AND THE HOUSE THAT KILLED ME
I loved them from first moment their shoes touched my floorboards. I loved their strides and the way they ran their hands over my walls as if they owned me. Humans are beautifully stupid creatures.
They were lovely to watch, all full skirts and petty squabbles. Quaint.
There is a cook, a plump, bustling woman. She doesn’t suspect a thing.
Two small females, maids I think. Their thoughts are on little else but the house gossip.
A man and a woman and a tiny little one, boy or girl I don’t know.
There is also a footman and a gardener. They don’t like me much. They flinch whenever I settle or creak. Both together might pose a problem. The gardener can wield an ax.
‘And they all lived together in a crooked little house’
And they are mine. Imperfect though they may be. I watched them through my knotholes and cracks in my walls and floors. They are dolls and I’m their house.
The cook falls right into rhythm. As if they’d never even moved. I love the smells that come from her dishes. Basil, lemon, leek. Sometimes I open my doors for her when she is carrying heavy trays. But she doesn’t like that much. Unnerves her. Gravy leaks through the cranks in my planking. I wish I had lips to lick.
The footman is stone, like the ones I’m built on. Unflinching and stoic. He intrigues me. Even creaking floors and banging doors do not intimidate him. One night I sent a splinter of wood through his little toe while he prepared for bed. He just looked down, pulled the shard out and tossed it out his window. No shrieks. It annoyed me. But then I was distracted by his blood slipping through the boards. I wish I had lips to lick.
The gardener is all vines and dirt and handfuls of grubs. He comes through my door as little as possible. I swear if he stayed too long indoors he’d graft into my wood since he must be mostly plant.
He cares nothing for humans. He’s hardly spoken a handful of sentences to his employers since he moved into me. I see him, though not very well since he doesn’t come near me unless he has to. He talks to the vines as though they were sisters and the roses his lover. I wish he would talk to me.
The maids are funny, flighty creatures. All engrossed in the new styles and their mistresses fashionable dresses. I can tell they know each other from long before they came to me. Childhood friends. What a pity they are not more interesting.
The infant is loud. I can feel the moisture in my wood squeeze out with every shrill scream it lets out. I have decided that I don’t like it much. I can’t see how the parents love it? It’s a mess of spit and cotton and useless tiny limbs. I’m almost tempted to release the parents of their burden but I don’t think the women would be best pleased. I will endure the infant for as long as I have to.
The female mother is not at all unbearable. She is the most radiant human I have ever seen. Much like the painted ladies that hang on my walls. Her face is chiseled and ghostly pale, with eyes like chips of jade. Small, dainty hands, quick with a needle. She has hung many of her embroideries on my walls. I spend hours looking at each tiny stitch, each individual color. Blues, pearls and yellows. She puts effortless beauty into me. Something I’ve been with out for years.
The man father intrigues me most of all. He is as nondescript a human as I have ever seen. Neither tall nor short, yet he commands a room as if he were a warlord and they his army. They follow his orders immediately, without fear, without hesitation.
He is incredibly intelligent. You can see it in the way he reads through books, in the way he counsels his friends and the way he approaches an obstacle.
He doesn’t take any notice of me. This, surprisingly so, doesn’t anger me as I thought it would. It only gives me a faint longing feeling, to make him notice me. Maybe someday he will.
Numbers, numbers. Thousands of them in rows. I stole a sheet from off his desk, blew it off with a gust from a door slam. It fell through me and I could see more of the writing. Numbers and then letters. He works at a bank. A building. One besides me. If I had teeth I would tear it apart.
They are all fascinating in their own way. My favorite time is dinner. When they are all seated, when I can see them all. The gardener who doesn’t talk. The maids who talk too much. The cook that never stops moving and the footman who never hurries. And then the three. The man, the women and their squalling infant. It’s like a moving painting. Each character painted out in vivid color and detail for the enjoyment of their viewer. Me.
Weeks pass. I become fonder of them every day. I see each every flaw, the words that get their tempers stoked and the things that make them happy. The mother’s joy is her infant although I can’t imagine why. I watch her talk to it. It never responds, only stares insolently at her. It has to be at least a year old, why doesn’t it speak? I was awake while they constructed me, and long before that.
The gardener knows. I’m sure of it. I’m what gets his temper stoked. Each subtle creak, every whispering corner makes him more and more angry. He knows but won’t say, won’t admit to what he feels. He will be the first to snap.
I sent another splinter though the footman’s toe. This time he swore. Long, in one sharply inhaled breath. His nails dug into me and I relished in the pain. This footman amuses me. I will continue to torment him until his feet can no longer do a footman’s job.
The maids are easily played with. It takes only a slowly opening door or a dark shadow darting to make them afraid. They are convinced that I’m haunted. I was once. But even ghost can’t abide me for very long. They sleep together now, convinced that ghost won’t bother two together. Ghosts aren’t deterred with quantities. I know.
