The Forever House

The sound of children running through the house again embodied sweet spring showers returning life to frigid fields. I wondered whether I was still qualified for fatherhood after all these years. The sound evoked memories of when my own children corkscrewed about like miniature tornadoes, their wakes siphoning dust from crevices in the old hardwood flooring. I never much cared for the old adage “Children should be seen and not heard.” Rather, I found “Play is the work of a child” more suited to my liking.

Roger, my eldest, took his tornado-ing rather seriously. He would shuffle down the long upstairs hallway with his arms outstretched like a whirling dervish, so entrenched in his work that his younger sister often joined in the mayhem, unnoticed. Gloria couldn’t care less about the reason; it was enough to simply be her older brother’s cohort in his big kid business. Weekends were host to late-night mayhem under the gaze of flickering oil lamps. I would cheer them on from the doorway of Gloria’s room, which gave me a vantage point midway down tornado alley. The two of them wooshing about, in tandem, with their tornado-arms knocking anything and everything asunder nourished my soul. Even the old house seemed to creak and groan with laughter beneath their feet. Nothing could wrest that magic from my spirit.

My wife, aware of whom the ringleader was, would harp from downstairs in her distinctive, tinny voice, “Rogerrrrrrrrrrrr!…” The sustained r’s at the end would crescendo until her voice withered and cracked from strain. It was the perfect musical accompaniment to the swirling theatrics of our boy. Fortunately, the destruction to the upstairs hallway and most of its inanimate residents—anything not permanently attached to the house—wrought by these spontaneously-conjured cyclones was never directly witnessed by their mother.

My wife was unable to climb the stairs, neither of her own accord nor with my assistance—not since she was stricken with consumption shortly after Gloria was born. She was bound to a wheeled chair on her good days, while relegated to our downstairs bedroom, connected to a breathing apparatus, on her bad ones. Neither my wages nor the structure of this old house could support the proper upgrades to ease her mobility.

My career as an author afforded me the luxury of not having to leave the house for spans at a time. The daily needs of my wife and children, therefore, were properly met, but ofttimes at the expense of my work, and consequently, my wages. The children relegated themselves mainly to the upstairs as recognition of their mother steadily degraded to that of a depraved shadow whom haunted the main floor. 

Over time, the illness all but consumed my wife, and the commotion caused by the twin tornadoes grew to be too much for her failing nerves. Emotionally, she became increasingly distant and isolating. After she began lashing out at the children—without the slightest recollection of doing so—I decided it was best to leave her in the care of her mother, at least until she regained her former spark. And truth be told, I knew her spark had been extinguished, never again to rekindle.

The decision was for the benefit of everyone: My wife was no longer plagued by the incessant tromping of “spirits in the rafters”, as she called them. Roger and Gloria, who had distanced themselves from their mother since her illness began (for the entirety of Gloria’s life), finally shunned their disdain for the downstairs floor of the house, and even sat with me on occasion in my study while I worked. And I had been unshackled, free to spend longer spans on my craft, and most importantly, more time with the children. The three of us managed visits with their mother when we could, but they became less frequent as the year progressed. Roger and Gloria grew frightened of her odd appearance and mannerisms, and refused to accompany me further. And although it was a relatively easy one-hour trip by motorcar, I eventually ceased visiting altogether. Before year’s end, the white death would render me a widower. That winter I buried her at the foot of a young elm that grew in the little garden visible from the south-facing side of the house. Roger carved a plaque from soft pine to set against the headstone I erected. Gloria wreathed its base with loops of copper wire entwined with red winter berries and conifer cones.

***

On a spring-scented afternoon of the following year, when Roger and Gloria turned seven and five, respectively, I packed them up in our cherry red Model T and drove them to visit their grandmother (red was Gloria’s idea. A flash of those daddy’s-girl eyes relinquished a grown man of all his common sense). Heavy morning showers had rendered the early afternoon brisk and lovely, which prompted the removal of the car topper. At the behest of the children (and the loveliness of the day) I bypassed the main road in favor of the old, winding backcountry lanes. I was not wholly familiar with the route but the children’s persistence prevailed. They relished waving their hands in the clouds and yelling into the wind. They named the birds and sang nursery songs while I basked in the unfiltered innocence of their laughter.

