The Old House

I was that now average late 30s Xennial woman. I was divorced, and without biological children, save for my three cats. I drove a snowbaru while sipping my grande chai latté and listening to podcasts about serial killers. I also binge-watched shows about serial killers, read real-life murder stories, unsolved crimes, and other similar works.

As a big sports enthusiast, I enjoyed watching anything from hockey to soccer, American and Canadian football, curling, and snowboard competitions. I also watched videos of ships sinking. I had several partners. I played video games and regularly streamed retro game playthroughs. As some might say, I was the typical lesbo.

It is not like any of this would scare me. Murder scenes were not at all disturbing. It was the result of over 20 years of watching murder mystery shows on tele. And also, now being a prolific writer in the genre. That and in horror, too.

It was the end of spring, and I was on a camping trip in the region with my cats for a couple of days. The main goal of my trip was to recover from the work I had done on the last book I wrote. I was also there to discover new microbreweries and micro-distilleries. It was early morning, and I was out on my way to buy some supplies, mostly firewood, and groceries, for the evening. I had left the cats at camp; they were used to roam the campsite and were all still asleep as I left. As I drove towards the city, I saw it on my right.

The house stood in the middle of a field, on the north side of a provincial road. The south side of the road was flanked by the bay. The grass surrounding the property was four feet tall. Save from a small place where vehicles did their U-turns, it went from the road up until the wooded area in the far back of the property. Although the grass itself was tall, it was not dry: the property was located less than 20 yards away from the bay.

At a glance, the house itself seemed normal in appearance: all the doors and windows were there, and none were broken. The roof seemed intact, and the exterior walls were whole. One would have thought the owners had been away for several months, or even years.

When you stopped and took the time to look at it, you would then discover its anomalies. The house itself had no driveway, nor any pavement. It did not have a mailbox, and it certainly was not hooked up to the power grid. It did not even have an address.

While all the other surrounding properties had trees, this house had none anywhere near it. Birds refused to perch on the rooftop. Even the wild animals that roamed the area, such as brown bears, deer, and porcupines, all made detours around the property. None dared walk through it.

I did not live in this part of the country, and this might have been why I grew curious about the house. It had a certain mysticism, a certain out-of-the-ordinary je ne sais quoi attracting me towards it. It reminded me of an old small village chapel, the kind I would often see during my trips to Nova Scotia. I was surprised I had not noticed it sooner during my time in the region.

Initially, I thought it would make a nice home to establish a family. I also thought it would provide a place of tranquility while I worked on my new writing projects.

I started reaching out to the rare neighbors concerning the property; none of them wanted to talk about it. One of them mentioned I could always find more information at city hall, though. I figured I had nothing to lose by asking people over there; I was already bound that way for supplies. I snapped a few pictures of the property and went on my way.

On my way, I stopped at a local restaurant, and while I was enjoying a lobster roll, started searching for the property on Google. On their maps service, I found the location where the house should have been, yet there was nothing. Satellite pictures were showing the property itself, covered with high grass. No structure whatsoever was visible. I scribbled down the addresses surrounding the property on a napkin, to have a guestimated address.

The waitress came and warmed up my tea, and as she did, saw what I was looking at. She said, "Oh, that house." She paused for a moment, staring at me, and added, "If I were you, I would not look into the old chapel."

I was so motivated to find out the truth about this property. When motivated, I would finish the projects I had started. Then again, there was this old saying that went, "curiosity killed the cat" … it did ring a bell and I wondered if I should have stopped looking into this house. It had some eerie energy surrounding it.

Was there some sort of evil presence in the house, something of the likes of the Amityville house? Had it been the scene of a grisly murder? Had it partially caught fire and people were burned alive inside?

Were the citizens not wanting to have a new neighbor move in from the metropolis? I did scream city girl with my hipster drinks and my Han Solo look. I wore knee-high brown leather boots, blue jeans, a white shirt, blue fisherman vest. All that was missing was a blaster hanging on the side of my hip.

I thought once more about the house. Save for this interaction, no one wanted to talk about it. The waitress referred to it as the old chapel. I also thought about the lack of information about the property on the internet, as well as the property missing from the satellite images. The plot thickened and I fully intended to discover the truth.

I paid for my meal and drove off downtown.

---

City hall was some sort of an oddity. It looked like nothing I would have expected: an old building, with some charm. Maybe stone walls, or red bricks, something typical. Nope. It was a modern, industrial building. From the outside, it reminded me of a storage rental business. The walls were all made out of gray concrete, which was partially covered with some beige metal sheets on all sides except one. The remaining side of the building was fully windowed. The entrance to the building was located on that side.

