What Lies Within

The house sat silent in the dusk light, the hot day now having fizzled to a dark orange hew in the night sky and darkening into a deep purple along the horizon. The house was baron and deserted, its windows long since shattered and its roof sagging with decay and rot.

The house sat in a large circle of lifeless dirt and cracked, dehydrated ground, seeming black and charred from a fire that had long since consumed the area. All was silent around the ruin, animals from the woodland that surrounded this house knowing the deathly presence the remnant produced and how creatures who ventured too close died quickly and mysteriously.

Tom had known the curse that had been placed upon his old home, put there by a witch who did not yet fully understand the power in which she wielded. It had been her who also cursed him and his brother for all eternity, to roam the land until the house was destroyed. He knew that wouldn’t happen though. He had waited for almost two hundred years for nature to take its full toll on the house, but it never came. It simply froze in its rotten state like a cancerous blemish upon the earth.

He had tried to burn it to the ground, almost fifty years ago now, but as the flames began to lick at the side of the building with their destructive hunger, it cracked and sputtered with distaste, like it had been poisoned by the very walls it tried to consume, fizzling out to a simple cinder. He had spent that night drinking his sorrows away, knowing that he was sentenced to an eternal life of wandering the world and watching all he cared for turn to dust.

He reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out the short remains of a cigar he had partially smoked earlier, swiping a match on the rock he sat upon and bringing it to the ash-covered end, holding it there for a few seconds before plumes of grey and blue smoke began to rise into the cold night air.

Being next to the house felt corrupting and infectious, his stomach writhing in distain of being so close to the plague on his family. He was just beginning to look at his watch in annoyance when the soft crunching of gravel echoed from beyond the clearing, where the path that led to the house became shrouded in an overgrowth of wild bushes and trees. There, from the darkness, emerged a tall man in a black suit, his angular face filled with a mix of grimace and disgust at the sight of the house.

His eyes darted from the house to the circle of trees that edged the property, and then to Tom, who hadn’t yet acknowledged his presence and instead looked out across the lake that could be seen through the thinning line of trees on the left side of the house, moonlight now shimmering across the surface like a thousand spotlights glaring up at him.

“I would’ve thought you’d be later.” The man in the black suit announced, taking out a pipe from his jacket and lighting it easily with a thick match of his own.

“This is as much my burden as it is yours, Solomon. We should face this together.” Tom said, lifting himself from the rock and walking over to his brother. “Thanks for coming anyway. For a long while, I debated whether you would actually show, but I’m glad you did.” Tom continued, taking his brother’s hand in his own in a gripping hand shake, the tension between the two bleeding into it.

“Like you said, this house is both of our burdens to deal with.” Solomon spoke with a bitterness, both for the man who shook his hand and for the structure that stared out at him with empty eye sockets.

Tom turned to face the house and began walking down the path toward where the door stood ajar and crooked, only attached by the bottom hinge. He froze at the threshold and waited until he could sense the presence of his brother behind him. Then, with much tribulation, he crossed into the darkness of the house, feeling the temperature plummet like a rock in water. It seemed to reach into him and chill his bones down to the marrow, his joints feeling stiff and beginning to ache with every move.

“I promised myself I’d never step foot in this house ever again.” Solomon said, stepping into the house himself and staring up and down the damp and mould-infested walls.

“I did too, but I kept having dreams about this place. Nightmares really.”

“Nightmares? Let me guess. You’re outside the house looking in. Then you get dragged inside by unseen force?” Solomon said, begrudgingly.

Tom looked at his brother with unease for a long moment before nodding, feeling his heart grow heavy with an uneasiness surrounding the house and why it was calling them now after so long.

The two men turned into what once was a dining room, an old oak table still holding old glass jugs and silver ornate cutlery, its wood stained with age and animal excrement. Solomon took a moment to examine each piece of cutlery, taking the knives and forks in his hand and feeling the artistic engravings with the tip of his thumb, before returning them in the exact same position he had found them in.

Tom became more interested in the paintings on the wall, staring at one in particular which featured a family in front of a brightly lit house, the familiar shimmering of a lake in the background. There, in the picture was him and his brother stood next to a woman with bright blonde hair, smiling happily at the painter. Behind them, a tall man and woman sat, the man brooding with a thick moustache and the woman fair and gentle faced. Looks can be deceiving Tom thought, thinking of how caring his father had been for him and his brother and how utterly miserable his mother had made them when they were growing up. Sometimes, when he and his brother would meet, and those occasions were very scarce, he would see the same glimmer of animosity in his brother’s eyes as their mother, who’s anger burned like that of a stick of TNT, sudden and very explosive.

