Fall of the House of Crain

by Cindy Winget

  Dr. Montague fixated on the exceeding paleness of his friend’s skin and the fact that even as Valdemar spoke there was no sound of air moving in and out of his lungs. He no longer blinked, which gave him an unnerving stare. What had he done? He should be happy that his friend was still alive. But he wasn’t alive. Not technically.

  “I am very put out that you didn’t tell me until now,” Annabel chided.

  “It was nothing. Just a cold. If it had been anything serious, I would have, of course, told you about it.”

  This seemed to appease Annabel, the tension in her shoulders relaxing.

  The group eased back into eating and easy conversation. All except for Valdemar who didn’t attempt—or even make a pretense at—eating anything. Dr. Montague wondered if it was even necessary anymore. He felt acutely uncomfortable around Valdemar, but took care not to show it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The group decided to sleep in the cozy sitting room just off of the dining room. Eleanor was glad Dr. Montague had suggested that they all sleep in the same room. She loved Hill House during the day, but at night she became more aware of its history and the shadows in the corners. She felt like she had found a home here, and yet she dreaded hearing the voice of the little girl whose laughter cut off into sounds of misery.

  Mr. Dudley was able to scrounge up some extra blankets, and they all found a quiet corner to themselves. When no one else laid claim to the couch, Luke took it.

  “Do you really think something will happen tonight?” asked Eleanor as they lay there in the dark.

  “Probably,” offered Theo. “Things happened our first two nights here, so why not now?”

  “Better to be safe than sorry,” was Dr. Montague’s reply.

  They all remained silent after that. Supposedly they were all trying to go to sleep, but Eleanor doubted it. She sensed the tension in the room and would hazard a guess that she wasn’t the only one with her eyes still open, staring at the ceiling.

  Bang!

  Eleanor jumped. “What was that?”

  “I believe that was the nursery door slamming shut,” said Dr. Montague.

  “Do you think it was Annabel?” asked Theo.

  “No. I don’t,” stated Dr. Montague.

  “Should we check on her?” inquired Eleanor.

  “This is what she wanted. Let her deal with it herself,” said Dr. Montague, rolling over and facing the wall.

  Bang!

  Once again, the door of the nursery opened and then banged shut. Over the course of the next several minutes, this occurred many more times. Eleanor didn’t even bother trying to sleep at this point. She counted in her head each time the door opened and slammed shut until the next time it happened.

  Eleanor shivered. Puffs of cold air escaped her lips as she burrowed down deeper into her blankets and hugged her arms around herself. “A-are any o-of you guys c-c-cold?” she asked the room.

  “No. At least, I’m not,” Luke replied.

  “Maybe a little?” said Theo.

  Dr. Montague remained silent. Eleanor doubted he was asleep. She figured he just wasn’t interested in talking. Her teeth chattered and her neck and back muscles ached as she continued to quake. “I-I’m freezing!” she exclaimed.

  Without a word, Theo stood and walked to the closet in the corner of the room. From it, she withdrew a large thick quilt and brought it over to Eleanor. She draped it over her shaking frame and tucked it around her. “There you go. That should help.” Without another word, Theo walked back to her own sleeping space and crawled back in the blankets.

  Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude—the way they always did when someone was nice to her. Heaven knew she had had precious few moments where anyone offered her any sort of genuine kindness. She had always been the odd one. The quiet one. The lonely one. The one that nobody seemed to hardly even notice.

  Bang! went the nursery room door, causing Eleanor to jump again.

  Then the door to the sitting room flew open and slammed shut. Open it flew once more, but this time, instead of banging shut, it emitted the shrill cry of a harsh wind, blowing forth cold air and causing Eleanor to shake even harder than before.

  “Shut the door!” cried Theo, jumping up from her makeshift bed. Luke joined her. They both pushed and shoved at the door, trying to get it to close.

  “Aarg! Put your back into it!” Luke yelled.