The melodic sounds from the back seat mingled in discordance with those from the revving engine, and before long I found myself lilting between the two worlds. Additionally, the predictability in the rise and fall of the country lane lulled me into a routined pattern of car adjustments that set my mind free to daydream. It occurred to me that I had reached the pinnacle of life—the climax of my existence. Had I indeed achieved the utmost summation of all that a man was meant to obtain? Burdened with this thought, I continued with the routine of driving, letting the wind disperse the tears that welled unbidden in my eyes.

A deviation in the steady motion of the steering wheel roused me from my thoughts. The lane had become corrugated and downward-sloping, which resulted in the car gaining considerable speed.. Accordingly, I adjusted the throttle and steered into the standing water that dominated the valley of the slope. The car’s front passenger wheel struck a deep hollow submerged in the watery muck. Steering control was wrested from my hands, sending the car into a tailspin from which I could not diverge. The vehicle toppled after striking the hard, tussocky earth on the shoulder and rolled end over end until eventually coming to rest on its side some distance from the lane. The steering wheel afforded me the leverage to keep from ejecting. The children, however—

Gloria sat upright as if napping among the thick weeds just beyond the steaming car with her thin white legs splayed out in front of her. Long, tangled curls clung, sticky with muck, to her drooping head. Roger lay farther afield, straight as a plank, with his face cradled in the mud. Shock had overtaken my senses and it was not until my extremities began to cramp that I realized I still braced myself rigidly between the steering wheel and the seat, my body suspending sideways. I let myself fall to the passenger side which contacted the earth and tried lifting myself with my arms. The effort caused me to swoon, and a dark curtain drew swiftly across the sky.

I woke, shivering, to the droning of insect wings. The sun had settled in the west, and the gray evening sky foretold a cold, unforgiving night. Gloria remained slumped over like a discarded doll under the long shadows of tall weeds, bent at the waist with her head touching the earth. Roger, by some trick of the gloom, appeared closer—within a couple paces from me. It was not until I craned my head that I noticed the extent of his tragedy. The little boy lay curled in a tight, wet ball, covered with muck. Trailing behind him, a scar of matted weeds betrayed his attempt to crawl to me some hours ago. The strength of his will had given out, leaving him to fade into the cold darkness, alone and afraid.

By a fate crueler than death, I had survived.

I shouldered my children’s spiritless bodies back to the estate, and under the mournful eye of a waning moon, I buried them at the foot of the young elm that grew in the garden, next to their mother.

After the accident the house became a tomb, wholly devoid of joy or warmth. The dreadful silence that had fallen over the house encouraged dark whispers to wander about the recesses of my unoccupied mind. I could no longer write for fear of what macabre decrees I might conjure onto the page. The daytime hours brought with them an odd disquiet that rattled in my ears, so I shuttered the house and slept while the sun drew its arc across the sky. I consigned myself to living upstairs, frequenting the lower floor only to secure meals and lamp oil. The four bedrooms that emptied into both sides of the long hallway remained open to the night breezes, acting as the lungs of a great house-shaped bellows. Its soothing breath elicited short, quick shadows from the lamps’ flames that danced the length of the hallway. I took what pleasure I could in the way the small, dark spirits raced and whirled about. Night after night I cheered them on from the doorway of Gloria’s room.

It wasn’t long before the house was bare of all sustenance, save for molding scraps. My health and mind were in severe decline, and my thoughts refused to stray beyond hunger and loss. Outside, the young elm had shed its yellow autumn coat. The single headstone peaking through the leaves concealed a cowardly father’s guilt—the truth of my tragedy that I could not accept; Roger and Gloria slept in their unmarked grave, unacknowledged and unremembered.

I could not bear the anguish any longer, so it was during the autumn of 1914 that, with a great burden of shame, I committed my own death. I secured a heavy bureau in front of the knee-wall door to the attic in hopes of barring access from the outer stairwell. To further conceal my guilt I committed the gruesome deed in a concealed corner of the room, under a thick mat of bedding, and in such a way that my body might never be detected or discovered.

This house—the sole witness to my despicable act—judged me with its blinking knots embedded within the old timber walls.

