Categories > Original > Horror > The House of Daria Vane
The House of Daria Vane
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It's Sunday, and there shouldn't be a letter in the mailbox, but there is.
I can see it from my bedroom window, how the mailbox flap is open, and there's something square and white inside. Pulling on my clothes, I wince as I irritate the scratches on my leg from yesterday's bike ride. Long but shallow, the remains of a fight with the willow tree at the end of the Veller driveway--but even as I explain this to myself, I can't help but thinking how much they look like claw marks.
Once I get out by the mailbox and can see the letter in more detail, it doesn't look nearly so threatening. A square envelope, pure white, with my name traced in a delicate hand down the center. Still, there's no return address, and no stamp. Hand delivery?
I take the envelope back up to my bedroom, and sitting on my window seat, I open it. The card inside smells like lavender. It's boardered in pale lilac lace, and my name is written in the middle in the same elegant handwriting. The other side bears this message:
Dear Clara, would you please join me for tea around two o'clock this afternoon? I have something I wish to discuss with you. Signed, Daria Vane.
A tea party invitation? I tear the message in half with shaking hands. Daria knows I was at the Veller House yesterday. Daria knows...And the thought makes my blood run cold.
I eat breakfast in slow motion, pouring way too much milk into my bowl of Cherrios. Sybil plays her classical music over the speakers in our living room, but for once, I'm too preoccupied to care.
"We doing anything this afternoon?" I call, dumping the remains of my breakfast down the sink and running the garbage disposel.
"I don't think so," Sybil answers. "Why? Do you have a date?"
I roll my eyes. Sybil's been worrying about my love life all summer. Maybe she thinks that if I get a boyfriend, I'll leave off complaining to Dad about her. "Of a sort," I say. I don't elaborate, and Sybil doesn't ask me to. If we aren't exactly friendly with each other, at least we're no longer openly hostile.
I spend the rest of the morning in the study, flipping through books, but the words on the page slip through my mind like air through a window screen. Sometime around one, I hear Dad's heavy footsteps pass the study. He's slept late again, and that worries me. Though he promises to quit drinking, I'm no longer naive enough to believe that his freelance writing keeps him up so late. His laptop is on the desk next to my books, and there's a layer of dust over it thick enough to trap a fly's footprints.
As soon as the sounds of clinking bowls and spoons fill the kitchen, I leave the safety of the study and start dressing for Daria's little tea gathering. If you didn't believe me before about her age, at least you can believe me about her old-fashioned sensibilities: no one serves tea in the afternoon anymore.
Still, I respect what I suppose are the correct modes of dress for such an invitation, wearing a white top as lacy as Daria's message and a floor-length skirt. And, since this is probably a special occasion, I forgo my daily ritual of straightening and tieing back my hair and leave it hang around my shoulders, curly and red, like Mom's used to be. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I regret it, and feel suddenly thankful that my eyes are green, not blue like hers. I don't like to think about Mom if I can help it.
The clock on my dresser says that it's only 1:56, but I head over across the street anyways. The day is warm, but goosebumps rise on my arms as I ring Daria's doorbell and put my ear to the wall. I can't hear anything--Daria probably let the doorbell go to heck, like she did with everything else--so I use the door knocker instead. After about four minutes of alternately pounding and pacing on her doorstep, Daria comes out to greet me.
I know she's there even before I see her, because the lavender smell becomes infinately stronger, and all the warmth seems sucked out of the air. Daria isn't beautiful, exactly, but that's how everybody thinks of her. She just has that sort of power.
And she's young, at least, young-looking. Her face is an elegantoval, ivory-pale, with the slightest flush across her cheeks. Her lips are the perfect pink of a rosebud, and her eyes are clear forget-me-not blue. Her hair, smooth, blonde, and nearly to her hips, is enough to make Sybil die of envy.
