the house that grows

The first time she saw the house, it frightened her. Both its presence and its shape sent a stutter through her. She puzzled over its perfectly small-squareness, its overflowing window boxes, its wild garden, the way it glowed in the morning sunshine.

She knew this house, but also knew that it did not belong. Not here, and not now.

Poppy had walked down this street every morning since things with Elle had ended, and she had moved into her rental-tan, home-depot-generic apartment on the river. She loved this street, loved the way the tall trees spread their limbs across the divide of asphalt, touching their finger-branches overhead in a beautiful living canopy. She loved the way the sunlight fell through the leaves and dappled the sidewalk, loved the houses in their two neat rows of two stories, painted in hues of blue and gray and yellow and green. She had always dreamed of having her own small salt-box house here, with matching rippled windows, their blown glass glinting in the sun. She knew all these houses, knew their shapes and their order. And this whitewash of brick and robins-egg door was an interruption.

This house was familiar to her, though– like a place from a dream had woken up with her, had traveled with her from there to here and now just- was.

On the first morning, Poppy stopped on the sidewalk, her chest a cage for a frightened fluttering, her body a cavern that she could hear her blood echo through. She stood still, time slipping into unmeasurable, and felt the uncomfortable pang of deja-vu. It was a strange, nostalgic longing that stayed with her long past her walk and into the evening.

She paced her apartment, desperate to convince herself that the house had been a phantom, a lingering impression she had carried with her into wakefulness. It wouldn’t be the first time.

She had thought about calling Elle, telling her about the strange visitation, but decided against it, knowing Elle hated it when this like this happened to Poppy. She knew Elle would roll her eyes, give her some insight to explain away a house appearing from a dream on her morning walk, a house that had never been there before.

"What do you mean it wasn’t there before, Poppy? Do you mean you’ve just never seen it? Maybe you dreamt about that house because you’ve seen it, and only forgot about it?"

No. It wasn’t that. She would have noticed it, either way. She noticed everything, envisioned herself living there one day, in a beautiful sun soaked life, alongside Elle. The small wooden fences had buried their pickets inside her, the lush lawns had wrapped around her, the oldness that she could almost smell, like the sweet-must pages of attic books, haunted her.

She had made the same walk every day for nine months. Even in the rain. She could never have just missed it.

"Well, what was there? If it wasn’t that house, what was it? Woods? A different house? An empty lot?"

This gave Poppy pause.

Nothing.

Nothing had been there before. Not a house, not a shed, not trees, not an empty lot. It was like the house had stretched the street out just enough to fit, and there it was, unapologetically arrived.

Seeing the house the next day carried a new discomfort. This second vision held her frozen for even longer. She stared, tilted her head, squinted. She studied the shapes, looked for a blurred edge, something to indicate that she was hallucinating. But there was no shimmer, no suggestion of a decline in her mental health.

She wondered how long a person could stand on a sidewalk, watching a house that wasn’t theirs, before it was considered unhealthy. She was sure that much time had already passed.

She catalogued details: the soft-blue door always slightly ajar, the lace curtains, the pink and purple bunch of petals, and cascade of tender ferns that spilled from the window boxes, the small metal box at the corner of a narrow brick walk marked Post, the red brick fireplace with the wooden mantle holding a variety of small plants and shimmering glass vases that she knew were inside.

She stopped answering her phone calls, deciding she preferred to send a quick text, if she could be bothered. She started taking more walks, telling herself it was because she was interested in improving her health, that the cool air of coming fall was refreshing, energizing. Soon she said the same thing about the winter wind as it ice-picked through her thick denim, fuzzed fleece, scratched frost-fingers across her bare cheeks: the winter air was good for her lungs, somehow made her stronger.

The truth was, she didn’t feel it, the cold, not for long. When she walked out of her apartment, down the steps and caught the winter wind off the frozen river, she bristled, shivering, but walked anyway. By the time she turned the corner, crossed the threshold into the neighborhood where the trees had let go of their greens and bare fingers begged the grey cloud-ceiling for soft snow, she had forgotten the chill. A few minutes more and she was standing in front of her house, illuminated with warm-yellow in the windows, sparkling white beads of light along the roof, a curl of smoke rising from the chimney and she knew there were two stockings hanging over a perfectly crackling fire that spit harmless embers onto the stone hearth, just barely kissing the edges of the pickled pine hardwood floor, and a christmas tree glowing, achingly, in the corner. She lifted her phone, opened the camera, snapped–

There was a flutter of movement inside the house, a strange rustle, and the sweet, soft-eggshell blue door which was ajar, always just slightly ajar, pushed closed.

The next day, Poppy woke up with a fever. She called out of work. She texted Elle because she knew she would check on her, whether they were together or not. At 11 am, she rang the bell, brought up a jar of soup and some juice. She patted Poppy’s legs through the blanket, looked at her with the sad eyes, asked if she was ok.

"Not just the cold. I mean, all the ways…"

She meant the house. She meant her mind. Poppy tried to tell her what she felt, that the house was real, that she had dreamed it, that she knew what it was like inside. She had memories there, and that somehow, it belonged to her.

