those who are dead are not dead
Tales of Terror, guys. Mostly original characters, but see if you can spot the cameos. Hint: one is really obvious. The others are not.
01. dead of night
The house doesn't care who you are. You walk up to the door and know this, and deep inside the house you fancy you hear an echo: th-thump th-thump th-thump. It doesn't sound much like knocking, though. It's more like a heartbeat, constant and familiar. You think that you could spend years listening to that steady beat, and then wonder where this thought came from.
But you don't have years. Already you can hear shouts in the distance: pursuit. You to turn to run, but something prompts you to turn back to the door. An invitation, maybe, some sense of possibilities unexplored, potential to be exploited. The closed door beckons, glinting with lights within. You stand there in the dark, and hesitate.
"There, there!" someone shouts in the distance, a stranger, or perhaps someone who once claimed your friendship. You glance back, feeling no fear now but a sudden sorrow, a wistfulness unlike the grief you so recently have known. But you only spare your pursuers this one glance before trying the knob. Then you open the door and walk in.
When you shut it behind you, something far more permanent, more ominous than a lock clicks into place.
--
02. graveyard songs
The lady of the house keep her lips shut and her eyes shuttered, and only smiles at the people she cares nothing for. She dresses as if every night should be a celebration, and in a misguided display of magnanimity her husband holds as many parties as he can. But she does not mind and over the years grows to love these evenings as she has never loved her husband. She watches him watching the pretty women he does not know well enough to loathe, and sweeps by with nary a glance of scorn. These women - nay, these girls, they swarm her husband, desiring his money, his power, his handsome face. She leads the other guests a merry chase, and sometimes if she grows weary of the charade she will take one away from the bright lights and allow him into her bed. She always makes sure never to see his face.
When he lies asleep and the lights of the party have thinned, she does the other thing she has never done to her own husband.
--
The garden grows exceptionally well this year. Her husband comments upon it at length, when they are alone; he attempts to draw her in away from the flowers and thorns. Come inside, he says, there is nothing more you can do here.
But she knows that this garden will never be perfect. There will always be one thing lacking in it.
--
The first time they met, the lady wore rose frills and a corset that left her swooning. He said that she was the most beautiful of all, and she thanked him.
Later that night found her without the corset, frills askew, with a stranger atop her, skin-to-skin. She did not learn until many years had gone by that this man had been her husband's brother, and that he took his own life two days later. All she knew then was that her fingers about his neck gave her a thrill that his thrusting never could.
--
She married him because out of all the men she had ever met, he was the first not to take her to bed when she asked. She believed that she could always kill him later, then later, then later. And then they were married, and he did not come to the wedding bed, so she slept with the best man and buried him near the statue of Lady Justice.
She never lets her husband touch her, because she will kill him when he finally does.
--
One night he stays out late with his friends - always new, for they do always seem to come to unfortunate ends - and does not return for days. When he does, he is pale and raving, and the maids all stand in the halls and whisper poison, poison. The lady looks in on him as he sleeps, and almost goes to touch him, but something in her recoils. She cannot fondle a sick man. So she goes from the chamber, and leaves him alone.
In the morning, he is gone, long gone.
They bring in the priest, and he performs hurried last rites. But the lord of the house is never buried, for the lady takes the priest to her bed and then out to the garden. She tells the household that something came up, that the priest was forced to leave. Then she sends them all into the servants' wing and locks them in.
Her husband lies on a bench in the chapel, preserved by the drink that killed him. She wonders idly if she could yet perform her will, but a corpse gives her no appetite. Still, she resolves not to be defeated so easily.
--
03. harpsichord
Her fingers trail across ivory keys, lazily wandering through faintly-recalled melodies that waft through the darkness to echo about the arches ceiling. She plays sad waltzes and wistful airs and gazes out upon the ballroom, empty now of all but shadows and dust.
She no longer knows her name - perhaps she never had one. She cannot bring to mind any recollections of other people, family, friends. All she knows are the shifting colours of once-upon-a-time dancers and the keys of the harpsichord beneath her fingers. She never ceases playing. When she has played all the tunes she knows she simply invents new ones, and in time they join her repertoire or worm their varying ways into the songs she already knows.
Sometimes a face will appear in the shadows as if drawn to the music. Sometimes shadowy forms will dance in from out of the darkness, all glinting hats and swishing skirts before they fade away once more. Once in a while, a single form will twirl about the tiles, and then she stops playing because she suddenly feels as if she is about to cry.
This is a house of no names, of old ghosts and memories that all have forgotten to remember. In a shaky bid for existence, the musician plays her tunes and tries not to forget anything more than she already has.
--
04. debris
There is one clock in the whole of the city and its lands that Evan does not know how to repair. He has steeled himself, walked out to the great manor a double dozen times, sometimes even made it inside. But the temporal wrongness that permeates the atmosphere there he cannot abide; when his own heartbeat strains to follow two incompatible rhythms, he knows he has to leave.
Time in sick there, in a way that he, merely a fixer of clocks, can do nothing about.
--
Once, when he turned to flee, a woman walked out of the garden. Her dress was sumptuous, if ragged, and in her face lurked something reticent, some subtle nuance that Evan knew had nothing to do with temporal troubles. She smiled at him, and in her smile, in her eyes was honest attraction only.
"Will you walk with me?" she asked him.
"I can't stay here," he said, "though I am surely missing a beautiful view."
"Oh, no one stays here," said the woman wistfully, but also with satisfaction. "But if they did, they would never leave."
He wasn't and still isn't sure what it is about her that warned him; perhaps it was the extent of her honesty. She didn't have an ulterior motive, he is fairly certain. But it was a place of great discomfort for him, and so when something struck him amiss, he was inclined to follow his instinct over his sense of tact.
"You certainly never did," Evan replied, and made his exit.
--
She appears at his workshop only a week later, and Evan is disconcerted to discover that she still wears the same garments. She smiles at him in what should probably be an alluring way, but he only finds it chilling. But he lets her in, because that is what he always does.
"Why do you fear me so?" she asks without introduction.
"I don't know," Evan replies.
"But you do fear me," she persists.
"Yes," Evan says.
The woman is silent, and frowns slightly, as if thinking hard. "Is it because my advances are unwelcome?" she finally asks. "Have I been too forward?"
"Yes," Evan says again. "Or, that's part of it."
"But," she says, "there doesn't have to be an attachment. As I said, no one stays."
"You also said that no one leaves."
Silence descends once again, and Evan stands aside to allow her entrance. She only walks in as far as he is, though, and turns to face him against the wall. Recognising the trap, Evan sidesteps her, but she grabs his arm and holds him in place.
He expects another advance, but she places something cool and metallic in his palm. Raising his hand to eye level, he discovers a pocketwatch, intricately detailed and silver. It does not tick. "You repair watches, do you not?" she inquires. "It doesn't work anymore. None of them do. But I want you to fix this one." She takes his hand and closes his fingers around it; then she lets go and walks out again. Behind her lingers the faint scent of roses.
Evan sags against the wall in relief.
--
The watch does not take long to fix. Once out of the temporal displacement, it is a fairly simple feat to nudge the gears back into their movements. He winds the watch and sets it to the proper time, and then places it on a shelf. The woman never returns, and eventually he forgets about it altogether.
--
05. closed casket
Somewhere in his twisted heart, he knows he is no longer human.
His mind is encased, now, unable to observe his surroundings; his spirit trapped within the pages of a book. His name is long gone. But somehow his heart remains, and it can feel a difference around it. Ventricles have hardened, and he cannot tell where they lead, nor what now his heart pumps. But he can feel the beating of his own heart, so perhaps it is nearby - still connected to him somehow. He cannot see, and he cannot taste, and he cannot smell nor hear. But he can feel, and he can remember.
He remembers - not much, now. Too much of his remembrances are days of panic, days of hiding within his own mind and dying, living, simultaneously. He remembers faces that twist into variations of familiarity, and he remembers blood - too much blood. He remembers the feeling of absolute silence, when his home finally stood empty, when his heart for one hopeful moment stood still. And then he remembers the awful sound of his own heartbeat once more, reverberating in his ribs, jolting him forward and pulling at his bonds: survive! survive! survive!
He remembers innocent curiosity, an exploration. He does not remember a world beyond. When hand touches page, his memories begin.
The book, he thinks. It held every secret, everything I ever wanted to know. The book, it fulfilled my search - but at a price I never would have paid.
The worst of it is that even after all the trouble, all the screaming, all the shouts of that one cursed word that killed everything he hadn't noticed was dear to him - even after they died with it on their lips - he still cannot recall his name.
--
06. bookcase door
She finds the door in the bookcase quite by accident. For days she searched for something she could read that would not keep her from the shadows, shivering. So many books in the library told only tragedies, dark poetry, tales of cursed brides and fathers gone insane. Murder. Madness. The house reeks of it, of all the cliche a tale of terror can hold.
