Friday, August 27, 2004
The Book of Bloods
This is an idea for a story that would be part of a collection of stories revolving around a magical, dark book. I wrote it as a response to the challenge in East of the Web Short Stories Uncut.
When I saw the ancient scripting filling the piece of paper, I recognized it immediately. I had had a very comprehensive education, that had included the black arts of the old times. The lore I learnt in my young days had helped me in unthinkable ways, and had made me the man I was. Good part of my wealth and power had been brought to me by the combination of my magical knowledge and my disregard for morality. Those two things had just helped me to murder the old, wandering wizard before he could become troublesome. He should not have tried to stay in my dominions and steal my authority over my people. Taking him unawares had been surprisingly easy, and he was furthermore yielding this little treasure that I had taken from his purse and was now studying eagerly.
It took me some time to put into practice my rusty knowledge of that oldest of languages, but little by little I translated the first sentences, and then the real value and potential of that small, battered piece of paper came to me. It was undoubtedly an excerpt from the Book of Bloods! The page did not actually come from it, it was just a transcribed copy of one of its paragraphs, but I knew it still preserved a great power that I intended to put into good use. For my benefit, that is. I carefully hid the manuscript under my robes and quickly left the place.
I returned to my mansion and occupied myself in the translation of the script. It proved to be a complete spell and I was soon able to pronounce it complete by heart, intoning the magical words with the old pronunciation that gave them their full might. In the following years my wealth and authority increased rapidly and I became a great dark lord ruling over all the civilized towns of the county. I used my privileged status and imposed my authority with my usual ruthlessness, governing over my petty peasants with fear and terror. I was really enjoying it all.
But after three years of unsurpassed supremacy over all other mortals, I started to feel a presence over me. It did not have any kind of embodiment, but I could sense it watching me from afar. I became afraid of leaving my premises unaccompanied and was suspicious of open spaces. Invisible eyes stared at me from the distance, and only beneath the walls of my castle did I feel safe. But those eyes kept getting closer and more insidious, and soon I could not even peer through the windows without feeling menaced. I tried to use the spell from the Book of Bloods against that presence but to no avail. Finally, I ordered all the windows blocked and retired to my private chambers. I hardly saw anyone and lived oppressed by the stone walls and the stale air surrounding me. I felt miserable and tried to find strength to revel against that situation, but I was confronting a force much more superior than all the supernatural means I knew of.
That final day I woke up and found myself in total darkness. I tried to stand up and search for a lamp, but couldn't. I tried to call for help, but no sound came out of my mouth. I was paralyzed and totally helpless, and somehow I knew I had fallen into a state that was to last forever. I could see or hear nothing, and was shocked into terror when the door slammed closed definitely. I've been crying since then and cannot stop. Somehow all my energies are being withdrawn by means of that scream, and if my madness would allow for it, I would realize that my blood is being insufflated into the Book.
*****
The Grand Master saw once more how the selected page glowed in liquid red, and closed the Book over it with a slam. Small drops of thick blood spilled slowly from among the pages. Nurturing the Book was his main mission and he intended to continue with it. So he once again opened the volume at random and cast his breath upon the revealed spell.
When I saw the ancient scripting filling the piece of paper, I recognized it immediately. I had had a very comprehensive education, that had included the black arts of the old times. The lore I learnt in my young days had helped me in unthinkable ways, and had made me the man I was. Good part of my wealth and power had been brought to me by the combination of my magical knowledge and my disregard for morality. Those two things had just helped me to murder the old, wandering wizard before he could become troublesome. He should not have tried to stay in my dominions and steal my authority over my people. Taking him unawares had been surprisingly easy, and he was furthermore yielding this little treasure that I had taken from his purse and was now studying eagerly.
It took me some time to put into practice my rusty knowledge of that oldest of languages, but little by little I translated the first sentences, and then the real value and potential of that small, battered piece of paper came to me. It was undoubtedly an excerpt from the Book of Bloods! The page did not actually come from it, it was just a transcribed copy of one of its paragraphs, but I knew it still preserved a great power that I intended to put into good use. For my benefit, that is. I carefully hid the manuscript under my robes and quickly left the place.
I returned to my mansion and occupied myself in the translation of the script. It proved to be a complete spell and I was soon able to pronounce it complete by heart, intoning the magical words with the old pronunciation that gave them their full might. In the following years my wealth and authority increased rapidly and I became a great dark lord ruling over all the civilized towns of the county. I used my privileged status and imposed my authority with my usual ruthlessness, governing over my petty peasants with fear and terror. I was really enjoying it all.
But after three years of unsurpassed supremacy over all other mortals, I started to feel a presence over me. It did not have any kind of embodiment, but I could sense it watching me from afar. I became afraid of leaving my premises unaccompanied and was suspicious of open spaces. Invisible eyes stared at me from the distance, and only beneath the walls of my castle did I feel safe. But those eyes kept getting closer and more insidious, and soon I could not even peer through the windows without feeling menaced. I tried to use the spell from the Book of Bloods against that presence but to no avail. Finally, I ordered all the windows blocked and retired to my private chambers. I hardly saw anyone and lived oppressed by the stone walls and the stale air surrounding me. I felt miserable and tried to find strength to revel against that situation, but I was confronting a force much more superior than all the supernatural means I knew of.
