《Sickhouse》 Those cranberry-crusted window sills Those cranberry-crusted window sills like red-rimmed lids could only obstruct any vision out ¡°You look younger than I remember,¡± Sheridan sputtered. The woman made her way to the staircase, a white hand gripping the railing. Dangling a slippered foot over the shadowy edge of the top step, her feet seemed to lace into the stairs. ¡°How is that?¡± she asked, smiling a smile like that which a mother would hide after her child says a very serious, very silly thing. Sheridan instinctively shrunk into herself, but upon stealing a glimpse of the woman and seeing she was sincere, she turned her shrinking to shrugging. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess I just remember you being older than you ever were. I thought so, anyway.¡± She smiled sheepishly. ¡°When you¡¯re little you think everyone is bigger than they really are¡ªteens, adults and dogs, wolves, you know? And then you get to be their age and you realize how small you really are.¡± ¡°Ah, I see,¡± she replied, gliding down to Sheridan. ¡°Our veils are different. You look at me now and see me younger while I look at you and see you older. When was the last time you were here¡ªor even seen me?¡± She was taking Sheridan¡¯s coat now. ¡°Gee, I guess that would have been around the time I started middle school. It¡¯s been a long time¡­¡± She tried prying her eyes from the floorboards. She longed to look around the house, if only a single room, but she couldn¡¯t raise her gaze. Upon walking through the front door, Sheridan had felt the presence of a small table beside her, and had caught a coat rack in the corner of her eye. What she was certain of and what was clear was an ornate navy rug brushing the toes of her shoes like a wave crawling ashore. ¡°I am Avenie,¡± the woman said, ¡°from the letters.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet you. Well, ¡®meet you-meet you¡¯, I mean¡ªto really meet you. I¡¯m Sheridan,¡± she stammered out, regretting saying anything as she felt her words tumble out of her mouth. She stood there, blank, unsure if a handshake was expected. She fumbled with the bags in her hands. Avenie placed Sheridan¡¯s coat on the rack and gently guided her forward, out of the doorway. ¡°Won¡¯t you come in?¡± Sheridan nodded, but she was already being taken into the living room. This was once her living room, too. She sat on a maroon loveseat adjacent to a vintage sofa upholstered in sea-green velvet. Glancing around as discreetly as she could, she noticed how old everything was. The furniture and decor appeared to be antique or thrifted. Her mother would have hated it, but Sheridan quite liked it. The lampshades cast the room in a warm, sickly yellow glow, illuminating a dusty old walnut bookshelf brimming over with books. Across from her sat a ring-ridden coffee table covered in mail. Were she not a half-stranger to this place, she could see herself cozied up in the worn armchair by the window, gazing past the wild lilac branches pressing against the glass. ¡°I asked after who owned the house now at the county recorder¡¯s office, but it was a dead end. I found the last owner, but they brushed me off. They just told me to write here. How did you come to own the property?¡± ¡°Adverse possession. The owner abandoned the house. And ever since, I¡¯ve taken care of it,¡± Avenie asserted as she straightened herself against the sofa. Too embarrassed to ask the woman what ¡°adverse possession¡± meant, Sheridan simply nodded, looking away in case she had a blank or confused stare that would give her away. ¡°I love what you¡¯ve done with the place,¡± Sheridan sighed contentedly. Brushing aside the mail, Avenie beamed. ¡°Oh, I hoped you would like it.¡± Her words drew a smile from Sheridan. That a stranger would care what she thought of the state of something as meaningful as their house, something that was once hers, but now was not, filled her with a pulsating warmth. She had been frightened to come here alone, but she was suddenly glad she hadn¡¯t asked her mother or sister to come along. Had they joined her on this visit, she would have been mute and in a shell, encased one second and husked the next. There was no gluing a shell back together, and once her mother broke it¡ªsee, she¡¯s here! well-adjusted and pretty and functioning, too¡ªall that shielded her was a membrane, feeble and sheer and scant. She would cling to this wan film, press it to her bare flesh. It was no use. Everyone could see past the shroud, see the naked, the disfigured. She would go home, and over time she would recuperate and regrow her shell, only to have to do it all over again. Glancing out the window, Sheridan spotted the sun setting shyly behind the thick treeline. The sun was not itself visible, but its orange glow gasped through the leafless mass of branches a final dying breath. The bus trip hadn¡¯t taken any longer than estimated, Sheridan supposed, but she always left early just in case. She had gone out so little this winter she forgot how soon the sun went down. The sun must be cursed to die each night, she thought. It is interred into the earth and must rise undead on the other side. Only she couldn¡¯t distinguish whether her sun was living or dead when it rose on the horizon before her. Was this sun waking to another last day, rising and falling to its end? Or was this sun the animated remains roaming and eventually returning to its grave? Sheridan feared she could not recognize a living corpse in front of her. Having only just arrived, she knew it would be rude to excuse herself to bed without a long conversation to get to know each other. Still, she could already feel herself stifling a yawn (out of exhaustion or anxiety, she wasn¡¯t sure). It locked in her jaw and stuck. