Every House Is Haunted

by Ian Rogers

  “You sound real broken up about it.”

  “Tara Denton wasn’t my friend. She was some twit I sat next to in Algebra who believed too much in tarot. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t kill her.”

  “And yet you got kicked out of school.”

  “They’ve been waiting to do that for a long time,” Soelle said, with a noticeable lack of resentment. “Ever since the school mascot drowned himself.”

  “Right,” I said. “Because he thought he was a real shark.”

  Soelle shrugged. “That’s the rumour.”

  “Seems to be a lot of rumours at that high school,” I mentioned. “Most of them about you. Would it kill you to make some friends?”

  “I don’t need friends. Just my brother.”

  She gave me her NutraSweet grin: full of artificial sweetness.

  I remember the day when I became an adult.

  It was four years ago. I was eighteen and Soelle was eleven. I’d just graduated from high school. My student co-op at the paper mill had turned into a full-time job. I drove a forklift. The hours were long, the work monotonous, but it was union and the pay was decent. I wondered if it was possible to do this kind of mindless labour for the next thirty or forty years without developing some sort of psychotic disorder. I was thinking about getting my own place and finding a girl to take back to it.

  One day I came home from work and found Soelle sitting on the porch swing. She was drinking an Orange Crush and reading one of her Anne of Green Gables books.

  “Mom and Dad are gone,” she said.

  “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “They’re gone.” She took a sip of her drink. “I went out walking this morning, and when I came back they were gone.”

  I looked over at my car sitting in the driveway, parked behind my parents’ station wagon. “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know,” Soelle said. “I thought they went visiting, but they haven’t come back.”

  “Well that’s it, then. They’ve just gone over to the Mullens’ or the Heaths’. They’ll be back.”

  Soelle lowered her book and gave me a patronizing look. “Mom and Dad haven’t gone visiting in years, Toby. Where have you been?”

  I was beginning to wonder that myself. I felt like I had been away much longer than seven hours. More like seven years.

  I left Soelle on the porch and checked the house from top to bottom. There was no sign of our parents. No sign that they had suddenly packed up and left, but no sign that they had been dragged out of the house by force, either. No sign of anything at all. It was like they had been ghosts haunting the place rather than flesh and blood people who had once lived here. My memories of them felt hazy already.

  I didn’t feel scared or frantic. I felt angry. I didn’t know why I felt that way, and that made me angrier. Where the hell could they have gone? Why would they leave me alone with Soelle?

  I called the police and they searched the house. They talked to the neighbours. They asked for phone numbers of our other relatives, but we didn’t have anyone we were close to.

  The police came to the same conclusion I had reached hours earlier: that our parents had left the house seemingly of their own volition, but with absolutely no evidence of having done so. Their belongings hadn’t been disturbed or removed and their luggage was still stacked in the crawl space. The neighbours didn’t recall seeing them leave the house, nor did they report seeing any unusual people in the area.

  Time passed. Days turned into weeks, and I kept waiting for a social worker from the Children’s Aid Society to come and take us away. Soelle and I would be placed in a province-run care facility until adequate foster homes could be found. They would try and keep us together, but there were no guarantees. We would eventually be passed off to different families. Over the next few years Soelle and I would exchange birthday cards, Christmas presents, the occasional letter, but eventually we’d drift apart until we finally forget we even had a brother or sister. It was stuff shitty made-for-TV melodramas are made of.

  But it didn’t happen. The social worker never showed up. I thought maybe Soelle and I had slipped through the cracks, as so many kids are supposed to do, if you believe the news magazine shows. The truth was much simpler.

  They didn’t come because I was eighteen and working. The mortgage was already paid off, and I was bringing in enough to cover the bills and keep us fed. I had grown up without realizing it. I was an adult.

  Soelle had a reputation as an unusual child even before she started school.

  My earliest memory of an “incident,” which was what our parents called the strange things that happened in Soelle’s presence, occurred when Soelle was two years old and I was nine. We were in the back yard, Soelle playing in her turtle kiddie pool, me sitting on the swing set that I was already too big for. I was bored out of my skull. I had been tasked with keeping an eye on Soelle and making sure she didn’t drown herself in fourteen inches of water.

  Something caught my attention in the farmer’s field that our property backed onto. I don’t recall what it was. A deer, maybe. I wandered over to check it out, and when I came back, no more than two minutes later, the turtle pool was gone.

  The pool wasn’t very big, but it was a painfully bright lime green that stood out on our parched yellow lawn like a radioactive spotlight. Still, it took me a moment to realize it was gone. Part of that was because Soelle was still right where I had left her, blonde hair in a ponytail, decked out in her My Little Pony bathingsuit, and sitting in the spot where the pool had been only a moment ago.

  “Soelle,” I said, “where’s the pool?”

