The Face in the House

3

As expected, the house was dark. The little amount of light coming through from the open door behind her cast strange shadows about the room. Teddy gulped. She could make out tall, dark silhouettes standing around her, giving the impression of a room full of tall, foreboding statues. Against her better judgement, Teddy stepped further into the room, half expecting one of the figures to step forward and stop her. She identified an ornate, little lamp on a covered table and stooped to turn it on.

Much to her surprise, light flooded the room, banishing the shadows that had tempted Teddy's dark imagination, and revealing what should've been considered a living room. She sighed, set her bags down, then looked around in awe. She knew she had been to the house before, but the sight of the room—filled floor-to-ceiling with boxes, crates, books and who knows what else—brought vague memories trickling back, like a hole in a dam. It was like stepping into a dream she'd long since forgotten.

"It's exactly the same," she said aloud, her voice catching in her throat from disuse.

She strode slowly through the mess (mess wasn't quite the right word, it was more of an organized chaos), along the narrow trail of the only visible carpet in the room. She remembered being there, much shorter then, looking up at the towering boxes, and exploring it like a maze. Nothing had been touched, she realized, probably since the day Rose White died. It wasn't even that dusty.

The orange carpet trail led her to a small, but clean kitchen. Relieved to see the floor—bright yellow tile—she sighed and took in her surroundings: An ancient green stove, a spacious dining table and chairs, a little window curtained in red plaid above the kitchen sink. She approach the sink. If there was electricity, maybe there would be water, too. She turned on the faucet and a strong stream of clear water sprayed into the sink.

She was amazed at her luck, but also suspicious of it. She looked around the kitchen, the feeling of intruding on someone else's home was impossible to ignore. She had fully expected the worst: No electricity, no water, dust and decay, maybe even rats or stray cats. Her gaze stopped at a door situated at the back of the room, dark and shut. Though she couldn't picture it, she knew it led to the basement. She put the thought out of her head.

Electricity—check, water—check. Teddy decided to push her luck and set off in search of a phone. She left the kitchen, turned the corner and found an old rotary phone sitting on a small table against the wall. She lifted the receiver to her ear and listened. A dial tone! Teddy laughed aloud—she never thought she'd be so excited to hear a dial tone in her life.

She explored the rest of the house, most of which was in the same hoarder-level condition as the living room: the spare room beside the kitchen, the bedroom (Rose's old room) down the hall, then up the steep staircase to the upstairs bedroom.

Chrissy had asked her, earlier that day, if she planned to sell the house. Now, Teddy was certain, she would not. Despite its conditions—or perhaps because of them—she had made up her mind while surveying the house, room by room, that she would keep it. Cleaning up the junk and making the house her own would serve as the perfect, immersive project to keep her mind occupied. Plus, there was something about the place—beneath the piles of junk—that sang to her soul, hummed to her heart. For reasons she couldn't explain, the strange old house felt like home.

She returned to the living room to retrieve her bags, then headed up the stairs to the upstairs bedroom. It just didn't feel quite right to stay in her dead grandma's room on the ground level. At the top of the stairs, she followed a short hallway with a door on the left (the bathroom) and a door on right (the bedroom). She crept through the door on the right, the thinly-carpeted floor creaking underfoot. The room held several stacks of boxes, but was pleasantly clear in relation to the rest of the house. Vaulted ceilings gave the room a rustic, cozy feel.

Two neatly-made twin beds sat against the back wall. Teddy set her bags down on the thin quilt of one of the beds, claiming it as her own. She smiled, feeling silly claiming a bed, as one might do in a hotel room on a family vacation, in her own house.

The air was hot and thick from the many summers the room had sat neglected. Teddy opened a thinly-curtained window, let in the refreshing evening air. She stood, breathing in the smell of rain. A familiar sensation crept up her spine, tingling and cold. As a child, she associated the feeling with the presence of ghosts, watching her with invisible eyes.

There was a ghost here, Teddy thought, the memory surfacing fast and vivid. The ghost of a girl, crying by the window...

Before the memory could snowball in her mind—Isabelle, the spiders, the basement, the bodies—a shuffle behind her brought her back to the present. Teddy jumped, the soft noise sounding like a shout in the dead quiet. She turned, followed the sound.

A large black cat sat attentively before her, looking at her fiercely with big yellow eyes.

"Oh my—fuck," Teddy cursed in shock, taking a step backward and supporting herself on the window sill.

The cat cocked its head in response.

Recollection hit her like a truck.

"Oh my fucking god," she said, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. This was certainly not a stray.

The cat meowed, a frank, almost bored sound. At the same time, an undeniable message appeared in Teddy's head. It said, in that same bored tone:

"BUTLER."

Teddy clasped her mouth with both hands to keep from screaming, her eyes bulged in terror. The cat's power certainly unnerved her, but it was the memory—vivid now and shockingly complete—that nearly put her out of her mind. She remembered what she saw in the basement, how Rose herself told her how the butler and his spiders kept them alive—And there was the cat, the fat black cat, as proof that her memory was true.

She turned to run, to leave the house, jump in her truck and never look back. Before she could take two steps, a man appeared in the doorway, tall and dark in an old-fashioned suit. Teddy screamed and stumbled away from him, colliding with a stack of boxes.

The butler, looking nearly as frightened as Teddy, also stumbled backward in surprise. He collected himself quickly, stroked his mustache as if he might've lost it in the shock. He searched her face a moment before recognition softened his brow.

"Theodora White?" he said softly, like he was speaking to a frightened rabbit. "Is that you?"

Teddy backed away further from the man.

"My god, you look just like her," he said.

"I am her!" Teddy croaked.

"No, I meant—Well, nevermind," he said.

Teddy said nothing, just stared at the butler, adrenaline pumping in her ears.

"Well," he said after an awkward silence passed. "I'll let you get some rest. I'm sure it was a long drive."

The butler turned slowly, as if afraid any sudden movements would put her back into a panic. He crept out of the bedroom and closed the door softly behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Teddy sprung into action. Frantic, she pushed box after box against the bedroom door, barricading herself in—and keeping everything else out. She worked at this, stacked boxes as high as she could reach, until she ran out of breath. Panting, she collapsed face-down on her twin bed.

"Meow," Snickers called from the same spot on the floor.

"Fuck," Teddy screamed into the quilt.

She could swear from the cat's tone that he had purposely waited until after she finished the barricade to make his presence known. In the shock of coming face-to-face with a dead butler, she had overlooked the dead cat sitting smugly in the middle of the room. Still, she couldn't bring herself to move. Exhaustion worked its way through her body, expelling the adrenaline and saving the fear for her dreams.