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Avenie¡¯s nightgown was as far as Sheridan could lift her eyes. She wanted to see her face, not just a distant gleam atop a black staircase, but to really see her. Regardless, she could gather a little apart from her face: long, pale fingers running along the silk of her navy-as-a-starless-night-sky gown, green veins pulsing from the white skin of her hands and feet, and thin auburn hair hanging from her head. And when she lifted her arm to tuck some stringy hair behind her ear, the sleeve of her dress slid down and Sheridan saw bones. All she could see were bones. She knew ashen flesh was stretched taut and thin over those bones, but all that stuck were protruding bones. They jutted into the eye. Sheridan knew, too, although she did not know how, that Avenie was beautiful. What little she could see seemed to suggest, at least to another, otherwise, but she could see the beauty in that as well. She could see friendliness, homeliness, and potential, so long as that was what Avenie wished for. Sheridan saw that when she gazed at this woman, she was looking into a sister mirror. ¡°Would you like something to drink? I have tea,¡± Avenie said suddenly, startling Sheridan. Had she been staring? Had she been staring, Avenie? Sheridan nodded eagerly and, gesturing to the bookshelf, asked, ¡°May I take a look?¡± so that she could do something natural. ¡°Of course! I¡¯ll get the tea,¡± replied Avenie, smiling and stepping into what Sheridan knew to be the kitchen. She rose from the loveseat and walked over to the books, her feet making the floor creak with every step. And Avenie moved so gracefully, without a single sound. She must know every floorboard in this house, she thought. Sheridan wished she knew how to sooth a floorboard like Avenie surely knew. With the slightest shifting of her weight, Sheridan could send the floor beneath her wailing, so she tried her best to be as gentle as she could. Her thoughts, filling up with shhh entirely, leaked out onto her lips. ¡°Shush,¡± she whispered to herself. Imagining herself as a levitating specter, she leaned softly forward on her toes. Frankenstein, Giovanni¡¯s Room, The Bell Jar, Mrs. Dalloway, The Secret Garden. All classics, all secondhand. All were noticeably worn in one way or another¡ªdog-eared or water-damaged, pages were torn or spines breaking. Oddly, the covers were practically pristine. That¡¯s probably why the bookstores accepted these despite how worn they were, Sheridan thought. It was only when she drew her eyes to their corners that she could see they were frayed. This couldn¡¯t be Avenie¡¯s carelessness. She couldn¡¯t imagine this woman taking such poor care of her possessions. There were numerous collections of poetry: Millay, H.D., Whitman, Mary Oliver, Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Plath. Repeat offenders such as the Bronte sisters, Toni Morrison, Poe, Tennessee Williams, and Shakespeare were scattered along the shelves. When was the last time she had read Shakespeare? It must have been high school. She frowned to think of it. Had it really been that long? It seemed neglectful to deprive herself of his romance, of his tragedy. She tried to recall a quote from one of his works, but all she could think of was one from a piece she had yet to read, Twelfth Night. It was the bard¡¯s clown singing, but a single line: ¡°Journeys end in lovers¡¯ meeting.¡± Sheridan had heard this gem passed down from Shakespeare to Jackson to Wolf Alice. She looked about the house now¡ªshyly, still, though Sheridan could not discern why¡ªthat she was out from under Avenie¡¯s nose. Her mother really would hate its new, or old, dressings. Her mother never cared for the house anyway, not like Sheridan had. Sure, she took care of it as best she could, but she never cared for it. Mummuh has been ready to pack and leave since Sheridan and her sister, Aideen, were little. Until one day they really did leave. Eventually no one called for them. Sheridan lost touch with everyone outside her sister and mother. Now, peering around the dim house, she searched for the smallest hint of home as she had known it. Really, wasn¡¯t she missing all of it¡ªsquinting her eyes and missing the bigger picture? Still, look, the wallpaper was still peeling here beside the window and there under the light switch. She could flip the switch and the same wires crawling within the walls would send an electric current to the same lamp overhead, even if the bulb may have been replaced a few times since she last did. The lilac tree outside, as it was and always had been a tree to her, still blossomed perennially each spring. This was the very same lamp and tree, never mind what the passage of time may have tweaked. ¡°You seem grave,¡± a voice slipped in. Eyes bulging and bolting to where she had heard the small words, she smiled a dumb, awkward smile. ¡°Ah,¡± she let out after a moment of searching for sound within her, ¡°I seem to be prone to the grave.