Glass house, p.1
Glass House, page 1
GLASS HOUSE
by
Paul Jessup
Underland Press
For my Aunt Dar, who opened the doors of horror to me at such a young age.
-1-
The real estate agent said these are good bones, and Dana just had to agree. So strong, so beautiful, so rigid beneath the skin. And there was so much to love about the flesh of it, too. The crown molding, the lattice windows, the ivy and cracks and cobwebs and everything. The whole place just left her so breathless and electric. She was in love, yes she was. She was in love with every inch of this house.
Next, they moved through the spacious living room. Walls dotted with Corinthian columns and a cathedral ceiling spotted with mildew. Archways like the legs of giants straddled the rooms, coated in tarnished vine mosaics. Her daughters played between the arches, calling out to each other, tagging one another, laughing. Lily and Rae, her darling things, her lovely little ones.
Now eight and ten, they were only two years apart, practically twins. She touched her stomach, the place where they’d once grown inside of her, and felt a connection with this house. You understand me, she thought. After all, we both contained bodies and wombs and life. This house knew the loss of those that left the womb, of having someone outside of you who was once inside, feeding on you, listening to you, sharing your heartbeat.
Breathe it all in, an invigorating incense. Rotted vegetation and raw soil and things growing in the dark. Intoxicating. Her hand on her stomach again, that empty womb tingled. A connection between the two of them. This room like a shrine, like a temple. There was an echo of frescoes along the walls, and she wanted to peel them back, and uncover their hidden secrets. Her trembling palms pushed flat against that wall. Humid and sweating on her hand. How could a wall sweat like this? It seemed impossible. And yet, it did. Like an echo of her skin: the flesh of this house sweats.
A heat grew inside her with each breath. To undress the walls of this house, to suck in the pheromones it gave off. Oh, the promises it would give her. It understood her, deep in bone, deep in flesh, deep in every aspect of herself, in a way no one else ever could.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, so calm, “Lucas, honey, don’t you think so? Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”
Lucas Glass, that rugged man she’d married ages ago. Handsome in a brutalist architecture sort of way, with a constant five o’clock shadow and carved stone features. His black hair curled raven feathers with a touch of gray. Lucas. Her gothic film director. Obsessed with creating artistic documentaries on the macabre. Once upon a time he read old poetry to her and sang off-key love songs on a boat on a river. Now that was all past and muted and sepia-toned. They were almost strangers now, weren’t they? How did that even happen . . .
She reached over and clasped his hand. Her pulse raced quick and heavy and full of excitement, as he sighed that frustrated Lucas sigh. A slow, burning, sigh: the sigh of an impatient director. “I don’t know, I mean. I really don’t know. I love the atmosphere of it all, but can we even get it up to code? Will it even pass inspection?
The real estate agent twitched her freckled nose and pushed her wire thin glasses up her face. “I’ll email you the documents, but it’s already passed inspection as of last year. We had another buyer back then who bowed out at the last minute, but I can assure you, that the electric is up to code, same for the plumbing and everything else as well. But never mind that! I have so much more to show you. The best of the best is yet to come.” Her voice was cheerful and chirpy and rounded out with a subtle accent. Hungarian? Maybes. German? No, not quite. Swedish? Not even close. Something European, that was for certain. Almost like a feminine Peter Lorre, or Bela Lugosi, but not quite.
“Wait until you see the upstairs, the downstairs, the garden out back. Oh, wait until you see the crypt.”
And the agent darted ahead of them. So quick! A whirlwind of a tiny body. Black and grey hair piled up on her scalp in a neat little bun, stray strands curling down on her cheeks, as she moved in rapid movements. A rabbit in fright, a hunted prey of a thing. What do you have to be scared of, agent rabbit? What hunts you in the dark hallows of our beautiful house?
Oh! Did Dana just think it? Did she call it our house already? Lucas hadn’t even a chance to say yes. And yet, she knew that it was true.
A thrill, and a scream of joy inside!
