Reality House

"OH, MY GOD! THERE IT IS! STOP THE CAR JACOB!!!" Lily exclaimed as the house she saw in the ad came into view.

Lily and Jacob had lived in the same neighborhood for most of their twelve year marriage. They had liked the area when they moved in, but their once peaceful neighborhood had seen its share of crime and decline lately. The straw that broke the camel's back and made them decide to move had been three nights ago while they were out to dinner. They had been celebrating their twelve-year anniversary when someone broke into their home and ransacked the place. Anything of value that wasn't locked in the safe was taken, and when the police finally got there, they acted as though they couldn't care less. They were absolutely no help. So the next day, Lily went online to find a new house in their price range. Lo and behold, she found a lovely house a few neighborhoods over, on the nicer side of town. It was a closer commute to Jacob's work and was well within their price range.

Lily wasted no time calling the number on the ad to set up a walk-through. They had set it up for that Saturday morning, but when Saturday arrived, Lily had gotten a text telling her to go ahead and have a look at the place and the code to the key lock box on the door. The owner said he wouldn't be able to make it, but if they wanted to take a look, to go right ahead. Just be sure to return the key when they were done, and let them know what they thought. Jacob was very reluctant and wanted Lily to reschedule for a time when the owner could join them, but Lily wouldn't hear of it. She threatened to go herself, but that seemed to make up Jacob's mind, and he agreed to come with her.

As they pulled into the driveway, Lily could hardly contain herself. She jumped out of the car and rushed to the porch, stretching her arm and taking a deep breath. The scent of gardenia filled her nose, the smell reminding her of the summer she spent with her Grandma as a child. In fact, the front porch reminded her a little of her grandparent's home. The long porch stretched the whole front of the house, and it had several weather-worn rockers and a swing hanging from a pair of chains. Had her Grandma had a swing like that? Had she sat on it and swung when she was a little girl? Had she gone too high, perhaps, and...

Jacob leaned out the window, his hand over the phone, "Sweetheart, it's work. I have to take this call. I'll catch up with you as soon as I'm done."

Lily gave him a tart look, and shrugged. She took one more deep breath before mounting the porch and approaching the front door. She had seen it on Zillow when she was looking for houses, and it had been one of the biggest reasons she had wanted the place. It had eight squares on the front, and they were green, red, and green, just like her grandparent's door. She could remember standing in front of that door as a little girl, feeling excited as she waited for it to open. Since her grandmother wasn't going to let her in this time, she put in the passcode and got the key to open the door.

The door opened with a little creek, and Lily stepped inside with a broad grin.

Jacob looked up at Lily as she walked into the house, thinking of how beautiful she looked as she walked past the threshold.

He couldn't have known this could be the last time he'd ever see her.

As Lily stepped into the front hall of the house, she felt a bit of deja vu. She felt like she was coming home, as if she had been here a thousand times before. To her right was a large archway that led into a sitting room. Lily decided to check out that room first since it was the closest, and there was a window so she could look out to see if Jacob was coming in. As she walked into the room, she felt a change in the atmosphere, and the whole place seeming to shift. Lily walked to the window to call out to Jacob, but when she looked outside, his car was no longer in the driveway. Instead, there were several familiar-looking cars. Was that her parent's car from when she was nine? And that car looked like Aunt Judy's car. That truck parked on the street looked just like her grandparents, but that was impossible. She'd watched her parents sell that car when she was ten. What was going on?

As she stood there confused, she heard a voice calling to her. Lily turned around, but she was no longer alone. Her family filled the couch and chairs. The room looked just like her grandmas sitting room from when she was a child. She could remember seeing everyone seated like this once before, and the memory made her feel kind of crawly. As a child, they had often sat in this room during holidays and special occasions, but something was off today. Something wasn't quite how she remembered it. Everyone looked as though they'd been crying. She didn't remember this scene from her childhood quite like this; something was wrong.

