Harmony House

by Nic Sheff

  I’m lying fetal on the cold concrete floor now and my dad crosses himself and bends to kiss me on the forehead and I try to spit at him, shouting, “Fuck you!”

  And his words cut into me like an axe blade:

  “At that time Jesus was driving out a demon, and this particular demon was dumb. The demon was driven out, the dumb man spoke, and the crowds were enraptured.

  “But some among the people remarked: ‘He is a tool of Beelzebul, and that is how he drives out demons!’ Another group, intending to test Him, demanded of Him a proof of His claims, to be shown in the sky. He knew their inmost thoughts. ‘Any kingdom torn by civil strife,’ He said to them, ‘is laid in ruins; and house tumbles upon house.’

  “‘So, too, if Satan is in revolt against himself, how can his kingdom last, since you say that I drive out demons as a tool of Beelzebul. And furthermore: If I drive out demons as a tool of Beelzebul, whose tools are your pupils when they do the driving out?

  “‘Therefore, judged by them, you must stand condemned.

  “‘But, if, on the contrary, I drive out demons by the finger of God, then evidently the kingdom of God has by this time made its way to you. As long as a mighty lord in full armor guards his premises, he is in peaceful possession of his property; but should one mightier than he attack and overcome him, he will strip him of his armor, on which he had relied, and distribute the spoils taken from him.’”

  He goes to kiss me again and I retch more, but nothing comes out. I feel something soaking through my jeans and look down to see blood pooling between my legs.

  “Dad, please,” I say. “Stop!”

  And then I yell to anyone and no one.

  “Somebody please help me! Please!”

  My dad makes the sign of the cross above me again. He holds up the book of prayers with the pages torn out and says, beseeching,

  “Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father, Jesus Christ, God and Lord of all creation; who gave to your holy apostles the power to tramp underfoot serpents and scorpions; who along with the other mandates to work miracles was pleased to grant them the authority to say: ‘Depart, you devils!’ and by whose might Satan was made to fall from heaven like lightning;

  “I humbly call on your holy name in fear and trembling, asking that you grant me, your unworthy servant, pardon for all my sins, steadfast faith, and the power—supported by your mighty arm—to confront with confidence and resolution this cruel demon. I ask this through you, Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, who are coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire.”

  And then there is a sound loud like the chiming of bells that cuts through the chaos around me. It comes again and again.

  My dad lays down the book and the cross and the rosary and we both turn and look up to the stairs leading back to the main floor of the house.

  The bells chime again.

  And again.

  It is the doorbell.

  Someone is ringing the doorbell.

  “Stay here,” my father says. “Do not move.”

  He gets up from his place kneeling above me and crosses himself and goes to the stairs. I watch him climbing them slowly. He opens the door and closes it behind him. Then I hear a key turn in the lock and the bolt drawn.

  Fuck.

  I push myself up and feel the room spin around me and I start to black out—even as I crawl toward the steps. I see the vision as if it’s being projected around me on the walls and ceiling.

  In the vision I see the garden beyond the house. It is summer—hot—a cool wind blowing in off the ocean. Birds sing overhead and squirrels chase one another through the trees and across the grass.

  At the edge of the forest I see my father but as a young boy. I watch him watching Sister Margaret—who is waiting by the large, reaching-up oak tree where Anselm and the sister had that picnic together. But Anselm—the boy—and the sister are not together now. He watches her from afar—and she watches the forest. She watches and waits. The boy Anselm has dark circles under both eyes. He clenches his fists.

  And then through the forest a man comes crashing through the underbrush. He is young and handsome, wearing a white T-shirt and paint-splattered jeans rolled up to the ankles and boat shoes. He’s a local dockworker from the town. Sister Margaret smiles as the young man comes closer. Her whole face lights up and she flushes bright red. The young man smiles, too, his rugged face broad and handsome. They clasp hands and then he kisses her on the mouth. She kisses back.

  The boy Anselm takes a step back.

  Sister Margaret and the young man kiss and talk about their future. The young man laughs and pulls a switchblade out of his pocket. Still laughing and smiling, he carves their initials into the bark of the great tree. They are the same initials I saw carved into the tree that first day I moved into Harmony House. Only they are different. The initials I saw were AMJG. But what the young man carves in are only the two initials M and J. So he must be J. And M is Margaret.

  They kiss again and hold each other close.

  While the boy Anselm storms off. He’s seen enough. Anger pulses through his whole body. He rages to himself.

  She is a sinner, he thinks. She is just like all the rest.

  He decides to tell the monsignor. He decides to tell him what Sister Margaret has done. Father Meyers will punish her. He will teach her a lesson. He will give Sister Margaret what she deserves.

  The boy Anselm wants her to pay.

  And so he betrays her to the monsignor.

  And there is no going back.

  Coming out of the vision, I find myself at the basement door.

  I try the handle, but the lock holds fast.

  There is nothing in me now but the blind need to get free—to get away from my dad and this craziness and to run and run and run and never stop.

  I put my hand on the doorknob again.

  A voice whispers in my ear.

  Only it’s not a voice.