Today, Daria's dressed in white: a full skirted evening gown, like something out of Gone With the Wind. There's a string of sapphires around her neck that look like poor imitations of her eyes. "Hello, Clara," she says, extending a gloved hand. "I am so glad you could join me this afternoon."
And that's when I hear the barking, coming from the room directly above me. Daria frowns a little bit, then steps aside from the doorway to let me through. "Do not mind her," she says, gesturing at the ceiling. I figure she's refering to whatever creature is making the noise, and so I nod and follow her in.
Like the Vetter House, this one opens onto an enterance hall. Again, the stairs are to my right, and at the middle landing, there's a large golden mirror. The glass looks opaque, though it reflects the light of the crystal chandelier above my head.
We go through a door to our left, and I find myself in a formal dining room. The table is very long, but there are only two place settings, close to the front window. Daria gestures to one of the high-backed chairs.
"Please, be seated," she says. "I have the tea on the stove, it will be ready in just a moment."
"Thanks," I say, and raise my hand as if to ward off any further conversation. "But I'm not here for the tea."
Daria smiles, her cheeks dimpling like a nine year old's. "Ah. About the Vetter House. Yes, I know you were there yesterday."
If she expected me to be surprised, she's sorely mistaken. I return her smile and arrange my skirt over the chair. "Was the dog yours?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Because if it was--"
"There was no dog," Daria says quickly, interupting me. "And if you speak of it to anyone, I assure you, you will be most sorry."
"And I assure you, I'm the only one who knows about your houses." There is a brief pause, as we both examine the other. Finally, Daria nods.
"Good," she says. "Let us keep it that way."
I don't reply, and her only answer is the strange scuffing noise from upstairs. With a sigh, Daria lowers herself into the seat next to me. "I want to know how you found out about me," she says, reaching for my hand. I let her take it, but flinch: her touch is ice.
"The house on the south side," I say after a moment. "The one you built in 1908."
She narrows her eyes. "It burnt down in 1967."
I nod. "And the man died inside it. But he found your history before that, and wrote it all out in a book. I found it buried in the ash. My grandmother lives down the street from it, and no one's built anything on the lot since the fire."
Daria raised her hands to her head, massaging her brow. "How did you know to look there?" she asks. "And how did he know..."
"He found your book," I say slowly. "At least, he said something about one. That's how he knew who you were. He burnt down the house to escape the curse."
At this, Daria laughs. "There is no curse," she says. "If only they would not fix what is done."
"He didn't know that," I say. She shrugs.
"Very well. You still have not answered my first question."
I look her in the eye. "Internet."
"Ah..." she begins. She wants to say something more, I think, but the phone rings. "If you will excuse me for a moment."
It is my turn to shrug. She rises to her feet like a lady about to dance the minuet, and disappears through a door in the back of the room. A few seconds later, I hear the click of a phone being lifted off the reciever, and Daria's voice floats through the house.
"Yes, Cheryl," she says. "Very good. I put up the sale sign yesterday morning."
I hear some high-pitched gibbering on the other end, and then Daria says "Yes" a few times more. Cheryl must be her realtor, I decide, and lean back in my chair.
While the conversation drones on, I hear a harsh scuffing sound from upstairs. I pause for a moment, listening to Daria's voice: it shows no sign of slowing down. Carefully, cautiously, I stand up and leave the room, to begin climbing the stairs.
The soft, midnight-blue carpet on staircase cushions my footfalls. When I reach the landing, I see that I was right about the mirror: it doesn't reflect things clearly at all. I can only see my vauge silhouette...or can I? No, that shape is taller than I am, straighter. I lean closer to examine the reflection, but a low growling draws my attention back upstairs.
It seems higher pitched than the one I heard at the Veller house yesterday. I leap up the last few stairs and follow the sound, until I'm right outside the door to the master bedroom. Reaching out for the doorknob, my hand is shaking so hard I can hardly grab it. With a deep breath, I twist the knob and sent the door flying in.