That final day I woke up and found myself in total darkness. I tried to stand up and search for a lamp, but couldn't. I tried to call for help, but no sound came out of my mouth. I was paralyzed and totally helpless, and somehow I knew I had fallen into a state that was to last forever. I could see or hear nothing, and was shocked into terror when the door slammed closed definitely. I've been crying since then and cannot stop. Somehow all my energies are being withdrawn by means of that scream, and if my madness would allow for it, I would realize that my blood is being insufflated into the Book.
*****
The Grand Master saw once more how the selected page glowed in liquid red, and closed the Book over it with a slam. Small drops of thick blood spilled slowly from among the pages. Nurturing the Book was his main mission and he intended to continue with it. So he once again opened the volume at random and cast his breath upon the revealed spell.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Spirits from the past
This is a story I wrote six or seven years ago and which was to be part of my first Hypernovel. I have adapted it to the linear fashion of a normal story. Hope you all enjoy it!
It was the strangest sensation I had ever felt. For a while I was completely confused and could not make sense of the flood of impressions, perceptions, and even emotions that was threatening to drown me. I even thought for a moment that I was dead or that I was going through a near-death experience.
The first shock was the sudden change in environment. It had been completely instantaneous. One instant I was in the familiar surroundings of the lab, next thing I could make sense of I was upside down hanging from the ceiling of what looked like an old-fashioned living room, with wooden furnitrue and boring rugs on the floor.
The second challenge I had to meet was managing to turn around my body so that the ceiling was over my head instead of beneath it. And it was during this task that I came to realize an even stranger fact on my current situation. I was floating in this so mundane environment like in one of those free-fall jets you find in most entertainment centers. Somehow I managed to turn using my arms and legs, but I found it impossible to transport my body in any straight direction. I knew I should be able to use the air friction against my arms to get some propulsion, but I could not feel any drag no matter how fast I moved my arms.
Finally, I realized I was near enough to one of the walls so that I could touch it and use it to control my movements. The greatest shock came when I tried. My hand went straight through it and I felt as if I were sliding it along a plaster surface.
It took me a long time to accommodate to the fact that I was trapped in some kind of reality that was far beyond my control and that I didn't have a clue how to get out of. I first panicked, but then I discovered that without noticing I had moved and now I was close to the door for which I had been aiming subconsciously! So somehow I had the possibility to move in my new environment and have some control, if not of the objects around me, at least of my point of view from among them.
For hours I kept practicing until I mastered the art of moving around the room, and finally tried the most dreadful experience: I tried to go through a wall.
At first it was frightening, to feel completely surrounded by the solid material in the wall, but soon I got used to it and started feeling kind of dizzy with the joy of moving unbound all around the house.
This is when she came rushing through the door into the living-room. She was hardly 8 years old, with black long hair flying beneath her smiling, big-eyed face. She stopped suddenly in her tracks, stood there, in the middle of the room for a moment, looking around her as if she had noticed something strange, and then she looked at me! She stared directly to my eyes with the expression of a child looking at a strange animal for the first time. I tried to talk to her, but again no sound came out. I pulled myself closer to her, and that broke the spell. She kept looking at a distant point on the wall, and I realized she could not see me. I moved around her and she didn't seem to notice, until finally she shrugged slightly and run to the stairs probably aiming for her bedroom.
I was heartbroken, had almost fallen in love with her in just a second, and now I knew she couldn't even see me or hear me. Heavy footsteps made me turn around to see a man and a small boy getting into the room.
So this was the family living in this house. They would be my companions for a long time, and I would have to watch at them while they remained ignorant of my existence.
For days I followed them around the house, and learnt to know them. The father was a silent, reserved business man that stayed at home as little as he could. The small boy, called James, two years older than his little sister, was a mischievous little bastard that dominated his father and gave his sister a hard time. Jane was a lovely, happy and active girl which would stand her brother's pranks and the unfair reprimands from her father.
***
She was looking up to his face and trying to pay close attention. She had always loved her father with passion, and she would never love another man like that. He was now reprehending her with his most severe expression for something she had not done, but even then she just adored his face, and looked at it with devotion. He was her hero, the only one, superman in normal clothes, the center of her world after her mother died.
Her elder brother had complete control over their father, and made him believe whatever he pleased. So, everytime something went wrong he would put the blame on his small sister, and his father would not question, would not inquire; everything was clear, and the girl had to be disciplined.
She could see through her brother's lies and schemes, and she had tried at the beginning to argue and convince her father that he was being fooled. But she did not try anymore. She just took all responsibility and accepted the punishment. Knowing it was wrong. Yet loving his foolish father.
