The Face in the House

27

Malcolm had never liked basements. He found them cold, and damp, and unnervingly quiet.

As a kid, Owen and his friends used to hang out in the basement of their parents' house. It was their own private space, away from parents and homework and pesky little brothers. Every once in a while, if the older boys needed an extra player for a game, Malcolm would get to join them. This was good for Malcolm, who often felt left out when his brother played with his friends, but it also meant spending time in the basement. The cold, creepy basement.

As basements go, it was a nice one. It had dark green carpet and wood-paneled walls, two old couches, a TV, a Gamecube. There were board games and bouncy balls and oversized stuffed animals. It was a kid's underground oasis, and yet, something about it always grated on Malcolm's nerves. It was like, somewhere behind the old Lego table, or in the corner where the utilities clustered, someone was watching him, waiting for him, waiting to reach out and grab the back of his shirt neck as he ran for the staircase.

Strangely, however, the basement at Thornewood House didn't feel quite as menacing.

It wasn't for lack of trying. The floor and walls were solid concrete, the air was cool and damp. The only light came from large candelabras, which cast strange, wavy shadows in all directions. There were spiders, though they mostly kept to themselves, and spiderwebs, wooden crates the size of coffins, strange sharp-looking instruments, and shelves lined with bottles of unknown substances. Not to mention, his own brother's corpse. And the embodied spirit of a butler-slash-mad-scientist.

Nothing to worry about.

Still, it had become an unlikely oasis for Malcolm. It didn't have a Gamecube, but there were plenty of things to play with, as long as you were careful.

About a week had passed since the incident with the old woman, and tension in the house was high. For days, they had waited. For news, for sirens, for a full-blown police raid. But nothing came, not even a phone call. None of them had any idea if the woman was dead or alive, but Malcolm found it difficult to be optimistic on the subject. He believed his friends felt the same: Teddy had (unprecedentedly) become quite quiet on the subject of seances, and Owen seemed to spend an increasing amount of time staring at cars through the window with a furrowed brow.

Malcolm had also been shaken, but after days had passed with no news and no sign of a SWAT team, he had ventured down to the basement, seeking to make himself useful.

He had found Poole there, working away in his makeshift lab. He had stood there a minute, at the landing, watching the butler from the shadows. Since the day they met - the day Owen died - Malcolm had found Poole a cold, rigid, secretive man. Still, Malcolm was intrigued, he knew from his letters that there was more hidden behind the stony facade; a man driven by intense passion and powerful emotion.

Maybe that was why Malcolm had turned the car around that day, had taken the risk of returning to the house rather than heading for the nearest hospital. It was a decision he had been struggling with for weeks, but he couldn't say he regretted what he chose. In that moment in the car, panic has taken over. Still, he knew he was deciding between certain death and certain death. One destination, at least, offered a chance of hope. At a hospital, there were doctors that could provide sympathy, a death certificate, and a phone call to his parents. At Thornewood House, there was the chance that a madman could save his brother's soul. He chose the madman.

As he watched Poole behind his desk, unaware he was being watched, Malcolm saw a glimpse of the man he might've been when he had written those letters so many years before. His shoulders, which were normally straight and tense, were relaxed and easy. His eyes, which were so often narrowed by a skeptical, hard brow, were youthful, bright, and open with curiosity. He was in his element, Malcolm had thought. This was how he lived, how he had lived for centuries. Malcolm wasn't sure whether the sight of it made him happy or sad.