As she abandoned her place next to the window, she walked as though in a haze to where her mother sat. She looked up as Lily approached and patted the couch next to her, motioning her to sit. Her mother put an arm around her, not an altogether familiar feeling, and when Lily spoke, her voice was that of a young child again.

"What's wrong, mama"? Lily said, looking around at everyone and seeing tears welling in their eyes.

Her father spoke first. "Lily bug, there's been an accident. Your grandmother fell down the basement stairs. She...she didn't make it."

As those words left his mouth, everyone began to wail, and Lily felt her mother press her face against her head. Lily sat, speechless, trying to process what she'd heard. This wasn't how she remembered this, was it? Lily got up from her spot on the couch and began to pace. Her memories of that day were fuzzy, but as she walked between the couch and window, they began to solidify. She remembers her family telling her Grandma had gone to see her sister in Boca, not that she was DEAD! When Lily turned back to confront her mother, though, she found she was alone again in the sitting room. The furniture, her family, everything was gone. The room was as it was when she walked through the front door, and Lily shuddered as a palpable chill went through her.

"Looks like a goose walked over your grave," she heard her Grandma say, and it was as if she was just in the other room.

Lily rushed to the front door to get out of the house, wanting nothing so much as to smell the gardenias again, before she jumped in the car and told Jacob to drive away. She should have listened to him. They should have waited, but she had been so eager to see this place. It had brought back so many memories, so many times that made her feel young again, but that was gone now. She didn't care how dangerous her neighborhood was. She would gladly live there for the rest of time if it meant she could leave this mausoleum.

The door, however, was gone!

The entryway was still there, but the wall where the front door should be was blank.

She ran back to the sitting room window and started pounding on it, trying to get Jacob's attention.

His car was back, her husband sitting on the front seat, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

"JACOB, HELP ME!" She screamed, but Jacob didn't answer. He glanced up but then looked back down to the phone, talking with Terry or Mark or whoever it was calling him from work. He couldn't see her, he didn't know she was stuck, and suddenly Lily realized she was alone.

If she was going to get out of here, she would have to do it herself.

Lily thought she might as well look for another way out, and as if summoned, she noticed the hallway that ran opposite the sitting room. There would be a bathroom down there if she remembered right, and some cold water on her face sounded like exactly what she needed. She headed to the bathroom, but as she got closer, she felt that strange shivering again. As she came closer, she could hear the sound of sloshing water as if someone was splashing frantically in the bathtub. Lilly stepped cautiously to the door that separated her from the small bathroom and peeked in as the old wooden barrier made a fun creek in protest.

She could see her father knelt down at the side of the tub, and she could see him holding her Mother's head under the water! Lily stepped back, the door opening to give her a terrible view of her mother's drowning, but it all seemed wrong. That wasn't how she remembered that horrible time when she was twelve, was it? Lily remembered her father trying to help her mother out of the tub as she had a seizure. She remembered him trying but not being able to save her. This new reality of what really happened hurt her brain more than her heart, and Lily tore off in a mad scramble to be away from the awful sound of her mother drowning again and again. Lily ran to the staircase that lay beyond the foyer and darted up the steps without thinking of where she was going. As she ran into one of the bedrooms, her mind still reeling from the scene below, the feeling of deja vu came yet again.

As she took in the room she had just run into, she could see a crib with a mobile twirling overhead. The smiling yellow ducks spun drunkenly, but even their placidity could bring no joy to this scene. This was her son's room! NO, SHE PLEADED, NOT THIS MEMORY! Her husband walked into the room holding their three-week-old son to his chest. It should have brought her joy to see him again until she realized her wonderful husband was holding little Johnathan's face to his chest, muffling the sounds of his cries. He didn't seem to notice her watching him, didn't seem to care at all that he was snuffing the life from what would be their only child. After the baby had stopped crying, Jacob quietly kissed him on his little cheek and placed him in his crib.