That day his brother had managed to break every rule and had entered their father's study room, played with every item on the desk, and finally let the glass paperweight fall and crash on the floor. Sometimes she thought he did these things intentionally, and chose whatever made their father angrier or his sister more unhappy. She loved that paperweight and its embedded seashells, and used to spend a long time just watching it. That's partly why it was so easy to convince their progenitor that she had entered the room to look at it, had wanted to hold it and had ended up letting it slip from the desk to its fatal landing.
While she listened and tried to look repented and regretful, she felt around her the comforting presence of the new spirit of the house. She had noticed it for the first time when they returned from the exciting weekend they had spent visiting relatives. She rushed into the living room as she used to do after being away from home for a long time, and immediately knew there was something different. She looked around and around and could not find anything out of place or unusual, but she sensed that the house had come alive with a presence that was observing her. It wasn't a scary feeling, however. She felt herself loved and warmed by the new personality of the house. It wasn't a set of walls and furniture any more. Now it was someone who cared and embraced them all, one more member in the family.
She never talked about it to anyone, knowing that they would mock her for speaking about things that could not be seen. Somehow neither her brother nor her father seemed to notice anything, so she kept her little secret for herself, enjoying every moment when she felt this spirit around her. She even tried to communicate with it, but did not have any idea of how. Sometimes she would talk to it, in a whisper, so nobody else could hear her, and though she did not receive any reply she kept fantasizing about the replies she would be getting from her secret friend.
His father sent her to her room for the rest of the day, and she took her punishment with resignation, as she had learnt to do, but also with some relief knowing that she would not be alone in her room, and that there was someone who knew, apart from her, that she was innocent.
***
With the passing weeks I managed to get used to my new life, being a disembodied observer that could not interact with anybody or anything. But this inactivity was also getting into my nerves. For some unknown reason I wasn't able to leave the house, its outer walls being like iron curtains for a normal person, simply unsurpassable in spite of my desperate attempts. So my universe was quite constrained and the range of my activities was reduced to watching, listening, moving my point of view, and thinking. When there was nobody at home I would spend the hours remembering my past life and hating myself for not been able to remember how I came to be in this situation.
Furthermore, when the family was in, I would be witness to the evil behaviour of the old brother towards my darling Jane, and my inability to do anything to prevent it, even when I was there seeing it coming, was driving me mad.
I couldn't understand what I had done to deserve this nightmarish existence. I would get into an outburst of fury, and move crazily around the house at all the speed I could get, screaming inside my head and laying my arms against everything even though they would go through them without harming anything nor myself. It was infuriating not being able to see an external expression of my wrath.
***
Unfortunately, hardly a year after she discoverd her invisible friend in their house, they moved to another town and to a smallish flat in the city center. She would always remember how sorry she felt about leaving that house, but the main reason faded in her memory with the passing time. She made new friends at school, kept on with her life, and ended up forgetting about the spirit she had thought to perceive in that old house.
Had she remembered, anyhow, she would have probably assumed it had been the typical phase in the development of lonesome children when they invent invisible friends to play with.
She grew up under the dominion and control of her selfish brother and the weak spirit and harsh hand of his father. She studied law and was successful in her career, and finally met the man that could replace her father in her heart. Nobody suspected then the twist in her personality that would decide her fate.
***
I was left alone, for days on end, missing them. They had been my only companion and entertainment. I hadn't thought my situation could get any worse, but there I was, deeper in hell, with my only source of distraction taken away from me.
I was getting crazy in this deprivation of stimuli. In my anguish I think I managed sometimes to lose consciousness, or maybe I got in such a state that later I could not remember what I had done for a while.
My bursts of rage were getting more violent and I just felt like destroying everything inside that damn house. And then I saw a movement, a slight shiver of the furniture. At first I thought someone had gotten into the house, but then I realized I had been fantasizing about throwing that small table through the room to smash it into the big mirror at the other side. Suddenly I came to the crazy hope that there could be a way for me to move things around, to have some influence on my surroundings.
I spent the next days concentrating and trying to push things around. I never managed by sheer force of will, but when I got all enraged with my lack of success, then and only then would I be able to move small item left behind on the floor. So that was how I found out that only rage was strong enough in me to give me the power to affect my environment, and then only in a not so well-directed manner. I practiced for weeks but never managed to cause precise movements, I had to be satisfied with rough pushes.
When the next family moved into the house I was enthusiastic with the prospect of showing them I was there, that I existed and had a way to prove it. In spite of the joy of seeing someone again after all that time, it was easy for me to become angry enough to get into one of my fits of rage. Just being comfronted again with my invisibility to these people was enough to despair me. I focused on one of the little clay figures they had just laid on top of the table after unpacking it from a box, and soon I managed to topple it and make it roll. The woman saw it clearly, but was so busy that probably thought she had not placed it properly. She came to the table, took the figure and made it stood on the mantelpiece, checking it was firm in its place. I got even madder when I saw she had not seen anything strange in the results of my efforts. I used this to concentrate again on the little statuette, and made it slide along the whole mantelpiece and let it fall out of one end. The figure crashed on the floor. The woman had seen it move smoothly and fall and so this time she was scared. She stood there for a while staring at the broken pieces on the floor, and then she run out of the room calling her husband to come.
I wasn't sure things were going well for me, but I did my best to show my presence to every new inhabitant of the house. Unfortunately, all I did was to scare them all. They eventually would leave and contribute to the reputation of the haunted house. Nobody was able ever to stablish a relationship between my actions and the meaning I tried to give them. I made every effort to move, or tilt, those objects more related to whatever was happening at the moment in the house, but nobody seemed to notice there was some logic on the phenomena.
That's how I spent years in the house, sometimes without inhabitants for many months in a row. My psychological state resented from these lonely periods, and also from the frustration involved in having companions who did not know I was around, or who were plainly scared of me.
***
The first time he met Jane he knew she was perfect for him. She was so beautiful and charming, so naive and incredibly innocent. He realized immediately that he could enjoy her in all three ways. He would enjoy her company and be happy doing things together. He would make love to her like a passionate lover. And he would make her suffer.
He would be able to have her in his fist and cause her pain as he wished. He would first conquer her heart using all his charm and good manners, with no hurry and total dedication. Once she were hooked on him he could start alternating good words with kicks and punches. It would be fun.
So from the first day all his actions were directed to this goal, from the first encounter in which he almost ignored her, to the first dates, in which he was so gallant and devoted. It took months, but soon they were engaged and he started to be more authoritative and use verbal violence to get what he wanted. She was his perfect match and she knew it. She loved him and would let him do whatever he wanted with her.
The plans were laid down in front of her and she just let him drive their lives. They would marry, and buy a house on the outskirts of town. She would leave her job, and take care of the house and the children that would come. He would be free to handle his businesses in the city, and then get some relax at home from her wife; by either making love to her, or punishing her, as his whim would have it.
Choosing the house was not a problem, the perfect one was on sale, and quite cheap. It had been her home during her young years, and she had always loved it, even in spite of the things that happened there. It was far from the city center and a bit isolated, and it had been for sale as a bargain for some time now on account of some rumours of it being haunted. He didn't believe in such things. And she didn't care, it was her house and she knew it.
***
The very moment she came into the house I knew who she was. That slender, good-natured lady still had the bright eyes, the black mane, and the hopeful expression of the little girl who had stolen my heart so many years ago.
I got into an ecstatic state of pure joy when I thought I would spend my time contemplating the life of my lost love, being with her every minute she would spend at the house. I cherished all her movements, tried to guess her thoughts and feelings, moved around the house observing her, and trying to become one with her inner being. I learnt everything I could about her past life from any comment, or small action.
I came to know her better than any real person could have, no matter how close friends they would be. And she did not have that many friends. She was a bit reserved, and shared her life only with a ruthless man who fortunately spent very little time in the house. This relationship I never could fathom entirely. There was this obscure spot in her personality that stayed hidden even from me.
Even though I thought that she would be the one able to understand who, or what I was, I did not dare to show me to her for some time. I first wanted to make sure my movements would be correctly understood. I could not risk another rejection, not from her.
***
The day they moved in she could feel the house had grown up and had got a strong personality. She also felt herself welcome in it, and settled very comfortably from the first moment. They never witnessed any strange phenomenon, but somehow she could sense a mysterious presence that warmed her and comforted her. Robert, now his husband, became a bit suspicious when she would tell him she was so happy while he was in town. Because that was even before he started applying the discipline she so obviously needed.
In spite of the size of the house, she found he could keep it clean and tidy all by herself and still have a lot of free time. And spite her loneliness he enjoyed all her time in the house. She fantasized she could feel the company of the house and even started to talk to it without shame. She would speak out her mind, and confess even her most intimate feelings and thoughts to each room and piece of furniture. Soon she started to notice some form of reply from the house; small movements and noises, some slight vibrations from the wooden floor, soft drafts where there should be none. She wasn't surprised, nor the least frightened. She had been expectant, and she didn't care whether she had finally gone mad, or something really special was happening in her life.
It all started shortly after Robert began hitting her. She didn't care that much about it, but she found some comfort in the house reaction. It seemed angry. It cracked and whined every time he crossed the front door. He began to talk about the problems of an old house, about humidity, and rats. And he started to complain about how she didn't take good care of the house and wasted all her time watching TV and reading stupid books.
She tried to calm the house, talking aloud while alone and explaining why things were OK that way, how he could not change his personality, that she loved him and was married to him. She thought the house could hear her and understand her, and in fact the house stirring never went to bigger effects.
***
Finally, seeing her suffer her loneliness and the evil treatment from her husband forced me into trying to use my rage to show her she was not alone any more. When she was inmersed in one of her pensive states, I concentrated all my energy in causing a controlled movement of the pen she had laid on the book she was reading, and though the whole book ended up moving in a rather brusque way, she did not seem to be at all shocked. She stared at the book and for a moment I thought I could see a faint smile on her placid face. That's how I knew she had somehow grasped my presence even before I manifested to her physically.