I could also see some solar panels on the rooftop. Save for the parking lot, the whole area was covered in grass, which was surprising considering they were located near the bay. There were no trees nor any other notable vegetation nearby to protect the building from the salty sea winds.

City hall was sitting on the top of the hill and clashed with the nearby downtown area. Going about a quarter of a mile downhill, the streets all led to the more densely populated downtown area. Downtown was mostly established near the bay, which hosted touring and fishing boats. It would go back towards city hall, up the streets, and the cliffs. Some buildings had their main entrance set up at the bay level, and on top of the hill, three stories above. It was the case of the local shopping mall.

Despite this, the buildings were mostly built in the same type of architecture, which one would find in most fishermen's villages. They were painted in a different and very lively array of colors: various shades of red, blue, and yellow were to be seen. Some buildings were painted green, and very few of them had brick or stone on their outside walls. Wood was the preferred building material around here.

Even as you walked through the streets, you could feel the salty marine air floating around. Inhabitants were gathered at the local bistro to watch whichever football game was on. Tourists were going in and out of art shops, browsing through various local and indigenous art. Parking meters were not a thing in this city.

I made my way inside city hall and asked for assistance locating the city's tax registry. An employee directed me to the right place, and once I got there, was greeted by another one. I mentioned something about looking for a particular house, that I was not from the region, and wanted to learn more about what some people referred to as the old chapel. I pulled out my phone to show pictures. The employee said they were expecting me, and they had the records ready. It seems townsfolks had been talking about me.

It turned out the house was indeed an abandoned chapel, built some one hundred and fifty years ago. It was sold to an elderly couple some twenty-five years ago. The owners at the time never came back for it. It was suspected they had died, and the estate did not want to have to deal with the property. Despite many attempts to reach out to the would-be owners, no one ever responded. The city seized the property at one point, to cover unpaid taxes.

The good news was no one wanted to buy this house. They had received many offers through the years, yet none of them turned into a closing sale. People who visited the property never came back to city hall. It was surprising, considering the location of this property.

The city was willing to get rid of the property for a few thousand dollars, mostly because they were not getting any tax revenue out of it, and it was also devaluating the surrounding properties.

A good deal is when both parties feel they obtained something in a deal and do not feel cheated. The city needed to sell the property, I wanted to buy it.

They supplied me with the proper documents, so I could look into the history of the property if I wanted. They never explained why the house was not showing on the satellite pictures. My guess was, at this point, it had to do with property devaluation. I thought no more out of it.

---

As the weeks went by, I decided to stay at the house to make proper renovations. In about a month, I managed to get the house itself hooked up with the usual services: electricity, satellite internet, and television. There already was a nearby cellular tower for my phone, and I had not used a landline in over a decade. Sewers were going into the septic basin, and the freshwater itself was coming from the property's water well.

I sanded and varnished the hardwood floor, fixed the staircase leading to the second floor, painted the interior with pastel colors, changed the doors and windows, changed the wood stove, and changed the bathroom entirely. The house itself needed a lot of repairs, and I overall most likely paid much more doing all this work than I would have paid by buying a new property.

I had fun making the renovations, hauling tools and materials. Very often I saw some of my neighbors staring at me while I was carrying the materials inside. Yet, every time I waved at them, they looked elsewhere as if they had not seen me.

The ground floor was, save for the water room, an open space: I had the kitchen set up at the back of the house, next to it. I had installed quite a lot of cabinets, both useful for pantry storage and cookware. Plenty of counter space was available in the kitchen area for me to cook my meals, do canning, dry my herbs, and make essential oils.

Some of my friends referred to me as being a witch, mostly a kitchen and a library one.

I set up my work area in the middle of the room, right across from the wood stove. Behind my L-shaped desk was a series of matching bookshelves, filled with some of my work and other books I enjoyed reading or used for inspiration. I barely had any picture frames on them. I had, however, installed on the brick wall behind the woodstove, my collection of decorative plates.

Finally, the living room area was set up at the frontmost part of the house. The stairs leading to the second floor were right next to my desk. They were a set of black wrought iron spiral stairs, typically the type you would normally see in backyards in major cities. They were durable and efficient in limited space.

The second floor itself was more interesting, as it contained two rooms, one on each side of the stairs. I had set up my bedroom to be at the front of the house since it is where I would benefit the most from daylight and the sun's warmth. I did not install any blinds nor curtains, as I enjoy waking up to the sun. Plus, I had a splendid view of the bay from this location.

