I had to take a break - but now you know my dead husband built me a house rigged to play his voice. Wires everywhere. Pull one, he speaks. Any movement bringing him back, sounds romantic, but this wasn’t love. It was punishment.
Also a ritual, one that I was beginning to suspect was created to bring him back to life. Give his voice a body, although I’d just found a crack in his facade - a hidden digital interface behind all his precious analog bullshit.
Either way, the house had already killed - trapping a man in its web. Now it needed more lives, maybe mine?
Jonas had done a shitty job at reattaching the butcher knife. I grabbed it and yanked it free in one quick motion. Then I sank to the ground and crawled behind the kitchen island, pressing myself against its marble side. Out of the eye line of the intruder who I knew would find me eventually.
They must have known the trick of the house because they didn't touch a thing - not a light switch or a door handle - they knew interacting with the house could summon Seb. Maybe because the house had successfully reincarnated Seb, and it was his footsteps?
Not an intruder. The man of the house. Back to make sure I never left him.
Finally, they spoke.
"…Edie," raspy and slow, curled toward me. It was Jonas's voice, but was it Jonas?
Jonas had hummed something only Seb and I would know.
Psychoacoustics.
So at this point who was who anymore?
Like he'd read my mind he said, "Why am I here? It's the house, man." He kept walking slowly. "Tells you stuff. Puts it in your head." He sighed loudly. “That tune I was humming, just was in my head one day.”
He was now approaching, and I edged around the island, knife still in hand. He continued, “happened the first time I was here as well. Stuff was just in your head.” And he paused, uneasy. "Dreams were nuts. But we all signed NDAs. You think I'm in a position to get sued?"
Then silence. Couldn’t even hear his breathing, both of us most likely frozen.
I tilted my head up half expecting to see that he had climbed over the kitchen island and was looking down at me.
He wasn't there.
Because he was right beside me. I heard him crouch down, taking me by surprise. Not proud of it, but I slashed him with the knife.
"Fuck," he yelled like I'd stung him. Blood on the sleeve of his dirty Carhartt jacket. In the dark his anger flashed loud and clear. He lunged and grabbed my wrist, squeezing until I cried out and the knife clattered out of my hand, skidding across the granite.
"You gotta hear me," but I was done listening. I was at the point where I was worried all the sound had changed my DNA. Brought Seb back. Trapped me once again in a loop that would never end.
I no longer believed what I heard, or what I saw.
So I slapped him hard across the face, and as he recovered I seized the moment and dived for the knife. My fingers were an inch from the handle when he grabbed my ankle and dragged me back, flipping me onto my back. He pinned me down, face to face, his weight on my chest.
My arm was still stretched above my head. The knife just out of reach.
I looked up at him. Did I see Seb in there?
“Just fuckin' do it already, coward." Seb said, echoing through the house. I could tell Jonas heard it as well - it wasn’t in my head. A distraction provided by my dead husband.
Enough time for my fingers to find the knife handle.
Jonas knew it was coming before he felt it.
I plunged the knife into his back, his eyes flashing from please don't to I can't believe she did it.
If I'm being honest I knew it was a mistake immediately, but all rational thinking was dunzo by that point.
He exhaled his last breath and I felt it move the fine hair dusting my face.
He died on top of me. I tried to move but couldn't. Blood dripped out of his back and onto the granite, seeping into the stone.
Into the house.
Exhausted, I felt the tears before I realized I was crying. My eyelids were suddenly too heavy to keep open, begging to be closed. For this to be over. I passed out and dreamt I sank into the house as well. Became a part of it, like everything else. So much of my life I'd lived on others' terms - wasn't this the ultimate conclusion? Physically becoming a part of someone else's design.
I woke up when Jonas started moving - or was being moved, rather...by Claire.
I was so relieved when I saw her face, until I realized how bummed she was to see me breathing. I used to wonder which Claire was the real one. The no-nonsense but kind one, or the one in the house that night. Now I think it's both, and that's okay.
I want you to understand she wasn't perfect because none of us are.
When she saw that I was alert, she let out an exasperated sigh and dropped Jonas back on top of me. I winced in pain, but must have looked incredibly confused. I could see her puzzling it out, deciding whether to let me in on her plan.
Eventually she shrugged and fished a tiny remote out of her pocket. She gave it a wiggle making sure I was tracking it, then hit one of its buttons.
"You dumb bitch," Seb said around us.
She hit the button again.
"I'm in control," Seb thundered through the house.
And then again, ”Just fuckin' do it already, coward.” Seb repeated.
Claire raised her eyebrow. I looked from the remote back to Claire, finally getting a clue.
She’d been manipulating the system the entire time. Analog would have been impossible, but with the digital backup - she could play anything from anywhere.
"That's the way he spoke to me," Claire finally said, "all the voicemails he left me." She lifted her foot and hovered it over the handle of the knife still in Jonas's back. About to push it in further so it would go into my soft stomach.
So I managed to tell her I was sorry.
And she hesitated.
"Me too," she said. "None of this would have happened if he'd just been honest." She was struggling against the weight of her story. I saw a tear. "He'd come here to write, remember? Spoke to our class a couple of times. Loved the attention from all those wide-eyed teens. Except I'm the one he got pregnant."