***

The house remained unoccupied for many years until a married couple moved in with their two young children—a boy and a girl, not much younger than Roger and Gloria had been. The dreadful solitude I experienced after my family’s passing was shattered, and to my surprise, affected me in a profoundly negative way. I was tormented by the joy and comfort which now permeated the house. I could not take pleasure in it for my body no longer belonged to this living world, nor had my spirit passed over to the realm of death; I was tethered to this place—this house—by an invisible cord which I could not cut, doomed to live out an ethereal existence for ever. Once more, by a fate crueler than death, I had survived. But it was an insubstantial life, hollow, and of no consequence. I became an eternal observer, and nothing more.

The family settled into their new home, and within a season the house became suffused with the familiarity of routined life. A thorough exploration of the house had been conducted over that course, including the attic. The bureau barring the door was hastily removed to accommodate the tokens of my former tenure in this old house—this house that had claimed me as its own. The corners of the room remained untouched, along with my dark secret.

The man and woman kept mainly to their downstairs mundanities—washing, cooking, tinkering, and whatnot. The man, when home in the evenings, would often retire to the study, reading and smoking his pipe after supper, while the woman busied herself with knitting and radio programs. Naturally, the children took advantage of the upstairs hallway’s excessive runway, as my own children had. They held thunderous footraces, played hide-n-seek, and flew paper aircraft with an infectious enthusiasm. Their two worlds united for communal activities—sharing meals, singing at the piano, telling stories by the hearth. Weekends often whisked them away from the house, on extensive outings, leaving me to dwell in my own thoughts, which drifted more oft than not, to Roger and Gloria.

One Sunday afternoon, I regarded the children—as I oft did—as they ran to and fro through the upstairs hallway. I was struck by a thunderbolt—an idea—a sudden lustful yearning in my heart—an idea so insidious in nature its mere conjuration was enough for me to consider my sanity! The longer I ruminated over this new thought, the more its insidiousness gave way to cunning. It quickly became the dominant thought in my mind. The revelation was so profound I began conspiring immediately. I knew then what I had to do, but the mere thought of it made my stomach turn. Regardless, I would enact my gruesome schemes first upon the man and woman. The children, however, would require a more delicate hand.

This house—this prison of loss—would remain a prison no longer.

Upon trial and error I found I could cause minute behavioral changes in the house’s occupants, purely by spiritual means. By repeatedly forcing my will and thoughts upon the man, for instance, and suggesting [thirst], he would rise from his study to pour himself a glass of water. Similarly, humming the melody of a popular tune while focusing the thought of [music] upon the woman would prompt her to put down her knitting and switch on the radio. At first, whenever I succeeded, the suggestion would rarely maintain influence more than a short time before the man or woman resumed his or her previous task. A shaking of the head or rubbing of the temples would undo the influence. They appeared oblivious to my advances. Going about this endeavor did not guarantee repeated or predictable outcomes, however. For instance, the man and woman’s despondent attitudes proved difficult to penetrate, and, more oft than not, my mental suggestions proved altogether ineffective. The children, conversely, provided better reception to suggestion, with nearly confirmed results. It was clear that, aside from my successes with the children, I had my work cut out for me.

For weeks I schemed and plotted, and I influenced the family’s comings and goings. I disrupted their daily routines, enticed them into atypical behaviors, even drove them to self-inflicted discomfort. Over time, their intimacies were laid bare before me, and I grew more confident in my reign over their natural impulses. But, out of those intimations grew an unforeseen byproduct; I had grown to love the family as my own. But it was an affection more akin to a puppeteer and his dolls than the love shared between living beings. Regardless, I sensed hesitation in my allegiance to the task—especially concerning the children—and out of that hesitation manifested urgency; the children were growing older, which would soon prove problematic. They had already reached the critical ages of seven and five—the ages of my Roger and Gloria. Any such delay would prove catastrophic. I either had to set my macabre plan into motion or endure an eternity of regret.

It took further weeks of careful rehearsal to hone my influence, and as a result, in time, I was able to plant thought-seeds in the minds of both the man and the woman simultaneously. Limitations, however, arose, those being restrictions of proximity of the two to one another, and to myself. Additionally, it was impossible for me to effectively focus on both from a significant distance or if I lost sight of either.