I can't describe the chills that this discovery caused in my morbid and tired mind. After all these years I saw some hope that I could be in rapport with another human being, that some communication was possible.
She never let me see directly that she knew I was there, but her acts told me she was always thinking of me. She started to speak out her thoughts while she was alone in the house, as if to share them with me. She also understood what things made me mad and caused the involuntary trembling I provoked in the whole house. Her husband had also noticed them, but had not acknowledged them because he was frightened and did not want that to show.
So she tried to avoid the quarrels she had with her husband, or make sure they happened outside the house, in the backyard, for example, where even though I could hear them I could not try anything.
That dreadful day had been a very happy one. She felt gay, and was enjoying the good weather, and a few ornaments she had just bought for her favorite room. She was in communion with the house, sharing her fondest memories with it, but on the back of her head she knew it couldn't last. Robert seemed to sense when she was having a good time, and would do a special effort to spoil her day. She knew he would return in a very bad temper from work and her day would be over the moment he stepped into the house.
And so it was. He was shouting even before he opened the front door, angry about this and that. He didn't share her joy for the items she had bought, and only complained about their price, as if they could not afford much better things. She tried to keep her happy mood alive, and that seemed to make him mad. What was the point of having a rage if she didn't get scared? He wanted to see her suffer. He slapped her and threatened her with more, but she was so calm! He wanted her to beg for him to stop. He needed to see terror in her eyes when she looked at him, and not this calm resignation that seemed to be just waiting for it to end so that she could go on being happy as if nothing had happened. That spoiled it all, and he became furious. None of them could have said what was the cause of the quarrel, but he started to hit her really hard, and drove her with punches to the stairs.
He was so furious he did not see the danger. His blows made her lose her balance, and she fell down the stairs, bouncing a couple of times in her fast trajectory to the landing. The odd angle her head took gave him a surreal impression and it took him a while to realize what had happened. He got paralyzed by fear, then by sorrow and regret. The first rule of a sadist is not to spoil your victims. After all they give you pleasure and fun. He loved her his own way and knew he would miss her terribly.
But he did not have much time to think about that. After a few seconds the house began trembling and shaking, its wooden innards moaning and cracking. He thought it was an earthquake, a big one, and planned to take refuge, when a deafening shriek made his ears bleed. At the same time a burning heat attacked his face and hands, so that he did not know how to protect himself from so much pain. Fortunately it did not last long. His body was flung through the air along the corridor, and stamped against the wall with a strength that put him on the verge of collapse. However he stayed conscious to feel his own death, when his heart burst in pieces filling his chest with unbearable pain that stabbed at his left arm and took his breath away.
On his last seconds he thought he saw a bright flame floating in front of him and a couple of eyes watching him from inside it.
For the detective in charge of the case it was very difficult to explain the cause of the man's death, the burns on his face, the bleeding ears, the ripped heart. For the neighbours it all added to the legend of the haunted house. It would take a lot of years and very good marketing to sell that house again.
Incommunicado
It was the strangest sensation I had ever felt. For a while I was completely confused and could not make sense of the flood of impressions, perceptions, and even emotions that was threatening to drown me. I even thought for a moment that I was dead or that I was going through a near-death experience.
The first shock was the sudden change in environment. It had been completely instantaneous. One instant I was in the familiar surroundings of the lab, next thing I could make sense of I was upside down hanging from the ceiling of what looked like an old-fashioned living room, with wooden furnitrue and boring rugs on the floor.
The second challenge I had to meet was managing to turn around my body so that the ceiling was over my head instead of beneath it. And it was during this task that I came to realize an even stranger fact on my current situation. I was floating in this so mundane environment like in one of those free-fall jets you find in most entertainment centers. Somehow I managed to turn using my arms and legs, but I found it impossible to transport my body in any straight direction. I knew I should be able to use the air friction against my arms to get some propulsion, but I could not feel any drag no matter how fast I moved my arms.
Finally, I realized I was near enough to one of the walls so that I could touch it and use it to control my movements. The greatest shock came when I tried. My hand went straight through it and I felt as if I were sliding it along a plaster surface.
It took me a long time to accommodate to the fact that I was trapped in some kind of reality that was far beyond my control and that I didn't have a clue how to get out of. I first panicked, but then I discovered that without noticing I had moved and now I was close to the door for which I had been aiming subconsciously! So somehow I had the possibility to move in my new environment and have some control, if not of the objects around me, at least of my point of view from among them.
For hours I kept practicing until I mastered the art of moving around the room, and finally tried the most dreadful experience: I tried to go through a wall.
At first it was frightening, to feel completely surrounded by the solid material in the wall, but soon I got used to it and started feeling kind of dizzy with the joy of moving unbound all around the house.