  It’s a memory of a voice—Rose’s words repeating over and over in my mind,

  “If I had some time with you, maybe I could teach you how to control the power you have, but as it is, I’m afraid you’re in a lot of danger.”

  The power I have?

  What the hell does that mean?

  And what did Colin say?

  “Maybe you haven’t found it yet.”

  But what was Colin anyway?

  There’s the heat in me like oil fire burning. It’s like the fire is in my breathing. It goes from my lungs out my throat and mouth.

  I try the door again.

  It stays locked.

  I mean, Jesus Christ, if I did have some power, wouldn’t I know about it? Other than having these visions that don’t do me any good at all. If I have some power in me, then goddammit, I need to open this door.

  The fire burns through my hands and out my fingertips.

  I need this door to open now.

  I need to get out of this house.

  I have the power to see every fucking thing that’s happened in this house.

  Give me the power to get the hell out of here.

  The fire burns my eyes and I have tears coming down.

  I try the door.

  I try the door again.

  I try it again.

  And then the door opens.

  The fire is swallowed up in my body.

  I step through the door.

  The power is out and it’s all dark except for the lightning making the sky bright reflecting through the corridors of the house. I feel my way along the walls—bumping into dressers and end tables, only able to see when the lightning splits the sky wide open.

  Blackness is followed by the strobe of lightning and then blackness and then lightning and then blackness. Thunder follows the lightning. The thunder makes the floorboards shudder beneath my feet. And then there is more blackness. And then lightning. And then blackness.

  I reach the corner of the hall where I turn and feel my way down toward the front door. The
rain is like a war being fought on all sides. The wind is like the howling of wolves after a kill. The thunder sets my teeth chattering.

  The lightning strikes.

  I see the silhouette of a crouched figure moving.

  It is far away, down the end of the hall.

  In the drowning blackness I call out, “Hello?”

  Thunder takes the words from me.

  I walk slowly toward what I cannot see.

  And like a camera flashbulb popping, the hallway ignites with a lightning strike. And then I see my dad’s face. His eyes are wide open and darting in every direction. Blood, dark and syrupy, is streaked across his mouth and dripping down his chin. He brings his arm up, his hand holding a knife with a long, curved blade covered in more black blood.

  Then there is the dark.

  It comes rushing in around me.

  The thunder wrenches a sob from me as I startle and gasp for breath.

  I hear the heavy blows and my father speaking in a whisper—very fast, like he’s speaking in tongues.

  I wait.

  The lightning ignites the sky.

  Bleeding out on the hardwood floor, Sheriff Jarrett lies unconscious, his eyes rolled back so only the whites are showing, his mouth gaping. My dad buries the knife deep in his chest.

  I can’t hold my scream back.

  My dad’s eyes fix on me and he removes the knife again and begins to stand. I turn and run as fast as I can, my lungs straining for breath. I hit a table and go down but then am up again and running faster—my way lit only by the lightning. I don’t stop. I reach the stairs and run up them, sprinting, even as my legs burn and I can hardly breathe. My only plan is to get up to my room and then go down out the trellis—to climb down and escape into the woods. I can’t think about anything else. I can’t think about what happened. And yet I see Sheriff Jarrett’s face as though frozen in my mind—projected forever on the backs of my eyelids. I cry and run.

  I make it to the top floor and fall and slide along the carpet and then stumble to my room. Slamming and locking the door behind me, I sprint to the window. The rain and wind is so strong I can barely get it open. I push and struggle and pull and finally it opens just enough for me to fit through. Rain pours in through the open window as if I’d opened it underwater. I reach my hand around, feeling for the trellis on the side of the house.

  But it isn’t there.

  I try again, sobbing and praying and running my hands along the rough, splintering wood. The trellis is gone. It must’ve fallen in the storm. I lean my head out and the rain is blowing sideways in the wind like shards of glass. It burns and pierces my skin.

  “Fuck!” I yell out.

  I know then that if I jump I will die.

  I can’t make it.

  Struggling to get the window closed again, I sit down hard on the wet carpet and put my head in my hands and cry and cry.

  It’s over, I think.

  There’s no way out.

  And I think maybe I should jump.

  I mean, maybe I should just stop fighting. Maybe jumping is peace. Maybe Christy knew the truth. Maybe the girl who lived here in Harmony House so long ago did, too.

  But jumping isn’t peace.

  Peace is swallowing the rest of those pills and drifting off to sleep and never waking.

  It seems to all make sense now.

  Life is pain and hardship and like the myth of Sisyphus, that guy forever pushing the boulder up to the top of the hill only to have it roll all the way back down again.

  Look at my dad: he grew up in this house, full of fear and superstition and self-hatred and unrequited love, and now he’s a prisoner here—and I am, too. We will never get out. And it has to be that way.

  He’s right, in fact, the devil is in me and it was in my mom and it is in him, too—it is in this house. It is in the world. It is the only power there is. The lie is that there’s the other power, the power of good and harmony and peace and understanding. We are all destined to be forever defeated, disappointed—to not get what we want—to be dashed against the rocks over and over and over again.

  The lightning cracks and the thunder claps and I walk to my closet and dig the bag of pills out of my jacket lining. I pour them out into my hand.