Nevertheless, it was, that in my lust for that which I had lost, I set my plan into motion.

On a leisurely weekend afternoon the couple reclined contented in their respective chairs, enjoying the downstairs sitting room, and engaged in the radio. The children played noisily upstairs. I could not afford for the children to be alerted to what transpired below their feet for fear my plan would unravel. It was imperative the children did not leave the house. It was monumental that they remained within these walls. Failing at this would prove tragic beyond all accounts.

I placed myself in front and slightly above the man and woman, with an unobstructed view of both, then proceeded with my thought-intrusion. I focused upon them and poured the totality of my will into an intense, singular suggestion—[Escape!]—an impression of such profundity I was certain of being revealed as the source of the intrusion! For countless heartbeats they sat unmoving—until their faces slowly raised toward the ceiling—until their eyes met with my own. Had it not worked? H-Had they seen me!

My concern was unfounded, for immediately their eyes became saucers and their faces deformed into pale, deranged masks. They began muttering unintelligibly, their voices rising in pitch not unlike the mewling of wild dogs. Limbs contorted and flailed about strangely while spittle drained from the edges of gaping mouths. What had I done—I had compelled them to madness! But just when I feared I had rent my plans to ruin, the two of them heaved themselves from their chairs and charged through the living room, into the foyer. Their bodies pressed and distorted against the screened front door, their arms clawing and swatting greedily at one another, until finally tearing through and tumbling onto the porch. Without losing momentum, they flung themselves into the motorcar parked in the graveled driveway, unbothered with securing the doors. They were succumbed to a rabid enthusiasm that shook me to my core.

I quickly ascended to the attic to observe the scene from the front-facing window. The vehicle coughed loudly then sputtered to life as the man throttled it into a fishtailing frenzy. It careened recklessly through the yard in a tight zig-zagging trajectory. Unable to control the metallic beast, the man rode it headlong into an ancient oak just at the edge of the estate property.

The violence that unfolded escalated beyond anything I was prepared to witness. Upon impact, the car bucked violently against the tree and a geyser of steam erupted from the engine block. The man’s face met savagely with the steering column before flopping backward, crooked and limp. The woman ejected through the windshield but was held in place as her legs folded backward under the dash panel. The rear of the car then dropped back to the ground, its wheels continuing to grind into the earth.

I was certain the commotion would lure the children out of the house and on to the grizzly scene. So, I listened for signs they were still in the house. But the longer I listened the more certain I became of their absence. I strained my senses to their limits, yet I detected nothing but the hollow silence of my being. By some primal instinct, I was unwilling to move for fear of disrupting the occurrence of unfolding events.

A feint woody creak shook my meditation. I turned as the little knee-wall door on the opposite side of the room hinged softly inward. A small form, silhouetted within the door frame, tiptoed toward me like a figurine in an over-sized doll house, surveying the draped furniture and mounds of ancient remnants on either side of the long aisle. The girl padded up to me as though she sensed my presence—until a boy’s voice sing-songed from the floor below, “Ready’r not, here I come!” The girl froze, wide-eyed, and clapped both hands over her open mouth. She scampered into the corner next to me, burrowing under a mound of desiccated bedding. I panicked. It was the very corner in which that shameful act had been committed all those years ago—under those rotting sheets—

The corner erupted in high shrieks and skittering pale bones. The bed sheets wafted into the air like dusty, old ghosts, shielding my sight from the vulgarity about to unfold. They could not, however, conceal the pattering of small panicked feet nor the unmistakable tha-dump tha-dump tha-dump tha-dump! of something soft and heavy tumbling down steep steps. The ghosts in front of me settled to the floor, revealing the empty, open doorway beyond. Hesitantly, I descended into the second floor hallway. At the far end, the door to the attic stairwell stood ajar. Just visible inside the gap, at the bottom of the stairs, an arm and a dark head of curls lay unmoving. The girl, by no act of my own, lay dead.

“Mary…” a meek voice said from behind me, “ready’r not…”

I turned. The boy stepped hesitantly through the hallway, glancing into each bedroom as he approached the opposite end. His breath quickened upon reaching the attic door. “M-Mary?…” Blood had begun to pool under the dark curls on the bottom stair. He stood with his fists pressed tight against his cheeks, and he made the slow, rising sound of an air siren being cranked until the words at the end rose to a pitch that cracked his throat, “Mmm-mmmmm-mmmmmmm-M-Mama Papa!”

