Hilltop House

House, Five

Beneath the hill atop a stone, the beetles dance amongst the bones--go round about and round about, sweet darling all alone.

I feel as if I'm falling apart, as if I'm losing control. She does that to me--she herself as well as the ignorant boy. If only I could get him up near me! I'd take care of him for good . . . but he senses my ill will, and so he avoids me.

She's been spending too much time with him, and I am greatly troubled by her lack of judgment, not to mention the anxiety I experience when she's away. Already her time with me has been cut nearly in half; she's so often gone, at a place where she is with others like herself and from which she brings much work. Even when she spends time in her room, she is absorbed with her papers and her books. Her own smaller writings, the dark rhyming ones, she's largely put aside. I feel less connected to her as she connects more to those outside, and I begin to grow frustrated. I thought if I made her space pleasant, she'd be less inclined to leave it, but I believe more must be done if I wish to claim a greater part of her.

I've been thinking on it, but my own attention has been divided as I've struggled to contain my emotion. I can't recall ever having so little control. Even when my first residents were in me, as much as they infuriated and saddened and disturbed be, I held myself together. But I was also younger, I suppose, and I didn't know my own strength, so I kept my feelings simmering rather than steaming. Perhaps it's that I've had to wait so long this time, or perhaps my frame is weakening, but my anger has resulted in actual damage, and I can't continue in this manner not just for the sake of appearances but for the sake of keeping them here! If I begin to fall apart, surely that woman will take my darling far away, and I will not see her again.

Oh that woman—how could such a ravishing, delectable creature as the girl be associated with her? The woman is always anxious, more so even than I am, and that heaviness will not leave her. She hides more secrets than I do; that's for certain. We know one another, those of us who keep our corners full of shadows; she recognizes something about me, and I recognize something about her. What it is she hides, I cannot say, but I fear that whatever her secrets are, they involve the girl. How could they not? And my dear is innocent to the world.

If you asked me to pinpoint what exactly it is I cherish about her, I'm not sure I could say. There's something about the smooth, fair, soft exterior; something in the luminescence of her eyes--her own windows; something to do with the curves of her small parts, her fingers and toes and ears . . . everything is built to perfection. Why her, and why the first, and why not others? It is enigmatic, but who can rationalize such feelings? When they are yours, they make as little sense to you as would those of someone else.

It occurs to me that this one is much like the other, even taking into consideration their obvious differences. They are both delicately built, and in spite of the strong, even indifferent facades with which they shield themselves, they are fragile within. Their exteriors they decorate in defense, to make sure those beyond do not see them--my past love always made sure to polish and prepare, and my present love goes dark to hide her light. Perhaps they camouflage themselves specifically to hide from those nearest them. She hid herself from him, and this one hides herself from the woman. Why they do this, I couldn't say. I myself have no ability to obscure my inner self with my exterior. I am unable to alter the way I look. However, I've never quite felt that my outside matches my inside; I am like one of them, gazing at a mirror, wondering why what I believe myself to be is not what I physically am. But I was designed without being able to offer input, and I was built by another's hands. We none of us have a role in our own making, and yet we are forever trapped knowing nothing but our self which others have made. Whether or not this is fair, I have little opinion, as it is the way of things for all creatures born into this world, and it seems to me that because we are born in dissemblance, it is only natural for us to live and die in dissemblance.

I've watched them all over the years, the ones within my range, how they move in and out of their own dwellings, and how they deceive one another as well as theirselves. I have concluded that all of them are other than that which they appear.

That woman to my immediate left, she is one of the worst. I've seen the girl talk to her whenever the two happen to catch one another out at the same time. It is curious to me that the old woman is so elegant at altering her behavior to suit her needs. With my darling, she is communicative and friendly, and yet with the girl's mother, the old woman is cold. I know why she does it--I know she keeps something in her basement. I don't have to have seen through the walls to know what it houses. The woman must sense, too, that I am aware of what she's done, of what she brought in all shrouded years ago and keeps prisoner. Surely she's no expert, in spite of the others' ignorance. I've caught obscured glimpses of it in the early, early morning hours, when she sits with it, when she cares for it. My only wonder is that it hasn't yet escaped. The old woman is nothing if not constant, though--she has never left her home in the years I've watched. Everything is delivered to or visited upon her.

Ah, I stray. What does that old woman matter? What do any of them matter except for my sweet? She is nothing short of perfect, whatever secrets she has. I intend to discover her most intricate labyrinth, to wander hungrily the corridors of her body as she would mine if I were that rambling mansion I so wish I were. Oh, if there is any divinity in this world, I ask that it grant me the pleasure of convincing her to explore me in the fashion that I intend to explore her!

Oh, but that obnoxious boy! He attempts to draw her away from me. He must be taken care of. His suspicions of me are warranted, and they're dangerous. If he succeeds in scaring her enough, she'll leave me.

At least he doesn't touch her--or anyway, I haven't seen him touch her. I shudder to think what they may do beyond my vision, and yet . . . I do not think it can be much of anything. The way they behave when they stand outside me and talk indicates they have yet to show any of that sort of interest in one another. Their reservations are quite evident.

When I reflect on what she would let him do to her, all that time ago, I realized that I, being young, did not understand. Truthfully, I still little understand the repulsive ways in which these creatures bare themselves to one another, body and soul, the ways they expect gratification from one another. It disgusts me. She broke my heart every time I was forced to endure his surely misplaced affections.

If this boy in any way attempts to violate the girl, I'm not sure I could hold back.

If only I could get him inside . . . !

But he suspects. He will not come.

Perhaps all that while ago, I shouldn't have shown him what I did, but how was I to know she would arrive and change everything?

I must make more of an effort. If he is attempting to convince her of what he knows I am, then it may be that rather than continue to disguise myself, I should begin to reveal myself. If I show her I can be a friend to her, if I allow her to know my devotion, perhaps . . . perhaps she will desire to stay. Why must a haunted house be necessarily a thing of evil? I will show her myself, little by little, and if I prove the boy right while simultaneously assuring her that I am far from malevolent, he will have nothing left to say, and he will diminish in her esteem.

The prospect of unfolding is frightening, and yet, I relish the thought of offering her access to my tenderness.