Picking up a book at random, she flips to a page at random and reads:
The door creaked open, and the boy crept in, heart fluttering in his chest like a bird. The house was dark, but the hearts of the men who pursued him were darker, and so he fled from them to the heart of the darkness itself. And he whispered a name to the shadows, and the house took it, and his as well. Nameless and quickly forgetting everything but the terror he had evaded, he tiptoed inside, ever further...
She closes the book in disgust. She does not wish to read of horrors.
Two tiers up she finds a green-bound spine; the tooled letters proclaim a book of poetry. She cannot read the author's name, if the unidentifable smudge at the bottom of the cover is such. Without much optimism, she opens it to the centerfold.
Entwined between the banisters
Enshrined within the stairs
The lady of the house descended
leaving her husband there.
She glances at the image that accompanies this verse and quickly replaces the book. She wonders if maybe somebody wrote all these stories as an account of the myriad horrors this manor has hosted. She could be the next tale, left on a bookshelf no one will likely look twice at. But still she does not wish to read these tales. Like the ghosts that roam the halls, they are remnants of greater things, and remain only to torment the living - one way or another.
Another spine calls to her, a dull orange that might long ago have been bright. Recipes, it says. Heartened that such a mundane thing as a cookbook could exist in this place, she reaches for it, but it does not fall free of the shelf. Instead, she hears a click and then a whirr like clockwork, and the shelf jolts toward her with a thud. Jumping back, heart speeding up, she watches as it does not fall but insteads slides out of the way, to reveal -
More books. Another roomful of books, and passages leading off in various directions to signify that more lurks beyond the immediate prize. For a moment she almost walks in. There must be so many more books within, and perhaps something whimsical or at least lighthearted. Surely someone in a long line of owners must have enjoyed a light read, perhaps in the garden. A history, maybe? Plays? She fancies she can see this figurative master of the house now, adorned in the clothing she had found in various wardrobes, softly smiling face brightened by firelight, book in lap. He would have been a kind man. She wonders where he would have sat.
Then she remembers that he is a figment of her imagination, and that she has no interest in walking into rooms she does not know how to leave. And so she walks out of the library, leaving the bookshelf door a gaping hole behind her, a book left open and overturned on a table that she does not wish to finish. She does not look back.
But she will.
--
07. entrenched
In the very back of the library, he writes. He does not cease writing, not to sleep or to eat or even to rest his weary fingers. Pages turn; he fills them with words, with names, with everything that the house would otherwise eat up. He records it all dutifully in his books and tells the stories as he imagines them. With each new name, he hopes for the sound of footsteps, for a stranger to appear and give him new things to think about. He would give them their story and tell his, and maybe then he'd get some rest.
For now, he writes on.
He keeps his book beside him, name washed clean from his head. If he cared to he could open it and learn who he is. He does not wish it yet. He's not certain why, but somehow he knows that so long as he remains oblivious to his identity, he can continue writing his stories forever. He likes writing his stories, even though it is lonely work and tiring. He saves names, histories, appearances, all archived in the great library. From time to time he puts a book on the shelf. Even now there is still room.
He has been here since before the heart of the house began to beat, though he has long grown accustomed to its rhythm. With little difficulty he recalls the name of a lady who doomed herself with her own restraints. Long dead now, or so he thinks. He has not heard her footsteps since the heart began its palpitations.
The archivist knows that story too - of the young boy fleeing danger who found far more in the place he sought sanctuary. The boy ended up imprisoning himself. His story grew faint, then; the archivist has that book next to his desk, to be continued. The heart still beats; the story is not over yet.
Most of the time he can tell the whole story before he writes it - or could, had he anyone to tell. It is not that he sees the future, for he can hardly be sure that these people exist. Rather, the world outside reflects his stories, or his stories affect the world. Time does not work properly in this corner of existence. He remembers a man with a clock, appearing in various stories, enough to leave an impression. He wishes the man would come back more often. Of all the people who have been here, that man is the only person whose name the archivist has never known.
But the story he writes now is a familiar one; the story of a girl, accidentally stumbling into place she cannot fathom. She is fortunate to be here now, when the heart beats steadily. When it beats erratically, he writes bloody deaths late in the night, and feedings of gruesome creatures in the catacombs below, and ventricles pumping new blood into the house. For now, the new girl scuttles about, unharmed.
He wishes she were more curious, for she came close to finding his movable library. But there is always time here, so the archivist can afford to wait. He writes a savoury meal for the newest resident, and then he writes her reaction, listening to her surprised voice in his head like a song he cannot quite remember or forget.
--
08. chandelier
He steps out onto the dance floor with dimly-recalled memory of light steps and careful contact, unexpected smiles. He thinks clearer thoughts than usual: I've been here before. Not this room, not this shadowy gray-and-gold faded afterimage of a ballroom. But he has been in a place like it.
He waltzes across the tile: one two three one two thee one two three. Last time, he heard music as he did so; chatter, laughter, the noise of a good party and the enjoyment of its guests. He remembers how it all faded away to the low rush of pulse and the giddy quickening of breath when hand touched hand touched waist touched waist. The tradition of awkward conversation was thrown out, eye contact speaking wonders, with nothing left to actually say. In the flickering light of a hundred candles suspended above, they danced.
This hall is silent, empty, and his hands are cold.
--
14. howls in the distance
He does not think much now, simply a ghost and pile of bones. Without a name he has lost much of his form - or perhaps he simply cannot see himself particularly well. He does not recall anything of himself now, not a name, not a face, not even a motivation. The only thing he can think of remains the feeling that carried through his death - somewhere between defeat and utter grief. He remembers a love so crushing he hardly noticed the blood as it poured down his chest, and a pain so fleeting he was dead before it truly hit him. He remembers the beginning of a name, trapped on his tongue for eternity.
He screams it to the night, for it is all he knows.
--
17. bad boys
Joey found himself down by the railway bridge with his beer and his penny-whistle, lazing his adolescence away. He didn't belong to any gangs, or even any particularly close-knit groups of friends, and so his parents didn't ever get any complaints about him. He performed decently in school, brought home mediocre grades, and didn't really bother anyone. He had little to no idea what he actually wanted to do with his life, though he hoped it would involve football in some way.
Sometimes he would go exploring in the woods on the other side of the track. One fine summer day he wandered further from home than he normally did, and here he met three strangers.
They were all boys, perhaps his age or a little older, and they appeared very surprised to see him. The tallest looked concerned, running spindly fingers through overgrown black hair. But the other two grinned broadly at Joey and welcomed him to their turf. "We're not used to people finding this place," said the next shortest in a distinct northern accent.
"You must have walked a long way to get here," said the last, shaking a dark brown fringe from his eyes and peering beyond Joey, as if looking for a sign from whence he had come.
"Where are you lot from, then?" Joey asked. "I didn't know there were any towns out this way, until the city."
But all three boys shook their heads. "We're not from anywhere," said the second boy. "Well - we used to be. But we aren't anymore."
Joey digested this. It sounded pretty cool, not to be from anywhere. "What're your names, then?"
Neither of the two boys who'd been speaking before said anything. The first boy cleared his throat. For a long moment no one said anything at all, and Joey began to wonder what the hell he had said to offend them.
"My name's Joey," he offered. "Joey Wells."
"If you'd like to keep it that way," said the first boy in a curiously hoarse and creaky voice, "I would suggest that you leave this place."
Joey wasn't sure what to make of this, but it sounded like either a threat or a warning. Either way he was going to be late for tea, and he was rather hungry. Bidding the boys goodbye, he made his way back through the woods and back home.
The boys waved sadly behind, for they had been hoping for a new companion. But the first was right to send their acquaintance away, for even a new companion would only bring them minimal entertainment, and a great cost to all concerned. So they watched, and waved, and then they returned to a place that could not in all honesty be called home.
--
19. rattling chains
They stare across the room at each other. From time to time, one of them will scream.
The taller man's eyes have been cut out and only dried-up holes remain, but blindly he continues his staring. For he knows that across the room, the other man still slumps against the wall. Once they both tried to break their bonds, but now no fight remains in either prisoner. Years have passed since either has seen even a small ray of light in the gloom that holds them captive even as their chains do.
He has no eyes, but somehow he can remember seeing the rough brown texture of trees as they whipped by, the stars whirling overhead. And he remembers why he ran here, though he never thinks of it. He has only forgotten his name in all this time. The rest of his knowledge he keeps locked away where even he cannot see it, because the empty pits in his face were once eyes and though the veins in the walls feed him, he realises that they are too much a part of him now for escape ever to be effective.
Sometimes his hands still shake with addictions that have not been sated in years.
--
Across the room, the other man does not remember much of anything. As far as he knows, this dark, dank dungeon has been everything he ever has known. But he somehow remembers after all this time that on the other side, someone important is dying.