  “It’s gone!” She was crying and slapping at the ground, which was turning muddy from the hose that was still spraying out water.

  “Where did it go?”

  I was thinking some kid must have come into our yard and taken it.

  “It went away!” There were tears on her face. I remember that because she wasn’t the kind of kid who cried very often. She raised her hands, the hose still gripped in one of them, and sent a spray of water into the air.

  I actually looked up then, half-expecting to see a green turtle-shaped pool floating in the sky over my head.

  Of course there was nothing there when I looked.

  But I saw plenty of other strange things over the years since then.

  After Soelle got kicked out of school, she started disappearing most nights. I’d be walking past her door on my way to bed and, more often than not, her room would be empty, the bedsheets neat and undisturbed. She was always back in the morning, acting as though she hadn’t left, and although I questioned her about it at first, she always gave me the same reply: “I was just out walking.”

  After a couple of weeks of this, I started going out looking for her. Silver Falls isn’t a very big town, but it still took me a few nights to find her, walking barefoot along the banks of the Black Creek, near the Cross Street bridge. She was wearing her nightgown, and looked like an oversized child.

  “What are you doing down there?” I called from the bridge railing.

  “Oh, I’m just looking around,” she said, her arms held out to either side, walking along the water’s edge, one foot stepping in front of the other like she was walking on a tightrope.

  “What are you looking for?” I spoke in a low, harsh whisper. I didn’t know why I bothered. We were on the edge of town, almost into the woods, and there were no houses nearby. Even if there were, no one would have thought anything of it. Not if they knew it was Soelle.

  She giggled and disappeared under the bridge. I swore under my breath and went around to where the embankment slanted down to the creek bed. Soelle was staring up at the underside of the bridge. I tried to see what she was looking at, but it was too dark.

  “I asked what you’re doing out here. Don’t you know it’s after midnight?”

  Soelle shrugged. “I’m looking for dead bodies.”
r />   I wasn’t sure I heard her right. The creek was very loud under the bridge.

  “Did you say dead bodies?”

  Soelle gave a small nod, still staring upward. “I watched a TV show about police psychics. The kind used to track down dead bodies. They said most bodies are found in the vicinity of water. Lakes, rivers, ponds. I got to thinking about it and realized I’ve never seen a dead body before.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Sure. I don’t like the idea of not experiencing all that life has to offer.”

  “So you decided to go out in the middle of the night and look for dead bodies.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “No. Anybody will do.” She giggled. “Any body will do.”

  I hesitated, picking my words carefully. “You realize how messed up that sounds?”

  Soelle turned and looked at me, and I felt a momentary pang of terror. Then her brow creased in puzzlement. She was looking at something above my head. I looked up and saw something hovering there: a small white rectangle. “What . . .”

  Soelle touched my arm, startling me. She was standing right in front of me now. “Give me a boost.”

  I hunched over and laced my fingers together. She slipped her foot into the cup formed by my hands and I hoisted her up gently. I tried to crane my head back, but it was all I could do to keep from dumping us both into the creek. I looked over at the dark water churning by. There was something strange about it; something I hadn’t noticed earlier. I couldn’t be sure—it was too dark—but I thought it was flowing in the wrong direction.

  “Got it!” Soelle said. I lowered her to the ground. She was holding the white rectangle in her hand, flipping it back and forth between her fingers. “Now this is exciting,” she said.

  It was a playing card.

  The ace of hearts.

  A few weeks after that, I came home to find Soelle in the front yard holding a leash. She was dragging it back and forth across the lawn like she was walking an invisible dog. I came over and saw there was a collar on the end of the leash. It was red with the words MY FAVOURITE PET embroidered on it.

  “Dare I ask?”

  Soelle smiled. “I went down to the store to get a chocolate milk, and the guy behind the counter called me a witch.”

  “He said that,” I said, sceptically, “right out of the blue?”

  “Well . . .” Soelle hesitated. “I asked him if he had seen any aces lately.”

  “Any aces.”

  “Like the one I found under the bridge. I’m looking for the rest of them. I thought he might’ve seen one of them around. That’s when he started looking at me funny. He said he recognized me and that people were talking about me.”

  “So what else is new?”

  “They’ve always talked, but no one’s ever called me a witch before.”

  “And what, you’re worried they’re going to burn you at the stake?”

  “No, of course not. The guy in the store did say he’d call the cops if I didn’t leave, though. He was a real ace-hole. But it got me thinking, what if he did call the cops? How would the poh-lease deal with a witch?”

  “I think they shoot them on sight,” I told her, “but they use silver bullets.”

  “That’s for werewolves, you nerd.”

  “What does it matter? You’re not a witch. People in town, they’re just . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “They don’t know what to make of you.”

  “Maybe I am a witch.”

  “You’re still young. You can be whatever you want.”