The cook is uneasy. I’ve opened one too many doors for her. She can no longer blame it on the breeze. I saw her resignation notice lying on her counter. Another opening door blew it down to me. How dare she think of leaving me? I wish I had teeth.
The man needs neither me to scare him or his crying infant to distract him; he is already consumed with problems at work. His numbers are what drives him mad. I only settle back and watch. His desk is piled with letters. Notices and statements. These get burned soon after I get a glimpse of them. He is nervous now. Always jumping when I move. He is hiding something. Something from me? I will not be pleased if he keeps it from me for much longer.
A guest came into me. This is rare. I hardly ever get visitors. Not because I don’t want them but because the father man doesn’t let them come. This must have been an important one because I’ve never seen the house in such a state, so much food and of the finest quality too. After the dinner the father man and the guest went up into my study. It was there that I knew why not many guests came to me. I never like any of them. And this guest was no exception. He was loud and rude. Like the infant. He spoke of failure and of incompetence and something to do with the police. The father man turned as white as the female mother. But not scared white, angry white. The father man shakily poured himself a drink, and then poured his guest one as well. The guest was smiling in a way I did not like. Then he downed his glass in one gulp. Humans are bizarre things. They take naps on my floors while their friends stand and watch. Then the blood and wine came trickling down to me. Blood. Blood mixed with something. Or was it wine mixed with something? Bitter. If I had a mouth I would spit. Then I came to me. The father man had murdered.
That night the father man pulled the body out into the grounds. He pulled up the gardener’s sisters and lover and buried the body deep, deep. I watched, and was sickened. How dare he kill? How dare he murder my guest. My human visitor. Did the father man think I enjoyed his company any more than the guests?
I tucked myself deep into my foundation and thought. What to do? How to act? The father man had to tell the rest of them, that much I knew for certain. I would not have my dolls lying to each other. Yes. I would start with that.
The next day I sent a mirror crashing down at the father man. He screamed, nerves already raw with stress. Then, making my voice appear to be coming from one of my many statues, I whispered. Tell them what you have done.
The father stood, paralyzed with fear. He reached out and touched the lips of the statue. Then he grabbed its white head and pulled it to the ground where it shattered into large, chalky chunks. I laughed.
Do you think that I’m a statue to be knocked about? I am the walls you touch and the floors you stand on.
The man began to shake in fear. It pleased me. Tell them.
“Tell who?” The man groaned, holding his hands in the air in supplication.
Tell her.
The female walked in, whiter than usual. She hesitantly walked into the room and the asked quietly, “Who were you talking to?”
I waited, already knowing his answer. He wouldn’t tell her. Wouldn’t risk being thought mad.
“Nothing.” He said, all in a rush, his gaze everywhere but on her.
I sighed, making the chunks of marble vibrate and roll on the floor.
The next morning I removed the floorboards that were outside the maid’s room. I can’t tell them apart but the one that woke first broke both legs. Fell a great distance. Fell on the cooks counter.
My dolls seethed like an upset wasp nest. People falling over each other in order to fetch the doctor, the mistress, the master. He knew it was me. Floor boards don’t usually move of their own accord.
I was really surprised that the girl lived. I had planned a death but what had happened would suit my purpose just as well. The doctor came and went.
I let the father wait. Let weeks pass while he stewed and his insides gnawed at him. Sooner or later he would give in and tell them. And then we could go back to how things were. To when he was happy.
But not yet. Not until he confesses. If there are any secrets to be kept I, and I alone, will keep them. I’m the crooked house.
He is stronger than I suspected. Three weeks passed and the father man has said nothing. Only writes and writes his numbers. Numbers. And sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking, he opens a small leather book. The color of the female’s eyes. Another writing book. I think he is writing about me.
I grow impatient. The footman knows. So I won’t kill him first. I tipped the cook’s pot of soup on her while her back was turned. That was not such a pleasant smell.
The uproar from the first ‘accident’ was nothing compared to this one. The infant awoke to screams. Cook’s screams. There was a great deal of fuss in which the father did nothing but stand in his room, shocked and very white. Not angry white, terrified white.
Then an amusing thing happened. The human man tried to be sneaky. With me watching! He tried to get out of me. He grabbed his wife and his screaming child and ran for my door.
Does he not know that I can keep him in as easily as I can let him out?
So I locked my doors. All of them.
Now the whole house was in a blind panic. All of them had been inside for the evening dinner meal. The gardener, now cut off from his plants, settled into a state of mute shock. The footman switched feet. Afraid of splinters. The maids cried. But they always do this. The cook moaned and groaned, a good deal quieter than the infant.