This is when she came rushing through the door into the living-room. She was hardly 8 years old, with black long hair flying beneath her smiling, big-eyed face. She stopped suddenly in her tracks, stood there, in the middle of the room for a moment, looking around her as if she had noticed something strange, and then she looked at me! She stared directly to my eyes with the expression of a child looking at a strange animal for the first time. I tried to talk to her, but again no sound came out. I pulled myself closer to her, and that broke the spell. She kept looking at a distant point on the wall, and I realized she could not see me. I moved around her and she didn't seem to notice, until finally she shrugged slightly and run to the stairs probably aiming for her bedroom.
I was heartbroken, had almost fallen in love with her in just a second, and now I knew she couldn't even see me or hear me. Heavy footsteps made me turn around to see a man and a small boy getting into the room.
So this was the family living in this house. They would be my companions for a long time, and I would have to watch at them while they remained ignorant of my existence.
For days I followed them around the house, and learnt to know them. The father was a silent, reserved business man that stayed at home as little as he could. The small boy, called James, two years older than his little sister, was a mischievous little bastard that dominated his father and gave his sister a hard time. Jane was a lovely, happy and active girl which would stand her brother's pranks and the unfair reprimands from her father.
***
First love
She was looking up to his face and trying to pay close attention. She had always loved her father with passion, and she would never love another man like that. He was now reprehending her with his most severe expression for something she had not done, but even then she just adored his face, and looked at it with devotion. He was her hero, the only one, superman in normal clothes, the center of her world after her mother died.
Her elder brother had complete control over their father, and made him believe whatever he pleased. So, everytime something went wrong he would put the blame on his small sister, and his father would not question, would not inquire; everything was clear, and the girl had to be disciplined.
She could see through her brother's lies and schemes, and she had tried at the beginning to argue and convince her father that he was being fooled. But she did not try anymore. She just took all responsibility and accepted the punishment. Knowing it was wrong. Yet loving his foolish father.
That day his brother had managed to break every rule and had entered their father's study room, played with every item on the desk, and finally let the glass paperweight fall and crash on the floor. Sometimes she thought he did these things intentionally, and chose whatever made their father angrier or his sister more unhappy. She loved that paperweight and its embedded seashells, and used to spend a long time just watching it. That's partly why it was so easy to convince their progenitor that she had entered the room to look at it, had wanted to hold it and had ended up letting it slip from the desk to its fatal landing.
While she listened and tried to look repented and regretful, she felt around her the comforting presence of the new spirit of the house. She had noticed it for the first time when they returned from the exciting weekend they had spent visiting relatives. She rushed into the living room as she used to do after being away from home for a long time, and immediately knew there was something different. She looked around and around and could not find anything out of place or unusual, but she sensed that the house had come alive with a presence that was observing her. It wasn't a scary feeling, however. She felt herself loved and warmed by the new personality of the house. It wasn't a set of walls and furniture any more. Now it was someone who cared and embraced them all, one more member in the family.
She never talked about it to anyone, knowing that they would mock her for speaking about things that could not be seen. Somehow neither her brother nor her father seemed to notice anything, so she kept her little secret for herself, enjoying every moment when she felt this spirit around her. She even tried to communicate with it, but did not have any idea of how. Sometimes she would talk to it, in a whisper, so nobody else could hear her, and though she did not receive any reply she kept fantasizing about the replies she would be getting from her secret friend.
His father sent her to her room for the rest of the day, and she took her punishment with resignation, as she had learnt to do, but also with some relief knowing that she would not be alone in her room, and that there was someone who knew, apart from her, that she was innocent.
***
With the passing weeks I managed to get used to my new life, being a disembodied observer that could not interact with anybody or anything. But this inactivity was also getting into my nerves. For some unknown reason I wasn't able to leave the house, its outer walls being like iron curtains for a normal person, simply unsurpassable in spite of my desperate attempts. So my universe was quite constrained and the range of my activities was reduced to watching, listening, moving my point of view, and thinking. When there was nobody at home I would spend the hours remembering my past life and hating myself for not been able to remember how I came to be in this situation.
Furthermore, when the family was in, I would be witness to the evil behaviour of the old brother towards my darling Jane, and my inability to do anything to prevent it, even when I was there seeing it coming, was driving me mad.
I couldn't understand what I had done to deserve this nightmarish existence. I would get into an outburst of fury, and move crazily around the house at all the speed I could get, screaming inside my head and laying my arms against everything even though they would go through them without harming anything nor myself. It was infuriating not being able to see an external expression of my wrath.
***
Unfortunately, hardly a year after she discoverd her invisible friend in their house, they moved to another town and to a smallish flat in the city center. She would always remember how sorry she felt about leaving that house, but the main reason faded in her memory with the passing time. She made new friends at school, kept on with her life, and ended up forgetting about the spirit she had thought to perceive in that old house.
Had she remembered, anyhow, she would have probably assumed it had been the typical phase in the development of lonesome children when they invent invisible friends to play with.
She grew up under the dominion and control of her selfish brother and the weak spirit and harsh hand of his father. She studied law and was successful in her career, and finally met the man that could replace her father in her heart. Nobody suspected then the twist in her personality that would decide her fate.