“I’m supposed to be there.” She managed, her voice soft with fever, her body restless in her bed. Elle helped her move from the bedroom to the living room where it was brighter, where she could watch tv. Elle kissed her soft-sad on the head before she left.

"Get better, Poppy."

Under the blankets, she resented her bare living room walls, the lack of fireplace, the lack of greenery. Inside her, the house bloomed, spilling over like window box flowers, like tender ferns, tendrils reaching, reaching, filling her with walls and floorboards, rafters and roof, a strange house-shaped ache.

The house-flu lasted longer than a regular strain, her sore bones felt like old- house-bones, her muscles weak like battered shutters. She was restless, sleepless until finally, her fever broke, dewing her skin, and she slept.

When she woke, she woke new. Finally, she felt she had shrugged off the fever. Finally, she pulled on real clothes, stretched, and left her bland apartment behind like the memory of a dream. She had to restrain herself. She wanted to run, but her body, not fully recovered, required a gentleness she didn’t want to extend. When she turned the corner, she paused. Now she wanted to slow, to savor. The anticipation quickened inside her, the kick of a new life, and she pulled the fresh-cold into her chest, felt it grow hard like armor, held it, made it into the shape of a house.

Just a little farther, three more that weren’t hers, two and now she could see the metal post-box, could feel her house reaching–

Poppy felt her stomach react first. Something was wrong. It was as if the house had gone dim. The door was closed, there were boards over the two front facing windows. There were no lights twinkling. A grief blossomed, she placed her flat palm over her stomach.

Poppy noticed a For Sale sign in the yard and something in her began to tremble. Before she realized what she was doing, she had dialed the number on the sign.

*

“Poppy, I don't know what you’re thinking.”

“I can’t explain it, Elle. I just know.” Poppy saw it, the sad look that Elle used to give her, toward the end, the look that made her bite her lip and feel small. “I know what I’m doing.”

“But, your savings...your whole savings? What if something goes wrong?”

What if felt like an anvil. How many times had she heard Elle say what if? What if we just can’t make this work-

Too many times.

"I know what I’m doing."

*

It was spring before she had the keys in her hand. She felt alive with the dew and dawn and new blooms everywhere. She felt finally finally like her life was righting. She painted walls and window boxes, planted flowers to match her memory. Every day the house looked more like she remembered. Sometimes she forgot to stop and eat, she forgot to go to work.

She filled the house with the plants she dreamed, the furniture, the rug. She gave the door a new coat of robins-egg-blue. She felt the house yawn awake, the house inside stretching to touch the house outside. She felt them (become) the same.

She found her phone, abandoned days before, and dusted it off, plugged it in. She called Elle.

“Poppy! Are you alright? I stopped calling-”

“I finished it! Come see! Please.”

She knew Elle couldn’t say no when she begged.

*

“It’s beautiful.”

Poppy saw her tears. She was happy enough to cry, too. Now, she would understand. She could see it and know.

“It’s just right.”

“Poppy, you look so thin. Maybe you should rest.”

“I feel better than ever.” Poppy answered, her words a sharp snap.

“I have to go.”

*

Seasons stretched outside the house, and Poppy stretched in. She busied herself, craning to fill every crevice, the way the house had filled her. She wandered, filling up with details of the dark corners, the smallest spaces. She found the exact spot where she could sit on the floor and be bathed in the sunrise as it glinted off the glass paned door.

That was where she was, when she first saw it. The shadow of someone outside. She thought maybe it was Elle and her heart filled with a wild hope. She jumped up from the floor, ran to the door, threw it open and through the glass of the storm door, saw nothing.

She could have easily blamed a bird, or even a stray cat, catching the light and casting a shadow that was the wrong size. At first, she did. But it happened again, and again. When she found her phone again, she called Elle.

“Poppy, I think you need to see someone. A doctor--”

“NO! Elle, you don’t understand! Someone keeps sneaking around--”

“What do you think they want? Do you think they want to break in? Has anything gone missing?”

“I think they want her….”

“Who?!”

Poppy was annoyed. How could she still not understand. Of course someone would want her, like Poppy had wanted her.

“My house!”

“Poppy, please--”

“I mean, who could blame them?! She’s beautiful and perfect. They can’t have her!”

“I have to go, Poppy. Please, don’t call me anymore.”

*

The shadows continued to stretch and skitter. She could see it, a dark shape that fell in through the living room windows. She hated the way it moved, a disruption of the light, so she boarded the windows. It wasn’t enough. She tried to call Elle, to tell her that someone was trying to take the house away, that she was scared, but Elle didn’t answer. Poppy curled up on the rug in the middle of her darkened living room, and cried until she fell asleep.

She dreamt of the house again, the way she had first come to know her, the way she had been last spring. She heard a rustle outside that roused her, and she sat up. From where she was on the floor she could see someone, just make out their legs. She crawled toward the door, trying to make out who it was, but they were backlit golden, impossible to see. She watched the figure raise her hand, heard the generated camera shutter sound as they took a picture. Poppy closed the door.

The next morning, Poppy walked outside for the first time in what felt like forever. She squinted in the mid winter sun. She dragged the metal frame, pushed all her weight against it, finally the sign sunk into the ground– for sale.