I'm greeted by the most terrible noise I've ever heard, a cacaphony of barking and howling. I drop to my knees, hands over my ears and eyes tightly shut, when I feel something large place its paws on my shoulders and lick my face. Paws, certainly, and not hands...I open my eyes a small bit, and see that the creature before me is nothing more threatening than a golden lab.
The dog drops back to the ground, as I hesitantly reach out and stroke her silky head. She wags her tail, then ducks out from under my reach and curls up on Daria's bed, staring at the TV screen. Daria has a news station on, I see, and I walk out of the doorway so I can see what's showing.
The bright crimson Breaking News banner runs across the top of the screen, and as I kneel down beside the bed, I see a reporter standing in front of a place I know all too well: the Vetter House. And in the background, a group of policemen carry a body bag out from the yard and into a white van.
"Oh my..." someone gasps, and I turn to see Daria standing behind me, hands clasped over her mouth. I didn't even hear her come in.
The dog barks on the bed beside her, and she reaches out a hand to scratch her behind the ears. Then Daria turns to me.
"Go!" she says, gesturing towards the door. I jump up and run from the room, but not before risking a glance back. Daria has taken my stop on the floor, her dog curled up in her lap, staring at the TV screen with tears glistening in her eyes.
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It's Sunday, and there shouldn't be a letter in the mailbox, but there is.
I can see it from my bedroom window, how the mailbox flap is open, and there's something square and white inside. Pulling on my clothes, I wince as I irritate the scratches on my leg from yesterday's bike ride. Long but shallow, the remains of a fight with the willow tree at the end of the Veller driveway--but even as I explain this to myself, I can't help but thinking how much they look like claw marks.
Once I get out by the mailbox and can see the letter in more detail, it doesn't look nearly so threatening. A square envelope, pure white, with my name traced in a delicate hand down the center. Still, there's no return address, and no stamp. Hand delivery?
I take the envelope back up to my bedroom, and sitting on my window seat, I open it. The card inside smells like lavender. It's boardered in pale lilac lace, and my name is written in the middle in the same elegant handwriting. The other side bears this message:
Dear Clara, would you please join me for tea around two o'clock this afternoon? I have something I wish to discuss with you. Signed, Daria Vane.
A tea party invitation? I tear the message in half with shaking hands. Daria knows I was at the Veller House yesterday. Daria knows...And the thought makes my blood run cold.
I eat breakfast in slow motion, pouring way too much milk into my bowl of Cherrios. Sybil plays her classical music over the speakers in our living room, but for once, I'm too preoccupied to care.
"We doing anything this afternoon?" I call, dumping the remains of my breakfast down the sink and running the garbage disposel.
"I don't think so," Sybil answers. "Why? Do you have a date?"
I roll my eyes. Sybil's been worrying about my love life all summer. Maybe she thinks that if I get a boyfriend, I'll leave off complaining to Dad about her. "Of a sort," I say. I don't elaborate, and Sybil doesn't ask me to. If we aren't exactly friendly with each other, at least we're no longer openly hostile.
I spend the rest of the morning in the study, flipping through books, but the words on the page slip through my mind like air through a window screen. Sometime around one, I hear Dad's heavy footsteps pass the study. He's slept late again, and that worries me. Though he promises to quit drinking, I'm no longer naive enough to believe that his freelance writing keeps him up so late. His laptop is on the desk next to my books, and there's a layer of dust over it thick enough to trap a fly's footprints.
As soon as the sounds of clinking bowls and spoons fill the kitchen, I leave the safety of the study and start dressing for Daria's little tea gathering. If you didn't believe me before about her age, at least you can believe me about her old-fashioned sensibilities: no one serves tea in the afternoon anymore.
Still, I respect what I suppose are the correct modes of dress for such an invitation, wearing a white top as lacy as Daria's message and a floor-length skirt. And, since this is probably a special occasion, I forgo my daily ritual of straightening and tieing back my hair and leave it hang around my shoulders, curly and red, like Mom's used to be. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I regret it, and feel suddenly thankful that my eyes are green, not blue like hers. I don't like to think about Mom if I can help it.