Our beautiful new house.
-2-
Dana’s hand grasped the banister, her fingers a rude circle of skin against thick wood. She felt it breathe against her palm, sweaty and subtly flexing against flesh. It was a living thing, this house. The railing was like a lover’s spine arching against her hand. She wanted to kiss the wood, to lick it, to feel it grow against her lips. Lucas had left her so lonely, so empty. This house would fill her, and she would fill it.
Agent rabbit thumped up the stairs ahead of them, the world moving in slow motion, their bodies accented by stray sunbeams and crowded with dust motes. Lucas between the two of them like an ancient statue of a shattered god. A dream, a dream, everything moved like a dream. Shadows pierced by the knife of sunlight, cutting through the fog of dust and dirt. Hard to breathe. Breathless. Constricted by the weight of the air. She felt dizzy. Touched her forehead. Wiped away that sweat. Her two little girls right behind her, dancing barefoot on the floorboards. When had they taken their shoes off? Should she yell at them to put them back on? She felt feverish, unsettled, off-kilter.
Did this house ache like she ached? The need swelled between them, as her daughters laughed as they played. The staircase grand and overpowering. It could fit them all and have room to spare.
And ahead Lucas gasped as he stepped onto the second floor, his body disappearing into the summer haze.
“What? What is this? Dana, honey, come here, come quick. Does this hallway feel familiar to you? It feels so familiar to me, but I, I, I just can’t place it.”
Oh, almost there, not far behind him now, as she stepped up that last stair, and saw what Lucas saw before her:
A hallway so distinct, surrounded by doors leading to bedrooms. And over that? A stained-glass dome, all loosely decorated and delicate. It looked like a religious mural, maybe, or a tarot card, possibly, or wait . . . an album cover? Lucas was right, she had seen it before, she recognized it, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, exactly.
“Come on, tell me! Tell me if you feel what I feel. It’s familiar, isn’t it? But in a lazy hazy way, you know, like a faded memory?”
Her whole body sang in recognition as she stared up, goosebumps dotting her arms. A skull with a keyhole in the stained-glass dome, eyes on a hand, a crown of candles, drops of blood, a chalice and a sword. In the center of it all stood three women and one little boy. There was an implication of violence in this mural, an implication of sacrifice, of mutilations to come. This whole thing felt like a promise, a whisper: déjà vu. So beautifully gothic it hurt her heart.
“I recognize it,” her voice all gravel and hoarse, “But I don’t know where. Did we dream this place? Is that it? A shared dream that we brought into existence? I feel like it’s an album cover, if that makes sense, like it’s an old record. Why do I know this?”
Lucas shook his head. “No, more like . . . like some lost childhood memory rediscovered later in life.”
And she touched the walls, feeling every bit of it. Rough things, covered in a patina of dirt and filth and tattered wallpaper. It would take hours upon hours to scrub these clean, yet she still felt pulled towards it. A desire to take care of this house, to scour it and bathe it and love it. All of the imperfections called out to her and she swooned in the heat of the hallway.
“There is something here, a memory, maybe?” Lucas said. “Something lost inside of me, something that needs to be found . . .”
She knew exactly what he meant. The girls jumped up the steps behind her, and she moved further, further down the hallway. Agent rabbit pointed at each room, listing off the sizes and what work needed to be done in each one. The strangeness of it all crept around inside of her as a fog entered Dana’s thoughts. Was she dreaming now? It felt like it, the haze, the fog in her mind, the way the world seemed to move in slow motion. Lucas stood right there, right in front of her. His body was obscured in the haze of dirt and dust and shadows, his face beatific and outlined by a stray sunbeam.
What was this? What a strange portent. As if to see him decapitated, beheaded, his expression one of saintly rapture. Like all those images of her Catholic school youth, a mixture of reverie and horror all at once. This, this wasn’t right. She was beside herself with sorrow and loss, and she ran over to him and grabbed his tattooed hand, their sweaty palms meeting and sliding fingers against palms against fingers. Yes, he was still solid and real in the mist. Why had the house shown her this? Was the house a jealous house?
