Red, the color Lady liked. Red, the color she wore best. In all its plush herself she dressed, the Lord he found it quite grotesque and bid his Lady change.
A single scarlet flower sits in a glass on the counter. I couldn't say what it was--I know what flowers look like, but I've no talent for naming them. This one, besides its color, is puffy and short-petalled, some gold in its center. I would say it has some charm about it, except that I know where it came from. He gave it to her, that irritating person down the street. I saw him approach me and stand out there with his small screen, press something into it that coaxed her out, and then she opened the door (I really wanted to disallow it, but if I begin trapping them forcibly, they'll surely fight back) and, in a thick robe and boots, she descended my frosted hill to accept his ridiculous gesture. What did he tell her? He hoped she'd feel better soon enough, that she could come visit down the street even if she didn't feel great anyway, that he wouldn't mind getting sick--etcetera, ad nauseum. And then--oh God!--he put his arms around her! He embraced her! He actually touched my darling! How dare he think--! Ah . . . but it does not matter. She won't leave me. I've made sure of it, now. She can't leave, you see.
Understand that I don't want her to be too ill, but I do want her to be ill enough that she must stay within my walls. The weather is helping me in that regard, and for that, I am grateful.
How I do it is quite simple. I have things within my walls which are not quite safe for human consumption, and I send some out into her room at night, just enough for her to inhale into her body, and she coughs. They are so delicate, these beings, and a slight cough, a slight raised heat beneath her skin--these things are enough to concern her mother, and so the girl has been home for a week, now. Her school has been brought to her; she works much in her room which is, for me, utterly ideal.
I have begun to see so much of her that I'm learning all of her habits; I am attuned to her every need. I can guess when she'll grow thirsty or desire to sleep. I can sense when she'd like me to dim the lights or raise or lower the temperature. I presage her catnaps and anticipate her yawns, and I recognize all manner of signals in between. She'll chew the end of a writing utensil when frustrated by some concept (oh to be that utensil!), or she'll sigh when about to roll over onto her side and stare upward, or—one of my favorites—she'll begin twirling a piece of hair when she wants to begin contemplating me. Yes, I always thrill when I see her take a lock between her fingers, often bites a lip, because it is a prelude to her explorations. She'll touch the walls as if desirous of communicating once more (which I always oblige), or she'll walk about and peek into the closet, go hands and knees across my floor, run her irresistible fingers around the windows and door frames. Once—oh, most electrifying moment!—she brought her mouth within an inch of my glass window pane, exhaled a little cloud of steam, and then (I absolutely tremble to recall it) pressed her lips against me to leave an imprint. Three more times she blew the little clouds, but only once more did she place her lips on me; afterward, she used a finger to trace designs and words, and my memory of the experience and the prospect that it might recur fuel some of the lonely moments when I do not have her all to myself, when she is with her mother or absorbed in her communicating device.
A strange thing happened, though, several days ago, and I am as of yet unsure how to feel about it. The girl somehow discovered a picture of me, an old one, and has held onto it though she threw out the others that were with it. I recognized myself in the image immediately, and I quaked to know what she would do with it--whether she'd even notice it was me, or whether she'd tear it into pieces. So I was gratified when she held it close and studied it, perceiving my form, my familiar contours, but then I realized that my dear was not so much looking at me but at the figure in the image, on my front lawn, where the grass used to be full and a charming fence surrounded the property. For there . . . stood . . . her. Her!
Of all the surprises! I never would've expected such a shock! Imagine the things that surfaced in me, seeing an identical image of the woman I'd once known, who'd so dominated my existence, looking as young and fresh as I recalled her. She was smiling in that picture, and even though it wasn't colored, I knew her nails were red, her lips were red--her absorbing, perfect teeth were whiter than the gray the photograph presented. There was movement deep within me; something stirred when I realized what the picture was. My thoughts went immediately to one of our last encounters, before that man had her taken away, after I myself had taken the baby; I recalled an image of her on the floor of my darling's very room--they'd used it as their nursery--on her knees, small boning knife in one refined hand, making delicate openings in her opposite wrist. She'd moved methodically at first, but as the red ran in rubies down her arms, she'd grown more erratic, cut quicker yet shallower, and she'd at length collapsed into the mess she'd made. He'd come home only five minutes or so later and found her in plenty of time, for her handiwork hadn't been as threatening as it'd looked.
Oh, but he'd gone mad himself after that, and what was I to feel but irritated at his lack of respect, his lack of empathy for me! He'd hated the way she looked and yet thought nothing of what he'd left me to look at: his bloated corpse.
Ugh. Well. In any case, I was reminded of it all when I saw that photograph, and the fact that the girl has kept it has intrigued me. There's on one side a strange sense of invaded privacy. The woman was my secret first; still, if I were to allow anyone to share her with me, it would be my new darling, the strange, quiet, black-and-white girl who moves like a wayward snowflake around her room.
I've the two of them together, in one place--or as close as I'll ever have them together.
Where did the picture come from? I watched the girl take the box from the neighbor woman's trash, but how did it get there? That old woman's been in her house for quite a long time, probably thirty years, and yet I've seen very little of her. She has secrets, that one; I knew that already. What I do not know is how or why she had such a picture in her possession. As excited as I was to see the photograph, the prospect of that hag having it in her hands at all is entirely unnerving. I will have to watch closer for understanding as to where it came from.
Right now, she sleeps, the girl. I am happy for it. I adore her when she sleeps. Such innocence, such ignorance. I wrap her bare legs and arms in my warmth; I hover around her resting body. At times such as this, I imagine myself expanding, ballooning into deep corners and panelled walls, towering ceilings and narrow halls, chandeliers and spiral stairs and stained glass windows, gargoyles and Gothic arches, marble and satin, velvet and fur. I am a labyrinth of hiding places, the very core of me somewhere so secret I myself hardly know its residence. Doors open onto more doors and hallways take strange angles. On occasion, a staircase will lead to nowhere, and passageways hide beyond all manner of tapestries and rugs. And she, my dear, in her crimson gown, she moves through the corridors, a dripping wax candelabra in her near-translucent hand, her eyes wide and searching, her fingers tracing lines along the papered walls, each footfall an echo into my haunted soul. Somewhere else in the winding wanders the other, the one gone mad, showing her teeth, pointed now but white as ever, clicking in her small mouth. They cannot see one another, and yet they seek the same thing . . . what might that be? Dare I suggest they seek me? My vanity knows no bounds, but this is the fantasy I have. It is mine, after all. It is what I wish it to be.
Though it is only a dream. A fancy.
The girl sleeps on a small bed, in her small room, in my small self. I shift myself, view her through the slats of the closet, the blades of the broken ceiling fan; I watch her chest rise and fall as she breathes steadily. When she coughs, I feel some small amount of guilt, but it is not enough to convince me to stop. I need her to stay with me. I need her to stay away from that boy and his gestures.
It's dead now, anyway, that flower. I made sure to wilt it almost immediately. She hasn't noticed yet, but she will the next time she ventures into the kitchen, and then she'll understand that any offer he makes her will end in a similar manner.
YOU ARE READING
Hilltop House
HorrorHilltop House always remembered its first, how closely it watched them, how much they meant to it . . . and what it did to them. But Hilltop House has yet to find another like its first, until 𝘴𝘩𝘦 moves in. Cora is angry, and weird, and entirely...