  Soelle shrugged. “Maybe I want to be a witch.”

  “A witch who looks for aces. Sounds like a wise career choice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It still doesn’t explain the leash.”

  “Oh, this.” She held it up like she didn’t even know it was in her hand. “This is for my familiar. I figure if I’m gonna be a witch, I’d better start acting the part.”

  “You’re already acting the part,” I said. “That’s why people think you’re a witch.”

  Soelle nodded thoughtfully. “Toush.”

  “That’s touché, you nerd.”

  Soelle started dragging the leash with her everywhere she went. This went on for about two weeks, and then one day I noticed her without it.

  “Give up on the familiar?” I inquired.

  “No,” she said, smiling brightly. “I already found one.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s been living with us for the last week, as if you didn’t notice.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t.”

  Soelle turned her head to the side, as if hearing something I could not. “Oh,” she said. “You can’t see him. Only I can.”

  “What happened to the leash?”

  “He doesn’t like wearing the leash. He said it was degrading to his person.”

  “He actually said that? Degrading to his person?”

  “Yes. The Haxanpaxan is quite sophisticated. He’s going to help me find the rest of my aces.”

  “The Haxanpaxan?” I said. “What’s that, a zebra or something?”

  “It’s a name.” Soelle rolled her eyes at me. “And I wouldn’t make jokes about it. The Haxanpaxan doesn’t have a sense of humour.”

  “Sounds like he’s a lot of fun at a party.”

  Soelle glared at me. “I’d watch that.”

  Ahh, the Haxanpaxan. How he made our lives so very interesting.

  “Soelle, I told you to turn off the TV if you’re not watching it.”

  “The Haxanpaxan’s watching it.”

  “The Haxanpaxan is watching Canada’s Next Top Model?”

  “He likes it. He says the models remind him of himself.”

  “Soelle, did you leave the back door open?”

  “The Haxanpaxan did. He went outside to do his business.”

  “Well, can you tell him to close it when he’s done?”

  “You don’t tell the Haxanpaxan to do anything.”

  “Can you ask him, then? Pretty please, with sugar on top?”

  “Toby, do you remember what I said about being funny?”

  “Soelle, do you know anything about the Conroys’ minivan getting smashed up last night?”

  “I’m afraid not, Toby. But on a side note: the Haxanpaxan doesn’t like minivans. And he doesn’t like the colour lime green. He finds it offensive to the senses.”

  “Uh-huh. The back door was open again all night.”

  “The Haxanpaxan was out.”

  “Doing his business?”

  “No, silly. He was looking for aces.”

  On an unseasonably warm Saturday in March, I was outside on the porch swing reading the paper when Soelle came skipping up the cobblestone path.

  “Hard day at the office?” I asked.

  “Look what we found.”

  She was bouncing around and waving something in her hand. It took me a moment to figure out what it was: a playing card. The ace of clubs.

  “The Haxanpaxan was the one who found it, actually. He’s very smart.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Mrs. Ferguson’s birdbath.”

  “Mrs. Ferguson?” I pictured an old woman who lived alone with her pet Rottweiler. An animal she could’ve thrown a saddle on and ridden around town. “You went into her back yard?”

  “Duh. That’s where her birdbath is.”

  “What about Kramer? Wasn’t he outside?”

  Soelle flashed me a wicked grin. “Oh, he was there all right. But one look from the Haxanpaxan and his fur turned completely white.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yep. Then he ran around the side of the house and we went over and got the card.”

  “Aces.”

  “That’s right.” She winked at me and skipped up the porch steps and went inside. I was picking up my pa
per when I heard the porch steps creak. The front door swung open on its own, then closed again.

  Just the wind, I thought.

  Soelle called me from a payphone and told me I had to come over to Mrs. O’Reilly’s house.

  “Who?” I asked, groggily. I had been asleep. I looked over at the clock radio and saw it was half past two in the morning. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s not important. You need to get over here now.”

  “Who’s Mrs. O’Reilly?”

  “My Algebra teacher. Duh!”

  Soelle gave me the address, but the house turned out to be easy to find. It was the one on fire.

  A pair of fire engines were parked out front, blocking off the street. Firefighters ran hither and yon, dragging heavy canvas hoses. A group of rubberneckers stood off to one side. Soelle was among them.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I asked her in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “I didn’t do it,” Soelle said immediately. “The Haxanpaxan did.”

  “There is no Haxanpaxan.”

  “The Haxanpaxan doesn’t like it when—”

  I grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Stop it, Soelle. This is serious.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  She nodded at the house. The firefighters had stopped running and were staring at it, too.

  The flames were green.

  “So you’re saying you didn’t burn down your algebra teacher’s house because she was the one who confiscated your deck of tarot cards and got you expelled.”

  “Ex.”

  “What?”