The room at the back of the house was a whole different story. It was chilly, even for summer days. It was a mostly dark area, as there was barely any daylight going in. The room was devoid of any furniture, save for a mirror I found wrapped up while renovating the place. I decided to install it on the northern wall of the room. I had plans to transform this room into my home gym. I did add some candles, incense, and the rest of my meditation kit. My meditation mat had a giant Ouija board printed out on it.

On the outside of the house, I had some paving done for a driveway. I installed a flower bed. I even managed to install a home garden and several small greenhouses for herbs and plants around the property. It felt much more alive than when I first saw the place. Squirrels and other animals would now show up on the property. My cats never attacked any of them. And reciprocally, bears would not attack any of us. We had a pleasant symbiosis going on.

My cats roamed free in and out of the house throughout the whole duration of the renovations. Even after the work was done a few weeks later they were still allowed to go out. I built them a cat trap door for their convenience.

They were, however, quite happy to stay inside when the weather started getting cooler. The trio kept itself warm by laying a few feet away from the wood stove. One place where they categorically refused to go was inside the training room.

---

Fall had come, and I was finally enjoying my favorite season. The various colors in the trees, the pumpkin spice lattés, the cooler air at night, yet having warm days still, kept my spirits high. It was finally time for me to work on my new book.

For several days, I tried finding inspiration. I looked over all of the notebooks I previously filled with scribbles detailing current news and other thoughts that came to me during some of the most sporadic moments. Thus far, I had not had the slightest inkling of what to pen down.

One day past 4 PM, I went upstairs and unrolled my meditation mat in the middle of the training room, and installed my meditation cushion on its center. I lit up candles and incense. I kept the door to the room open, and despite my presence, my cats were still refusing to enter the room.

I shrugged and sat down in the lotus position, my legs crisscrossed with my bare feet resting on top of my thighs, my arms stretched out towards my knees, my palms facing up. My back was standing straight, and I closed my eyes. I took deep breaths and began my mindful meditation.

Breathe in, two, three, four…

Hold it, two, three, four…

Breathe out, two, three, four…

I followed this technique for a few minutes. I followed it until the beat became natural and constant. I then began letting my thoughts flow throughout my mind. Notes I had scribbled, news events I remembered, places I had gone to, people I had met. There was no specific order in which things came and went. One idea led to another one, and so on.

I was beginning to form an idea in my mind when I heard my cats meowing aggressively. I opened my eyes to see what they were up to, and to my surprise they were all now standing in front of me, facing towards the mirror. I looked at them, perplexed because they finally entered the room. They saw something in the mirror. I saw something as well.

The mirror was hung on the wall right in front of me. In its reflection, I could see the three cats, myself, and someone else standing right behind me. I quickly turned around to face the intruder, however, there was no one. I looked back towards the mirror, and the intruder was still there.

The intruder had an orange-red skin tone with charcoal markings, thin straight silver hair going down towards their shoulders, and narrow yellow eyes. They had a series of horns that sprouted on their shoulders and their forehead. I also saw a tail that ended with a patch of hair, silver as well. They were tall and considerably built. They wore leather boots and wristbands, as well as a blue fur sash.

I stared at them for a moment, uncertain of what to do next. My mind was rushing, trying to have an idea, or come up with an explanation for this sudden apparition. Nothing came up. I noticed, though, the landscape in the reflection was not the same as the room. It appeared to be a different location.

Mirrors were portals to other worlds.

For a moment, I thought the intruder was trying to enter my world. Is this what happened to the previous owners of this place? Has this intruder previously traveled through the mirror and killed them? Or worse, did they take them away? It made sense, as this was a former chapel. Maybe an exorcism went truly wrong, and this was the soul of a damned.

I realized the being could not come out via the portal, as the cats stood in the way. Cats will ward off evil spirits. I quickly got up, turned on the ceiling lights, and threw the nearby gray blanket on the mirror to cover it. With no reflection available, the mirror was made useless. The portal was shut, for the time being. I blew the candles and went downstairs.

I remained at my desk for several hours, recalling my encounter. The night had fallen, and I was all alone. My cats chose to stay inside the room and roamed around the mirror. I was not surprised by them acting this way. I did leave the door open, for when they would like to come out. Not even food brought them out.

I drank tea and constantly gazed at my ornamental plate collection hung on the opposite wall. I had eleven of them. My tele was also turned off for once. I was not in the mood to watch sports.

I had not closed my blinds, and once in a while, whenever a car passed by, I looked outside. It appeared as if the cars from the neighborhood were all slowing down when they saw the house, and would then speed up once they had a good look at the place.

---

In my library, I had an impressive collection of occult books, amongst other things. I had works covering a multitude of topics, including creatures and demons, exorcisms, portals, invocations, astral projections, and so on. I picked up several volumes to identify the being and, most importantly, how to invoke them in the first place. Pulling up the blanket off the mirror was not going to be enough in this situation.