¡± The instant Sheridan said it, she heard Mummuh hiss in her head, Don¡¯t say that sort of thing! Avenie didn¡¯t seem shocked or pitiful. She smiled gently and Sheridan thought of bright little tealights being strung up. ¡°What¡¯s troubling you?¡± asked Avenie, pressing a mug of tea into Sheridan¡¯s hand. She paused for a moment before gesturing for Sheridan to sit down. Feeling the warmth of the cup radiate from her palms to her cold, dead fingers, Sheridan shook her head and smiled as tears welled. She wanted to give out a chuckle. How ridiculous she was being! She wanted to be in on the joke. Choking back a sob, she babbled, ¡°It¡¯s so silly, really. I¡¯m sorry. Just being back here¡­ It¡¯s overwhelming, a little.¡± Avenie nodded, her head bobbing sweetly like a dark tulip in the breeze, her neck the green stem which struggles to hold itself up. ¡°You¡¯ve had a long day. Why don¡¯t you head up to bed? Drink your tea, it will help you sleep,¡±she said, sweet as rippling honey. Sheridan did not reply. She simply sat and drank from her cup. Gulping down the warm, golden chamomile tea, she gazed at the swirling steam rising before her eyes. And stealing glances from across the table, Avenie never stopped smiling. Even when she lifted her cup to her dry crimson-painted lips and the cup obscured her vision, Sheridan could feel herself being watched. Maybe it was the window sitting behind Sheridan that made her feel so deeply observed. Or perhaps it was the mirror over Avenie¡¯s shoulder that Sheridan couldn¡¯t stop staring at. In the mirror, Sheridan sat stark stiff on the maroon loveseat, bug eyed and yellow under the lamplight. The lilac branches scraped the glass like nails in the evening breeze and tapped gently at the window once it died. All was still then, like Sheridan, until the sharp bang of the shutter sent tremors through the house and the girl. She whipped her head back so fast her neck nearly snapped. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sorry!¡± cried Avenie. ¡°That happens on particularly windy nights. I¡¯ve wanted so long for someone to come and fix it.¡± Avenie quickly rose and took the empty mug from Sheridan along with her own and cleared her throat. ¡°I suppose you¡¯re ready for bed now. Well, go on to your room. Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t be offended. We can talk all day long tomorrow if you like!¡± Avenie chirped. With a puzzled expression, she stuttered, ¡°M-my room?¡± The slim woman turned and headed into the kitchen, waving Sheridan off. ¡°Of course!¡± she shouted over her shoulder. ¡°Your room!¡± like red-rimmed lids Sheridan stepped lightly as a feather up the stairs, and yet she sounded like a fleet of soldiers marching to the barracks. She couldn¡¯t possibly mean¡­ she thought, but her mind trailed off as she searched for the words. She knew how ridiculous this thought, this little hope was. And yet Sheridan couldn¡¯t wind her fingers around it and choke it, try as she might. Turning down the hall, her feet instinctively made their way for the first door to the left. She had hated how open this room was to everyone. How often had the door unlatched, showing her naked to whoever walked by? To go into any other room, you had to first pass this one. The bathroom was just across from it and the two other bedrooms were just past it. Sheridan stepped in and looked around her, a sudden, but altogether familiar figure to the room. The bed¡ªher bed¡ªwas still tucked into the corner of the room, beside the doorway. A light, rose-colored quilt was laid next to the pillow for her. She grazed the white bars of the bed frame with her fingers. She thought of all the times she awoke in the middle of the night feeling tied to the bars, paralyzed in bed because someone was standing in the hall watching her. At least, she had always been convinced someone was there. And now, she was back, bittersweetly condemned to her childhood bed. Sheridan had a screaming feeling that she wasn¡¯t meant to be here. In the room, in the house, maybe. She spun around and grasped the door frame for balance. There she saw black, pulsing ticks¡ªa squirming line of black crawling atop and under itself. Jerking her hand back, she blinked and it dawned on her what she was truly looking at: the measurements of her growing body made by her mother and father in black permanent marker. Sheridan stepped back and traced the lengthening of time with her eyes. She remembered her mother always pushing her against the door frame, repeatedly reminding her to stand up straight. She never seemed to stand straight enough for her mother, but when she pulled her away to look at the new mark drawn on