  “What do you think I’m doing!?” Theo yelled back.

  Then just like that, the wind ceased, and a haunting silence entered the room. Theo and Luke succeeded in shutting the door, Theo stumbling a bit at the sudden absence of resistance.

  “Is there a lock on this door?” Theo wondered aloud.

  Sitting up, Dr. Montague spoke. “Yes. But it can only be locked from the other side.”

  “That does us little good,” said Luke.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Theo leaped away from the door and Eleanor groaned inwardly. Not this again!

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  The knocking concentrated itself on the door. The doorknob jiggled and turned. Luke grabbed a hold of the doorknob to prevent it from moving and letting in whoever was on the other side.

  “It can’t get in. It can’t get in,” Theo said over and over again, like a mantra.

  Eleanor felt oddly calm. Shouldn’t she be afraid, just as Theo clearly was? She was more annoyed than frightened. Irritated at the prospect of another sleepless night. But not scared. Never scared. This was her home now, and she would no longer allow the spirits who lived here to frighten her.

  The door began to bow inward towards them, the hinges squealing in protest, the wood around them cracking. The door would break away at any moment.

  A little girl’s laughter drifted about the room, though Eleanor sensed that she was the only one who could hear it. She hastily covered her ears with the palms of her hands.

  Her former calm breaking, Eleanor climbed out of her blankets and stood up. “Go away!” she screamed. Although she no longer felt any fear of the house, she hated to hear a little girl in pain. She turned her attention back to the door, and the plea became for the unknown entity trying to force its way inside the room. “Please! I’ll do anything you want!” And quite suddenly, she was talking not to the apparition, but to Hill House itself. “I’ll submit my will to yours, only leave us alone!” she shouted up at the ceiling, the words having entered her head a split second before she said them.

  The bowing wood, the turning doorknob, and the knocking all ceased at once and all was quiet.

  “Is it over?” whispered pale-faced Theo.

  “I don’t know,” Luke admitted.

  Eleanor felt light-headed. She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, willing the dizziness to leave. Opening her eyes, she looked at her companions, only for darkness to gather at the corners of her vision.

  * * *

  “Eleanor? Eleanor! Can you hear me?” came a voice in Eleanor’s mind, sounding far away. “Eleanor?”

  She felt a sharp pat on her left cheek, and her eyes flew open.

  “Eleanor! Are you okay? What happened?”

  Eleanor caught a quick glimpse of Theo leaning over her before blinking rapidly, trying to clear her head. She tried to sit up but, feeling faint, she quickly lay back down. There was something soft beneath her. She took in her surroundings. She was lying on the couch in the sitting room.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “That’s what we would like to know!” replied Theo. “You collapsed—passed out or something.”

  “I just felt dizzy…” Eleanor tried to explain.

  “It’s alright. Don’t talk for now. Conserve your strength,” said Dr. Montague, handing her a glass of cold water.

  Eleanor took the glass from him. Her throat was parched, and she gulped the water greedily. When she was finished, she handed it back to him.

  “Whatever has been haunting us this evening has left, so I suggest we all ge
t some rest,” said Dr. Montague. “Eleanor, you can remain on the couch.” He looked around as though waiting for someone to protest. When no one did, he placed the glass on the small round table by the fireplace, and they all snuggled back into their respective beds.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A few days later, Eleanor wandered outside and walked to the idyllic spot she and Theo had found for a picnic and was surprised to find Theo and Luke already there, sitting upon the grass, talking.

  What are they talking about? she wondered.

  She snuck closer to them, ducking behind one of the hedges where she wouldn’t be seen. Frowning, she observed that they were sitting awfully close together. As she drew nearer, she could make out their faint conversation.

  “What are you planning on using the cabbage you make at this job for?” inquired Luke.

  “That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”

  “Not really. It’s just a question. You can decide whether you want to answer it or not.”