But no, that's not how that had gone at all. Lily's memory was fuzzy, but she remembered Jacob holding their baby and comforting him till he fell asleep. When she had woken up and noticed that Johnathan hadn't woken up for a feeding yet, she went to his room and found him cold and blue in his crib. She screamed for her husband, and Jacob had rushed to her side to find her cradling their poor baby as if she could bring him back to life. They called nine-one-one, but when the EMTs arrived, they said it was too late. His death was stated as SIDS, and the two had been left to mourn their loss.

Lily didn't know how much more she could take in this house.

She slid down the wall crying as the crib vanished, and the room, once again, was empty. Lily sat there for a few minutes getting her barrings, then she got up and slowly walked down the stairs. She didn't want to see anymore, but she knew that she had to get out of this house if she intended to have any sanity left when she escaped.

* * * * *

As Jacob sat in the front seat talking to his boss, he realized Lily had not yet come out of the house. It had been at least an hour since he told her he would catch up, and she should have been able to see the whole place twice in an hour. He looked up at the window that overlooked the front yard, hoping to see her looking out at him, but no such luck.

"Listen, Mark, we can handle the rest on Monday. I need to check on Lily. She's alone in the house we both are supposed to be looking at, and I'm getting a little worried about her. Okay, see you Monday, bye."

As Jacob climbed out of the car and walked toward the porch, he could smell a familiar smell. He stopped in the walkway and took a deep whiff, savoring a scent he hadn't smelled in years. It was bourbon and cigar smoke, and it reminded him of Saturday night poker games at his dad's house. Dad's poker nights had been full of both, and Jacob remembered peeking in as a kid so he could watch the festivities. As he got to the door and tried to open it to join his wife, but the door was locked. He knocked, wondering why she had locked it behind herself if she wanted him to come look too?

"Lily?" he called out, "Let me in, sweetheart. I'm sorry it took so long. You know how much of a windbag Mark can be."

But Lily didn't respond. He knocked a little louder, but still no response. At this point, Jacob began to worry something had happened to her. He pounded on the door, his fears coming back at the thought of what could be happening to her. Hadn't he thought this sounded like a great way to get robbed or kidnapped? He didn't know this guy from Adam, and he had just let his wife go in alone? What had he been thinking?"

" LILY"! He yelled as he beat on the door, but no answer came.

* * * * * *

Lily walked down the steps and into the basement as if in a trance. She was numb from the torture this house had put her through and just wanted to be outside in the sun again before it could show her anything else. As she descended the basement stairs, the air shifted again, and she steadied herself for what was next. She opened her eyes to see she was in her own basement, but something was off. The shelf where she kept her Christmas ornaments was pushed away from the wall. As she walked over to see why it was pulled away, she saw a trap door under where the shelf usually sat. The door was open, and Lily could hear something down there. Whatever it was, it was crying out softly as though too weak to scream.

* * * * * *

Jacob, worried and a little angry, decides to try to find another way in. He walked around the back of the house, but as he came to the gate, he too felt that overpowering sense of deja vu. When he got to the backyard, he saw a swing set looking lonely in the open space. It looked like his old swing set from when he was a child, and he walked curiously toward it.

When he reached the swings, Jacob sat down and looked at the back door. He realized it was his childhood door and scrunched up his eyes as he tried to make sense of it. He had spent a lot of time on this swing while dad "talked" to mommy. As he watched the window by the door, Jacob saw people inside talking loudly, their silhouettes performing sad little plays for his child's eyes. But this isn't how he remembered it happening.

Or was it?

It had been just another fight, his dad starting it like always. The mailman had been sitting at their kitchen table when he came home, a cold towel on his head as he drank a glass of moms lemonade. He had nearly collapsed on the front lawn in the heat, and though his father had smiled when he saw the man cooling off in his kitchen, Jacob had seen his mother flinch when he looked at her. His father had waited till after dinner to tell his son to go play outback while they talked, and his mother had seemed to beg him with her eyes not to leave.

