The House

Chapter 32 - Day 3: Marco Polo

"What if we're going through this way, and something moves from out there to the stairs or back here," I say, nodding towards the doors at the other end of the dining room. I sound completely paranoid, but if there's something or someone... I'd rather be ridiculous than dead.

"Good point," David says, mispronouncing 'crazy chick', and I am really grateful for that. "I'll go this way; you stay here and keep an eye on the foyer."

I don't like the whole splitting up thing, and keeping an eye on the foyer means looking down the short hallway past where that closet door is, but what exactly is the alternative? Running from the kitchen through the living room and back over and over in a never-ending loop?

"We can keep on calling out to each other," David suggests seeing how nervous I am about letting him go. "Marco Polo... like the game, just without the swimming pool."

"Okay," I agree, not wanting to do this at all. Can't we just stay here in the kitchen, eat all the food, drink all the coffee and never move? "How about we shout Belle and David instead? So we'll know who we're calling. I really don't want a Marco or a Polo or Marco Polo to answer suddenly."

He smiles, looking amused, but he nods his head and walks through the dining room, opening cabinets as he goes, making sure that I can see that there is nothing there. He must think that I'm such a child. I kind of feel like one. A frightened one.

When he reaches the sliding doors leading into the living area, doors I know I did not close but are now quite closed, he turns to smile at me before he opens one and steps through. For a heartbeat, I imagine him stepping into nowhere, like that room I'd been in more than once, but which is no longer there and then I hear his voice, and he sounds completely calm. "Belle!"

"David!" I call back, trying to sound calm too. I think I'm successful because I'm smiling, feeling like an idiot.

Those doors could've been closed by David while I was sleeping. He'd been going around fixing a few things; he probably checked out the dining room too.

"Belle!" I think he is now there where the window seat alcove rests above the small utility room. I keep my eye on the foyer, blinking them often to prevent shadows from crowding together and forming imaginary people or monsters. When I go home, I'm going to see a doctor about an operation to reduce my imagination to normal levels.

I could really do with a good old-fashioned lobotomy or something right now.

"David!"

"Belle!" he is definitely crossing past the fireplace now and will appear in the foyer soon.

"David!"

"Belle..." His voice is a low rumble in my ear, the quality completely different from before, and with the word, I feel the whisper of his breath on my neck.

With a gasp, I jump around, my voice frozen in my throat, unable to form the scream I feel bubbling up inside me. All I see is the serving island, the cabinets, the windows and the back door. Nobody could've said my name like that just now. Nobody could've breathed in my neck.

My heart is beating painfully hard inside my chest; I can feel its vibrations through my ribs.

"Belle?" this time, it is clearly David's voice, and I turn frightened eyes to look down the short hallway. He is standing just inside the foyer, looking at me, waiting for me to join him. The hair on my arms standing on end, I look around the kitchen one last time, confirming that I'm quite alone, and then I run to David as if all the hordes of hell are after me.

"Hey," he says when I join him in the foyer and wrap my arms around his. "Are you okay?"

I cannot remember the last time I'd been okay.

"Just the thunder... it rumbled... It's nothing," I gasp, speaking in breathy spurts.

It was a voice. A human voice, and it said my name. It was not thunder, and I felt... A draught! It was thunder and a draught! It must've been! It has to have been!

I need to get it together, or I'm going to die of a stroke at the age of 23. I cannot do that to David; he is too young. I think he might be in his early thirties, but he's probably only in his late twenties. I have no idea; I've never been able to judge people's ages correctly. There is something mature about him, but it's in his spirit rather than his appearance. Perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't jump at every sound and insists that I take my baths with the door open and we play Marco Polo through the house because he's scared of being alone with his imagination.

He places his free hand over mine, where it's digging its fingers into his flesh, and gives it a reassuring pat.

"I've found nothing down here. You okay to go upstairs?"

Am I?

"Yes," I lie, trying to give him a smile. "Let's go kill that music box."

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