***
I was left alone, for days on end, missing them. They had been my only companion and entertainment. I hadn't thought my situation could get any worse, but there I was, deeper in hell, with my only source of distraction taken away from me.
I was getting crazy in this deprivation of stimuli. In my anguish I think I managed sometimes to lose consciousness, or maybe I got in such a state that later I could not remember what I had done for a while.
My bursts of rage were getting more violent and I just felt like destroying everything inside that damn house. And then I saw a movement, a slight shiver of the furniture. At first I thought someone had gotten into the house, but then I realized I had been fantasizing about throwing that small table through the room to smash it into the big mirror at the other side. Suddenly I came to the crazy hope that there could be a way for me to move things around, to have some influence on my surroundings.
I spent the next days concentrating and trying to push things around. I never managed by sheer force of will, but when I got all enraged with my lack of success, then and only then would I be able to move small item left behind on the floor. So that was how I found out that only rage was strong enough in me to give me the power to affect my environment, and then only in a not so well-directed manner. I practiced for weeks but never managed to cause precise movements, I had to be satisfied with rough pushes.
When the next family moved into the house I was enthusiastic with the prospect of showing them I was there, that I existed and had a way to prove it. In spite of the joy of seeing someone again after all that time, it was easy for me to become angry enough to get into one of my fits of rage. Just being comfronted again with my invisibility to these people was enough to despair me. I focused on one of the little clay figures they had just laid on top of the table after unpacking it from a box, and soon I managed to topple it and make it roll. The woman saw it clearly, but was so busy that probably thought she had not placed it properly. She came to the table, took the figure and made it stood on the mantelpiece, checking it was firm in its place. I got even madder when I saw she had not seen anything strange in the results of my efforts. I used this to concentrate again on the little statuette, and made it slide along the whole mantelpiece and let it fall out of one end. The figure crashed on the floor. The woman had seen it move smoothly and fall and so this time she was scared. She stood there for a while staring at the broken pieces on the floor, and then she run out of the room calling her husband to come.
I wasn't sure things were going well for me, but I did my best to show my presence to every new inhabitant of the house. Unfortunately, all I did was to scare them all. They eventually would leave and contribute to the reputation of the haunted house. Nobody was able ever to stablish a relationship between my actions and the meaning I tried to give them. I made every effort to move, or tilt, those objects more related to whatever was happening at the moment in the house, but nobody seemed to notice there was some logic on the phenomena.
That's how I spent years in the house, sometimes without inhabitants for many months in a row. My psychological state resented from these lonely periods, and also from the frustration involved in having companions who did not know I was around, or who were plainly scared of me.
***
Pain and Pleasure
The first time he met Jane he knew she was perfect for him. She was so beautiful and charming, so naive and incredibly innocent. He realized immediately that he could enjoy her in all three ways. He would enjoy her company and be happy doing things together. He would make love to her like a passionate lover. And he would make her suffer.
He would be able to have her in his fist and cause her pain as he wished. He would first conquer her heart using all his charm and good manners, with no hurry and total dedication. Once she were hooked on him he could start alternating good words with kicks and punches. It would be fun.
So from the first day all his actions were directed to this goal, from the first encounter in which he almost ignored her, to the first dates, in which he was so gallant and devoted. It took months, but soon they were engaged and he started to be more authoritative and use verbal violence to get what he wanted. She was his perfect match and she knew it. She loved him and would let him do whatever he wanted with her.
The plans were laid down in front of her and she just let him drive their lives. They would marry, and buy a house on the outskirts of town. She would leave her job, and take care of the house and the children that would come. He would be free to handle his businesses in the city, and then get some relax at home from her wife; by either making love to her, or punishing her, as his whim would have it.
Choosing the house was not a problem, the perfect one was on sale, and quite cheap. It had been her home during her young years, and she had always loved it, even in spite of the things that happened there. It was far from the city center and a bit isolated, and it had been for sale as a bargain for some time now on account of some rumours of it being haunted. He didn't believe in such things. And she didn't care, it was her house and she knew it.
***
The very moment she came into the house I knew who she was. That slender, good-natured lady still had the bright eyes, the black mane, and the hopeful expression of the little girl who had stolen my heart so many years ago.
I got into an ecstatic state of pure joy when I thought I would spend my time contemplating the life of my lost love, being with her every minute she would spend at the house. I cherished all her movements, tried to guess her thoughts and feelings, moved around the house observing her, and trying to become one with her inner being. I learnt everything I could about her past life from any comment, or small action.
I came to know her better than any real person could have, no matter how close friends they would be. And she did not have that many friends. She was a bit reserved, and shared her life only with a ruthless man who fortunately spent very little time in the house. This relationship I never could fathom entirely. There was this obscure spot in her personality that stayed hidden even from me.
Even though I thought that she would be the one able to understand who, or what I was, I did not dare to show me to her for some time. I first wanted to make sure my movements would be correctly understood. I could not risk another rejection, not from her.