Jacob watched as his dad reached for something on the counter, and his mom's silhouette backed away slowly. His dad lunged in with sudden rage, and Jacob imagined he heard the frying pan connected with the side of her head. His dad's dark afterimage stood over her for a few minutes, the pan coming down a few more times until sanity seemed to reassert itself. He stood up, the image realizing that it had "talked" a little too vigorously this time. Jacob could almost see the lack of confidence in the outline as it weighed its options. When it looked out at him, Jacob realized his father meant to make him an accomplice to his folly.

"Jacob!" His dad yelled from the doorway. "Go get me a shovel from the shed. Then I need you to get in the truck and wait for me."

Jacob hopped dutifully off the swing with much smaller feet than his own. He was horrified at his blind fanaticism but understanding it all too well. As he ran to the shed to fetch the shovel, he realized that the memory of the night his mom left him wasn't the way he remembered it. Dad wasn't planting a garden to surprise mom with, and Mom hadn't left them for the fella who ran the register at Ralph's. He did what he was told, though, and grabbed the shovel. He gave it to his dad and ran to the truck as his father began grunting at something that must have been very heavy in the kitchen.

It couldn't have been his mother.

Jacob's mom ate like a bird.

Surely he wouldn't have had to strain so much to lift her.

As soon as Jacob got into the truck, everything became hazy again. He realized he was back in his own car, his father's truck gone. As Jacob sat there, he began to cry. He didn't want to cry, hadn't cried in so long, but found the tears just wouldn't stop. He was terrified of what had just happened. He was scared of a man he had buried ten years ago. He was grieving for his mother in a way he had never managed when he was eight.

Above all else, Jacob was worried about his wife.

* * * * * *

"Hello," Lily whispered as she descended the stairs. "Who's down there"? "Do you need help"? She whispered, understanding the irony of her question a little too late. As she spoke, the whimpering stopped. It was dark and damp down here, the floor made of packed dirt, and the smell of earth and iron filled her nose. As she felt around for a light switch, she could hear something shifting across the room. Lily paused for a second trying to listen to what it was. It was hard to hear over the sound of her heart beating in her ears, and Lily was afraid of getting snuck up on by the specters in the house again.

She found a small chain hanging down from a bulb in the low ceiling. As she pulled it, the small light lit the room pathetically, but what she saw still terrified her! This was not any memory that she ever had! She looked to where the sound was coming from and found herself staring back from a dirty mattress on the floor! She was battered and beaten, starved, with one hand attached to the wall by a metal cuff. Lily, in shock, started to back away but heard someone walking in the basement. She quickly turned off the light and backed up against the far wall, praying the darkness would hide her. As the steps got closer, Lily felt around for something to defend herself with just in case the person came downstairs. As she slid her hand across the cold dirt, she found what felt like a pipe, and picked it up as she held it to her chest.

A few moments later, she could hear heavy footsteps coming down the cellar stairs. She closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn't be seen. When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the cellar. She was at the front door.

* * * * * *

Jacob got himself together and returned to the backyard to find a way in. The swing set was gone, as was the shed. The back door was no longer his childhood back door, either. This door was white with a blue ruffle at the top of a window, and the realization made him feel a little bit better. He rushed up the three steps to the door and turned the knob. The door opened easily, and as he walked over the threshold into the kitchen, he felt the shift again.

He was in his dad's kitchen, and his father was talking to a police officer.

"Mr. Daniels, do you know of anywhere your ex-wife would've gone to"? The officer asked, tapping his pencil on a notebook that looked ancient.

"No, officer. Like I've told you all before, she called me three weeks ago asking me to pick up our son because she needed a break from him. He can be a handful, so I agreed and went over to get my boy. She didn't tell me where she was going or when she'd be back. Jacob, go on to your room now and play. Let me and these officers finish our conversation."

He had been nine when the officers had come to question his father. Jacob knew better than to disagree with his dad, but he knew that his mother had made no such request. At the time, it had seemed that maybe his dad had been confused, but Jacob would find out later that his mother had divorced him and left town with someone else. She had never tried to see Jacob again, and his father telling the police a lie had always seemed weird to him.

One look at his father's flinty eyes, however, had told him to do as he was told, and Jacob ran for the staircase in the living room.

