2003-10-29

We live in an old house.

I am not sure why we live here; it is expensive looking, and far beyond our means. Nonetheless, we live here.

We didn't decorate it. It seems to have come like this. Maybe we won it in some sort of lottery. In any case, it feels like we cheated, that we don't deserve it. There are lots of antique rugs and heavy, draped upholstery. It's hard to tell if the wallpaper is just incredibly intricate, or if the gold pattern was painted by thousands of tiny hands.

The house feels cold and warm at the same time. The floors are of old wood - so old that it sometimes feels like stone beneath our feet. We don't like to walk inside without shoes. Our steps echo.

We have a fire going most of the time, but the warmth of it seems very far away.

That could also be because of the space. The house is very large. Perhaps it should be called a mansion, but it just sounds so dramatic. Maybe the fire is just very far away. I don't know; I try to stay in my room, though the voices seem louder there.

For the past few weeks now, we have heard strange noises in the middle of the night. They are not like the voices. They are strange knocking sounds, like construction, or a fierce rustling. Like the heat from the fireplace, the sounds echo from far away. Sometimes I will hear a footfall or two. Then the noise will stop, and start again in another part of the house.

I don't like this.

The front door is heavy, dark, and thicker than I have ever seen. The lock snicks deep into the doorframe. When I turn the bolt in the evening, I hear it boring into the stone wall. It doesn't grate. The sound is like oil.

Night is strange, and the rugs on my floor, the paper on the walls, they all whisper. Night is when I lock the front door. It is a time when everyone who is supposed to come back has arrived, and those who are not supposed to live here anymore must be prevented from returning.

One night, when the room is black and close, I open my eyes and feel someone breathing on my face. When my eyes flick open, they hold their breath, but I can still feel the way the air moves when they blink.

Then they are gone.

Morning arrives. I unlock the door, open it, examine the hole in the doorframe where the bolt enters. It is stuffed with hundreds of tiny pieces of paper. They are raggedly torn, like cookie-fortunes handmade by children fifty years ago. There is no way that the door will lock properly, blocked with such a mass.

I press two fingers into the hole, and the papers rustle free, crumbling into my hands like bandages.

My name is written on each yellowed scrap.