In his web, the spider waits for dainty little flies, and when he lures a pretty one, he tells her many lies. He'll have her eyes, her legs, her wings 'fore she can realize.
I am having trouble comprehending what goes on with the woman. She is fragile, I suspect, and perhaps I influence her in unintended ways, but why she moves about the house and seems to see things that are not there—I sense that she blames me, and yet it is not I who torment her! Her illusions are hers alone. Whatever she holds on her shoulders, it is heavy, but I can not see it. Her impressionable mind is like maggot-infested earth, susceptible to molding by whoever's hands happen to hold it, the vermin growing as allowed. Can I help that my presence aggravates her mania? But it is not I who am the root of her despair.
When she implied as much to the girl, I took offense. I would surely take credit if the credit were mine to take, but I dislike unfounded blame. Had I wanted to tease the woman, I surely would have done so. No, what she suffers seems to be a byproduct of her own disorders.
I wish she would just leave. I find her a distraction when I would rather concern myself with the girl. The woman is like an insect in an otherwise quiet room; I've had many over the years--I try to rest in the silence, and yet something buzzes in and out, impossible to catch though a constant annoyance until it is dead. The mother may need to die as well before she ceases to be a nuisance, though I don't intend to be the cause of it.
Ah, death . . . what it means to these beings I have always wondered. It is something I cannot entirely grasp, though I hold no illusion that I, myself, will stand forever. My walls will fall or be torn apart someday; my seams will split, my framework crush inward on itself; the stuff I am made of will tumble out, my innards bared to the indifferent world. But I feel little toward my inevitable, likely distant demise, whereas these people seem both to fear as well as desire the death that ever creeps nearer them. Upon reflection, though, are those not what I want from the girl? I want her to both fear and desire me . . . am I, then, not very different than this death which they struggle to accept? Perhaps I will be a different sort of death for her, a life-giving death.
When he--that first inhabitant--hung himself, long ago, I watched his process, his progress, and every moment of it has burdened my memory since. He stopped himself more than once, and even as the light left his eyes, I saw regret in them as well as something like accusation, because I am certain that in that moment, he recognized me, and he knew all that I had done.
Whenever an elderly resident has lived within my walls, I left them alone, partly because they disinterested me in their lack of freshness, their lack of innocence to the world, but also because they were close enough to death that to care for them would have brought me short joy. I do not know what I would feel for a child; I have never had one within my walls. The baby was small and ugly, not even something that could be called human--I had no attraction to it whatsoever and felt only animosity toward it when the thing pulled the attention she should have been giving me. Oh, the way she held that thing in her arms and touched its soft skin and put her lips on its plump feet . . . the only happiness I found after she brought that creature within my walls was due to how often she smiled in reaction to it, how often I was afforded a glimpse of those perfectly white teeth. But even that was not enough. She'd cared for me at first, I'd been sure of it--the attention she paid to adorning my insides, the time she spent silently working within me, her sounds and movements for me alone--but when the baby came, it was all that mattered to her. What about me? After all I'd felt for her, after all I could've offered?
But I was young and foolish, and I've learned how to behave in order to get what I want, now. It does help that the girl is malleable. She's been severed from any ties that might have formed somewhere before the time she came to me, so it's been quite easy--really almost too easy--to work myself inside of her. I have not managed it without cost, though, for she has absolutely taken hold of me, as well. We are so intimately in need of one another, now, that we can't part. I must have her forever.
Her devotion encourages me, too. I feel a confidence I've never felt until now. I am convinced of my capability for greatness, of my courage to do what is necessary in order to protect my investment. My only concern is that someone might try to take her from me. And truly, I must not get too excited, for one false move could still frighten her enough to leave. I cannot, for example, get rid of the mother, as much as I'd like. To do so would surely affect the girl in undesirable ways. And additionally, while I don't like the mother, per se, I do have a certain pity for her. Something holds her, something preys on her, and as a predator myself, I admit it is difficult to watch the effects of another's predation play out in front of me.
She is a sorry figure, indeed. And yet . . . I sense that things cannot go on as they have been indefinitely. Whatever hovers over the woman will at some point descend, and I can only hope my dear will not be caught up in it.
The only other vexation I contribut continue to have, at present, is that stupid boy. I cannot touch him, as he never approaches, but he will not leave my darling alone. I see her use her device to contact him, but as much as he's come to the bottom of the hill to look up at me, he will not come near enough for me to take him, for he knows what I am. He has some hold over her, as well. I can only imagine what it is, as their conversations have not happened anywhere near my hearing, and the words they send back and forth to one another have been, as far as I can comprehend, meaningless. The way she's ignored him since the day he took her away, the day I punished her, I'd have thought she'd be done altogether with him, and yet I hear her sighs; I watch her reactions to his messages. She mopes, she grows despondent, and I loathe the thought of anyone other than myself having the power to affect her in such a way.
I console myself in believing it is only a matter of time before I can wholly possess her.
To be sure, the time moves quickly. The weather has turned cold once more, which I far prefer to the damp summers. I appreciate the severity of the air, how it solidifies my angles, my hardness. And the insects, a constant nuisance to me in the more humid months, have all but disappeared for now. Yes, the time—how strange to think that she has been with me only a few months, and here we are. For years I have sat in sedation, and only now that I have her do I realize how little I'd actually been alive. Between my first and my current, there was nothing but tedium, and as everything moves toward its inevitable crescendo, I needs must determine what, exactly, I wish to do with her.
Oh I know in a sort of theoretical way what I wish—I desire to collect her, keep her forever with me, in a manner that ensures my claim on her. But what exactly that manner might be, I have yet to entirely figure out. You see, I never got so far with my long-ago first, and I've been so wrapped up in my thirst and urgency that I've had little chance to work out the actual mechanics.
It is not possible to treat her as I treated the baby so very long ago, or as I treated her peer not so very long ago. I would not ruin her in such a way. No, I must preserve and savor every part of her, inside and out—the corridors beneath her exterior, the windows that open into her, the raw foundation of her structure—and I wish her to be more than physically present during the reconnaissance. It's only right, as she has done the same to me, and I've been with her all the while.
If I used only that factor, though—that she's explored me so why should I not explore her—any of my previous residents (and for that matter anyone at all who has moved through me) should share in the privileges I am determined to allow her. But she has done much more, she has done what they have not: she has gone where they have not, ambling through my true self, in the mansion I have built within her mind. I have allowed no other such access to my essence. I have made myself defenseless for her, as I have afforded no one else, and perhaps I do not even recognize the danger in which I've placed myself by wanting her so.
Well, after decades of ennui, I am willing to take risks, but I will need more than willingness to bring my dream to fruition. I must pool my strength, and to do so, I'm afraid I must recede somewhat. I must pull back into myself, pay less attention to what is outside my walls and concentrate solely on myself within. I dislike leaving my outer boundaries susceptible, and I am uncomfortable with the notion that, should someone approach, I will have no knowledge of it, and yet I must put some trust in my ability to keep her safe as well as hope that whatever haunts the woman will not, during my time of diminished vigilance, catch up with her.
And so, I let down my guard.
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...