  Is there enough here to kill me?

  Jesus, I don’t think there is.

  I’ve taken too many of them already.

  “Fuck!” I yell out loud.

  I can’t even kill myself right.

  Unless maybe I take the pills and then go slit my wrists—or jump from the window or balcony.

  The pills will take the pain of death away—and the pain of life, too.

  I breathe in and out. The lightning turns the sky a sickly pale white. Thunder rattles the glass in the window. I hold the pills up shaking in my hand. And then Rose’s words are there again like a nervous tic or a record skipping:

  “I could teach you how to control the power you have,” she said.

  What the hell does that mean?

  I have these visions.

  I opened that door.

  Did I do the other things, too?

  Did I make that picture frame break over Alex’s head?

  Did I make Todd fall down the stairs?

  Did I bring Colin back?

  Did I cause that earthquake?

  Did I cause this storm?

  But none of that makes any sense.

  If I had that kind of power I wouldn’t be here. Sheriff Jarrett wouldn’t be dead. Christy wouldn’t have broken both her legs. I wouldn’t be fucking pregnant.

  I wouldn’t’ve failed at every goddamn thing.

  The thoughts come so fast it’s like the pressure will explode my head wide open.

  The fire in my insides ignites like gasoline through my veins.

  If there’s a power in me, then I need to use it now. I need to stop anyone else from getting hurt. And I need to bring this house crashing to the ground.

  I look down at the pills in my hand.

  Then I go to the window and push it open so the rain rages in.

  “Fuck it,” I say quietly.

  I can’t run anymore. Whatever’s in me, I have to face it.

  Now.

  The way my mom never could.

  I grip the pills and say a silent prayer.

  I throw the pills out into the rain.

  They disappear immediately.

  Gone.

  I try to breathe.

  But I’ve made the decision.

  I can live without them.

  I can live.

  Staring out into the rain, I blink, my eyes seeing the night turn back into a night long ago. Disoriented, I slump against the wall, watching the boy Anselm as he watches Sister Margaret again. Sister Angelica stands above her while she cries, holding her hands to her face. Anselm crouches behind a dresser, peering out from behind the corner. Sister Angelica bares her teeth and yells.

  “You are a sinner. You must repent.”

  Sister Margaret cries and tells her, “Yes, yes, I want to repent.”

  And then Sister Angelica turns and sees the monsignor coming down the hall toward them. He grabs Sister Margaret by the arm and tells Sister Angelica, “Leave us.”

  Sister Angelica does as she’s told.

  Father Meyers drags Sister Margaret by the wrist into the bathroom. Anselm hears the water running in the tub—loud—the pipes banging and sputtering. And then, above the water and the pipes, comes the shrillest, piercing scream. The sound echoes through the house. She screams and then screams again.

  The boy Anselm falls to his knees.

  He covers his ears with his hands.

  His mouth hangs open in a silent scream.

  While Sister Margaret keeps on screaming.

  And Anselm closes his eyes.

  And it all goes black around him.

  And then in the present I hear his body slam into the door of my room.

  The knob turns and the lock gives.

&nbs
p; The door opens and the lightning strikes and my dad holds up the silver cross and rosary, shouting, “I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the Creator of the whole universe, by Him who has the power to consign you to hell, to depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from this servant of God, Jennifer Noonan, who seeks refuge in the fold of the Church.”

  “Stop it!” I yell. “Stop it!”

  I try to focus on my power. I try to take the flame in me and direct it toward him. But he moves fast across the room—so fast it’s as if he is disappearing and then reappearing again, closer and closer, ’til he is upon me.

  He places the cross, burning, against my forehead and chants in a language that must be Latin but I’ve never heard him speak before.

  “Imperat tibi Deus Pater; imperat tibi Deus Filius; imperat tibi Deus Spiritus Sanctus. Imperat tibi majestas Christi, aeternum Dei Verbum caro factum, qui pro salute generis nostri tua invidia perditi, humiliavit semetipsum factus obediens usque ad mortem; qui Ecclesiam suam aedificavit supra firmam petram, et portas inferi adversus eam numquam esse praevalituras edixit, cum ea ipse permansurus omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem saeculi.”

  The silver of the cross is like a knife blade cutting through the soft flesh on my cheek and I howl with the pain and the storm surges and the rain blows in sideways across the room.

  My dad lifts me then, effortlessly, and carries me out into the hall and then down to the upstairs bathroom, where the water in the tub runs to overflowing.

  As I close and open my eyes, the water turns to thick, coagulated blood and I see a vision of Sister Margaret drowned and bleeding below the surface. But then she is gone again and I’m being lowered into the frigid water.

  My dad speaks with his eyes rolled back. “Vade satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis. Da locum Christo, in quo nihil invenisti de operibus tuis; da locum Ecclesiae Unae, Sanctae, Catholicae, et Apostolicae, quam Christus ipse acquisivit sanguine suo. Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei; contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine Jesu, quem inferi tremunt, cui Virtutes caelorum et Potestates et Dominationes subjectae sunt, quem Cherubim et Seraphim indefessis vocibus laudant, dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.”