What the Old House Deserves

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 at that time – all that mattered to the house was that it finally found itself a visitor.

Into the foyer, went the stranger, not minding the house’s cluttered greeting. The house first presented to her its wooden hatrack as she hooked onto it her dripping coat – a new neighbour to some of the house’s lonely, once-glittery old jackets. It then presented to her its walls decorated in crooked portraits and posters of a young, pretty face with a microphone in hand. In viewing them, the stranger held her own long hair and squeezed it as dry as she was able to. 

Now with nothing else to do, the stranger waited out the storm with her ears. The house saw the stranger’s tired eyes blink slowly, and slower, and eventually witnessed her consciousness drain into suspension. Then for hours, its rooftop felt the wind’s push die slowly as the night passed it by.

***

The house saw the stranger finally awaken, now laid atop a wide, dusty couch. It appeared to her that she was no longer in the foyer, and now in a spacious room with an enigmatic arrangement of multiple other couches, coffee tables and cabinets. 

“What…?”

In a sudden, she 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. One room housed populations of statues; another, a magnificent hall where a bright yacht laid. Then, was an orchestra of instruments never to be heard, and the next, a city of shelves displaying a dazzling diversity of strange items. 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 wasn’t until a deep humming reverberated through every vent in the walls that the stranger turned silent, cowering pitifully against a corner. 

The house wanted to speak to her.

“You want to leave?” began the house. “Lift my curse!”

“W-What…?”

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

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

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

***

Every passing day, the stranger searched the house less. She talked to the house less, and she listened to the house less. Some days she 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.

“You want to leave?” began the house. “Offer! Give me something that is yours – your most prized possession.”

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

Then the house declared, “I will 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 value! MORE!” cried the house. “Anything! With meaning!”

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

“My f…” 

Her throat grabbed her words back. But persisting, trembling, “My family’s… grand piano…”

“Just any piano?” the house doubted.

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

“Hmph. So, be it.”

Suddenly, the floor rumbled, then so did everything inside of the house. The wall behind the stranger 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 family’s piano, just as she knew it. 

The stranger was finally free. Out through the 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.

***

“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 dinnerplate, then a dinner-table. The glow hovered, brightening with each word it spoke. It was the witch.

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

“Yes, of course,” spat the house. “You did this to me; you trapped me inside my own walls!”

But, the house was ignorant. The witch 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 sentence that entered its mind.
Until finally, the witch said,
“Let go of everything you have. Only then, you will be free.”

What an outrageous request.

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

A moment, and the witch vanished. The house never saw her again.

***

The 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, and continued 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.