Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

'Who does she know in Seattle?'

'I was going to ask you. I thought maybe you had family there.'

Gail dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and dropped her face into her hands. 'Our family. Is in Wisconsin !'

'What's wrong?'

Conrad jumped at the father's voice. Big John Grum was standing at the kitchen's entrance.

'Nadia's run away again,' Gail said, bursting into tears. 'Welcome home.'

'I'm sorry.' Conrad placed the check for four hundred dollars on the table. 'I didn't do enough to deserve this. Let me know if I can help.'

Gail was still staring at the check when Big John patted Conrad on the back and walked him out.

He was headed for the grocery store with visions of iced tea waterfalls in his head when a new thought nearly drove him off the road.

There is a dead baby in my house.

Inside, he ran past the dogs, up the stairs and into the guest room. Sickened by the thought of the lifeless, skeletal form - and by the spell that had caused him to leave it there - he flung the door open and latched on to the rails of the newly assembled crib.

The crib was empty.

He forgot about going to the store, about food, about sustaining the illusion of normalcy. He simply walked down the stairs and fell on to the couch. His heart beat faster and harder. He considered the angles, finding no solace. Either he was imagining things or the house was haunted - and those could be two extensions of the same phenomenon. Whether the house contained spirits, other environmental conditions acting upon his perceptions, or his mind was simply playing tricks on him was at this point a discussion for academics. People who were not involved. They boiled down to the same thing - he could no longer trust his eyes, ears or thoughts. Not while under this roof.

Still, he tried. The answer was in here somewhere. He was missing something, something vital. A ghost was something perceived. He needed evidence.

Time was running out. He could run. Just put the dogs in the car and drive away. Withdraw his inheritance and disappear to Canada. Would she follow him to a cabin in the woods? Would she emerge from his nightmares under any roof, not just this one?

No, he had to stay because he had to know. And because one of them would need a father.

If the tiny skeleton had been real (as real as the knife, the note) and his house was not haunted, then someone had been here. Someone could be here still, alive. Fucking with him. Jo? Whoever did this had to be insane, a broken soul gone way, way over to the other side of everyday criminal behavior. The sounds, the visions of the woman in the house, the absolute inhumanity required to exhume and deliver a dead child into another man's home? That wasn't Jo. He did not believe his wife insane.

I got news for you, kid , Leon Laski had said. A haunting is just history roused from her sleep. Any house can be haunted, even a new one. Know why? Because what makes 'em haunted ain't just in the walls and the floors and the dark rooms at night. It's in us. All the pity and rage and sadness and hot blood we carry around. The house might be where it lives, but the human heart is the key. We run the risk of letting the fair maiden out for one more dance every time we hang our hat.

So it's me? You think I'm nuts? Conrad had responded .

I didn't say that. I said what makes 'em haunted ain't just in the walls. Which led him back where he started. As much as he wanted to, he no longer understood his own motivations, and that was a circular thought best left unexamined.

Listen to the woman of the house. Be a man, but keep your pecker in your pocket unless you're planning on putting it to righteous use. And listen to the woman of the house.

Maybe he was losing his mind. And maybe before losing his mind the void in his marriage and the lust in his heart had set the rest of it in motion. He'd been caught trying to put his pecker to use. The events of the past few weeks had been a lot of things, but none of them were righteous.

Suppose Laski's fair maiden was real. Had he meant the woman of this house? Alma? Was he to stay and learn what she wanted? She had obviously come back for her child, or a child. Was he to remain and do her bidding, to deliver her another? Was that righteous?

Or had Laski been selling a simpler wisdom, some marriage survival tip about deferring to the wife? Maybe in this version Jo was the fair maiden. Mrs Laski had spoken of this blessed house, and how God always provided her with more children - despite their lost ones. Was Leon Laski blind to the rest? Or did he just know the secret to keeping the ghosts at bay? Refrain from original sin and do right by your creator, except when your wife starts cooing for another child to keep her warm on those cold winter nights?

Maybe the fair maiden was both. Maybe Jo and Alma were two sides of the same coin. Maybe Alma was using Jo to show him a version of herself he would recognize, and one day embrace.

He was willing to be righteous, to embrace the woman of the house.

But first she had to come back.

He waited for all of the women to come back, but mostly he waited for her.

He moved to the bedroom, then the library. This was the place he had first seen her. This was the nexus of the house, the seat of her longing.

He sat. He waited through the evening and into the night.

His back ached. His legs were stiff. He was dizzy from lack of food. He wanted a glass of iced tea, it seemed, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. But he dared not go for it. That would require a trip to the kitchen, and anything could happen while he was away. She might show herself.

Worse, despite his thirst, he needed to take a piss. As soon as the thought was there, it would not go away. He needed to go now.

He glanced at the window where her reflection had been, and stole away from the library. It was only a few short steps to the bathroom, and he flicked the light on as he entered. He sighed over the bowl, and flushed. He turned back to the door, but the window facing the backyard caught his eye, and he stopped.

How many nights had it been since he'd seen his fair maiden out back, walking that path to the garden? The night he'd run outside, and wound up on Nadia's porch? He could not remember, but by the time he stopped trying he was already there, at the window, looking out. He cupped his hands around his eyes, but the yard was dark and he couldn't see with the glare from the light. He backed up and flicked the switch off, then moved back to the window.

His nose touched the cool glass. He squinted.

After what could have been no more than thirty seconds, his eyes adjusted to the night and he began to make out shapes. The walnut tree. The bushy pines off to the left. The slope of grass riding down like an ocean swell. The garage, with only the faint red glow. His snakes! Christ - he hadn't checked the Boelen's or the eggs for days now. But he could not go out there tonight. He needed to be here for her. First thing tomorrow, then. His eyes walked back up the path and were almost to the deck directly below when he saw movement. A shape.

It was tall, rigid, halfway down the path. His eyes dilated. It leaned forward, pitching itself at an odd angle as a young tree bows to the wind. It took a step. Then another. It was moving slowly, almost plodding along, leaning forward the way a mule goes strapped to the plow in deep soil.

She was dragging something on the ground.

A burst of clicking ratcheted up the stairs and Conrad whirled away from the window, his top teeth biting over his bottom lip, drawing blood.

Alice and Luther were standing on the carpeted landing, staring at him.

'Jesus Christ,' he said, exhaling. They were hungry. They had heard him flush and decided he was awake. 'God damned dogs.'