  Theo sighed. “I hadn’t given it much thought, to be honest. I suppose I’ll have to use my payment to find a new place. I had a terrible fight with my roommate before I left, and I don’t know if I’ll be welcomed back. For all I know, she’s already found a new roommate.”

  “I’m sorry. But it’s her loss,” he said earnestly.

  Eleanor leaned in, hoping that Theo would bring up her name. She would be more than willing to be Theo’s roommate when all this was over. If Theo were to ask her.

  “What about you?” Theo asked Luke.

  Luke shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “You haven’t thought about it either, huh?”

  “No. Quite the opposite, actually. I have too many things I would spend the money on and can’t decide which.”

  Theo laughed at this and moved a little closer. “Like what?”

  “I would travel to New York and see a Ziegfeld Folly every night or the latest picture show. Eat at the most expensive—"

  “Dr. Montague isn’t paying us that many clams!” Theo shoved him playfully. “Besides, I thought a boozehound like you would spend all his money in a speakeasy.”

  “No way, ya dumb dora!” Luke said, but he was smiling. “In all seriousness, though, I know I need to start making my own way in the world. I won’t be pissing it away on hooch and frivolous outings.”

  As the gaiety of the moment passed, Luke’s gaze flitted briefly to Theo’s lips.

  Theo’s cheeks flushed and she looked away briefly. When she turned back and found Luke still looking at her, she placed her hand on his arm. “I think you’ll do just fine,” she told him.

  “You truly think so?”

  Theo nodded and leaned toward him. Meeting her halfway, his lips touched hers. His hand found its way into Theo’s hair, and he cupped her head as the kiss deepened into a passionate embrace.

  In disgust, Eleanor turned away and stalked off. As she was about to reenter the house, she stopped, one hand still clenched tightly around the railing to the verandah. She could hear voices in her head. Mistaking them for Luke and Theo, Eleanor looked behind her, expecting to find them walking up behind her. There was no one.

  Canting her head to the side, she listened for a time. It was two women talking. She suddenly realized that she recognized the voices; it was Annabel and Miss Dudley.

  “Thank you so much for cleaning out the nursery for me,” Annabel was saying. “I hope it wasn’t too much of an imposition for you.”

  “Not at all, ma’am,” reassured Miss Dudley.

  “Is this room truly your most haunted room?”

  Though she couldn’t see them, Eleanor got the distinct feeling they were standing in the nursery.

  “That’s a hard assertion to make. All of Hill House is ‘touched’ by spirits. I wouldn’t claim that any one room is more or less haunted than another,” said Miss Dudley.

  “I see.”

  Eleanor found herself hoping that her name would come up in their conversation. That perhaps Miss Dudley would tell Annabel about the happenings in her room her first night at Hill House. But no. Neither party made mention of her.

  Eleanor started when the voices changed to the low, husky undertones of two male voices. She recognized the voice of Dr. Montague immediately. The other must belong to Valdemar. She sensed that they were in Valdemar’s room, but couldn’t make out the harsh whispers the men made to one another. She doubted very much that they would make mention of her. It seemed that no one was interested in her whereabouts.

  It vaguely occurred to her that she should be more concerned about hearing voices in her head, but she wasn’t. Ever since she had submitted her will to the house, she had been hearing voices or seeing flashes of parts of the house she shouldn’t have been privy to. What she once found frightening, she now found fascinating.

  She gave a quick shake of her head. This wasn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening. It wasn’t natural. Eleanor tried to block out the voices. She closed her mind to Hill House and her mind fell silent.

  Changing directions, Eleanor traveled back to the hill to see if Luke and Theo were still locked in intimate necking. She found Theo there by herself. With elation, Eleanor joined her.

  “What’s going on?” Theo said.

  “Just came to see what you were up to.”

  “Me and Luke were just talking about what we were going to do with our money once we are allowed to go home.”

  Eleanor waited for Theo to bring up needing a roommate so that she could say that she would love to be her new roommate. But she didn’t.