--
22. thump in the night
The heart of the house beats like a booming drum, at once both a comforting and frightening sound. In the time you have spent here, you have learned its rhythm by heart, so to speak; you breathe it, walk it, speak it. In your dreams it pounds its steady beat and keeps you lucid; it wakes you in the morning and sends you to sleep at night. All time is measured by the sound of the house's heart, deep and overpowering and always, always there.
You have never seen the heart itself, only the clock it powers. You have heard it all your life, though only known it lately. Someday, you think, you will open the door and let the spell be broken; see the monstrosity instead of its wrk. Then the house will swallow you whole, or reveal to you its treasure, or maybe just stop altogether. Sometimes you even dare to hope that it will continue to beat, and you will walk away from the secret center room and maybe leave that night for the city, for modern convenience. You will make new friends and forget the past years, and in time lose sync with that ever-present heartbeat. And someday you will die, and it will not be alone.
But you fear the dark, and you fear to face the source of the beat, for you fear the house in which you sleep and eat and live. There is nothing living here but you and the house, and so you fear what you can.
Sometimes you wonder if you fear the house or yourself more.
--
The table is always set for twelve, though by now the silver settings have grown dusty and covered in cobwebs. You never touch it, afraid that the item you relocate might return to its original place of its own accord - or worse, of someone else's. This is foolish, you know. You are alone in this house.
Perhaps you simply don't want proof.
As the heart thumps away, you sit in the kitchen and eat what food you find; somehow it never runs out or goes bad. You drink cold water and aged wine. One night you drink too much and wake up on the kitchen floor, cobweb trails where the great multitude of spiders' ghosts have wafted above. You stand, brush yourself clean, and then you cautiously leave the kitchen and start down the hall. You have lived here for long years, now, and you still haven not managed to pinpoint the exact location of the downstairs bathroom. Sometimes you swear it moves.
There is an upstairs bathroom, but after the last time you attempted to use it, that door remains firmly shut.
Now you stand in the darkened hallway, groping for the tassel that will open the curtains or light the chandelier. Sometimes the house provides lighting of its own accord - but today it seems to be uninterested in your affairs. Perhaps the heart beats for something else today. There are many other floors, and the catacombs below. These places you tend to avoid; you sleep upstairs and live downstairs, and you do not venture up or down any other staircases. You do not open locked doors. You shy away from the room where the heartbeats grow loud and the very walls vibrate in time, and the ballroom doors remain firmly shut.
Even this hallway, a place you have determined safe, remains largely unexplored. Most doors you have only opened in search of the bathroom, and since it generally occurs within the first twelve rooms, you have not ventured down the rest of the hallway. Today, the headache you suffer makes you reckless; you count the doors as you go, and when you reach thirteen you try the carved metal knob.
Unlocked, the door swings open to reveal a room smelling of dust and ancient perfume, mothballs and regrets. The room is dimly lit, but your eyes have adjusted to the darkness and you can see quite well. Your gaze travels over elegant wooden furniture, rich fabric, faded floral wallpaper. Once this room must have been a visual feast of rose and gold; now dust and time has claimed the vibrance from its decor and left only vague memories of what once was. Mementoes dot the shelves and dresser: a china doll dressed as a clown, a jewelry box, a feathered mask. Upon the desk, amidst yellowed paper and ink-encrusted pens, rests a statue of a girl dancing. Double doors partially concealed behind the canopy bed are ajar, and you can see through them only shadows. A lacy shawl hangs from one knob.
You nearly walk in, nearly read the papers on the desk, nearly open the boxes, nearly peer through the doors to see what hides behind them. But you are dusty and cobwebby and hung over, and so you leave the room and begin anew your perpetual search for the bathroom. As you close the door, you tell yourself that you will return.
--
31. wormholes
"Subject apprehended," said Suzie's voice over the comm link. "Jack, he's human. And male - I think."
Jack looked up at the first, although Suzie was hardly anywhere near so the motion failed to serve any purpose beyond dramatic flair. "Human?" he asked sharply. "Is he communicating?"
"Yes, he's talking to me," Suzie replied, voice dry and amused. "He sounds a bit Irish, although he doesn't appear to recognise either the name or any cities or landmarks. He doesn't speak any other languages, though, and he won't give me a name."
"How about a number?" Owen asked from his position in the medical bay, preparing the standard humanoid checkup equipment. At Tosh's quizzical expression, and Jack's leer, he shrugged. "What? Maybe he's from the future, and we don't use names anymore."
A crackle over the comm sounded like Suzie laughing, clipped and dry. "He looks pretty turn-of-the-twentieth-century to me, and they definitely had names back then." There was a lengthy pause, and the rest of the team had just returned to their respective tasks when she continued, "He's disturbingly coherent for someone straight out of the Rift."
"Well said, Madame Upenattem," Owen muttered bitterly. Tosh choked on her Ianto-made coffee, coughing so hard she had to turn away from the keyboard, laughing silently as she did so. Jack continued his leering, and Ianto, with a sigh no one noticed, went to get the mop.
--
The man Suzie brought in stood about five centimeters shorter than Owen, and seemed perfectly willing to undergo all sorts of examinations. He even chatted amiably with Jack as Owen stuck various needles into his arm, and asked intelligent though uninformed questions. The only topic he had little to say about was the place he had come from. He mentioned a house in passing, and then books and 'upstairs', but did not seem particularly inclined to explain himself. Furthermore, he failed to acknowledge any sort of world beyond said house.
Owen and Jack retreated to discuss the Rift-man out of earshot. "I'm thinking amnesia," Owen said without preamble. "Not recent amnesia, though. 'S like... he forgot everything, and then just relearned the world around him by touch. Somehow he can still talk - and he miraculously speaks English - but he never learned his name again, and he never left the building he was in. Or the floor, it seems like." He laughed at that. "Poor bugger's got about as much of a life as you do."
"It's probably not Rift-related, then," Jack replied, but frowned. "I'll have Ianto brief him a bit about the twenty-first century, and we'll see about releasing him." He paused a moment. "Come on, I'm not that bad, am I?" he added.
--
Ianto found explaining the twenty-first century to the man (whom he had dubbed Rex, in a sort of joke to himself) both easier and more difficult than expected. For instance, Rex picked up on concepts like government and economics with surprising ease, but somehow could not grasp societal codes and morals. At a loss, Ianto assigned some reading that would hopefully explain the latter concept more thoroughly than he could, and reported to Jack as Rex rapidly became ensconced within Ender's Game.
"He seems harmless, but I don't want to trust him completely," Jack mused, once Ianto had explained the situation. The irony of this statement would not return to haunt the former for a while, though the latter blanched a very little. "We can't rule out the possibility that he lost the knowledge of his home time for a reason."
"Amnesia as a punishment?" Ianto asked, both in admiration at the practicality of the notion and discomfort with the idea that something so definite could be administered to anyone for corrective purposes. Though in a society that could give that sort of punishment, Ianto could see where Rex might have developed such a lack of morals.
"That's one possibility," Jack replied. "I'm sure you can think of some others."
The rub of it all: Ianto could. In fact, he'd had the option to face a very similar fate to Rex's, though he had chosen to forego to opportunity. In a dangerous and life-changing position as anyone involved with Torchwood had to be, his knowledge of himself and the world as he knew it kept him grounded. He couldn't come to terms with the idea that he could lose all that - even though in a forgotten room in the lowers levels of the Hub, something (someone) was buried that (who) could bring him to that fate by its (her) mere existence.
"I suppose I'll prepare a cell for him, then," Ianto said. "Since it's too late to take him over to Flatt Holmes."
"No need," Suzie said, walking by en route to her desk. "I can keep him with me."
--
Next morning Jack stumbled out of his office to find Suzie sitting next to the man now officially dubbed Rex, and both immersed in a volume of poetry. Jack didn't need to look closer to know the author, not with Suzie's tastes.
"Are you nobody, too?" he murmured, and smiled wryly.
--
35. action/reaction
"That's the place," Evan said, gesturing to the manor on the hill. He looked visibly ill to Julian's inexpert gaze. "You probably can't tell."
Julian squinted into the early-morning shadow, looking for some sign of the temporal disconnection Evan claimed affected him so. All the magician could see, however, was evidence of age. The house assuredly looked rather creepy, but that was it. "I can't see anything odd, Evan," he replied. "It's only you."
Evan sighed. "I can't go any- hey!" he protested as Julian grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the house. "I can't go there!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Julian told him with infinite impatience. "I'm going to get a closer look, and you are going to come with me." He made sure to say this with as much authority as possible; Evan had this unfortunate habit of shying away from things he found ominous or out of his area of expertise, and Julian knew that this was a bad way to live. It was for Evan's own good that he be exposed to things that made him uncomfortable - especially if they were as interesting as this house. It probably had a graveyard of its own - maybe even a haunted ballroom. Julian had always wanted to see a haunted ballroom.
After much more protestation, Evan finally gave up on his fight as Julian knew he would - and if it happened sooner rather than later, well, all the better.
