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spoonerwrites · 18 days ago

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A little something different today: here's an original short story I've recently unearthed and reworked. Hope you like it!

The Halfway House of Horrors

I always get up around sunrise, so the first thing I do is climb the attic ladder and make sure the curtains are shut. Baron Morgenstern’s usually very careful when he comes in, but sometimes if he’s flown a bit further, he’s too tired to check before going to sleep. Given how long his bad mood lasted the first time his wings were fried, I’m not exactly keen for a repeat performance; it rained over the house for weeks while he moped around the halls as a grumpy cloud of mist. Terrible atmosphere for newcomers.

It’s still barely light outside when I come back down, but there's no time to go back to bed. Running this house is a full-time job.

Choosing the right clothes to wear for a day used to take a lot longer, but now I’ve got it down to a fine art. It’s best not to wear anything that stains easily, or anything loose that could be grabbed by a clawed hand emerging from a cupboard. I’ve also made it a personal rule to always wear shoes in the house, just in case. Some of my house guests can’t always keep their more, um, unseemly habits in check, and I know from experience that socks and slippers are never quite the same again. No innocent slipper should ever be subjected to that.

Once I’m presentable – not that any of my guests really mind if I’m a bit scruffy, but I like to set a good example – I head down to refuel before the long day ahead. The house wakes up around me; in some areas, like the cellar, it's literally the house waking up. There’s a large mirror with an ornate gold frame hanging on the wall above the staircase, and I pause there to say hello to Josie-in-the-Glass.

Josie’s mirror was one of the first things I bought to furnish this house, though I didn’t know she was living in it at the time. Her full name is Josephine Angelique Gerrard, and once upon a time she was a French socialite who was murdered while sitting at her dressing table. Nowadays she’s your run-of-the-mill clairvoyant mirror spirit with a vengeful streak, but she’s really sweet once you get past the soul-stealing thing. She’s also very proud of the fact that she was the first horror to come to the house (not counting Edwards, who was already here when I moved in), and she’ll probably be here when I’m gone unless someone decides to move her.

Today, after we exchange pleasantries, Josie tells me that it’ll be sunny in the afternoon, so I make a mental note to put a load in the wash and hang it on the line while the weather’s behaving itself.

I tiptoe carefully down the last seven steps, in case the Thing Under The Stairs isn’t awake yet, and duck into the kitchen, which smells like toast and fresh coffee. The kettle’s already boiled, with my favourite blue mug and a cafetière sat beside it. Hovering by the worktop is the silvery translucent shape of a straight-backed man in a waistcoat and bowtie. He looks at me disapprovingly.

“One day, ma’am, I’m sure I’ll manage to finish making your breakfast before you come downstairs,” he says, miffed. He’s the only person I know who can genuinely look miffed.

“Sorry, Edwards.” I dutifully take a seat at the kitchen table and watch him finish up. He brings it over on a silver tray, and I feel the same chill down my spine that I always get when Edwards stands close to me. You’d think after two years I’d be used to it.

“Have we any new guests arriving today, ma’am?” he asks. He presses down on the cafetière and pours coffee for me. It smells incredible. Edwards makes excellent coffee.

“Not that I know of, but then not all of them get in touch before they arrive. I’ve been wondering about branching out with that – maybe a rotary phone? It might be more appealing to the older ones.”

“Wouldn’t you have to leave the phone nearby so they could use it, ma’am?”

I take a big bite of buttered toast and chew it thoughtfully. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

I’m contemplating the practicalities of a messenger pigeon system when upstairs there’s an almighty crash, followed by an ear-splitting shriek that makes my hair stand on end. Edwards and I exchange a look.

“I think the banshee’s awake.”

She’s only been here for a week, and she’s almost always screaming because so many people here are already dead.

“Wonderful.” Edwards gives a ghostly approximation of a sigh and floats up through the ceiling.

I feel as though I should explain myself.

When I was a kid, I believed that ghosts were real. So were vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, fairies, and pretty much every other mystical creature you could think of. I know that a lot of kids believe that sort of thing, but I knew for a fact it was true.

Honest.

I met my first ghost when I was eight, on a school trip to some old Roman ruins. I forget where the ruins were, or how we spent the day, but I do remember a woman joining our group who wasn’t wearing a badge around her neck or carrying a clipboard like any of the other adults. She was wearing a dress, tied at the waist with a sash, and her hair was really fancy. I remember being very impressed by her hair. She was also completely silver and I could see the remains of the wall behind her through her body, which was a dead giveaway. Otherwise, I might have thought she was just someone in fancy dress.

I glanced around to see if anybody else could see her, but they were all busy drawing things or chatting, so I approached her by myself and said hello.

She stared at me in surprise, said something I didn’t understand, and quickly faded away before I got the chance to say anything else. When I asked my teacher later what language the Romans spoke, he said Latin, and I spent ages trying to work out how to say “I like your dress” in case we ever went back and I saw her again.

We never did, but that was it for me. I’d met a ghost, talked to one even, and she’d talked back.

Since that day I’ve spent most of my life seeking to understand the supernatural world. I mean, it’s right there, side-by-side with our world. Most people choose not to notice it, or they tell themselves absolutely anything else rather than confront the truth.

Me? I went looking for it, and eventually found myself making beds and washing clothes for it too.

There are certain rules to the house. The list has grown over time, and I’m still playing it by ear. Everybody has their own space, for example, and nobody is allowed to intrude on anyone else’s even if they aren’t a vampire. No biting, fighting, or possessing other guests. No digging in the front garden, let the skeletons come and go as they please. No rituals to summon friends, enemies, lovers, or relatives without prior notice. Mealtimes are flexible, just let Edwards know if you’ll be dining with us. If curtains are closed or a door is locked, it’s for a reason, and usually a matter of life and death; don’t touch.

