ADRIENNE, CORY AND Louise sit on the lawn, just like old times. Adrienne has the view of the house, while Cory and Louise have their backs to it. Adrienne is the only one who sees Mum and Betty leave in the car. Betty waves before getting into the car.

  Adrienne asks, “Louise, are you dead?”

  Louise smiles that smile she has, the one that makes Adrienne feel safe.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “The grownups don’t see you.”

  “Your dad does,” says Louise.

  “Only when you want him to,” says Cory.

  “I am not dead, Adrienne, all right?”

  “You talk like grownups,” says Cory.

  “I’ve been listening to them a long time,” says Louise.

  “How come you can’t come into the new house?” asks Adrienne.

  Louise pauses for a long time, glances behind her at the house. “It’s... it’s not mine,” she says finally. “Yet.”

  Adrienne does not understand. When she was younger she thought Louise was her older sister. She is always around and Adrienne would make a place for her at the table. Mum and dad laugh, smile, and talk to Louise, but later she finds out that they call her “special friend”. They think she has made up Louise like an imaginary friend. Louise doesn’t mind, and tells Adrienne to play along. When Cory is born he can see her too. He coos when she stands at the end of his cot. Adrienne never questions Louise’s ways, never asks her where she goes to school. Adrienne thinks she remembers Louise in photos, but when she looks back she can only see herself, Cory and the ’rents.

  Adrienne sees the lady approaching from the house. Before she can say anything Louise stands up, inserting herself between the lady and the children.

  “Hello, young delicious things,” says the lady. She walks funny, with a stiff gait. Adrienne notices that she does not swing her arms when she moves, and her neck is rigid. She is wearing a black wedding dress. It drags on the grass and Adrienne can see the blades flick back up after the train has passed over them.

  “Is she dead?” asks Cory. His hand slips into Adrienne’s.

  “She’s dead all right,” says Louise. Her shoulders seem to square.

  “And what of it? This is my house. What are you doing here, filthy, despicable girl? You don’t belong here. Send the children into the house.” The lady rubs her hands together. “I will take care of them.”

  “They are mine,” says Louise. “This family is mine, and you cannot touch them.”

  Louise and the lady are about a foot apart and to Adrienne it seems like the air between them crackles.

  “You are an abomination,” says the lady. She pokes the air in front of Louise like she is accusing her. “Give to me what is mine.”

  Cory starts to hum a tune. Adrienne cuffs him, and shakes her head. “Not now.”

  “Naam chop, Adrienne,” says the lady, looking over Louise at Adrienne. “Yes, I understand the secret language you and the other filthmongers use.”

  “I –” says Adrienne.

  “Don’t listen to her,” says Louise.

  “Cory, dear boy, take some spiders and whatever other critters you can find and put them in your sister’s room,” says the lady.

  “Stay where you are, Cory. You don’t have to do what she says,” says Louise.

  The lady does not exactly smile, but her mouth becomes wider, and her lips split, pulled tight over her teeth which are really white. She reminds Adrienne of TV dancers who smile while they contort their bodies and somehow keep the smiles pointed to the cameras.

  “No, you little cretins, you don’t have to do what I say. But do you know what will hap
pen, little filthmonger, if you don’t do what I say? Has she told you?”

  “The girls will come,” says Cory, in a tiny voice.

  “The girls are already here,” says the lady. “But, pray tell, who is in the house right now?”

  They hear a scream, their father’s voice. Adrienne starts forward.

  “Stop, don’t,” says Louise.

  “Yes, don’t.” The lady’s neck finally moves. She cocks her head to the left at an extreme angle and hums that tune that Cory hums.

  There is another scream from the house.

  “Louise,” says Cory. “What should we do?”

  Louise appears to Adrienne uncertain. The sun is down now, and the garden is dark. Adrienne does not like to be out at night, even though the automatic light comes on near the front door.

  “You can’t wait,” says the lady. She begins to back away into the shadows, rigid, not turning, like she has eyes behind her. “She knows what I mean.”

  14.

  “I DON’T KNOW what you mean,” says Tara.

  “I should have put a seat in here,” says the man. “I’m going to tell you a few things. Some of them you’ll find distasteful, others unbelievable, but given what I know, they may all be academic.”

  “You said I was already dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you were. When you were young, your heart stopped long enough to convince observers that you were dead.” He turns his head to the side again and there is movement behind the silk. “You were ten, almost eleven.”

  “I fell from a horse,” says Tara. “Bellbottom wouldn’t jump, so I went flying. Why is this... how is this relevant? That was a long time ago.”

  “It’s relevant because when you died you made a spirit, Mrs Newton. Haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t dream? You used to dream before the accident.”