They walked slowly toward the house, for Evan's steps dragged the closer they went. Julian didn't mind much; the land surrounding it contained all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. They passed a privet hedge and found beyond it the graveyard Julian had hoped for, complete with angel statues and suitably eerie images of the deceased. Evan stiffened, and his free left hand gripped Julian's arm like a vice. Out of great kindness and respect for his friend, Julian did not comment.
Continuing further in, they discovered more statuary, solemnly watching over the pathway up to the house itself. Rosebushes, kept curiously timid despite apparent abandonment, filled the air with a slightly familiar sweetness, like a memory barely forgotten. Julian wondered why anyone would have left this place. If Evan hadn't been so uncomfortable - well, that could be changed. Julian could convince his friend to unbend enough to enjoy himself here, he was certain.
"Look," he said, casting about for a subject to entertain the friend in question with. "A sundial! You've got one in your garden, haven't you?"
The ploy worked, sort of; at least, Evan loosened his grip on Julian's arm. "I have," he said guardedly.
"I think they used to mark the graves of religious figures with sundials," Julian added, recalling a book he'd read recently. "To mark the passage of time that no longer affects them. Because they've gone to Paradise." He grinned over at his friend, hoping he'd get at least a smile in return.
But Evan merely nodded absently, expression still one of strain and discomfort. "I don't think anyone here found Paradise," he replied enigmatically.
The house - more like a mansion, really - loomed ahead now, and even Julian the Fearless found tingles of adrenaline shooting down his spine as he approached. Evan by contrast seemed stronger of will now, more sure of himself. He'd even let go of Julian's arm altogether now, much to the latter's unexpected chagrin. But as they stood facing the door, Julian had a thought that this perhaps had not been one of his better ideas. He wasn't sure why, but something told him to turn back. "Maybe you're right," he said softly, turning to Evan. But his friend's face was determined, now - actually scarily so.
"Knock on the door," said Evan.
Julian, unaccustomed to any sort of demands from the other, blinked for a moment and wondered if he'd heard right. But Evan's expression turned ever more imperious.
"Knock on the door," he repeated.
"I changed my mind, Evan, this doesn't seem like such a good idea," Julian replied. "I mean, we're trespassing here, aren't we? We should be, um, a bit sneakier about this..."
"Go to the door, and knock," Evan commanded, and Julian decided then and there that he felt as scared as he ever had in his life.
"Something isn't right here," he said, letting go of Evan's wrist and backing slowly away. "Evan, something's wrong with you."
"You're wrong," Evan replied, haughtily.
Evan walked to the door
Julian froze. He was sure he had heard a voice like old paper in his head, setting down words that had to happen. And slowly, as if hypnotised, Evan indeed began walking to the door. Time seemed to slow down until the blood rushing in Julian's ears slowed to a crawl, and then he moved as if through syrup. But Evan walked with purpose, and less hurry, and so Julian caught him before either touched the stair. Time whizzed back into action as if that long moment had never been, and Julian's grab abruptly became a tackle.
"What are you doing?" Evan asked, but his tone and inflection sounded... normal, for lack of a better word. Julian heaved a sigh of relief.
"Let's go," he said. "I don't like this place."
Evan sighed a very small amount, and very pointedly did not say "I told you so." Instead, he stood up, dusted himself off, and began walking down the path at a rather quick pace. "Hey, wait up!" Julian called, and ran to join him. He did not look back.
--
43. pieces of eight
"There's treasure buried in the garden," says the boy from the library one day. He has become rather more solid and a great deal more lucid these past few days, as though prolonged exposure to something alive has brought back some of his own lost vitality. Currently he hovers by the window, gazing out over the gloomy, fog-muted greenery, perhaps remembering some long-ago association with it. Or maybe he's simply seeking out the X that marks the spot.
The girl smiles and sets aside the book that she has been poring through. "What sort of treasure?" she inquires, more in the interest of humouring her friend than any actual desire to learn about it. Although there was a terribly romantic element to it all -- treasure in the garden, stolen names, a mystery in a forgotten manor -- she finds the whole business much too involved for her tastes. She would much rather read about such an adventure than live it.
But her new friend seems so excited about the prospect, she has a feeling she will agree to any plans to go looking for it.
"I'm not entirely sure what sort," the ghost boy admits, glancing back sheepishly at her. "But we could find out."
--
44. dead man's chest
She stares at the heart of the house with utter disgust, as it beats in time to her own pulse, to everything in this house save the broken clock in her pocket. In this chamber, the booming sound it creates drowns out all others, filling her ears and shaking the floor. Oblivious to any observation, the great slimy organ continues to thump and pulsate, sending bursts of some liquid in all directions through arteries the colour of old blood.
"I bet you don't have a name either," she says aloud, though her voice is lost in all the noise of th heart and her own nausea. She swallows thickly. "It's difficult to believe you could ever have belonged to something alive." Against her own better judgment, she continues her examination of the source of the house's rhythm.
The heart hangs from the domed ceiling like a chandelier by many thin chains, looped around ventricles and arteries and threaded through oozing flesh. But it also rests atop a porcelain pedestal. Engraved in the front of this pedestal is one word: ANONYMOUS.
The girl reads this, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
--
48. things in jars
She stands poised to step forward at the entrance to the stairwell, and hesitates. Ever since discovering the heart in the bowels of the house the has avoided this place with great revulsion. Even now the beating, loud in her ears and shaking her very bones, sickens her. Were it not for her friend from the library, hovering beside her and positively radiating the emotional tumult he must be feeling, she would never have returned to this place at all.
"Are you sure about this?" she asks once more, buying herself a little more time. But his determined nod shames her She is not the one who will suffer from this particular expedition.
"I don't want to know any more than I already do," he tells her. "I can't take remembering without being able to -- breathe, or sleep, or touch things--" He swings a hand through the air and wall alike, violently. "This isn't right."
The girl sighs, and very carefully refrains from sagging against the doorframe. "Then let's go," she sighs. "You'll have to tell me where."
"It'll come to me," the boy replies, less in confidence and more in dread.
He leads the way down the corridor, the girl trailing close behind. Sometimes he pauses and peers into rooms while she waits patiently outside, doing her best to ignore the ever-increasing volume of the heart below. She fancies it quickens its beat, or perhaps it is only her own heart so loud in her ears.
"Funny," says the boy once, in a tone of voice that suggests he finds it anything but. "I think there's someone alive in there."
"Alive?" demands the girl, at once rushing to the door and pushing at the lock. "What are they doing in there? We should let them out--"
"Not now," says the boy. "On your way back." And then there is silence again, for they both know why he said 'your', and not 'our'.
"Well, then," continues the boy, after a time of awkward silence. "Shall we go on?" He takes a step -- unnecessary for his mode of transportation, but effective as an accent to his suggestion. The girl almost smiles. They keep going.
At the end of the hall is a room. The girl tries the door and finds it open. Inside are shelves and tables and dim lighting from some unseen candle or window. Upon every surface rest hundreds of jars, all near the same size, full of dark liquid and what looks to be eyes, perhaps brains. They all bubble gently, as if about to boil, or breathing. Boxes of bones lie underneath the shelves and tables, save for one hand, forgotten on the floor near the girl's feet.
"Is this the right place?" she asks.
"Yes," says the ghost boy.
They walk inside. Upon each jar someone has attached a label, and these labels perhaps held names once. Now all the girl can see are ink blurs. But there are eyes, of blue and green and brown and grey and sometimes hazel. The boy comes to a halt in front of a pair of sky blue, and the girl suddenly remembers what summer looks like. She wonders if the fog has lifted outside. It's been a long time since she went to look.
"This is the one," the boy says, and turns to smile at his friend. Then he fades away. The jar glows bright momentarily, and then the bubbling ceases.
The girl stays there for a moment, watching the still jar and thinking deep thoughts. Then she turns, decisively, and walks out of the room of jars. Behind her, a heart beats in the distance, low and sorrowful.
--
50. never seen again
He watches them go in his mind's eye, the girl and the broken man and the body that never had a chance. They walk down the hall in horrified silence, and he writes them an uninterrupted hallway, a lack of pursuit, a little bit of mercy into a house that never would have known where to begin with such a human concept.
And then he stops writing, once they have passed through the door. Instead he stand up and walks to the window he has not actually looked out of in years. He can see them now, crossing the garden, unconcerned with the ghosts that rise up and follow them on this mad bid for freedom. The archivist watches, and smiles sadly to himself. He lets them go.
When the procession has ended, there is still light in the sky, and the house remains as silent as ever. The house does not collapse in upon itself, and the heartbeat continues as ever. The archivist lets himself remain at the window for a little while longer, surveying the image of land he knows intimately, listening to the comforting palpitation of something alive but never sentient. He is alone again, he knows, and more so than before.
But that's all right. He was alone before all these ghosts came, and the ghosts of the house and garden that still remain will not leave. And he doesn't really mind, either; he still has his books, and so long as the house remains there shall always be a story to tell...