She had died long ago however, along with his father, allowing the house to fall into the possession of the children. That’s when the curse had been cast.

“It hasn’t changed at all.” Said Solomon, having reached the end of the table and now staring into the stone fireplace, wood still piled inside it. “Apart from the animal dung of course.” He mused.

Tom went to reply but as he opened his mouth, the floorboard above him creaked, sending a chill down the back of his spine and making the blood in his veins run icy cold. His heart thrummed in his chest with an unsteady beat and his eyes darted quickly to his brother, whose head had whipped from the fireplace to the ceiling, watching it as if it were about to collapse at any moment.

“Someone’s up there.” Tom whispered, hearing strategic footsteps creep quietly away from the floorboard which had screamed out at them.

Solomon nodded slowly; his eyes transfixed on the splintered wood above them. Tom turned slowly and began to walk slowly out the room, looking down the long, thin corridor to the staircase, the steps illuminated by the purple light of the dying sun that glowed through the window. This time, Solomon did not follow.

He crept lightly up the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible but failing due to the bent wood beneath him, which seemed to squeal out at him with every step. Eventually he came to the door to the room that sat above the dining room, his hand slowly grasping the door knob, his grip making the knuckles of his hand turn a pale, milky white. Before he could open the door however, a voice which did not belong to his brother called out to him.

“Come in, Tom.” The voice was light and high, almost having been sung by the person on the other side of the door, but it was a voice Tom knew very, very well.

“Jesus.” He gasped, his hand recoiling from the doorknob. For a moment he contemplated simply walking back down the stairs, out the front door and back down the garden path to never see the house and its inhabitant again, but something in the back of his head told him to open the door and confront who stood on the other side. He listened, anger flaring quickly in the pit of his stomach like burning tar before he flung the door open, seeing the girl with the bright blonde hair in the painting standing at the other end of the room. She was staring out of a half-shattered window which overlooked the entirety of the lake. Her glowing hair hung down to the middle of her back where a dress then began, hanging down to the bottom of her thighs.

“What on Earth are you doing here?” Tom flared, feeling his hands grip tightly into fists.

“It’s nice to see you too, Thomas.” The woman spoke with a soft melody, turning to shoot a toothful grin at him.

“You’ve got some nerve, Sarah.” He spat.

The heavy footfalls of Solomon came trudging up the stairs and then he too stood in the doorway, briefly looking at the back of Tom’s head, to the time-destroyed room and then fixedly at the woman before them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He laughed, not believing the sheer bad luck he was getting lately.

“No hi, Sis? How are you, Sis? Nothing?” She asked, smirking at the two and finding their reactions highly amusing.

“What are you doing here, Sarah?” Asked Tom, Anger still pulsing through him and heating away the chill the house emanated.

“Same thing you two are doing here, I’m guessing. You had the dreams too?” She asked, looking from one angry face to the other.

“You’ve had the dreams? That’s rich considering you caused all this.” Solomon was like a boiling pot, ready to spill over at any point.

“You two aren’t still bitter about that are you? So, I messed up the curse, big deal. I didn’t know it would make us all immortal. I just wanted the house to imprison our mother’s spirit for all eternity. Guess it backfired.” She laughed but quickly ceased when she realised her brothers weren’t.

“Save it, Sarah. I’m done with trying to come to peace with what you did.” Said Tom, feeling Solomon’s anger shake the very foundations of the house, a silent rage building on his face.

“Fine, don’t forgive me. But, as to why we all have been summoned here, I think I’ve discovered why we are having the dreams.” Sarah walked over to a small bed in the corner of the room, one which the two men hadn’t even noticed before now and grabbed something from the darkness beneath. She placed the object heavily on the bed and moved to the side, revealing a brown paper box.

Tom examined it from afar for a long moment before looking back up to his sister. “And what exactly is that supposed to be?” He asked impatiently, feeling like a fool for even sticking around for this long.

“In that box is the very magic that holds us here, and if we can get it open, we may be able to burn this place to the ground.” She said, a smile beginning to rise on her face.

Her words excited both Tom and Solomon, but as he looked more and more deeply at the box, his heart juddered with a sharp stab of fear he would only feel in the presence of one person. His Mother.