the wooden frame, her mother sighed upon seeing how big her baby was getting. Her fingers grazed the cold wooden frame before she sat down on the bed, a tangled mass catching in her head. What was this? Sheridan began to pull it apart, but each time she yanked at a thread, a thought, it seemed to tie deeper into the knot. She was overreacting, she told herself. She was seeing things, as one does from time to time, and she was overreacting. Sheridan thought of Avenie. She felt guilty for tarnishing her home, however many years ago. Sheridan wondered how many other places her family had blemished. The house was in rough shape, what with its leaking pipes, crumbling foundation, moldy rooms, and such that Avenie had disclosed via letter was still plaguing the house, but Sheridan couldn¡¯t help but rub her neck at the thought of contributing to its sorry state. The urge to run to her and apologize jumped into her mind. Wasn¡¯t she being dramatic? Avenie knew the state of the house when Sheridan was just a girl, and she knew it when she repossessed, or, possibly more accurately, ¡°adversely possessed¡± the house years later. Sheridan set her bag on the bed. There certainly wasn¡¯t much to look at. Curiously, almost everything from her childhood was left here, waiting. Her bookshelf/toy bin at the foot of the bed, her paintings, her dresser in the corner, and even her oven playset. She opened the closet to find some of her old clothes and toys still remaining. Tears stung her eyes. She¡¯d never realized just how much her mother had left behind. ¡°Is everything just as you left it?¡± a breathy voice asked, tickling Sheridan¡¯s ear. Her pulse raced in the mere seconds it took for her to reply. ¡°Yes. Yes, it is,¡± she whispered, trying to wrench her eyes away from the inside of the closet, from the safety of her little dolls and bears, to look behind her. She stepped back to close the closet door and, closing the door, she saw Avenie standing in the doorway of the room. ¡°Is there a draft in here?¡± Sheridan said, tugging on her ear. Avenie stepped into the room, like a tradesman ready to assess the damage. She pointed up to the side of the closet where drywall had hastily been set. That was right, she thought. Her uncle had come down to help rebuild the side of the closet where a leak had sprung. The leak came when Dada was too sick to do it himself, so her uncle had helped out. ¡°They never finished the job¡­¡± Sheridan muttered, more to herself than to Avenie. Avenie drew back her arm and looked at her, the woman¡¯s eyes prodding at the girl like a falcon designedly pecking at its food. ¡°My u-uncle and my dad¡¯s handiwork,¡± Sheridan said, sniffling. ¡°I had almost forgotten that there was a leak. My dad said it was coming from the chimney.¡± The woman nodded slowly, her eyes still prying into Sheridan. Sheridan averted her gaze. A long silence followed, with Sheridan staring anxiously at the drywall and Avenie staring at her, until Sheridan finally broke it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry they never finished.¡± At this, Avenie smiled softly¡ªsadly, Sheridan perceived, once she could bear to witness those pleading, teary eyes shining in her face. ¡°It¡¯s not your responsibility to apologize. It¡¯s not anyone¡¯s¡ªnot for that, at least,¡± the woman replied, her head lolling forward on her thin neck. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. It was then that Sheridan realized how frail Avenie really appeared. She was a towering force, truly, but a tilting one. Sheridan stepped back, out from beneath her shadow. She smiled at the woman politely. Sheridan nodded her head, eyeing the door, unable to think of any words to say. But, Avenie opened her mouth and quickly shut it. There were oceans, gray and uncharted, of unsaid words between them. Avenie stepped forward, towards her. Again, her red lips parted only to shut tightly. After a moment of pressing silence spent staring at their lifelines, she said, ¡°Good night, Sheridan.¡± She wished her a good night as well, hoping she would leave so she could crawl into bed and cry. And Avenie did, peering, with those red eyes, into her soul one last time before finally closing the door behind her. With the latching of the door, something unlatched, finally, within Sheridan. She spent the first hour or so of that night stifling her sobs. She wasn¡¯t even certain where Avenie was sleeping as she hadn¡¯t heard any of the other bedroom doors down the hall, so she supposed she simply hadn¡¯t gone to bed yet. Still, she had to be quiet. She wanted to shove her head under the covers in embarrassment, but feared Avenie somehow seeing her like that. She clung to the pink quilt Avenie had laid out for her. So much should have been said, but what? Sheridan had longed to bare her soul to Avenie, like she had in the letters, and so briefly in her childhood. She had bared her soul, hadn¡¯t she? Or had she whitewashed it? Of course there are things you don¡¯t share with someone you haven¡¯t seen in a decade. You don¡¯t share how bad off you¡¯ve been. You lie. You say ¡°I¡¯ve been good¡± or ¡°I¡¯m doing well¡± or some other