--
01. dead of night
The house doesn't care who you are. You walk up to the door and know this, and deep inside the house you fancy you hear an echo: th-thump th-thump th-thump. It doesn't sound much like knocking, though. It's more like a heartbeat, constant and familiar. You think that you could spend years listening to that steady beat, and then wonder where this thought came from.
But you don't have years. Already you can hear shouts in the distance: pursuit. You to turn to run, but something prompts you to turn back to the door. An invitation, maybe, some sense of possibilities unexplored, potential to be exploited. The closed door beckons, glinting with lights within. You stand there in the dark, and hesitate.
"There, there!" someone shouts in the distance, a stranger, or perhaps someone who once claimed your friendship. You glance back, feeling no fear now but a sudden sorrow, a wistfulness unlike the grief you so recently have known. But you only spare your pursuers this one glance before trying the knob. Then you open the door and walk in.
When you shut it behind you, something far more permanent, more ominous than a lock clicks into place.
--
02. graveyard songs
The lady of the house keep her lips shut and her eyes shuttered, and only smiles at the people she cares nothing for. She dresses as if every night should be a celebration, and in a misguided display of magnanimity her husband holds as many parties as he can. But she does not mind and over the years grows to love these evenings as she has never loved her husband. She watches him watching the pretty women he does not know well enough to loathe, and sweeps by with nary a glance of scorn. These women - nay, these girls, they swarm her husband, desiring his money, his power, his handsome face. She leads the other guests a merry chase, and sometimes if she grows weary of the charade she will take one away from the bright lights and allow him into her bed. She always makes sure never to see his face.
When he lies asleep and the lights of the party have thinned, she does the other thing she has never done to her own husband.
--
The garden grows exceptionally well this year. Her husband comments upon it at length, when they are alone; he attempts to draw her in away from the flowers and thorns. Come inside, he says, there is nothing more you can do here.
But she knows that this garden will never be perfect. There will always be one thing lacking in it.
--
The first time they met, the lady wore rose frills and a corset that left her swooning. He said that she was the most beautiful of all, and she thanked him.
Later that night found her without the corset, frills askew, with a stranger atop her, skin-to-skin. She did not learn until many years had gone by that this man had been her husband's brother, and that he took his own life two days later. All she knew then was that her fingers about his neck gave her a thrill that his thrusting never could.
--
She married him because out of all the men she had ever met, he was the first not to take her to bed when she asked. She believed that she could always kill him later, then later, then later. And then they were married, and he did not come to the wedding bed, so she slept with the best man and buried him near the statue of Lady Justice.
She never lets her husband touch her, because she will kill him when he finally does.
--
One night he stays out late with his friends - always new, for they do always seem to come to unfortunate ends - and does not return for days. When he does, he is pale and raving, and the maids all stand in the halls and whisper poison, poison. The lady looks in on him as he sleeps, and almost goes to touch him, but something in her recoils. She cannot fondle a sick man. So she goes from the chamber, and leaves him alone.
In the morning, he is gone, long gone.
They bring in the priest, and he performs hurried last rites. But the lord of the house is never buried, for the lady takes the priest to her bed and then out to the garden. She tells the household that something came up, that the priest was forced to leave. Then she sends them all into the servants' wing and locks them in.
Her husband lies on a bench in the chapel, preserved by the drink that killed him. She wonders idly if she could yet perform her will, but a corpse gives her no appetite. Still, she resolves not to be defeated so easily.
--
03. harpsichord
Her fingers trail across ivory keys, lazily wandering through faintly-recalled melodies that waft through the darkness to echo about the arches ceiling. She plays sad waltzes and wistful airs and gazes out upon the ballroom, empty now of all but shadows and dust.
She no longer knows her name - perhaps she never had one. She cannot bring to mind any recollections of other people, family, friends. All she knows are the shifting colours of once-upon-a-time dancers and the keys of the harpsichord beneath her fingers. She never ceases playing. When she has played all the tunes she knows she simply invents new ones, and in time they join her repertoire or worm their varying ways into the songs she already knows.
Sometimes a face will appear in the shadows as if drawn to the music. Sometimes shadowy forms will dance in from out of the darkness, all glinting hats and swishing skirts before they fade away once more. Once in a while, a single form will twirl about the tiles, and then she stops playing because she suddenly feels as if she is about to cry.
This is a house of no names, of old ghosts and memories that all have forgotten to remember. In a shaky bid for existence, the musician plays her tunes and tries not to forget anything more than she already has.
--
04. debris
There is one clock in the whole of the city and its lands that Evan does not know how to repair. He has steeled himself, walked out to the great manor a double dozen times, sometimes even made it inside. But the temporal wrongness that permeates the atmosphere there he cannot abide; when his own heartbeat strains to follow two incompatible rhythms, he knows he has to leave.
Time in sick there, in a way that he, merely a fixer of clocks, can do nothing about.
--
Once, when he turned to flee, a woman walked out of the garden. Her dress was sumptuous, if ragged, and in her face lurked something reticent, some subtle nuance that Evan knew had nothing to do with temporal troubles. She smiled at him, and in her smile, in her eyes was honest attraction only.
"Will you walk with me?" she asked him.
"I can't stay here," he said, "though I am surely missing a beautiful view."
"Oh, no one stays here," said the woman wistfully, but also with satisfaction. "But if they did, they would never leave."
He wasn't and still isn't sure what it is about her that warned him; perhaps it was the extent of her honesty. She didn't have an ulterior motive, he is fairly certain. But it was a place of great discomfort for him, and so when something struck him amiss, he was inclined to follow his instinct over his sense of tact.
"You certainly never did," Evan replied, and made his exit.
--
She appears at his workshop only a week later, and Evan is disconcerted to discover that she still wears the same garments. She smiles at him in what should probably be an alluring way, but he only finds it chilling. But he lets her in, because that is what he always does.
"Why do you fear me so?" she asks without introduction.
"I don't know," Evan replies.
"But you do fear me," she persists.
"Yes," Evan says.
The woman is silent, and frowns slightly, as if thinking hard. "Is it because my advances are unwelcome?" she finally asks. "Have I been too forward?"
"Yes," Evan says again. "Or, that's part of it."
"But," she says, "there doesn't have to be an attachment. As I said, no one stays."
"You also said that no one leaves."
Silence descends once again, and Evan stands aside to allow her entrance. She only walks in as far as he is, though, and turns to face him against the wall. Recognising the trap, Evan sidesteps her, but she grabs his arm and holds him in place.
He expects another advance, but she places something cool and metallic in his palm. Raising his hand to eye level, he discovers a pocketwatch, intricately detailed and silver. It does not tick. "You repair watches, do you not?" she inquires. "It doesn't work anymore. None of them do. But I want you to fix this one." She takes his hand and closes his fingers around it; then she lets go and walks out again. Behind her lingers the faint scent of roses.
Evan sags against the wall in relief.
--
The watch does not take long to fix. Once out of the temporal displacement, it is a fairly simple feat to nudge the gears back into their movements. He winds the watch and sets it to the proper time, and then places it on a shelf. The woman never returns, and eventually he forgets about it altogether.
--
05. closed casket
Somewhere in his twisted heart, he knows he is no longer human.
His mind is encased, now, unable to observe his surroundings; his spirit trapped within the pages of a book. His name is long gone. But somehow his heart remains, and it can feel a difference around it. Ventricles have hardened, and he cannot tell where they lead, nor what now his heart pumps. But he can feel the beating of his own heart, so perhaps it is nearby - still connected to him somehow. He cannot see, and he cannot taste, and he cannot smell nor hear. But he can feel, and he can remember.
He remembers - not much, now. Too much of his remembrances are days of panic, days of hiding within his own mind and dying, living, simultaneously. He remembers faces that twist into variations of familiarity, and he remembers blood - too much blood. He remembers the feeling of absolute silence, when his home finally stood empty, when his heart for one hopeful moment stood still. And then he remembers the awful sound of his own heartbeat once more, reverberating in his ribs, jolting him forward and pulling at his bonds: survive! survive! survive!
He remembers innocent curiosity, an exploration. He does not remember a world beyond. When hand touches page, his memories begin.
The book, he thinks. It held every secret, everything I ever wanted to know. The book, it fulfilled my search - but at a price I never would have paid.
The worst of it is that even after all the trouble, all the screaming, all the shouts of that one cursed word that killed everything he hadn't noticed was dear to him - even after they died with it on their lips - he still cannot recall his name.
--
06. bookcase door
She finds the door in the bookcase quite by accident. For days she searched for something she could read that would not keep her from the shadows, shivering. So many books in the library told only tragedies, dark poetry, tales of cursed brides and fathers gone insane. Murder. Madness. The house reeks of it, of all the cliche a tale of terror can hold.