And still, some didn’t suspect. Couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t see it. Maybe the door was jammed. Maybe some neighbor boy had wedged something underneath the door. All of them.
Tell them. Was my ongoing refrain. But the man would only sob and shake his head and choke out. “You don’t understand. I’d be ruined.”
More ruined than you are now?
He wouldn’t. And it made me livid to think that, maybe he never would. He wouldn’t because of his pride. And the fact that I was hurting his family didn’t matter.
So maybe hurting wasn’t working. I would try a different method.
The gardener saw me coming. My planks are not very quiet. I tried to lift them without creaking but he saw me and turned around. Saw the shard of wood looming over him like some otherworldly demon bent on destruction. His ax did him no good. I didn’t even feel it.
Then the maids, but there were sleeping.
I waited till morning. Not thinking about what I had done but only how to break my stubborn liar.
Morning dawned and three of the dolls were dead.
God, I’ve never heard such screams. And In the midst of all the emotion and all the terror, the father man stood, utterly blank. As if the bodies of his staff meant nothing to him. As if it wasn’t his fault. Then he did a horribly, unanticipated thing. He turned to my fireplace, grabbed a chunk of smoldering wood and shoved it up against up a wall. And then he grabbed another, and another. It was my turn to be shocked. He was trying to win. Like a rat attacking his cage. Or a murderer his noose.
I smelled burning me. The wall hangings that I dropped snuffed out two logs but the rest began to blaze up in a wickedly, hungry way.
Put those out or your women cook dies.
They all heard me, and for a full minute they simply stood, dumbstruck by the realization. Then the doorman limped over to each log and stamped on them till they were put out.
“Stop!” The father man screamed at his servant. He rushed over to the first of the snuffed logs, hoping no doubt, to rekindle them.
I lifted one of my boards and the father man ran full force into it, then he slid to the ground, unconscious. In that position he looked even more helpless and doll like. My stupid, stubborn doll. And he was hurting himself. If I had eyes I would cry.
He woke a half hour later. He woke to the prone body of footman, lying near one of the stifled logs. He could not see the cook’s.
The female with her infant and her lovely green eyes looked at me. But she had no idea where to look. Up, down, left. It made no difference. I could see her quite well from any wall or any board I chose.
The father got up and whipped crusted blood of his nose. With a dazed expression he pointed stupidly at the body of his footman.
“Dead?” He asked.
The footman’s legs were broken, clearly broken. And his neck was similarly position. It was a stupid question.
The jade eyes blinked once, filled with tears and then squeezed shut. One tear, not very big, slid down her white cheek and landed noiselessly on my boards.
I wish I had lips to lick.
She started to move towards him but a soft rumble from me stopped her mid-step.
Tell her I whispered, watching them both closely.
The man drew a shaky breath. And then another. As if breathing would communicate the message he didn’t want to vocalize. He took a third breath.
“For God’s sake tell me!” His wife screamed.
He was taken aback and he stepped forward to ask her what was wrong.
“Don’t come closer.” She gasped, throwing her free hand out. As she did this the father man’s head shot down, distracted by some movement. My movement.
My floor boards have many states that they can assume. The ones immediately beneath the female had the consistency of wet paper. Weak and prone to tear.
Now the female was crying. Clutching her infant to her like a talisman. Many more of her tears hit me.
“God. No.” The man whispered.
Then sinking to his knees he told her the whole story. It spilled out of him like blood from a wound.
But then he ended the story with ‘I would’ve told you, I swear.”
He would have told her?
I wish I could scream. Scream at that little doll liar. Bellow, that no! He never would have told her! It took five peoples deaths to even get him to this point. It was a damnable, damnable lie.
And I would make him sorry.
Paper is weak, made weaker by any form of liquid. The female mother was a good deal heavier than paper. They dropped. Almost slowing. The first falling leaves. Almost no noise when they hit the bottom.
The man, still on his knees, watched. His face once again expressionless. Only this time I knew why.
He walked over the floorboards, which I quickly hardened. Then he walked up the stairs. I followed. He ran towards my bedroom. I hurried after him, not liking the look on his face.
What was he--?
No. I whispered.
The father man had grabbed one of his wife’s silk scarves that had been lying on the banister railing. With a sick feeling I ran after him, now knowing what he was about to do. I threw up my boards, but he dodged them. I twisted my railing trying to grab at his hands but he eluded me every time.
Wait, wait, wait. I cried.
Then, faster than I would’ve thought possible, he slammed my bedroom door open and grabbed the nearest chair. The scarf was already knotted; all he had to do was step.
And he did.
No! I screamed, trying to grab at him, trying to make him stop swinging like a damned marionette….doll.
But no matter how I strained, his feet were just out of my reach, and no matter how I thrashed the beam he was hanging on was resolutely stable.
I wish I had eyes to cry with.
