The Spite House(84)
“I’m not doing that.”
“—and once you see one of them vanish, you’ll believe it’s true. And once you believe in it, you’ll know how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.”
Owen pushed away from his chair at the small rectangular table in the corner of the kitchen. As he ran to the stairs he heard Eleanor call after him, laughter in her voice. “Oh come on. Where are you going?”
He ran to the third floor and went into the hallway. He shut the door behind him and locked it from the inside, then ran to the other end of the dark hallway to lock the door at that end as well. He made it there just ahead of his sister, whose longer legs let her make up for his head start faster than he anticipated, though not fast enough.
She tried to open the door, and when she couldn’t turn the handle she knocked so politely it had to be another taunt. “Owen, what are you doing in there?”
“Leave me alone.”
“You know you shouldn’t play around in there. What if that floor gave out?”
“Stop messing with me.”
“I’m serious,” she said, and she did sound serious. But he couldn’t be sure that wasn’t a trick. “You need to come out. You’re not supposed to stay in there. You’re supposed to just walk through. I don’t think it was built for someone to stand around or sit in the same place for too long. I mean it, Owen. If something happened to you in there I would be sick. I’m sorry for how I’ve been behaving. I’m not really mad at you. It’s this house. It’s those other children. It’s Uncle. It’s everything that has happened to us. I’m as sad as you are about all of it. Remember when you said, ‘It’s not fair,’ at our cousins’ funeral? You were right. And I haven’t been fair to you either. I’m sorry.”
He knew she was sincere, and reached to unlock the door, but something happened. In that moment, in the darkness, the anger and bitterness that drove his uncle to build this house—that drove him to steal his brother’s children from a place where they were happy—seeped into him. He understood why Eleanor was so cruel to him, why their uncle was so callous to both of them. He understood the appeal of spite. Being mean because it was all you had. That emotion and revelation poured from every board and nail of the house and washed through him. It made him feel sick, frightened, and empowered all at once. He felt like he might wet his pants, but also like he might have the ability to fly or make himself grow big enough to be a giant who could make others feel small and weak, instead of him always feeling like that way.
He even felt like he could do the thing Eleanor liked lying about.
“I’m going to stay here and let the house make me disappear,” he said.
The door handle rattled. “Owen, I’m serious. Come out, now.”
“Be quiet. No one wants to hear you.”
“Owen, I’m—”
“‘Owen, I’m serious,’” he mocked. “I’m serious too. I believe you now. And I don’t want to be here anymore. So I’m going to make myself not be here.”
He walked away from the door and from the sound of her calling his name. He went to the center of the hallway to lie down. He surprised himself by how deeply he meant what he said. He didn’t want to be here, but he didn’t think he could take himself to where he wanted to be, back with his parents, or at least with his cousins. As emboldened as he felt, he didn’t believe he could reverse time or death. He didn’t even think he could truly escape where he was. But he could make himself invisible. He could disappear. That might not make him feel better, but it would make his sister feel worse. That was good enough.
In a different house, one with a natural right to exist, and uncharged by the omnipresent vindictiveness of a man who tore the veil between life and death, what happened next would not have been possible. But this was not a different house.
The cold smothered Owen. He curled into a fetal position and thought of his mother. He inhaled deeply and drew more of the cold inside him. He did this all with the natural, wordless knowledge of an infant who knows how to feed, who knows it must cry to be heard and thus attended to, who knows of certain essential things without awareness of knowing anything.
Eleanor managed to pick the door’s lock with a butter knife. She stepped inside, turned on the light, and found the hallway empty.
CHAPTER 39
Masson
Between his veteran’s benefits from the war, the money he reluctantly accepted from Luke’s sale of the land, and some shrewd investments, Peter Masson had a small fortune to his name and never needed to work again. This suited him, because working meant being around others, and he couldn’t stand most people.
Coming home after getting goods and groceries was the worst part of his week. It was the farthest he would be from the next time he’d have cause to leave the house. He hated his creation as much as he needed it. He wanted to tear it down with his own hands but could not imagine living anywhere else. It was as if the house owned him, not the other way around.
He never bought more than he could carry alone. It was always enough. Eleanor and Owen didn’t eat much, and even if their usual appetites doubled in the week ahead, he could always do with less so they could have more. He did it before.
He did much for his brother’s children, he believed. He gave them a place to call home. Abnormal as it was, it was something permanent, not the fleeting situation they had in Alabama. While no one could have predicted that the twins would pass when they did, it had been obvious to Peter they weren’t long for the world. That left him as the children’s only suitable guardian. The children suspected he had other, less noble reasons for taking them from the place where they wanted to stay, but what other reasons could he have? Did they think he’d taken them in simply to spite Lukas posthumously, by proxy of his children? Absurd.