Picking up a book at random, she flips to a page at random and reads:
The door creaked open, and the boy crept in, heart fluttering in his chest like a bird. The house was dark, but the hearts of the men who pursued him were darker, and so he fled from them to the heart of the darkness itself. And he whispered a name to the shadows, and the house took it, and his as well. Nameless and quickly forgetting everything but the terror he had evaded, he tiptoed inside, ever further...
She closes the book in disgust. She does not wish to read of horrors.
Two tiers up she finds a green-bound spine; the tooled letters proclaim a book of poetry. She cannot read the author's name, if the unidentifable smudge at the bottom of the cover is such. Without much optimism, she opens it to the centerfold.
Entwined between the banisters
Enshrined within the stairs
The lady of the house descended
leaving her husband there.
She glances at the image that accompanies this verse and quickly replaces the book. She wonders if maybe somebody wrote all these stories as an account of the myriad horrors this manor has hosted. She could be the next tale, left on a bookshelf no one will likely look twice at. But still she does not wish to read these tales. Like the ghosts that roam the halls, they are remnants of greater things, and remain only to torment the living - one way or another.
Another spine calls to her, a dull orange that might long ago have been bright. Recipes, it says. Heartened that such a mundane thing as a cookbook could exist in this place, she reaches for it, but it does not fall free of the shelf. Instead, she hears a click and then a whirr like clockwork, and the shelf jolts toward her with a thud. Jumping back, heart speeding up, she watches as it does not fall but insteads slides out of the way, to reveal -
More books. Another roomful of books, and passages leading off in various directions to signify that more lurks beyond the immediate prize. For a moment she almost walks in. There must be so many more books within, and perhaps something whimsical or at least lighthearted. Surely someone in a long line of owners must have enjoyed a light read, perhaps in the garden. A history, maybe? Plays? She fancies she can see this figurative master of the house now, adorned in the clothing she had found in various wardrobes, softly smiling face brightened by firelight, book in lap. He would have been a kind man. She wonders where he would have sat.
Then she remembers that he is a figment of her imagination, and that she has no interest in walking into rooms she does not know how to leave. And so she walks out of the library, leaving the bookshelf door a gaping hole behind her, a book left open and overturned on a table that she does not wish to finish. She does not look back.
But she will.
--
07. entrenched
In the very back of the library, he writes. He does not cease writing, not to sleep or to eat or even to rest his weary fingers. Pages turn; he fills them with words, with names, with everything that the house would otherwise eat up. He records it all dutifully in his books and tells the stories as he imagines them. With each new name, he hopes for the sound of footsteps, for a stranger to appear and give him new things to think about. He would give them their story and tell his, and maybe then he'd get some rest.
For now, he writes on.
He keeps his book beside him, name washed clean from his head. If he cared to he could open it and learn who he is. He does not wish it yet. He's not certain why, but somehow he knows that so long as he remains oblivious to his identity, he can continue writing his stories forever. He likes writing his stories, even though it is lonely work and tiring. He saves names, histories, appearances, all archived in the great library. From time to time he puts a book on the shelf. Even now there is still room.
He has been here since before the heart of the house began to beat, though he has long grown accustomed to its rhythm. With little difficulty he recalls the name of a lady who doomed herself with her own restraints. Long dead now, or so he thinks. He has not heard her footsteps since the heart began its palpitations.
The archivist knows that story too - of the young boy fleeing danger who found far more in the place he sought sanctuary. The boy ended up imprisoning himself. His story grew faint, then; the archivist has that book next to his desk, to be continued. The heart still beats; the story is not over yet.
Most of the time he can tell the whole story before he writes it - or could, had he anyone to tell. It is not that he sees the future, for he can hardly be sure that these people exist. Rather, the world outside reflects his stories, or his stories affect the world. Time does not work properly in this corner of existence. He remembers a man with a clock, appearing in various stories, enough to leave an impression. He wishes the man would come back more often. Of all the people who have been here, that man is the only person whose name the archivist has never known.
But the story he writes now is a familiar one; the story of a girl, accidentally stumbling into place she cannot fathom. She is fortunate to be here now, when the heart beats steadily. When it beats erratically, he writes bloody deaths late in the night, and feedings of gruesome creatures in the catacombs below, and ventricles pumping new blood into the house. For now, the new girl scuttles about, unharmed.
He wishes she were more curious, for she came close to finding his movable library. But there is always time here, so the archivist can afford to wait. He writes a savoury meal for the newest resident, and then he writes her reaction, listening to her surprised voice in his head like a song he cannot quite remember or forget.
--
08. chandelier
He steps out onto the dance floor with dimly-recalled memory of light steps and careful contact, unexpected smiles. He thinks clearer thoughts than usual: I've been here before. Not this room, not this shadowy gray-and-gold faded afterimage of a ballroom. But he has been in a place like it.
He waltzes across the tile: one two three one two thee one two three. Last time, he heard music as he did so; chatter, laughter, the noise of a good party and the enjoyment of its guests. He remembers how it all faded away to the low rush of pulse and the giddy quickening of breath when hand touched hand touched waist touched waist. The tradition of awkward conversation was thrown out, eye contact speaking wonders, with nothing left to actually say. In the flickering light of a hundred candles suspended above, they danced.
This hall is silent, empty, and his hands are cold.
--
14. howls in the distance
He does not think much now, simply a ghost and pile of bones. Without a name he has lost much of his form - or perhaps he simply cannot see himself particularly well. He does not recall anything of himself now, not a name, not a face, not even a motivation. The only thing he can think of remains the feeling that carried through his death - somewhere between defeat and utter grief. He remembers a love so crushing he hardly noticed the blood as it poured down his chest, and a pain so fleeting he was dead before it truly hit him. He remembers the beginning of a name, trapped on his tongue for eternity.
He screams it to the night, for it is all he knows.
--
17. bad boys
Joey found himself down by the railway bridge with his beer and his penny-whistle, lazing his adolescence away. He didn't belong to any gangs, or even any particularly close-knit groups of friends, and so his parents didn't ever get any complaints about him. He performed decently in school, brought home mediocre grades, and didn't really bother anyone. He had little to no idea what he actually wanted to do with his life, though he hoped it would involve football in some way.
Sometimes he would go exploring in the woods on the other side of the track. One fine summer day he wandered further from home than he normally did, and here he met three strangers.
They were all boys, perhaps his age or a little older, and they appeared very surprised to see him. The tallest looked concerned, running spindly fingers through overgrown black hair. But the other two grinned broadly at Joey and welcomed him to their turf. "We're not used to people finding this place," said the next shortest in a distinct northern accent.
"You must have walked a long way to get here," said the last, shaking a dark brown fringe from his eyes and peering beyond Joey, as if looking for a sign from whence he had come.
"Where are you lot from, then?" Joey asked. "I didn't know there were any towns out this way, until the city."
But all three boys shook their heads. "We're not from anywhere," said the second boy. "Well - we used to be. But we aren't anymore."
Joey digested this. It sounded pretty cool, not to be from anywhere. "What're your names, then?"
Neither of the two boys who'd been speaking before said anything. The first boy cleared his throat. For a long moment no one said anything at all, and Joey began to wonder what the hell he had said to offend them.
"My name's Joey," he offered. "Joey Wells."
"If you'd like to keep it that way," said the first boy in a curiously hoarse and creaky voice, "I would suggest that you leave this place."
Joey wasn't sure what to make of this, but it sounded like either a threat or a warning. Either way he was going to be late for tea, and he was rather hungry. Bidding the boys goodbye, he made his way back through the woods and back home.
The boys waved sadly behind, for they had been hoping for a new companion. But the first was right to send their acquaintance away, for even a new companion would only bring them minimal entertainment, and a great cost to all concerned. So they watched, and waved, and then they returned to a place that could not in all honesty be called home.
--
19. rattling chains
They stare across the room at each other. From time to time, one of them will scream.
The taller man's eyes have been cut out and only dried-up holes remain, but blindly he continues his staring. For he knows that across the room, the other man still slumps against the wall. Once they both tried to break their bonds, but now no fight remains in either prisoner. Years have passed since either has seen even a small ray of light in the gloom that holds them captive even as their chains do.
He has no eyes, but somehow he can remember seeing the rough brown texture of trees as they whipped by, the stars whirling overhead. And he remembers why he ran here, though he never thinks of it. He has only forgotten his name in all this time. The rest of his knowledge he keeps locked away where even he cannot see it, because the empty pits in his face were once eyes and though the veins in the walls feed him, he realises that they are too much a part of him now for escape ever to be effective.
Sometimes his hands still shake with addictions that have not been sated in years.
--
Across the room, the other man does not remember much of anything. As far as he knows, this dark, dank dungeon has been everything he ever has known. But he somehow remembers after all this time that on the other side, someone important is dying.