I managed to gasp, "Milo?"
Claire nodded. "Easier if he was my sister's, so I went away and had him. Rewrote the entire thing. Wasn't even going to tell Seb, until he came back to build this house."
Her sadness was curdling into anger. She spat it out. "A house for his beloved wife."
She knelt down to get closer, so I didn't just hear how much she hated me, I'd see it as well. "I snuck in one day and heard all the lovely things he said to you. And I thought…maybe I'd hear the same sweet-fuckin'-nothings. But that's not what I got when I told him about his son. About my feelings. I got called names. Told to fuck off. When I told him I’d tell you - he threatened me. Said he’d ruin me.” And she smiled. "And here you are, Edie, thinking you got the worst version of him?"
She held the remote near my face. "When he died I wanted his son to have something."
"I would have…"
"Sure, you would have," she said dismissively, "trust was broken by then, you know?" Claire stood, looking down at me.
"Jonas drunkenly told me all the analog stuff was a lie. He'd seen it being built. So before you got here I uploaded all of Seb's messages to me. I knew I could play them for you. Drive you to the brink." She looked around the house, the fantasy she'd built.
“When he’d sobered up, I reminded him of the legal repercussions if he opened his mouth again. Banked on him being a massive weirdo, and you falling for him.” She laughed. "You have bad taste."
"Ditto," I replied, unable to help myself. Then I asked, "Why Eddie?"
Her expression changed, genuine remorse breaking through her anger.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," she said quietly. “After you came into the office his obsession ramped up. He broke in to have a look and caught me fixing the system." She looked away. "He knew what he was seeing. I couldn't let him tell you before I was ready." A long pause. "I didn't want to do it. I want you to know that."
And I believed her. Which made it worse somehow.
"You must have noticed the glitches?" she continued, needing to move past it. And I thought about all the times Seb spoke with no trigger. It was the machine, not spirits, or possession, just files on a hard drive.
Although, then Claire told me about her dreams.
“I didn’t want to kill him but I think it was unavoidable, you know? I thought it was you in my dreams, strung up like a broken doll. But maybe it was him?"
She saw the look on my face. The things we shared. Seb. Dreams. All born of this fucked up house.
"You saw it too, huh?" She gave the house a reverential nod. “You already have a reputation in town." Claire raised her foot and rested it on the knife handle. “So I’m thinking everyone will buy that you murdered Jonas before killing yourself. Fought to the death.”
She then started pushing down, I could feel the pressure. "Then Seb’s house goes to his next of kin.” She let out a satisfied sigh, “my son.”
Now, I could feel the tip of the knife just above my stomach.
"I hope it gives us better dreams," Claire said.
And the knife started going into me. My face screwed up in pain.
But before it could travel further -
“JUST FUCKIN’ STOP IT NOW." Seb screamed through the house.
A phantom recording that even took Claire by surprise since she jumped back. Giving me just enough time to wriggle out from under Jonas with a newfound burst of energy. I got to my feet, could feel Claire trying to grab me, but I managed to stumble into the dining room.
The reel-to-reel was now spinning furiously, activated by some unseen force. The house was built for me, so maybe this was protection? Seb's voice loud and clear all around me.
"Time to go now, Edie," Seb said. "Bright future ahead.” And like it was a command, "the worst is behind us now,” he said.
And I listened to him, turning around just in time for Claire to collide with me. We flew back across the dining room table together, her hands finding my throat. I could feel her crushing my windpipe. There was no way she was letting me survive. She'd gone too far. This wasn't about her anymore. It was about her son. I wish there had been another way, but she was an animal backed into a corner, and that meant this was life or death for one of us.
With all my strength I reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulled her head towards mine and connected our skulls with a crack.
Her grip loosened. I flipped her off me onto the ground. She got to her feet but I was ready and kicked her hard in the stomach.
Claire flew back into the reel-to-reel and its digital backup, cracking the screen. The spools were still spinning incredibly fast, shafts of moonlight highlighted strands of her hair like the silvery thread of the piano wire. Then Claire’s hair caught in one of the spools, turning so fast she barely had a second to react. It wrenched her head to the side with a quick snap, and she immediately went limp.
Her neck broken, the reel-to-reel now jammed with her body. The system damaged, no longer able to play Seb’s voice.
Silence. Finally.
I stayed for a while, but then I knew what I had to do. The sun was rising when I limped to my car and drove all the way back to the city.
Patrick, the lawyer, was very shocked to see me. More the state of me. Suggested a doctor before we spoke, but I knew what I wanted to do.
Besides, I wasn’t living in that house for two years and that meant it went back to the estate.
Which meant it would go to you, Milo.
Needed to make sure you would be taken care of. Made sure the house is yours.
I know you read this forum, and I hope you read this. I wanted you to know the whole story. Not what your mother did, but what she did…for you.
Sure, she did it all wrong, but she was just going off the information she had.
Making sense of the noise she heard.
The story she was told.
Before I signed over the house, I made sure it still spoke, but in her voice. Messages I was able to get. So you'd have a place where she still lives.
You can hate me - maybe you should - but please love her.