As Jacob walked towards the doorway, he looked back toward his father, only to find that everything was gone.

The kitchen was empty, save for him.

* * * * * *

Lily reached for the handle of the door, turning the knob with trepidation.

Was this another trick? Some new game for the house to tease her with? She had never given up hope that she would get out, but she thought she might have believed the house would keep her here forever anyway. Would they even find her body, she had wondered. Would they know it was hers if they did?

The door swung open, and Lily was again assaulted by the smell of gardenias. She came down the steps, running over the walk, and found the car exactly where she'd left it. She almost saw Jacob sitting there, the phone still pressed to his ear, but when she stuck her head into the window, she found the car empty, the keys still in the ignition. Lily wasn't sure what to make of this, and as she sat in the passenger seat, her mind started trying to make sense of what she'd seen.

She realized her marriage, her whole life, was full of lies. Her mind made up memories to protect her from reality, but the house showed her the truth. She remembered what her father had done to her mother and what her husband did to their son, and she felt disgust well up inside of her.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she whispered to herself, tears coming unbidden.

That still didn't explain why she had seen herself down in that cellar in such a state. As Lily thought about it, she realized she needed answers. She climbed over to the driver's side and turned the key. The engine came to life, and Lily pealed the tires as she headed home. She wouldn't feel safe in that house until she checked the basement to be sure of what was there.

Jacob would be angry if he came back to find the car missing, and if such a place existed in her home, she would likely find herself there if he made it home.

* * * * *

Jacob called out to Lily, hoping to find her safe and sound as he made it to the stairs. He could hear someone upstairs, and he kept calling for his wife as he ascended. He could hear someone crying in the bedroom to the right of him, and he was afraid she had gotten hurt, or worse, that someone had hurt her.

"Sweetheart, is that you? Are you ok?" He called out.

He slowly opened the door and peeked in to see himself holding their son. His wife cried as she watched him smothering their son. The baby had been crying for hours, and Jacob couldn't handle the high pitch squealing anymore. He snapped, and it was something he regretted every day. He had tried to move from beneath the shadow of his father, especially after what he’d done to Lily, but it seemed that you never quite forgot the old ways and the old lessons. He reached for Lily as she lay there crying, but as his hands passed through her, she turned to dust beneath his fingers. Everything melted away like dandelion fluff, and suddenly, the room was empty.

As he backed out of the room, he heard sobbing from the bedroom across the hall. Jacob's hands shook as he reached for the knob, but he had to find Lily and make her understand how sorry he was for their son's death. He peeked inside as the door creaked open and could see his own bedroom inside. Lily was crying as she spoke with someone on the phone. She was talking about...oh god, she was talking about his little secret. She had found the root cellar, the shame he had hidden for years, and now she knew everything. He charged in, trying to stop her, but as soon as he crossed the threshold, it all just melted away.

Jacob's father had often said that the "apple didn't fall far from the tree," and Jacob supposed he'd been right. Lily had taken a lot of convincing, a lot of mental conditioning, but Stockholm syndrome was an interesting thing. She never remembered how she'd come to be in Jacob's basement after he took her from her work one evening. She never questioned how they had been married for twelve years when he had only snatched her seven years ago. She had accepted that there were no pictures of their wedding because of the fire that had burned their apartment. She had accepted that their son had died of SIDs too, though he thought maybe that one had been harder to swallow than the rest. In many ways, it was like her mind created answers for questions before they were asked. By the sound of it, she'd been doing it for most of her childhood. Jacob's childhood had been fraught, but Lily's had been something from a pulp novel. She had been happy to forget, happy to cloud her own mind with misty memories and rose-colored tint, but this damn house had probably shown her all sorts of things that pulled the wool from her eyes.

As Jacob sat in the empty room, he wondered if prison would be worse than living in his warped memories for the rest of time?

The whispers from the house told him he'd never get to know.

There would be no open door waiting for someone like Jacob.

The house had a new toy, a new rat in its cage, and Jacob would never bask in the sun again.