--
22. thump in the night
The heart of the house beats like a booming drum, at once both a comforting and frightening sound. In the time you have spent here, you have learned its rhythm by heart, so to speak; you breathe it, walk it, speak it. In your dreams it pounds its steady beat and keeps you lucid; it wakes you in the morning and sends you to sleep at night. All time is measured by the sound of the house's heart, deep and overpowering and always, always there.
You have never seen the heart itself, only the clock it powers. You have heard it all your life, though only known it lately. Someday, you think, you will open the door and let the spell be broken; see the monstrosity instead of its wrk. Then the house will swallow you whole, or reveal to you its treasure, or maybe just stop altogether. Sometimes you even dare to hope that it will continue to beat, and you will walk away from the secret center room and maybe leave that night for the city, for modern convenience. You will make new friends and forget the past years, and in time lose sync with that ever-present heartbeat. And someday you will die, and it will not be alone.
But you fear the dark, and you fear to face the source of the beat, for you fear the house in which you sleep and eat and live. There is nothing living here but you and the house, and so you fear what you can.
Sometimes you wonder if you fear the house or yourself more.
--
The table is always set for twelve, though by now the silver settings have grown dusty and covered in cobwebs. You never touch it, afraid that the item you relocate might return to its original place of its own accord - or worse, of someone else's. This is foolish, you know. You are alone in this house.
Perhaps you simply don't want proof.
As the heart thumps away, you sit in the kitchen and eat what food you find; somehow it never runs out or goes bad. You drink cold water and aged wine. One night you drink too much and wake up on the kitchen floor, cobweb trails where the great multitude of spiders' ghosts have wafted above. You stand, brush yourself clean, and then you cautiously leave the kitchen and start down the hall. You have lived here for long years, now, and you still haven not managed to pinpoint the exact location of the downstairs bathroom. Sometimes you swear it moves.
There is an upstairs bathroom, but after the last time you attempted to use it, that door remains firmly shut.
Now you stand in the darkened hallway, groping for the tassel that will open the curtains or light the chandelier. Sometimes the house provides lighting of its own accord - but today it seems to be uninterested in your affairs. Perhaps the heart beats for something else today. There are many other floors, and the catacombs below. These places you tend to avoid; you sleep upstairs and live downstairs, and you do not venture up or down any other staircases. You do not open locked doors. You shy away from the room where the heartbeats grow loud and the very walls vibrate in time, and the ballroom doors remain firmly shut.
Even this hallway, a place you have determined safe, remains largely unexplored. Most doors you have only opened in search of the bathroom, and since it generally occurs within the first twelve rooms, you have not ventured down the rest of the hallway. Today, the headache you suffer makes you reckless; you count the doors as you go, and when you reach thirteen you try the carved metal knob.
Unlocked, the door swings open to reveal a room smelling of dust and ancient perfume, mothballs and regrets. The room is dimly lit, but your eyes have adjusted to the darkness and you can see quite well. Your gaze travels over elegant wooden furniture, rich fabric, faded floral wallpaper. Once this room must have been a visual feast of rose and gold; now dust and time has claimed the vibrance from its decor and left only vague memories of what once was. Mementoes dot the shelves and dresser: a china doll dressed as a clown, a jewelry box, a feathered mask. Upon the desk, amidst yellowed paper and ink-encrusted pens, rests a statue of a girl dancing. Double doors partially concealed behind the canopy bed are ajar, and you can see through them only shadows. A lacy shawl hangs from one knob.
You nearly walk in, nearly read the papers on the desk, nearly open the boxes, nearly peer through the doors to see what hides behind them. But you are dusty and cobwebby and hung over, and so you leave the room and begin anew your perpetual search for the bathroom. As you close the door, you tell yourself that you will return.
--
31. wormholes
"Subject apprehended," said Suzie's voice over the comm link. "Jack, he's human. And male - I think."
Jack looked up at the first, although Suzie was hardly anywhere near so the motion failed to serve any purpose beyond dramatic flair. "Human?" he asked sharply. "Is he communicating?"
"Yes, he's talking to me," Suzie replied, voice dry and amused. "He sounds a bit Irish, although he doesn't appear to recognise either the name or any cities or landmarks. He doesn't speak any other languages, though, and he won't give me a name."
"How about a number?" Owen asked from his position in the medical bay, preparing the standard humanoid checkup equipment. At Tosh's quizzical expression, and Jack's leer, he shrugged. "What? Maybe he's from the future, and we don't use names anymore."
A crackle over the comm sounded like Suzie laughing, clipped and dry. "He looks pretty turn-of-the-twentieth-century to me, and they definitely had names back then." There was a lengthy pause, and the rest of the team had just returned to their respective tasks when she continued, "He's disturbingly coherent for someone straight out of the Rift."
"Well said, Madame Upenattem," Owen muttered bitterly. Tosh choked on her Ianto-made coffee, coughing so hard she had to turn away from the keyboard, laughing silently as she did so. Jack continued his leering, and Ianto, with a sigh no one noticed, went to get the mop.
--
The man Suzie brought in stood about five centimeters shorter than Owen, and seemed perfectly willing to undergo all sorts of examinations. He even chatted amiably with Jack as Owen stuck various needles into his arm, and asked intelligent though uninformed questions. The only topic he had little to say about was the place he had come from. He mentioned a house in passing, and then books and 'upstairs', but did not seem particularly inclined to explain himself. Furthermore, he failed to acknowledge any sort of world beyond said house.
Owen and Jack retreated to discuss the Rift-man out of earshot. "I'm thinking amnesia," Owen said without preamble. "Not recent amnesia, though. 'S like... he forgot everything, and then just relearned the world around him by touch. Somehow he can still talk - and he miraculously speaks English - but he never learned his name again, and he never left the building he was in. Or the floor, it seems like." He laughed at that. "Poor bugger's got about as much of a life as you do."
"It's probably not Rift-related, then," Jack replied, but frowned. "I'll have Ianto brief him a bit about the twenty-first century, and we'll see about releasing him." He paused a moment. "Come on, I'm not that bad, am I?" he added.
--
Ianto found explaining the twenty-first century to the man (whom he had dubbed Rex, in a sort of joke to himself) both easier and more difficult than expected. For instance, Rex picked up on concepts like government and economics with surprising ease, but somehow could not grasp societal codes and morals. At a loss, Ianto assigned some reading that would hopefully explain the latter concept more thoroughly than he could, and reported to Jack as Rex rapidly became ensconced within Ender's Game.
"He seems harmless, but I don't want to trust him completely," Jack mused, once Ianto had explained the situation. The irony of this statement would not return to haunt the former for a while, though the latter blanched a very little. "We can't rule out the possibility that he lost the knowledge of his home time for a reason."
"Amnesia as a punishment?" Ianto asked, both in admiration at the practicality of the notion and discomfort with the idea that something so definite could be administered to anyone for corrective purposes. Though in a society that could give that sort of punishment, Ianto could see where Rex might have developed such a lack of morals.
"That's one possibility," Jack replied. "I'm sure you can think of some others."
The rub of it all: Ianto could. In fact, he'd had the option to face a very similar fate to Rex's, though he had chosen to forego to opportunity. In a dangerous and life-changing position as anyone involved with Torchwood had to be, his knowledge of himself and the world as he knew it kept him grounded. He couldn't come to terms with the idea that he could lose all that - even though in a forgotten room in the lowers levels of the Hub, something (someone) was buried that (who) could bring him to that fate by its (her) mere existence.
"I suppose I'll prepare a cell for him, then," Ianto said. "Since it's too late to take him over to Flatt Holmes."
"No need," Suzie said, walking by en route to her desk. "I can keep him with me."
--
Next morning Jack stumbled out of his office to find Suzie sitting next to the man now officially dubbed Rex, and both immersed in a volume of poetry. Jack didn't need to look closer to know the author, not with Suzie's tastes.
"Are you nobody, too?" he murmured, and smiled wryly.
--
35. action/reaction
"That's the place," Evan said, gesturing to the manor on the hill. He looked visibly ill to Julian's inexpert gaze. "You probably can't tell."
Julian squinted into the early-morning shadow, looking for some sign of the temporal disconnection Evan claimed affected him so. All the magician could see, however, was evidence of age. The house assuredly looked rather creepy, but that was it. "I can't see anything odd, Evan," he replied. "It's only you."
Evan sighed. "I can't go any- hey!" he protested as Julian grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the house. "I can't go there!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Julian told him with infinite impatience. "I'm going to get a closer look, and you are going to come with me." He made sure to say this with as much authority as possible; Evan had this unfortunate habit of shying away from things he found ominous or out of his area of expertise, and Julian knew that this was a bad way to live. It was for Evan's own good that he be exposed to things that made him uncomfortable - especially if they were as interesting as this house. It probably had a graveyard of its own - maybe even a haunted ballroom. Julian had always wanted to see a haunted ballroom.
After much more protestation, Evan finally gave up on his fight as Julian knew he would - and if it happened sooner rather than later, well, all the better.
