"High on a hill sits a big old house with something wrong inside it. Spirits haunt the halls and make no effort now to hide it."
It had started, as it always does, on a dark and stormy night. The lights were low and darkness snuck under doorframes into inconspicuous corners. Out of the forty-four people living in the house, only one was awake. Of course, every single dead person was awake as well, but nobody likes to count them.
There was a breathing man. He panted and whistled and sighed, as if the gears in his chest weren't churning correctly. Darkness pooled at his feet as he slid his way down dusty corridors. He liked darkness. It was completely silent, and better yet, expected nothing of him but shelter and lonely company.
The man sighed. The darkness roared.
There was a creak in the sudden silence.
"It's a cold night," the breathing man whistled to the darkness. The darkness pulled at the man's slippers and ripped at his robe. Shadows danced with moonbeams.
Suddenly, the man turned a corner into a lighted passageway. His faithful companion was driven to the corners of the hall. The man swiveled his head, "They've invented sunblock, you know." The darkness sniffed in response and deserted the room.
The man was alone.
Another creak shook the house.
The man continued down the passageway until he reached a large wooden door – a shield, meant to protect. His hand hesitated over the handle, but urgency and determination push him onwards.
The shield reveals a room.
The room reveals a boy.
"What will put their souls to rest and stop their ceaseless sighing? Why do they call out children's names and speak of one who's crying?"
There is terror.
There is sickness.
There is boredom.
There is Elliot.
Elliot had experienced all three of these feelings, all at varying levels of intensity. Fear had long ago abandoned him, replaced with a boundless egotistical outlook and a very self-serving situation. He abused the staff and ridiculed their children; he fought his Uncle Tucker; he spat at his father. He was a retched beast with an unchecked temper that had no positive release.
Add regret, sprinkle in lashed tongues, bake at 400° for over a decade. It was a recipe for disaster.
And still, the breathing man crept into the bedroom, his eyes traveling over the body not eight feet away. Valleys transformed into hills and mountains as the boy breathed. A lake of drool caught the traipsing starlight.
"I hope you'll understand," the man began. His eyes dripped with pain. Fear and sadness splattered on the floor. He tries again, "I'm not…."
"I wish…."
Another creak. The foundation shuddered.
"I love you."
He dropped a kiss on the boy's forehead and then he was gone. The large wooden door shuffled closed behind him – a shield, meant to imprison.
"Someone died and someone's left alone and can't abide it. There in the house is a lonely man still haunted by her beauty; asking what a life can be when naught remains but duty."
It had been ten years since he had last seen her face.
He would have counted the days, the hours, the minutes and seconds and milliseconds, but society required that he at least act like he was healing, so sacrifices had to be made.
Of course, what was very obvious was that he was not, in fact, getting better. If anything, he was getting worse.
The breathing man sighed with the darkness and creaked with the house. He was tired of this old place. He was tired of his young brother. He was tired of his new son.
He would never be tired of Samantha. What he didn't understand is why she left, why she became tired of him.
Why he couldn't become tired of her.
"And the master hears the whispers on the stairways dark and still, and the spirits speak of secrets in the house upon the hill."
It was late in the early morning, and loud in the quiet hall. There was sunlight and chatter and nail biting.
Someone was dead.
Someone was dying.
Someone was waiting for death.
It was dark when it happened, and it most certainly wasn't his fault. Accidents happen, as does life. Ten years had passed him by; ten years of darkness and moonlight and breathing. Ten years of nothing but grieving for her.
Samantha Elizabeth Manson-Fenton looked down on her widowed husband and wept.
Elliot never enjoyed medicine. He didn't enjoy anything, really. Lollypops, books, board games. Poliomyelitis wasn't very enjoyable. Neither was dying.
The house would go to Tucker and his new wife, he decided. The darkness swirled at his feet. I must pay him his dues for staying with us so long. A mechanic in this broken factory.
Danny Fenton picked up his suitcase and sighed his way to the driveway where a buggy had just pulled up. He would continue from London to the Channel, then ferry his way down the Seine to Paris. It was a good, permanent trip. He would travel it only once.
The buggy crept down the hillside.
The wind howled.
The house creaked.
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye…