What the Old House Deserves

She longed to sing another time.

But, no matter how hard she craved, her skin was still made of paint. Her bones, still timber. Her murky eyes only saw through glassy panes, her voice only sighed through tangled air vents…

And she was fixed firmly to the earth amid a lonely forest, never to move from there again. 

This was her curse. By a powerful witch, this bitter musician was transformed into a house. And, as a house, she was now an ‘it’. 

The house had been reduced to nothing more than a furious, gluttonous wreck, counting the years one by one on its peeling walls, and was to continue to do so for many years to come.

It wanted nothing more than to live in extravagance and glory, once again.

*   *   *

One day, the old house called to a stranger. It called her in the midst of a storm. It mattered little to the house what so happened to have happened for that stranger to be walking by it under such convenient circumstances – all that mattered to the house was that it finally found itself a visitor.

Into the foyer, entered the stranger, not minding the house’s cluttered greeting. The house first presented to her its fallen hatracks, one of which drew the attention of its new visitor. Blanketing the rack’s wooden arms were a select few of the house’s favourite once-glittery jackets, which – with the little might they had – struggled to hold on as the rack was lifted up by the pole. On one of the arms, the stranger carefully hooked on her dripping coat and sighed.

The house then presented to the stranger its slightly peeling walls, decorated in portraits and posters of a young, pretty face with a microphone in hand. Each frame in the collection appeared more extravagant than the last, and they were one of the house’s proudest displays. In viewing them, the stranger held her own long hair and squeezed it as dry as she was able to. There was nothing else in the foyer to show, so the house only watched. What beautiful hair, it thought greenly to itself. 

The house then watched the stranger as she took a seat on a wide, dusty couch. The stranger did not have much to keep herself busy that night, so she spent whatever time she had waiting out the storm with her ears. There was nowhere that her mobile phone could connect to and she brought nothing to charge it with. No books or a crossword puzzle to pass the time, either. No nothing. The house saw the stranger’s tired eyes blink slowly, and slower, and eventually witnessed her consciousness drain out from them. Then for hours, the rooftop felt the wind’s push die slowly as the night passed it by.

The house noticed the stranger finally awakened. The stranger was no longer in the foyer where she last remembered, but was now laid atop a long living room carpet. It appeared to her that she was somehow brought into a strange, spacious room with a disorganised arrangement of multiple other couches, coffee tables and cabinets.

“What…?” the stranger timidly exclaimed.

At least to the house’s knowledge, it was common to see people wake up in a slow state of grogginess, blinding them from their senses. However, in a sudden, this stranger hurried up and down the room until she found a door.

Two rooms, five rooms, then nine rooms felt the footsteps of the confused stranger scurry on their creaky wooden floors with more expecting the same.

Each room the stranger encountered held something unique. She’d find a bleak city of shelves only brightened by their dazzling variety of items, ranging from boxes of gold, silver and diamond, to the strangest shaped vases serving no purpose other than to decorate. Some rooms housed populations of statues that weeped or stared furiously at her, and then there was a magnificent hall where a bright yacht laid. In one room was an orchestra of instruments never to be heard, and in another, a shiny collection of the most expensive of cars and other such vehicles. The house observed simply as the stranger ran herself lost inside of a maze of riches and plummeted into a fit of despair. She bawled with all the air in her lungs, begging and begging for an exit to nobody.

It was now, the house decided to reveal to her its true nature.

First, it sighed. 

Cchhhhhh…

A deep humming reverberated through every vent in the walls, causing the stranger to turn silent, as she continued to cower pitifully against a corner. 

The house wanted to speak to her.

“Y… You…” the house first whispered.

It was an almost unearthly howl of air; the house could only ever manipulate frequencies to form vague consonants and nouns.

“You…” the house repeated. “W-Want… to… leave?” 

The shaking of her breath was the only sound that came from the terrified stranger.

The house continued bitterly, “Break… my… c-curse…!” 

“...What?”

Whether the stranger was asking for a repetition or if she was expressing to find sense in her predicament remained unknown.

“You find…” demanded the house. “A clue… R-Ritual… Anything…!”

Nothing more than indistinguishable mutters escaped the stranger’s shivering mouth.

Some minutes, and finally the stranger succumbed to the task.