  “What are you going to do with yours?” Theo asked her, plucking up a piece of grass and champing on the white root.

  “Perhaps find a new place…” she needled.

  Theo nodded. “That’s right. You mentioned once that you didn’t wish to stay in the house where you took care of your mother. Quite frankly, I don’t blame you.” She tossed the blade of grass and stood up.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. I am done being outside. The sun is a bit too bright. It’s beginning to give me a headache.”

  “It’s too bad I can’t just stay at Hill House forever,” Eleanor muttered.

  “Really? You’d want to stay in this large, creepy house after all this is over?”

  Eleanor nodded. “If I can’t stay here, then let me stay with you!” Eleanor blurted out.

  “What?”

  “I heard you telling Luke that you needed a new roommate and—”

  “You were spying on us?” The tips of Theo’s ears turned red.

  “No. I was just walking, and I heard you guys talking. Please let me be your new roommate. I promise that I won’t be any bother!”

  “I don’t know, Eleanor. I don’t really know you that well.”

  “Please!” Eleanor clasped her hands together. Theo had begun to look uncomfortable, so Eleanor toned it down a notch. “I don’t have anywhere to go either, and we have plenty of time to get to know each other here at Hill House,” she pointed out.

  “We’re very different people, Eleanor. I’m not sure we would mesh well together.”

  “We share a room together now. We can just see if it works out.”

  “Maybe,” Theo said.

  Eleanor decided to take what she could get. She would bring it up again later. As she walked away, she heard Theo following her. With a smile on her face and her stomach giving a giddy leap, she turned to face her.

  Nobody was there. Theo had not been following her.

  The smile slid from Eleanor’s face as she resumed walking. Again, she heard footsteps. Glancing discreetly over her shoulder, she saw there was still nobody behind her. As soon as she faced forward, she heard laughter. Eleanor whipped around, finding nothing but empty space. She heard people talking, laughing, and walking around, but saw nothing. Scanning the area, she saw the grass bending in places with imprints of footprints. Hurrying her pace, she didn’t look back again.

  Chapter Twe
nty-Three

  After his conversation with Theo, Luke had gone for a short walk among the trees, smiling as he dwelt on their kiss. As he entered the house, a scream rang out from upstairs. He bounded up the large staircase that would take him to the upstairs bedrooms, following the female voice to Theo and Eleanor’s shared bedroom. He found Theo, tears coursing down her beautiful face, as she held up a light-green blouse with splatters of red upon it.

  “What’s going on here?” Dr. Montague asked, stepping up behind Luke.

  “Just look! My clothes are ruined!” yelled Theo.

  Luke panned the room and saw nothing but the color red. Red smeared on the floor, red handprints marring the walls, puddles of red upon the bed where a pile of slashed clothing reposed.

  “Is it blood?” Eleanor asked.

  Luke jumped. He hadn’t seen her enter the room.

  Theo dropped the shirt and drew back in horror. “I thought surely it must be paint or something.”

  That’s when the scent hit Luke. The metallic tang of blood. No doubt about it.

  Who would do this? It was horrendous! He longed to gather Theo up in his arms and comfort her, but he didn’t want to do it with everyone else watching.

  Theo began furiously wiping her hands on a spot of the bedspread that wasn’t covered in blood. She retched and ran to the bathroom. Luke heard running water as she tried to wash the blood off her hands.

  A moment later she reentered the room. “Who would do such a horrible thing!?” she cried, mirroring Luke’s thoughts.

  Eleanor had gone pale. “What’s wrong?” Luke asked her.

  One of Eleanor’s hands covered her mouth, and the other pointed to the wall. Luke looked to where she indicated and saw that a message had been scrawled there, very much like the last, save for being written in blood rather than red chalk. It read Help Eleanor. Come home, Eleanor.

  “Who wrote that?” Eleanor screeched. “Who!?”

  “Don’t look at me,” shrieked Theo. “Don’t you dare accuse me of writing that message!”