You know. The usual.

It’s a bittersweet day when Melia comes to the house.

She arrives in the early hours of the morning, so I’m awake and in the kitchen when I hear a series of slow thuds outside, and a weird high-pitched sound that claws through the air like nails on a chalkboard.

It takes me a second to realise the sound is someone crying. I abandon my breakfast and run out into the entrance hall.

The woman lying propped against the doorframe has pale green skin, mottled with patches of brown and darker greens, and she’s crying a steady stream of tears that drip onto the ground. Where they land, tiny green shoots sprout from the earth.

I crouch down to take a closer look at her. She smells like spring. Her eyes are closed, but she shifts over onto her back when I’m right next to her, and I see the hole in her chest for the first time. It’s black and empty, like a hollow in the trunk of a tree, and even though I’ve never seen anything like it before I know it’s wrong. It shouldn’t be there at all.

I whisper hello. Her eyelids flicker open at the sound of my voice, and she stares up at me like an animal caught in a trap. “Do you need help?”

She nods. That’s all I need. Very carefully, I put my arms under hers and help her to her feet, then we move slowly into the house and for the warmth of the kitchen. Edwards stares at the two of us when we enter, but he doesn’t say anything; just drifts away upstairs to prepare a room for our new arrival.

I sit her down on the chair I was using and crouch beside her. “What’s your name?”

In a voice that creaks with sadness and the sound of wind through leaves, she tells me her name, and her story.

Melia is a dryad, and she’s lost her tree. It was cut down, all of them were cut down, to make way for houses or offices or something else, she doesn’t know. The family had to scatter, all the dryads of all those trees running into the unknown with their hearts torn from their chests, seeking refuge if only they could find it. On and on she talks, pausing only when I fetch her a glass of water and she drinks it down in seconds, then asks for another.

She doesn’t stop crying the whole time. When she’s done there are blades of grass growing around her feet, on the chair, on the table, and I’m crying too. I can’t imagine the pain she must be in.

“We have a room ready for you upstairs, if you want it,” I say at last. She doesn’t respond with words, but I can see the apprehension in her face. “Or, maybe, you could live in the garden? There’s not much of it, and it’s really overgrown, but there’s an old tree down the end. Maybe you could – I mean, if it would be more comfortable?”

I’m making this up as I go along, based on how she’s reacting to my words. I’ve never met a dryad before or even seen one, as they're famously secretive, but she’s made a lawn grow in my kitchen without trying, so she’s obviously got some power. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and offend her.

“That would be nice,” she says at last, to my relief. When Edwards returns from upstairs, I tell him what’s going on, and he accepts the fact that his housekeeping efforts were all for nought with surprising grace.

Melia settles in quickly after that, with a new house rule in place that nobody is allowed to take anything from the garden without asking her, not even a tiny flower. I feel like knowing that nothing will be taken away from her will be a good way for her to begin to heal, and my train of thought turns out to be running in the right direction. It isn’t long before the whole garden takes on a new lease of life. Even the tree, which to be honest I was beginning to think had died, grows blossom again come springtime, and we get a lovely crop of apples in the autumn. I didn’t even know it was an apple tree.

I should have learned by now not to be surprised by apparently dead things coming back to life.

“So, why exactly are you trying to sell this place?”

The estate agent looks at me in a slightly confused way. “The current owners are looking to downsize.”

“Uh-huh.” I take another look around the room. It is, frankly, huge. Old, too. I need to brush up on my architectural history, but I’m fairly sure this place has been around for at least a century. Georgian, maybe? “How’s the insulation?”

“Everything’s up to date.” The estate agent adjusts his tie and flicks through the notes on the clipboard he’s holding.

“Any unusual drafts?”

“No.”

“Damp patches?”

“No.”

“What about the pipes? Do they ever clank unexpectedly?”

“A full inspection was carried out, and there was nothing brought to our attention.” He has a look on his face that I’ve become very familiar with, the ‘please stop asking me these questions’ look. It’s an expression I’ve seen in the past on people who find my questions very strange, but they can’t help the niggling feeling in the back of their mind that tells them I might be onto something here.

Today, while Edwards keeps an eye on things back at the house, I’m out on one of my recruitment drives. I've gathered all my newspaper clippings, printed articles from conspiracy theorist blogs, copies of grainy night-vision photographs – you know the sort of thing – and come out in my car to any supposedly haunted places I haven’t already visited.

The house I’m in now has apparently been sold to six different owners in the last three years, all of them moving out with excuses of varying plausibility. When I called up the estate agent and asked for a viewing, he was enthusiastic, but I can see that enthusiasm waning with every passing minute he spends with me. I’m clearly not the kind of person he pictured selling to, especially not with my game of Twenty Questions.

Thing is, though, this place has all the signs. Nobody talks about it in great detail; the estate agent seems a bit desperate to only speak about the appearances without going into the specifics of how old it is or why it’s on the market again, and I’m certain I noticed a door opening by itself when he was showing me around upstairs.

Speaking of.

“I’m just going to phone my partner and see what he thinks,” I say with a smile, and I quickly head back upstairs, trying not to make too much noise.

In the back bedroom, I take a small piece of card out of my pocket and leave it lying on the bedside table. Something chills the back of my neck, and I hear a childish giggle that might have been the wind. I smile, tap the card, and make myself scarce.

In my best, neatest handwriting, address and phone number laid out clear, it reads:

You are welcome at the Halfway House of Horrors.

#my writing #short story #original writing #the halfway house of horrors

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