*   *   *

Since her entrapment, the stranger had already spent a vast majority of her hours searching for a way to break the talking house’s curse. Each day introduced to her more rooms to explore, and this endeavour was only draining every cell in her body. One moment, surrounded in glittery decorations and another, on stage with a disorganised mess of hundreds of paintings… 

Today, the stranger realised how rooms were now starting to blur together in her vision. She no longer starved; she no longer thirsted. Her eyes had long been dried and her heart felt sick of aching for her partner. She no longer worried about losing her job, or how her young students might feel anxious without her. Whether she had been trapped inside of this strange house for five weeks or two years became too little of a concern for her, and even after all that time, she still knew near nothing about the nature of the talking house’s curse. 

All the stranger wanted was to return to the life that she was trying her hardest not to forget.

The stranger had just finished searching another blandly luxurious room, and now it was time to move on. She detested the monotonous nature of her predicament, but still kept the part of herself that refused to quit. Finally, she opened the door to the next room.

Much to the stranger’s surprise, unlike the others that she had visited so far, this specific room didn’t appear overtly grandiose or had an inappropriately placed accumulation of riches. In fact, this room may as well have been the most ‘ordinary’ one she had encountered. An unmade king-sized bed laid by the farthest wall. A tall lamp illuminated the area, just barely. There was an old vanity with its mirror fogged with dust. Immediately, the stranger thought of home. She could only assume this was the master bedroom belonging to whomever once lived in this house.

Immediately, the stranger was drawn to the room’s vanity, and for the first time in ages, she saw her reflection in the mirror. She winced at how awful a state she was in, but sighed it away. She began her search.

In the drawers were countless boxes of clearly expensive make-up that had crumbled over time. In a cabinet were old bottles of perfume that smelt either off-note or bland. She dug around some more… 

What’s that?

Pushed to the far back of another cabinet, sat a thick, green notebook. Of course, she decided to peek inside, not only because she believed there to be a chance that a curse-reversing ritual may have so happened to be written in there, but also because a tinge of curiosity itched her brain. 

The stranger flipped through the diary, hardly absorbed in its contents. As she expected, its writer was a citizen of the country’s upper-crusts, and its pages seemed to contain nothing more than mindless scribbles of text, vaguely documenting a life worlds apart from her own. Many of the pages covered trivial matters and other mundane things, such as a new big purchase or some trouble with the writer’s co-workers… The stranger was about to put the old book down until she discovered, within the pages of the diary, something intriguing. Stuck inside, there were newspaper cutouts.

‘29th of October, XX54 – Performed at Onetucket’

‘54… Onetucket…? the stranger thought. She remembered one of the portraits displayed near the foyer and the date seemed to match, at least from her memory. She browsed some more. June XX53, at Nineside… January, XX49 at Fiftown… She could only assume that these other performance dates were of the same performer.

On the surface, it seemed that whomever this diary belonged to may have been a crazed fan of this certain musician. However, upon closer inspection, reading the accompanying manuscript would reveal that the writer was, in fact, the musician herself.

Eventually, the stranger reached the final pages of the diary. The third-to-last entry covered the purchase of what appeared to be this very house, at least on the outside.

“Oh…” whispered the stranger. She had finally come to a conclusion. So, the singer from those pictures… She’s the one that’s been cursed? she thought. That explains a few things…

Then, she arrived at the second-to-last entry,

‘I’ve been having strange dreams in the past month. I was talking to an angel of some sort. Or, was it a fairy? Unlike my other dreams, these ones were more vivid and kept coming to me again and again. She said I could make a wish, and that she’d make it a reality at a cost…’

‘...I thought about it a lot. I remember, my whole life my mama and pappa told me, “If you do things just right, you could get anything you wanted.” I’ve done everything they did, but I wonder why things are just so different for me. Apparently, my cousin Flora has it a lot better than I am, receiving a reward of some sort for their every achievement. But, I’m exerting a lot of effort in everything that I do, too.’

The stranger was left confused. Aside from discovering the identity of the talking house, she already found the entire book incredibly underwhelming. In fact, the musician’s whole existence was underwhelming. The only thing she managed to get out of that old diary was the fact that it was the personal documentation of a mildly famous and mildly successful musician who was born and raised in a world of materialism. 

