As I turned through the lonely halls, a terrible sensation came over me—the strange uncertainty of this house, the inescapable feeling that I had never actually left, but that I had been wandering these halls and finding in them doorways to other places, unreal places, dorm rooms and cafeterias and movie theaters and coffee shops, as if my life outside these walls had never actually existed but only been a twisted sort of pretend, the house making up the whole of my reality.
When I found my mother, she seemed to have forgotten I was there, inciting my fear of dementia—that she would lose her memories, too, like her parents before her, the house sucking them away to keep for itself as if feeding on her mind. But she was only confused. The memories confused her, she confessed after the fact, so that she had thought me a memory as well, wasn’t sure if I was real or not, as the memories had become more real to her than anything else in this world.
It was easy to fall into the comfortable habits of home, and easier still to tell myself I had to stay for my mother—a sharp, clever woman, but anyone will grow dull and muddled if they are left on their own for too long with their own mind. So I broke my lease, moved the rest of my things in, took over the grocery shopping and other necessary trips into town, and found there the very same people of Shadydale I had left behind, their flat profiles, the infinite corners of their eyes.
These people would never invade Wakefield Manor, however, and so I felt safe from them. They never ventured that far out toward the swamp. They left us well enough alone.
And then I remembered who I was in Shadydale: not just a small, meek, anonymous creature, the way I was out in the world, but one of those Wakefields. Most of the time I kept to myself, tried to make myself invisible, but sometimes I stood outside the post office after mailing the gas bill and stared at the woman walking her dog until she shuddered from my gaze and hurried away, yanking the leash after her. Or I stopped at the diner for a milkshake and sat in the shadowy corner booth, slurping until long after the drink was gone, until that empty bone-rattling gurgle of the straw made the young couple at the next table call out for the bill, throw down some cash, and scurry away whispering.
Sometimes it is a pleasure to be one of those Wakefields. If everyone leaves me alone, then I have nothing to fear.
* * *
When we returned from the doctor’s office, Elizabeth had that cracked smile on her face, and she wandered about the house like that, restless, trying to rein in some terrible identity crisis burbling just under the surface, which those smirking women had managed to stir loose. She handed the ultrasound photo to our mother, whose delight seemed not enough for her, as she kept urging my mother on with questions about every little visible part of the child’s body—Don’t you see his foot there? And his head? And what about …?—until even my mother gave her a look of alarmed confusion, said he looked like a healthy baby, and handed back the picture to put a period on the conversation. She then went about cleansing the air of whatever negative energy Elizabeth had brought back with her by lighting up a variety of incense. She hummed all the while.
I suspect the person Elizabeth really wanted to show the photo to was the child’s father. At dinner, I found myself wanting to see the faceless boy again, and I kept checking the doorway in hopes that he might walk through and reveal himself. I needed to know who he was. If only I had the right talisman, the right ritual to summon him. But I waited in vain.
* * *
I wonder if the house dreams.
Its regurgitations of memory seem accurate, as far as I can tell; and if they are accurate memories, then they are unlikely to be dreams.
But what if the house dreamed? Would the memories distort the same way our dreams sometimes twist reality? Would it begin showing surreal images of things that never were and never would be? And what monsters might be lurking in the shadows of these dreams?
Is the faceless boy a dream?
I wonder, because my dreams are always so strange.
In this one, I am as pregnant as my sister; my belly protrudes unnaturally from my angular frame, and from within that aching globe of flesh press tiny hands, pushing up, pushing free. I am lying down and watching mesmerized as two little hands appear, distending the flesh. At first I am intrigued by the sight, but then two more hands appear, and two more, until myriad tiny hands are pressing up from the inside of my belly and fear grips me as I wonder what is inside of me, and I begin to shout please get it out, please get it out, but there is only a dark figure lurking in the corner of the room—and I call out to this figure but he does not move, merely watches as the tiny hands burst through flesh and reach their bloodied fists into the open air and one by one climb out and away, trailing umbilical cords, and the figure steps closer holding a knife and the figure is Julian—
No, of course it isn’t. I wake, feeling foolish, pressing both hands against my stomach.
After the nightmare, I cannot get back to sleep. My brain feels wired, keyed up with electricity. Lying in bed makes my stomach churn, so I get up and tread quietly into the dark hallway, the floor sighing disconsolately beneath my footfalls. I make it only a few steps into the hall when I feel suddenly that I am not alone.
A creature creeps low against the floor toward me.
It crawls with long narrow limbs like a spider, its elbows protruding into the air. Instead of crawling strictly on its knees, it keeps picking them up to use its feet, pushing itself forward by extending its legs out behind and repeating. All I can see are pale limbs and black hair hiding a face that is turned down to the floor, a face I know I would not be able to see even if it were lifted in my direction, and I beg inwardly, Please don’t look up, please don’t lift your head, please don’t fix me with your black eyes trapped in an indistinguishable face. I wanted him to appear again, but not here, not in the middle of the night. What seems fine in the daylight becomes infinitely more grotesque when encountered at midnight upon opening one’s bedroom door.
I step back into the open doorway as he crawls past, so close he might reach out and brush my bare feet; I curl my toes in revulsion. The floorboards groan beneath him. I turn on the bedroom light so that it floods the hall, but he is already past me, and the light only illuminates his path from behind.
Though he looks young, he is clearly too old to be crawling. This child should be able to stand but instead continues his hypnotic spider-scuttle.
“Elizabeth,” I whisper, knowing she will not hear me, wherever she is, likely asleep in her own room—but I am too afraid to shout, fearing, again, irrationally, that he will hear me across the span of time.
Frantically I decide I must run down the hall and shake her awake, drag her back here to see, with her own eyes. Who is he? Would she recognize him? But he is moving too quickly now, and I fear if I lose sight of him he will vanish altogether.
I follow a few paces so as not to lose him as he slithers up the stairs. Up here, in the quiet of the third floor, the only light is from a window calling forth the moon. He creeps and creeps down the narrowing length of the hall. Maybe when he reaches the end he will turn around and come back. The mere thought sends a wave of nausea into my throat. Please do not come back.
Instead he slithers one hand up to the brass knob of that heavy locked door.
He will not be able to open it. No one ever has.