inane platitude to glaze the eyes over. You don¡¯t say the truth: that you¡¯ve been adrift since losing your home. That night, as with anyone who turns from their unconsciousness, was one filled with dreaming. At last, that place beneath wakefulness where the unconscious catches and faces one dead on¡ªdead on and on and on. Her dreams were the cup of water she, the restive painter, dipped her brush into. The paint, the things that happened in the waking world, diluted and fanned out into the water, into her unconscious mind. Her turning back and forth from painting to cup, painting to cup¡ªwaking, dreaming, waking, dreaming. Even sleep was no reprieve from her waking life. The paint bled into her dreams and the vicious cycle never ended. Were her painting more lively, more bright, maybe then it would all be bearable. But alas, her life was not lively or bright. Her paint was monochrome and dull, and therefore, so too was her painting. This dream, like so many others, was a concoction of fiction and reality. Sheridan was wandering around the rundown townhouse she lived in with her mother and sister, alone, as always. She couldn¡¯t remember who began pulling away first, her, or Mummuh and Aideen. The screaming and fighting had picked up again as they always had. Like growth spurts, she thought. Always, growing and growing, those painful, shooting sprouts, filling the house as it once did at home. Home. Sheridan wanted to go home. At least there were good memories there, unlike at the townhouse. There were the memories of Dada, of their dog when he was happiest¡ªof all of them when they were happiest. With Dada gone, with their dog gone, now Sheridan had no one left to devote herself to. Now, she was just a leech sucking at her mother and sister. While pacing around the townhouse, the building slowly shifted into her home. One by one, rooms began transplanting each other in the blink of an eye until finally, all congealed into her childhood home. Every room was white and brightly lit, as if heaven were radiating through the windows. The air was hazy, like being in a constant stream of sun. The ceilings rose and the rooms widened in grandeur, the house stretching. Furniture was only ever in the corner of her eye. When she tried to fix her eyes on something, it simply disappeared, burned up by the white sunbeams streaming in. Sheridan lifted her hand to cut through the stream, to shield her gaze from the sea of silky cobwebs flaring all around her. She had waltzed into her mother¡¯s bedroom from her own, or rather, what she could surmise was their bedrooms, and stood, stark and bare, there in the middle of the room. With her head spinning, she stilled her body. At the edge of her wavering vision were a pair of slim feet poking out from behind the corner of the bed. She ran from the scene before she ever really saw it. She flung open the door and sprinted into what should have been the hallway. What lay there instead was the very room she had just run from. Again she flung open the door. Again she was met with her mother¡¯s bedroom. Again she tried to escape. Again. Again. Sheridan panted as she stumbled back upon the scene. With tears blurring her vision, she stepped towards the bed frame''s edge. She put out a shaking hand to steady herself, but her fingers never grazed the mattress or frame. Time stood still, though she knew it couldn¡¯t. Her heart pounded in her ears like the faithful beat of a metronome, reminding her of the seconds passing by, as long and stretched as minutes, as all color flushed from her face. She inched her way to the corner of the bed. The long, thin pair of feet were still there, sprawled out on the floor. She drew in a ragged, hollow breath. Sheridan bolted for the door and this time, the house was laid out as it should¡¯ve been. She sprinted down the hall, light blinding, suspending her. And she was caught. Waves of sheer white curtains kept her from running any further away. Deeper and deeper she drove herself into the sea, deeper she trapped herself in that web. Fingers pressing the walls of the veils, she spun and spun for some way out. Sheridan would return to her mother¡¯s bedroom if she had to, really face that ghastly scene if she had to. She would do anything to escape the dance she was now condemned to. Sheridan wanted to cry for help, but couldn¡¯t utter a sound. Gaping and gasping like a fish, turning and twisting, she clung to the curtains and pulled. But they still stood, resilient to her. This was her existence now. A voice rose, in that mist of veils, where hers could not. ¡°This is what you wanted, isn¡¯t it?¡± it said softly. Tears, warm and unfaltering, sprung to her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. With quivering lips, she tried to search for her own voice, but even if she found her voice she didn¡¯t have the words for it. Sheridan stepped back, driving herself into the voice¡¯s source. Through the curtains, hands grasped her own, fingers lacing into hers. She backed up further and the warmth of a body pressed against her. A hand released its hold of hers and slid around her waist, digging into her flesh all the more.