But, the stranger still had one entry left to read. She hesitated for a moment, afraid that if she went forward, its contents might allow her to feel even the slimmest thread of pity for the talking house. She sighed.

The stranger turned to the final page. 

Stuck inside, was a jaggedly cut-out news article.

‘10th of December, XX57 – Woman found dead at Sixtown.’

Then, the handwriting that accompanied it,

‘Flora is dead. That poison was not mine. It wasn’t for her. I never visited her house. It was not me. It was not me. I never saw that angel. I did not speak to her. I did not make that wish. I will not go to sleep. I will not dream. I will never see that angel again. I am afraid. I did nothing.’

The stranger closed the diary and stowed it away where she found it.

*   *   *

Every passing day, the house noticed how the stranger searched the rooms less. She talked to it less, and she listened to it less. Some days the stranger spent idly crouched in one corner, some others only opening every new door and window she saw, praying that it would finally lead her to the sun.

Today, the stranger exclaimed again and again that she had enough.

“So…” began the house, condescendingly, through the vents. “You want… t-to leave?” 

The stranger said nothing.

“Offer! Give… something that is y-yours…” demanded the house. “Your most… prized… p-possession…!”

Afraid, the stranger replied, “But, I don’t have anything with me…”

Then the house declared, “Then, I will… b-bring it here!”

The stranger sighed and closed her eyes, and the house grew impatient for a response.

“My wallet…”

“Worthless!”

“My car…”

“Boring!”

“My camera…”

Nothing was working.

“More v-value…! M-MORE!” cried the house. “Anything…! With m-meaning!”

The stranger thought for a moment more.

The house suggested, “Th-The thing that makes you so… b-beautiful! …What i-is it?”

The stranger shut her eyes again, with force. She never said a word. 

Until finally, the stranger began to speak, “My m…” 
Her throat grabbed her words back. She choked, she trembled, but persisting, she eventually answered, “My mother’s… vanity…”

“Just any v-vanity…?" the house doubted.

The stranger lashed with denial like a barking dog on a chain, “It’s hand-made! An heirloom! Just take it!” her face soaking desperate.

“Hmph… S-So, be it…”

Suddenly, the floor rumbled, then so did everything inside of the house. The wall behind the stranger slowly distorted and twisted. There appeared a foreign material which resembled a new shape, then it contorted in reverse. Soon there was a rectangle so repulsive that the stranger turned away.

Finally, a door. 

By itself, it opened to a room that once never existed. 

And now, before the stranger, there displayed her offering: 
Her mother’s vanity, just as she knew it. 

The room shifted again… The stranger was in the foyer once more. Finally, she was free. Out through the front door she ran, and she never returned. 

The house was alone again. It was to be alone for many months to come, but for those many months, it marvelled at its new prize.

“You ignorant fool!”

A voice echoed, bouncing off of each wall inside. The house knew from whom it came from.

“And after the fiftieth visitor,” scolded the voice, “you still haven’t changed!”

In the foyer there floated a dot of light, which swelled until it was the size of a dinner plate. A glowing orb hovered inside the house, brightening with each word it spoke. It was the witch.

“Do you have any idea why you are the way you are?” she asked.

“Yes… of c-course,” spat the house. “Y-You did this to m-me; you… t-trapped me inside of my own w-walls – you and your… filthy m-magic…!”

But, the witch continued to claim that the house was ignorant. She explained condescendingly how she had clear intentions for placing this dreaded curse on whom that was now a house. Of course, the house refused to believe the words the witch lectured, or perhaps it was afraid of them. It tried to muffle every one of her sentences that entered its mind. 
Its efforts persisted, until finally the witch said,
“Let go of everything you have. Only then, I will set you free.”

What an outrageous request, the house thought. 

“Never…!” muttered the house. “I deserve e-everything I have…”

A moment, and then the witch vanished.

The house never saw her again.

*   *   *

The bitter old house stood still, and waited. Visitors came, visitors sought, visitors offered, visitors fled. The house’s withering frames – with the little might left they had – carried its great body for many, many years. The house’s collection of prizes only multiplied. More rooms continued to appear until finally, the house was nothing more than a bitter heap of rotting wood. Now, even in such misery, it remained hungry, still waiting, and it knew nobody would ever visit. Not ever.