He smiled at her and looked at her so savagely. “You okay?”
There was no way to respond to that.
Rae called out from behind them, her words masking a squeal of pure joy. “This one is mine!” And she ran into one of the larger rooms, opening the closets and windows, filling the house with sounds of wood creaking and rusty hinges groaning. Her sister laughed, ran about, searching for a room of her own to claim, as Dana watched on. There were more than enough rooms in this house for all of them. Huge, sprawling, beautiful thing it was. A monstrous house that could fit several families, easily. A house she loved, and a house that loved her back.
-3-
At the bottom of the hill rambled a garden all overgrown and beautiful. It contained massive weeds as tall as Lucas, blowing lazily in the strong summer wind. She touched one, and it felt all velvety. Leaf like human skin, buds like human faces, the path now overgrown and dappled with cracked stones. Grasshoppers leapt about, hunting, as birds watched with hungry eyes from the tree branches. Gnarled things, protective things, those trees. Do not go beyond this point. Do not travel deeper into the place behind the house. You do not want to know what lives there.
It feeds on light.
She gripped Lucas’s hands tighter, tighter. He turned to her, smiled some nervous smile. “You all right?” It was half a whisper, barely audible to the rest. And she nodded, and yes, she was all right, oh so very all right. Her pulse faster now, faster. What he probably read as fear was something else. Something far more powerful than fear. It rose all hot inside of her and threatened to erupt.
“I, I, this place, it’s, I can’t explain how it’s affecting me.”
And he smiled that Lucas smile. A smirk, oh so mysterious, always hiding his true feelings. They passed beneath a large weeping willow tree, with branches drooped down and dangling over their heads. Leaves brushed their hair like the hands of lost children, as the spindly boughs rattled like bones.
She watched calmly as their daughters played between the branches, picked them up, moved them about. She felt some odd sense of foreboding as they danced with them in a primal, brutal ballet, whomping each other and laughing. The tree shifted around them. The noises it made sounded like a living thing, an ancient thing. A thing that felt pain and laughter and hate. She should stop them, before the tree makes things worse, and releases some of its pent up ancient anger. “Girls, girls! Maybe you should quit playing with the tree, okay?”
And Lucas shot her his look, a disappointed, burning hate of a look. She pulled her hand back, as he tried to grasp it again, missing and frustrated as she kept her hand away. Not now, no, maybe later, but not right after that look. “Just let them play with the tree,” he said.
But she would not feel silly.
“No,” and she glared at him, returning his own sour look. Let’s see how he likes it, to be belittled by a simple stare. No response? Good. That would show him. To think that maybe somehow they could patch things up so simply. The house might be a first step, but it also might be the last step in their marriage. She glanced back over at Lily and Rae, and saw that her girls didn’t even seem to care. They were kicking rocks now, and drawing spirals in the dirt with sticks. She turned again and looked toward that mammoth, ancient, tree.
And what was this? What was this, here? A book harshly nailed to the trunk, its spine straight with the cover peeled back like wings. Paper feathers floated downward, coating the roots below them with words. Step forward, Dana. Step forward. Reach out, fingers grasping, and touch the rain-ruined leather binding. It twitched a bit. From the wind, from her touch. And she pulled that hand back, placed those quivering fingers to her lips, and closed her eyes. Why was this book placed here? A sacrifice, yes. It felt like a sacrifice.
Rapture, rupture, seismic, orgasmic, eruption.
“What could it mean? What could this book mean?”
Agent rabbit grew impatient. Her face scowled, her lips tightly pursed in anger.
“It doesn’t matter, you can do whatever you want with it when you own this place. Tear down the sentinel books! Put up more! Just do whatever you damn well please! But only if you buy, buy, buy! But before we get to that,” and her nose twitched again, and her lip peeled back to reveal her two front teeth, “we need to get to know this place intimately. Come, we’ve got one more thing I need to show you both. It is the most important piece of this entire house, and you will simply love it. Just, simply love it to pieces, I promise you.”