They walked slowly toward the house, for Evan's steps dragged the closer they went. Julian didn't mind much; the land surrounding it contained all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. They passed a privet hedge and found beyond it the graveyard Julian had hoped for, complete with angel statues and suitably eerie images of the deceased. Evan stiffened, and his free left hand gripped Julian's arm like a vice. Out of great kindness and respect for his friend, Julian did not comment.
Continuing further in, they discovered more statuary, solemnly watching over the pathway up to the house itself. Rosebushes, kept curiously timid despite apparent abandonment, filled the air with a slightly familiar sweetness, like a memory barely forgotten. Julian wondered why anyone would have left this place. If Evan hadn't been so uncomfortable - well, that could be changed. Julian could convince his friend to unbend enough to enjoy himself here, he was certain.
"Look," he said, casting about for a subject to entertain the friend in question with. "A sundial! You've got one in your garden, haven't you?"
The ploy worked, sort of; at least, Evan loosened his grip on Julian's arm. "I have," he said guardedly.
"I think they used to mark the graves of religious figures with sundials," Julian added, recalling a book he'd read recently. "To mark the passage of time that no longer affects them. Because they've gone to Paradise." He grinned over at his friend, hoping he'd get at least a smile in return.
But Evan merely nodded absently, expression still one of strain and discomfort. "I don't think anyone here found Paradise," he replied enigmatically.
The house - more like a mansion, really - loomed ahead now, and even Julian the Fearless found tingles of adrenaline shooting down his spine as he approached. Evan by contrast seemed stronger of will now, more sure of himself. He'd even let go of Julian's arm altogether now, much to the latter's unexpected chagrin. But as they stood facing the door, Julian had a thought that this perhaps had not been one of his better ideas. He wasn't sure why, but something told him to turn back. "Maybe you're right," he said softly, turning to Evan. But his friend's face was determined, now - actually scarily so.
"Knock on the door," said Evan.
Julian, unaccustomed to any sort of demands from the other, blinked for a moment and wondered if he'd heard right. But Evan's expression turned ever more imperious.
"Knock on the door," he repeated.
"I changed my mind, Evan, this doesn't seem like such a good idea," Julian replied. "I mean, we're trespassing here, aren't we? We should be, um, a bit sneakier about this..."
"Go to the door, and knock," Evan commanded, and Julian decided then and there that he felt as scared as he ever had in his life.
"Something isn't right here," he said, letting go of Evan's wrist and backing slowly away. "Evan, something's wrong with you."
"You're wrong," Evan replied, haughtily.
Evan walked to the door
Julian froze. He was sure he had heard a voice like old paper in his head, setting down words that had to happen. And slowly, as if hypnotised, Evan indeed began walking to the door. Time seemed to slow down until the blood rushing in Julian's ears slowed to a crawl, and then he moved as if through syrup. But Evan walked with purpose, and less hurry, and so Julian caught him before either touched the stair. Time whizzed back into action as if that long moment had never been, and Julian's grab abruptly became a tackle.
"What are you doing?" Evan asked, but his tone and inflection sounded... normal, for lack of a better word. Julian heaved a sigh of relief.
"Let's go," he said. "I don't like this place."
Evan sighed a very small amount, and very pointedly did not say "I told you so." Instead, he stood up, dusted himself off, and began walking down the path at a rather quick pace. "Hey, wait up!" Julian called, and ran to join him. He did not look back.
--
43. pieces of eight
"There's treasure buried in the garden," says the boy from the library one day. He has become rather more solid and a great deal more lucid these past few days, as though prolonged exposure to something alive has brought back some of his own lost vitality. Currently he hovers by the window, gazing out over the gloomy, fog-muted greenery, perhaps remembering some long-ago association with it. Or maybe he's simply seeking out the X that marks the spot.
The girl smiles and sets aside the book that she has been poring through. "What sort of treasure?" she inquires, more in the interest of humouring her friend than any actual desire to learn about it. Although there was a terribly romantic element to it all -- treasure in the garden, stolen names, a mystery in a forgotten manor -- she finds the whole business much too involved for her tastes. She would much rather read about such an adventure than live it.
But her new friend seems so excited about the prospect, she has a feeling she will agree to any plans to go looking for it.
"I'm not entirely sure what sort," the ghost boy admits, glancing back sheepishly at her. "But we could find out."
--
44. dead man's chest
She stares at the heart of the house with utter disgust, as it beats in time to her own pulse, to everything in this house save the broken clock in her pocket. In this chamber, the booming sound it creates drowns out all others, filling her ears and shaking the floor. Oblivious to any observation, the great slimy organ continues to thump and pulsate, sending bursts of some liquid in all directions through arteries the colour of old blood.
"I bet you don't have a name either," she says aloud, though her voice is lost in all the noise of th heart and her own nausea. She swallows thickly. "It's difficult to believe you could ever have belonged to something alive." Against her own better judgment, she continues her examination of the source of the house's rhythm.
The heart hangs from the domed ceiling like a chandelier by many thin chains, looped around ventricles and arteries and threaded through oozing flesh. But it also rests atop a porcelain pedestal. Engraved in the front of this pedestal is one word: ANONYMOUS.
The girl reads this, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
--
48. things in jars
She stands poised to step forward at the entrance to the stairwell, and hesitates. Ever since discovering the heart in the bowels of the house the has avoided this place with great revulsion. Even now the beating, loud in her ears and shaking her very bones, sickens her. Were it not for her friend from the library, hovering beside her and positively radiating the emotional tumult he must be feeling, she would never have returned to this place at all.
"Are you sure about this?" she asks once more, buying herself a little more time. But his determined nod shames her She is not the one who will suffer from this particular expedition.
"I don't want to know any more than I already do," he tells her. "I can't take remembering without being able to -- breathe, or sleep, or touch things--" He swings a hand through the air and wall alike, violently. "This isn't right."
The girl sighs, and very carefully refrains from sagging against the doorframe. "Then let's go," she sighs. "You'll have to tell me where."
"It'll come to me," the boy replies, less in confidence and more in dread.
He leads the way down the corridor, the girl trailing close behind. Sometimes he pauses and peers into rooms while she waits patiently outside, doing her best to ignore the ever-increasing volume of the heart below. She fancies it quickens its beat, or perhaps it is only her own heart so loud in her ears.
"Funny," says the boy once, in a tone of voice that suggests he finds it anything but. "I think there's someone alive in there."
"Alive?" demands the girl, at once rushing to the door and pushing at the lock. "What are they doing in there? We should let them out--"
"Not now," says the boy. "On your way back." And then there is silence again, for they both know why he said 'your', and not 'our'.
"Well, then," continues the boy, after a time of awkward silence. "Shall we go on?" He takes a step -- unnecessary for his mode of transportation, but effective as an accent to his suggestion. The girl almost smiles. They keep going.
At the end of the hall is a room. The girl tries the door and finds it open. Inside are shelves and tables and dim lighting from some unseen candle or window. Upon every surface rest hundreds of jars, all near the same size, full of dark liquid and what looks to be eyes, perhaps brains. They all bubble gently, as if about to boil, or breathing. Boxes of bones lie underneath the shelves and tables, save for one hand, forgotten on the floor near the girl's feet.
"Is this the right place?" she asks.
"Yes," says the ghost boy.
They walk inside. Upon each jar someone has attached a label, and these labels perhaps held names once. Now all the girl can see are ink blurs. But there are eyes, of blue and green and brown and grey and sometimes hazel. The boy comes to a halt in front of a pair of sky blue, and the girl suddenly remembers what summer looks like. She wonders if the fog has lifted outside. It's been a long time since she went to look.
"This is the one," the boy says, and turns to smile at his friend. Then he fades away. The jar glows bright momentarily, and then the bubbling ceases.
The girl stays there for a moment, watching the still jar and thinking deep thoughts. Then she turns, decisively, and walks out of the room of jars. Behind her, a heart beats in the distance, low and sorrowful.
--
50. never seen again
He watches them go in his mind's eye, the girl and the broken man and the body that never had a chance. They walk down the hall in horrified silence, and he writes them an uninterrupted hallway, a lack of pursuit, a little bit of mercy into a house that never would have known where to begin with such a human concept.
And then he stops writing, once they have passed through the door. Instead he stand up and walks to the window he has not actually looked out of in years. He can see them now, crossing the garden, unconcerned with the ghosts that rise up and follow them on this mad bid for freedom. The archivist watches, and smiles sadly to himself. He lets them go.
When the procession has ended, there is still light in the sky, and the house remains as silent as ever. The house does not collapse in upon itself, and the heartbeat continues as ever. The archivist lets himself remain at the window for a little while longer, surveying the image of land he knows intimately, listening to the comforting palpitation of something alive but never sentient. He is alone again, he knows, and more so than before.
But that's all right. He was alone before all these ghosts came, and the ghosts of the house and garden that still remain will not leave. And he doesn't really mind, either; he still has his books, and so long as the house remains there shall always be a story to tell...
--