Just Like Home(94)
She strained to lock eyes with the Crowder House. As Vera looked at it, the edges of her vision began to fog over with a soft gray film. Her grip on the doorframe eased, bit by bit, until she could no longer keep her fingers clenched against the wood.
“There’s a good girl,” Duvall hissed near her ear.
Vera could hear the wetness inside his mouth, the tiny clicks and bubbles he made as his body strained against hers. It had a pull to it, that noise. It had a promise. Something inside Vera turned toward it like a cat pressing the top of its head against an offered palm. When she let go of the doorframe, she gave in not to Duvall’s strength—but instead, to that wetness.
That promise.
The soft gray fog at Vera’s periphery slammed across her vision hard and sudden. By the time she managed to blink it away, she was just a few inches from the front door. The dark panels of wood swam before her, the little inset window too high up for her to see out of. The pain of Duvall’s grip on her throat was overwhelming.
The only thing she could hear now was the sluggish thud of her own pulse. Vera slowly raised one leg, pressed her foot to the door. As Duvall shoved her, the length of his body hard against her back, the soft skin of the underside of her toes met the rich grain of the wood. She couldn’t push back against him and she couldn’t keep the Crowder House safe but she could let the warmth of her flesh sink into the door.
She could do that much.
“Get,” Duvall grunted as he pushed her toward the door, “out.”
Vera’s knee buckled. She collapsed, choking against the crook of Duvall’s elbow. He reached past her to grasp the doorknob and Vera knew that it was almost over. She’d be exiled once more, without any way to get back. Her father’s work gloves were still sitting on the floor of her bedroom closet, and the Crowder House was still sitting in Daphne’s skin, and this door would lock behind her and that would be the end of them both.
Vera thrashed as hard as she could, but Duvall’s hand found the doorknob. He smothered it with his palm, and his fingers brushed the wood of the frame as he enveloped it, as he took it, as he claimed it. He held Vera tight against his side, his hipbone digging painfully into the base of her spine, as he twisted the knob and pulled.
Nothing happened.
He pulled again. Vera sagged in his grip, trying to lean her weight back against him.
He yanked at the door and the motion jerked Vera’s feet out from under her. “The fuck,” he grunted. He yanked at the door again, hard enough that this time a deep splintering sound resonated from somewhere within the frame.
“It won’t open.”
The rasping voice seemed to come from everywhere. As though someone were standing just out of sight up the stairs, and also behind the door of the powder room, and still in the shadowy dining room. Standing in all those places at once, and making a promise.
“Not for you. Not anymore.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Duvall jerked against Vera, his weight shifting as he twisted around to look behind him. In his moment of distraction his grip on Vera’s neck eased and she managed to wrench herself free. She slammed into the front door, wheezing, her head swimming, her palms and cheek flush against the wood, her knees buckling.
She should have fallen, but the house her father built was sturdy, it was strong, and it took her weight. She slid slowly to the floor and the house was firm beneath her. Vera’s head was so heavy, her neck could not possibly support it, but it didn’t need to: she could allow her skull to thump backward against the doorframe, and the Crowder House would hold her steady as she took in painful gulps of air.
Duvall’s feet filled Vera’s vision. He was turning, slowly, the backs of his calves level with Vera’s nose.
“What—” He started to form a question, the sound of his bewilderment drifting down to Vera like falling leaves.
“I said it won’t open.” There was the sound of soft footfalls padding across the dining room, crossing the threshold into the entryway.
Duvall took a small, halting step backward. He almost stepped on Vera’s outstretched leg. “You … you should get back into bed, Daphne. I’ll handle this.”
The fear in his voice made Vera want to laugh, but the noise that came out of her was a cough at best. She managed to look toward the dining room.
And there, clinging to the doorframe, was the Crowder House. Vera’s mother was draped loosely over it, Daphne’s paper-thin skin hanging across the frame of it like old worn-out hosiery. Now that the body was standing the ill fit was obvious. Nothing lined up quite right; the edges of Daphne’s eyes and mouth hung slack, and the contours of the Crowder House were tantalizingly visible just beneath the surface.
“Vera-baby,” it rasped, “are you okay?”
Vera nodded weakly. “Are you?” she asked, her voice coming out in a rasp that sounded just like the voice of the thing that was inside Daphne.
“Wh … what’s happening?” Duvall stammered. Vera couldn’t see his face, but his voice was enough to let her imagine the fear in his eyes, the way his lips would be pale and bloodless. It was good, imagining him like that.
“Did he hurt you?”
The House took a few halting steps forward, treading on the puddled skin of Daphne’s feet and legs like a child wearing overlong trousers. With every step, the skin of Daphne’s face stretched tighter across the skull beneath.