Did she just say sentinel books? Dana needed to ask more, to pry into what she meant by this and get to the bottom of everything. But no, too late, too slow, agent rabbit was already running up toward the house, her legs stomping a rhythm like a march hare against the ground. She should follow, the house called to her, promised such beautiful indiscretions. It was better inside, far away from that tree, and the wicked sentience that crept between the branches.
-4-
A black door in the side of the hill, guarded by two decrepit stone owls and random dandelions. Chthonic things, those owls, the size of large dogs or maybe even small horses. That door made of thick oak with dents and chunks taken out of it, chained shut with rusted links and chunky padlocks. The house watched her from the top of the hill, not quite sane, the windows staring as the storm clouds rushed toward them. The humidity would break soon, and the rain would pour down with thunder and lightning and everything else. You could taste it in the air, like pennies or the sea ripe on your tongue.
She reached out and touched the left owl, as the stone feathers brushed against the tips of her fingers. What was it called in Japanese? Wabi-sabi? No, that couldn’t be right. Mono no aware? No, maybe not that either. She couldn’t remember. It wasn’t important. The beauty of decay, of broken things glued back together, there was some word for it, some perfect word that described this feeling she felt right now. That was this house, and that was what was important.
Breathless now. There was a promise of something horribly wonderful about to happen. Feel that sweat slide down her back? Drip, drip, drip. The real estate agent unlocked the door and swung it open, a wave of cold air whispering against Dana’s cheek. It smelled tangy, a savagely sweet smell. So familiar, yet not at the same time. Blood? No. That wasn’t the smell of blood. Was it?
“Wait until you guys see this, I know you’re just going to love it, just adore it. When I saw the two of you, oh, I just knew this would be the house for you, and you would simply love this.”
Lucas tried to grab her hand again and she let him this time. They were working on it, they were working on it, they were working on it. The rhythm of his heart raced against her palm, sweat mingling between the two of them, connecting them together, trading fluids through the pores of their skin. Was this okay? Was it okay to hold hands? Why did it feel so strange, so foreign, so wrong? Each time it felt even more wrong. Could they ever breach these walls between them?
Never mind that now. She would try, she would have to try. That was the promise of this house. They walked forward together, following agent rabbit, deep into the inky black darkness beyond that door. Wooden stairs whispered under their weight, as the ceiling above erupted to the sound of child’s play. Her girls had gone upstairs (too dangerous down here), laughing and running through the entire first floor. All while the adults explored this strange cellar world inside the hill, beneath the house.
Lucas’s free hand lifted his phone high up and used it as a makeshift flashlight. It cast a strange, eerie blue light. One that carved long shadows in the dark.
“Welcome, welcome, may I present to you the family crypt.”
Lucas’s hand tensed around hers. Something changed between them. This didn’t feel so weird any longer. The crypt came sharply into view before them, his cellphone light dimming erratically, the battery weak and almost dead. Shadows of stone coffins, dirt floors, bones set into the walls themselves. Skulls in alcoves. And the air smelled like a butcher shop. She’d been right before, hadn’t she? Blood, blood, it was thick with the raw scent of blood. How long have they been dead down here? It all smelled so fresh.
Her hand trembled against Lucas’s hand, a vibration of flesh against flesh. The crypt felt like a secret place, a vulnerable place, the innermost raw underskin muscle of the house. Oh, it wanted her to see this, it needed her to see the house like this, all wide open with all of the secrets exposed. Lucas’s hands gripped hers tighter and tighter and tighter, an intense circle of skin against her knuckles. He seemed to swoon and breathe heavily and she had to hold him steady. Had he felt the house like she felt the house? All yearning need and desperate whispers?
“Do you know whose skulls these are, whose coffins? My god, why are there so many . . .”