***
The day they moved in she could feel the house had grown up and had got a strong personality. She also felt herself welcome in it, and settled very comfortably from the first moment. They never witnessed any strange phenomenon, but somehow she could sense a mysterious presence that warmed her and comforted her. Robert, now his husband, became a bit suspicious when she would tell him she was so happy while he was in town. Because that was even before he started applying the discipline she so obviously needed.
In spite of the size of the house, she found he could keep it clean and tidy all by herself and still have a lot of free time. And spite her loneliness he enjoyed all her time in the house. She fantasized she could feel the company of the house and even started to talk to it without shame. She would speak out her mind, and confess even her most intimate feelings and thoughts to each room and piece of furniture. Soon she started to notice some form of reply from the house; small movements and noises, some slight vibrations from the wooden floor, soft drafts where there should be none. She wasn't surprised, nor the least frightened. She had been expectant, and she didn't care whether she had finally gone mad, or something really special was happening in her life.
It all started shortly after Robert began hitting her. She didn't care that much about it, but she found some comfort in the house reaction. It seemed angry. It cracked and whined every time he crossed the front door. He began to talk about the problems of an old house, about humidity, and rats. And he started to complain about how she didn't take good care of the house and wasted all her time watching TV and reading stupid books.
She tried to calm the house, talking aloud while alone and explaining why things were OK that way, how he could not change his personality, that she loved him and was married to him. She thought the house could hear her and understand her, and in fact the house stirring never went to bigger effects.
***
Tragic trio
Finally, seeing her suffer her loneliness and the evil treatment from her husband forced me into trying to use my rage to show her she was not alone any more. When she was inmersed in one of her pensive states, I concentrated all my energy in causing a controlled movement of the pen she had laid on the book she was reading, and though the whole book ended up moving in a rather brusque way, she did not seem to be at all shocked. She stared at the book and for a moment I thought I could see a faint smile on her placid face. That's how I knew she had somehow grasped my presence even before I manifested to her physically.
I can't describe the chills that this discovery caused in my morbid and tired mind. After all these years I saw some hope that I could be in rapport with another human being, that some communication was possible.
She never let me see directly that she knew I was there, but her acts told me she was always thinking of me. She started to speak out her thoughts while she was alone in the house, as if to share them with me. She also understood what things made me mad and caused the involuntary trembling I provoked in the whole house. Her husband had also noticed them, but had not acknowledged them because he was frightened and did not want that to show.
So she tried to avoid the quarrels she had with her husband, or make sure they happened outside the house, in the backyard, for example, where even though I could hear them I could not try anything.
That dreadful day had been a very happy one. She felt gay, and was enjoying the good weather, and a few ornaments she had just bought for her favorite room. She was in communion with the house, sharing her fondest memories with it, but on the back of her head she knew it couldn't last. Robert seemed to sense when she was having a good time, and would do a special effort to spoil her day. She knew he would return in a very bad temper from work and her day would be over the moment he stepped into the house.
And so it was. He was shouting even before he opened the front door, angry about this and that. He didn't share her joy for the items she had bought, and only complained about their price, as if they could not afford much better things. She tried to keep her happy mood alive, and that seemed to make him mad. What was the point of having a rage if she didn't get scared? He wanted to see her suffer. He slapped her and threatened her with more, but she was so calm! He wanted her to beg for him to stop. He needed to see terror in her eyes when she looked at him, and not this calm resignation that seemed to be just waiting for it to end so that she could go on being happy as if nothing had happened. That spoiled it all, and he became furious. None of them could have said what was the cause of the quarrel, but he started to hit her really hard, and drove her with punches to the stairs.
He was so furious he did not see the danger. His blows made her lose her balance, and she fell down the stairs, bouncing a couple of times in her fast trajectory to the landing. The odd angle her head took gave him a surreal impression and it took him a while to realize what had happened. He got paralyzed by fear, then by sorrow and regret. The first rule of a sadist is not to spoil your victims. After all they give you pleasure and fun. He loved her his own way and knew he would miss her terribly.
But he did not have much time to think about that. After a few seconds the house began trembling and shaking, its wooden innards moaning and cracking. He thought it was an earthquake, a big one, and planned to take refuge, when a deafening shriek made his ears bleed. At the same time a burning heat attacked his face and hands, so that he did not know how to protect himself from so much pain. Fortunately it did not last long. His body was flung through the air along the corridor, and stamped against the wall with a strength that put him on the verge of collapse. However he stayed conscious to feel his own death, when his heart burst in pieces filling his chest with unbearable pain that stabbed at his left arm and took his breath away.
On his last seconds he thought he saw a bright flame floating in front of him and a couple of eyes watching him from inside it.
For the detective in charge of the case it was very difficult to explain the cause of the man's death, the burns on his face, the bleeding ears, the ripped heart. For the neighbours it all added to the legend of the haunted house. It would take a lot of years and very good marketing to sell that house again.
