swirlsofpurple

 

Mary stares at the house. It’s in poor condition, so it looks a bit spooky. The door creaks loudly as she opens it. The smell of damp is pungent. The walls are riddled with cracks and peeling paint. There are stains- likely mould. The couch’s stuffing is visible. And as she takes a few steps, Mary finds herself on unstable ground: the wood- soft and bouncy- ready to give way.

Oh well. It’s hers now.

It would be sensible to get the place fixed up and sold. But she’s too heavy with grief-addled exhaustion.

The stairs groan at every step and all the banister’s varnish has worn away. She finds a bed and curls up on it.

There are scratching sounds, maybe rats. She remains still. Usually she would be running from the place- refusing to return before the exterminators, but now she can’t muster the energy to care.

The sounds get louder, too loud for rodents, and she wonders if the ceiling will collapse on top of her. At least then this will all be over.

Mary doesn’t know how she feels. The word numb seems incomplete and inadequate.

She just wants to lay here.

 
*

Mary reluctantly turns her phone back on. She can’t take dealing with the messages. But she doesn’t want someone to get worried enough to take a two hour train ride down here.

There are yet more condolences. How are they still coming in? Expressions of sympathy and concern. Loved ones urging her to come home: telling her hiding away isn’t good, that she needs support.

She doesn’t. She needs to be alone. She can’t take any more platitudes or sad eyes or people saying her dad is in a better place. Not to mention the one asshole who said she can’t love him that much because she hasn’t even cried. She doesn’t have the strength to get dressed and put on fake smiles.

She replies to only a few of the texts, until it saps all she has. She turns the phone back off.

 
*

Mary winces as she bumps into the furniture for the third time. It’s almost like it’s moving into her way. And she could’ve sworn the wood was perfectly smooth before it gave her a splinter. She’s clearly in too much of a haze, she needs to pay better attention.

The floorboards, firm beneath her feet, give way. She collapses, twisting her ankle.

Tears spring to her eyes and she takes a deep breath, staring in disbelief at the small crooked hole. The shape doesn’t quite make sense for a natural break.

And the groaning sounds coming from seemingly nowhere have increased in volume.

 
*

She dreams of her dad often. And she thinks maybe if she never wakes, she can stay with him forever.

She knows her dad would want her to do the place up, but she still doesn’t have the energy.

*
 

The calls from work turn from understanding to faux sympathetic- with insinuations that it’s been long enough and she should be back. She quits.

She sits on the floor and screams and cries and cries and cries. She can’t do this. She can’t. She can’t.

The walls start seeping red paint. Then the smell hits her: blood.

She’s seeing things. She scrolls through her texts, someone had sent her a grief therapists number. She was planning to ignore it. But she can’t go on like this.

The therapist turns out shitty and just tells her grief is normal. That it hasn’t been that long.

But the world expects her to be back to normal by now and she has no idea how to do that.

 
*

After pulling maybe the hundredth splinter from her hand, Mary decides to at least sand down the banister. She adds the necessary items to the next delivery order.

Sanding the banister feels unreasonably good. She’s done something. She’s been able to do something.

Maybe she’ll be okay now.

 
*

The next day the banister springs up new splinters like magic, wilder and gargantuan.

Mary decides to paint the walls. She doesn’t feel up to it. But she has to, she has to keep moving forward.

She keeps trying to recapture the feeling of things improving, but it doesn’t come.

Part of the floor rises, pushing her over. Blood seeps out of the walls again, this time spelling out one word:

Leave.

Mary suddenly remembers her dad telling her this place was haunted. It was only one time and she’d immediately filed it away as something ridiculous to be forgotten.

Maybe some of the weird shit in this place isn’t just grief.

She should probably clean the blood off of the wall. Instead she just goes to bed.

 
*

She wakes with a start. Heart hammering in her chest at a loud bang. It’s the window slamming open. It slams shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut.

Mary rushes out of the room. She holds her hands to the wall as the floorboards shift violently beneath her feet.

She gasps as the boards reach higher. She trips, tumbling down the stairs.

She splays on the floor, in shock. Takes a breath. And another. Nothing really hurts. Some bruises maybe.

Mary stands tentatively, gripping the banister. The downstairs windows start slamming open and closed. The heavy front door bangs open. She flinches. It stays in place, beckoning her out.

Blood seeps out of the wall.

Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave.

 

“I’m not leaving!” She screams at the wall. “This is my house. It’s probably the only place I’ll ever be able to own. My dad gave me this house. He gave me everything. He never got to do anything: he never went out to eat or to the cinema, he never did anything that cost any money. All for me, all so he could give me the best opportunities, so I could make something of my life. And I have nothing to show for it. He gave up everything for me, and what was the fucking point? He never got to see me do anything with my life. I have nothing. But he left me this. And this is something. This is the only thing. I’m staying.”

The house quietens.

 
*

The banister no longer gives her splinters and the floor no longer shifts beneath her feet. And the next time she starts to paint, words form on the wall not in blood, but in the eggshell yellow she’s using.

Don’t. I don’t want to change. I’m me.

Mary sighs and puts down the brush. “Okay. I guess we’re both broken.”

 
*

She convinces the house to let her change some of the old furniture. But then she ends up staring endlessly at the couch, thinking about all the time her dad spent sitting there, all the things he did there, all the life he lived there. And she decides to keep things as they are.

*
 

Mary takes a breath and turns her phone on. Many people have stopped bothering to contact her. But some are still trying:

Please can you call. And I’m just worried about you. And can I come visit. And I just want to help. And most irritating: You’re not okay, you know this, you can’t even leave the house.

Which is not true. She could leave the house, if she wanted to. It’s just a lot, so much needs to be done, and she just doesn’t have the energy at the moment.

She lays down on the floor and the house warms the boards beneath her.

 
*

There’s no signal. She moves around the house: nothing. Her phone has never had this problem here before. She turns to the wall. “Did you do this?”

The letters appear in bright yellow: It always makes you unhappy.

Mary snorts. “Yeah, I suppose it does.” She shuts the phone away in a drawer.

 
*

Mary starts spending her days sitting against the wall, talking to it. It feels good to speak without expectation, about nothing or about everything. Sometimes they exchange stories about her dad. Sometimes they talk about the weather. Sometimes she sits silently, palm pressing into the wall, letting it warm her.

She likes to pretend it’s knitting her back together, even if it isn’t.

 
*

Mary wakes to the house groaning louder than it has in ages. She runs to the wall.

“What’s happening?”

I’m breaking apart. You need to leave.

“No. I’ll help. I’ll stop it. What do I need to do?” She presses against the wall as though she could hold it up.

A beam falls.

I can’t stop it. It’s too late. I’m collapsing. It’s over.

“It’s not. I can help.”

The groaning has increased to wretched screams.

The floor begins pushing her, careful but insistent, towards the door.

Two more beams fall.

Get out. Get out. Run.

“Stop that.” She grips the door frame, refusing to budge.

You’ll die.

She can feel it against her hands and feet. The whole thing is moments away from coming down.

“I’m staying.”