It took me a hot minute to identify the being, based on what I perceived in the mirror and the descriptions provided in one of the volumes. The being, it seems, was a lesser servant of the underworld, who was held into eternal servitude and had to collect souls for a superior demon. To what purpose were those souls amassed for, I did not know.

Nor did I care.

Knowing which individual, I was dealing with made it much easier to know how to handle them, too. I looked up the instructions and the requirements for the invocation. I had about everything I needed accessible at my place.

As I was collecting the required tools and ingredients, I kept hearing the cats increasingly hissing and meowing aggressively. It was time for me to head above for the confrontation.

I started by hanging a white sheet on the ceiling, right in front of the mirror. I attached a rope I carefully stretched up to my standing location. As I was hanging the sheet to the ceiling, I felt the extra presence on the other side of the gray blanket covering the mirror. They were still there and still trying to come this way.

I opened up a book I brought upstairs and started following the indications to make the summoning diagram. There was a common misconception that pentagrams were used as the devil's symbol for incantations, when in fact they were Venus' symbol. What I was about to draw had nothing to do with a pentagram.

I placed a plate in front of the mirror, about two feet away from it. I poured a mixture of lime, liquid wax, salt, and herbs I previously made, on the hardwood floor. I drew a half-moon shape, going from both sides of the mirror, and joining in front of it. The shape had a 6-foot radius. I also attached a rope to the blanket and ran it to the same place as the other rope.

I then lit up some incense sticks and candles around the perimeter of the summoning half-circle and drew a series of symbols with the mixture. I looked at the image in the book and my art and was satisfied.

I threw the cats out of the room, closed the door, put on some aviator glasses, and started reciting the incantation. Some of the passages required me to do exact hand movements, use specific ingredients, and as expected, use some of my blood. I did a small cut in the palm of my left hand and sprinkled blood over the symbols. I then pulled the gray blanket using one of the two ropes.

The demon was there, waiting.

They roared upon seeing me. I stood still, with the knife still in one hand, the open book in the other. They looked down on the ground and saw no cats. They also saw the half-moon and felt compelled to come forth. After a moment of hesitation, they left their plane of existence and crossed into my plane.

As they were coming out of the portal, I realized the being was much bigger than I expected. They roared some more, trying to intimidate me. Still, I refused to step back. They came forth and stepped onto the plate. The trap was set.

This was a battle of will, whoever of us had the weakest will would lose and serve the other forever.

They stared straight into my eyes, trying to make eye contact. I was wearing those glasses, and all they saw was their eye reflection. It blinded them, and they turned around, in pain. They failed to ensnare me with their glare and were now trying to go back into the portal. With a swift arm movement, I cut off the other rope and the sheet fell from the ceiling, covering the mirror.

The road was cut off.

They turned around again, this time to challenge me.

I threw my book away, held the dagger still in front of me, and started reciting the incantation I had learned. The demon hissed at me and conjured an energy scythe. They swung their weapon towards me, well-intended to cut me in half, however, the half-moon also operated as a protective barrier. The weapon clashed with the faint light the half-moon emitted and was instantly disintegrated. This action also burned the demon's hand, and they emitted a loud shriek in response.

I managed to complete my incantation, and the demon was held in place. They continued to hiss, screech, and roar in discontentment. For a brief moment, I thought about my next-door neighbor and wondered if they could hear the screams and see the lights.

I glanced at the demon. They were paralyzed and in agony. They were also starting to recoil. The second they were no bigger than a smurf, I took a half-gallon glass Mason jar I also schlepped upstairs and imprisoned the entity inside it.

They made one last attempt at breaking the jar to flee, however, they were too feeble to shatter it. I held the recipient in place over the plate. The cats entered the room, and as they were surrounding me, the demon gradually disappeared for good in a blinding green light. I let out a sigh of relief.

---

A few days later, as I came back from running errands, I could not avoid noticing my neighbors were now all responding to me whenever I was waving at them. I wondered if they had the slightest idea of what transpired here all along, or if they had been ensnared as well.

As I finally sat down to write the beginning of my new book, I observed my three cats were laying down again at their usual location, a few feet apart from the wood stove. Warren, Edward, and Lorraine were enjoying the heat it released while keeping a steady eye on the ornamental plate collection. Twelve plates were now hanging on the wall. Once in a while, the cats would get excited when they detected movement originating from one of them.

I started typing this new story. The first few lines went as follow:

"I was that now typical late 30s Xennial woman. I was divorced, and without biological children, save for my three cats…"

---

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this story are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.