by Tiffany Morris
(600 words)
When she said here, sit, one of the attic shelves sputtered to the ground. The sound of breaking echoed through every storey.
“I didn’t mean it,” Kelly said. “When I got upset.”
It could hear them. A broken tooth. A broken window. There was something growing in the walls, bursting from drywall patches, from holes and cracks in tile. Kelly knew it. Eva knew it. What lived there? Maybe it was the lattice of mold. Or a graffiti of mushrooms.
“That’s not the collective noun for mushrooms,” Eva said.
Kelly didn’t answer. She usually didn’t. The silence between them was not hostile. It was also not companionable.
“People buried letters in walls, right? People put in letters or photos or skeletons.”
“Skeletons?”
“Or, you know, secrets?”
“Money?”
“Probably money. Maybe.”
“Those mysteries never happen. Not in real life.”
When Kelly said stay, a door slammed closed.
“The light hits this corner a certain way,” she said. “Do you see it? Sometimes the headlights race across the room. But you never hear a car.”
“I guess so,” Eva said. “Hey, play this record.”
She did not say: there are silences in it that say something. Silences in everything say something. She did not say anything. She put the record on and politely ignored the scratching sounds rustling in the wall behind them. Soft sounds of piano and saxophone warped and sank through the air. A picture fell from the living room wall. A painting of a woman with her hands in her lap. You could not see her face. Eva loved it. Kelly hated it.
“So many people must have lived here. How old is this house?”
“100 years,” Eva said, “easily. These are original floors.”
“My grandmother,” Kelly said. “My grandmother wore a path in her hardwood floors. She paced all the time. Stared at the clock. Didn’t know what to do with herself.”
“What a shame,” Eva said. “I would have liked to meet her.”
“That’s just what I’ve heard,” Kelly said. “Whenever my mother could bear to tell us about it. Sometimes it makes me feel disconnected.” She paused. A loud thump came from the room above them.
“Don’t worry,” Eva said. She wrapped her arms around her. Creaking footsteps went up the stairs. They laid on the cold floor side by side, ignoring the collapsing home. The medallion in the ceiling was a carved plaster sun. They stared at it as day drained blue, a corpse of hours. They stared at it as their bodies drained blue, a corpse of hours.
“The dark feels better,” Eva said. “Doesn’t it?”
“The dark feels better,” Kelly agreed. “But how long have we been asleep?”
The moon outside burned paper lantern bright. The jack-o-lanterns glowed their jaundiced gaze on the eyes of the tourists, folks on the ghost tour, visiting the historical homes of the district, making their way to the house. Leaves rustled dry as death against the eaves of the house, strange sentinels signalling the season’s end, susurrations of the cold to come. Kelly looked to the shadows next to her. Eva was gone. She stood back up and walked into the hallway.
“It’s that time,” Eva said, staring down from the top of the stairs.
“I’ll follow you.” Kelly called up to her. “What a shame. I would have liked to dance with you tonight.”
“I’ll wait for you there,” Eva said, climbing into the wall, the place they would be safe.
The front door opened with a gasp of wind. A couple walked inside. Their voices punctured the silence of the house, holding its breath, waiting to hear the stories of all who died inside.
END
Tiffany Morris is a Mi’kmaw/settler writer of horror fiction and poetry from Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia. She is the author of the horror poetry collection Elegies of Rotting Stars (Nictitating Books, 2022). Her work has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, and Apex Magazine, among others. Find her at tiffmorris.com or on twitter @tiffmorris.