The boy panted like a miniature locomotive as he shuffled backward toward the staircase midway through the hall, with his hands balled into his cheeks. He turned onto the stairs and half tumbled down to the lower landing, then leaped to the floor below. “M-Mama Papa Mama Papa!” he cried between fitful breaths.

By the time I regained my wits and descended to the ground floor the boy had arrived at the front door. He stood facing the gaping wound in the screen, gazing out at the thick line of trees that intersected the long, meandering driveway. Across the wide, weedy yard the family car nosed the flat trunk of a monstrous tree. The engine sputtered and trembled while chunks of earth spit from under the rear tires. Its occupants jerked uncannily in the throes of mechanical tremors. The sound of an air siren once again issued from the boy’s mouth—and then, to my horror, he stepped through the tear in the screen.

It was imperative the boy not leave this house, yet reality had become a nightmare that played out before my eyes! I had lost the boy for ever—he had crossed the threshold of my realm, and my influence no longer held dominion over him. Damn me to an eternity of regret!

He walked stiffly across the yard, with fists pressed tight into the sides of his thighs, toward the distant line of trees. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath, and there was a determined slowness to his gait.

All was lost. I became an eternal observer, and nothing more.

The car in the distance offered one final violent cough before its engine surrendered to a quiet death. The bodies within momentarily animated. The boy tensed at the sound, then froze as the man’s body slid from the driver’s seat and into the weeds. The boy’s hands clapped over his eyes. He made a sound without opening his mouth like that of a small model engine revving, then bounded back toward the house. The screen door cracked against the side of the house as the boy charged into the foyer. He shuttled frantically to and fro through the sitting room and the kitchen beyond, the pitch of his panicked cries vibrating in time with his footfalls. 

I could not allow him to leave a second time—it was monumental. He must remain within these walls! Beyond desperation, I placed myself between the boy and the front door, and as his pacing brought him to face me, I summoned the extent of my will onto him—

[Stay!]

His body went rigid as stone and he nearly toppled due to the awkward positioning of his limbs during his manic thrashing. His eyes, however—his eyes were unaffected by rigor. They lifted in their saucer sockets to meet my own. In his child-like receptiveness, he sensed me. H-How! Could he see me as well? I swore on my children’s unmarked grave that he knew I was there!

 His face became ghastly in its unwavering gaze; the bottom jaw hinged slowly downward while his lips remained clenched. The small model engine revved inside his throat, growing ever louder, until a yawning scream emerged from between his parting lips. His eyes rolled over white and he began to totter in his precarious pose. Just as the fate that befell the man and woman, so had this boy been driven to madness! My heart filled with such regret that I prayed for the death that was denied me all those years ago. Not this pitiable, lifeless death, but the proper ending I desired now more than ever.

The scream abruptly ended in a raspy exhalation of air as a tremor coursed through the boy's body. He deflated and collapsed to the hardwood floor, never to rise again.

***

I never much cared for the old adage “Children should be seen and not heard.” Rather, I found “Play is the work of a child” more suited to my liking. I thought being a father again might not be free of challenge, but I took to it as easily as a soul ascends to the heavens. I donned my mantle free of guilt, of remorse—with only love.

From the doorway of Gloria’s room, I cheered them on as they tornado-ed through the upstairs hallway. The sound of children running through the house again nourished my soul. Even the old house seemed to creak and groan with laughter beneath their feet. Nothing could wrest that magic from my spirit.

My thoughts wandered, and I allowed my gaze to drift beyond the whirling motion in the hall, into the guest bedroom opposite Gloria’s, and through the broken window that faced the little garden outside. The old elm leaned toward the house with its great branches, twisted and tangled as if frozen in a gale. Leafy fingers reached into cracks and crevices in the southern wall, casting sweet summer scents into the rooms upstairs. Its thick roots snaked through the yard, upsetting the sunken foundation of the house. About its base, weathered remains of a headstone lay strewn like discarded seeds of a memory, fading with time.

The end.