What Happened Here

It perched on the roof, peering at him with intent and wary eyes. Its gaze so sharp and predatory, that he felt his very soul shrink within himself. He was its prey, skittering helplessly through the grass as it pursued, talons outstretched, ready to shred. To tear. To kill. Its eyes told him it knew. An all-seeing being sent as his divine judgment, perhaps. An eye from above to count each tremor of fear and every hesitant step. Despite all his instincts and nerves twitching within him and preparing to run from what he knew lay ahead, he trekked cautiously toward the dilapidated house and the knowing barn owl that watched from above.

Decades of decay scattered themselves about the land, through the overgrown driveway, and in between the cracks of a long abandoned set of stairs. Rusted barbed wire and tools could be found every which way, strewn like mines waiting to be set off. White paint peeled from the walls and columns of the farmhouse, a shedding skin revealing the truth of the beast that it hid. A rusting chain coiled where a child once swung, smiling to her father from the porch swing, while another still dangled above, swaying methodically front to back in the breeze.

He knew any trace of human remnants would have long dissolved from the dry and cracking dirt, but in his mind, the tracks of footprints from that night had fossilized there in the mud. Indeed, they lived like scars carved into his eyelids in moments of darkness or when his eyes dared to betray him and close for even a moment.

He stopped at the foot of the steps, the shadows between the boards seeming to whisper his name, begging him to misstep and find what might lay beyond. But he was here to take his prize and for that purpose alone, and the night would not claim him.

Cautiously, he tiptoed around the rotting wood, careful not to wake whatever ghosts or demons awaited past the threshold of the unforgiving memory that the house had become. Once, he could have made his way past every creak and bend in the wood without the slightest of hesitation, but now he tested every step to see if it would bear his inconvenient weight. Turning right immediately past the doorway, he narrowed his vision as he walked through the hollow hallway, lest his heart hesitate and break his will for even a second. For all he knew, the images that hung were faded anyways, and he could not waste even a second of time on reminiscence.

When he reached the doorway, something old and habitual moved his hand to knock on the door labeled “M r ha” in flaking metallic letters, and with the gentlest rap, the door swung open with unnatural ease, as if newly greased. Without his permission, his lungs inhaled sharply at the sight of the room, so familiar, and completely untouched. And yet, it seemed so foreign through a filter of gray as a layer of heavy dust swirled in response to the open door. He knew they had owned very little, but the room was so much smaller and more bare than his rose-tinted glasses had allowed him to remember. A small bed with a bear sitting atop its delicate quilt and thin pillow lived in the left corner beside a child’s pink vanity with a jewelry music box settled in the middle. A dresser that stood no taller than his waist rested against the opposite wall. And that was it.

How pitiful.

But he could dwell on their misfortune once he left.

With whatever confidence he could muster, he strode towards the music box. A fragile, insignificant thing. But the most precious object the girl had once possessed.

“It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever, ever gotten. Thank you!” he could hear her voice softly in his mind, but as clearly as if aloud. He imagined the girl leaping toward him, gleeful tears in —

He popped open its lid and sifted through an assortment of costume jewelry that tangled and twisted within. A cough burst forth from his mouth as a small amount of dust plumed even from there, abandonment and disregard finding its way inside even a sealed memory such as this. The shimmer of colors and metal shifted around as he removed them one by one, careful not to lose the object he was seeking. And there it was. The only thing that would ever draw him back to the place that curled like smoke around his dreams: a simple golden band with a single diamond nestled, sparkling, in the middle. The wealth that lay in his hands was unspeakable.

After the girl’s mother had left, and abandoned the ring for him to find by his bedside, he had given it to the child, hoping she might find some use for it, like he clearly never had.

“Daddy, look! I look just like mommy! Don’t I look just like her?” The girl had said, bursting into the room wearing her mother’s gown and the ring on her hand. Her face was lit with a joyful glow that burned bright enough to set fire to the last of something shriveled in his chest.

That was just it. She did. She looked precisely like her mother. And something ravenous and angry filled the hollows of his being. And the thing felt so much more powerful than the sadness. The thing took up the emptiness his wife had left behind. The thing reminded him, it told him that it was unforgivable. She had so much of her mother and so little of him. So little of him.

Shaking his head, the man returned himself to the present. But something weak inside the man hesitated at the feeling of the carefully crafted box in his hands. Twisting the key of the music box, he hoped he might hear the song once more and that it would feel something like a final goodbye. He could even pretend it was the sound of forgiveness. But as he released the key, no sound came from the box. Instead he heard, faint as a whisper —

“Daddy?”

His breath caught and his limbs became unbearably, immovably heavy at the sound of the little voice. Quiet. Quiet enough to be his imagination. Or a creak in the very foundation of a house that had been unaltered, untouched for so long.

“Daddy?”

As he turned, the house molded itself to the form he had remembered that day. Dull light and the sound of rain pattered in through windows, and all traces of dust leeched themselves from the air. Shades of pink were suddenly smeared haphazardly throughout the room, and the letters on the door read “Martha” as footsteps stumbled their way down the hallway.

“Daddy, daddy!” The girl yelled excitedly, tramping to the porch. “Daddy, come look!”

He was halfway down the hallway before he noticed he had moved. Pictures hung with smiling faces on the walls, and hand-painted flowers trailed their way around each frame.

“Daddy, come ooooon!”

“I’m… I’m coming.” croaked the words from his throat, bringing forth a voice that had not been his own for longer than he could remember.

Gently, as not to disturb whatever gift or second chance he had just been given, he shuffled toward the front door and onto the porch. He dared not breathe for fear the vision would slip from his grasp.

There, on the swing, the girl in her mothers dress smiled up at him. She stood. He did not move. He did not speak. Or breath. He simply looked.

To his left heard a strange rustling, and as he was about to look the girl spoke.

“Daddy, look! I look just like mommy! Don’t I look just like her?”

But this time nothing lit inside him. This time felt like the first drop of fresh water. Like air in his lungs. Like life.

“You look just like her. So beautiful.”

The rustling returned, and he felt his body shift ever so slightly toward the sound that was disrupting the enchanting scene before him. Seeing his itch, the girl looked sternly at her father.

“Daddy.” she pouted.

The rustling increased. The need to see burned inside him like angry pain.

“Don’t do it, daddy.” she said in her sing-song tone.

Against her advice, he looked to his left, and found the barn owl staring through him with dark piercing eyes. The eyes that saw. The eyes that knew. With a stretch of its wings, the vision broke as quickly as it came. Darkness and cold flooded his senses, the smell of rot and decay eating the remnants of that fleeting moment of beauty. Turning, he found the girl remaining where she had stood. Purple bruises marred the pale softness of her throat and dark stains trailed from her temple and from her chest, dying the white fabric of her mothers wedding dress an inky color in the shadow of the night.

A sharp and biting cold dug its nails into his skin, but the sweet-faced child beckoned her father to her as if prepared to welcome him into her arms. Her eyes were soft as he stepped forward, ready to receive forgiveness in a loving embrace. He was standing just inches away when her face darkened and she smiled with a sharp crack. No, not her. The wood beneath him splintered under his weight, and he fell below. Fear rose within his chest as the darkness clawed at him and whispered his name, claiming him as its eternal prize. His head hit the earth with a snap, and with his last moment of sight before his soul fled for whatever circle of hell would take him, he saw the twisted bones of a child shudder with the pleasure of revenge.