The clock on my dresser says that it's only 1:56, but I head over across the street anyways. The day is warm, but goosebumps rise on my arms as I ring Daria's doorbell and put my ear to the wall. I can't hear anything--Daria probably let the doorbell go to heck, like she did with everything else--so I use the door knocker instead. After about four minutes of alternately pounding and pacing on her doorstep, Daria comes out to greet me.
I know she's there even before I see her, because the lavender smell becomes infinately stronger, and all the warmth seems sucked out of the air. Daria isn't beautiful, exactly, but that's how everybody thinks of her. She just has that sort of power.
And she's young, at least, young-looking. Her face is an elegantoval, ivory-pale, with the slightest flush across her cheeks. Her lips are the perfect pink of a rosebud, and her eyes are clear forget-me-not blue. Her hair, smooth, blonde, and nearly to her hips, is enough to make Sybil die of envy.
Today, Daria's dressed in white: a full skirted evening gown, like something out of Gone With the Wind. There's a string of sapphires around her neck that look like poor imitations of her eyes. "Hello, Clara," she says, extending a gloved hand. "I am so glad you could join me this afternoon."
And that's when I hear the barking, coming from the room directly above me. Daria frowns a little bit, then steps aside from the doorway to let me through. "Do not mind her," she says, gesturing at the ceiling. I figure she's refering to whatever creature is making the noise, and so I nod and follow her in.
Like the Vetter House, this one opens onto an enterance hall. Again, the stairs are to my right, and at the middle landing, there's a large golden mirror. The glass looks opaque, though it reflects the light of the crystal chandelier above my head.
We go through a door to our left, and I find myself in a formal dining room. The table is very long, but there are only two place settings, close to the front window. Daria gestures to one of the high-backed chairs.
"Please, be seated," she says. "I have the tea on the stove, it will be ready in just a moment."
"Thanks," I say, and raise my hand as if to ward off any further conversation. "But I'm not here for the tea."
Daria smiles, her cheeks dimpling like a nine year old's. "Ah. About the Vetter House. Yes, I know you were there yesterday."
If she expected me to be surprised, she's sorely mistaken. I return her smile and arrange my skirt over the chair. "Was the dog yours?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Because if it was--"
"There was no dog," Daria says quickly, interupting me. "And if you speak of it to anyone, I assure you, you will be most sorry."
"And I assure you, I'm the only one who knows about your houses." There is a brief pause, as we both examine the other. Finally, Daria nods.
"Good," she says. "Let us keep it that way."
I don't reply, and her only answer is the strange scuffing noise from upstairs. With a sigh, Daria lowers herself into the seat next to me. "I want to know how you found out about me," she says, reaching for my hand. I let her take it, but flinch: her touch is ice.
"The house on the south side," I say after a moment. "The one you built in 1908."
She narrows her eyes. "It burnt down in 1967."
I nod. "And the man died inside it. But he found your history before that, and wrote it all out in a book. I found it buried in the ash. My grandmother lives down the street from it, and no one's built anything on the lot since the fire."
Daria raised her hands to her head, massaging her brow. "How did you know to look there?" she asks. "And how did he know..."
"He found your book," I say slowly. "At least, he said something about one. That's how he knew who you were. He burnt down the house to escape the curse."
At this, Daria laughs. "There is no curse," she says. "If only they would not fix what is done."
"He didn't know that," I say. She shrugs.
"Very well. You still have not answered my first question."
I look her in the eye. "Internet."
"Ah..." she begins. She wants to say something more, I think, but the phone rings. "If you will excuse me for a moment."
It is my turn to shrug. She rises to her feet like a lady about to dance the minuet, and disappears through a door in the back of the room. A few seconds later, I hear the click of a phone being lifted off the reciever, and Daria's voice floats through the house.
"Yes, Cheryl," she says. "Very good. I put up the sale sign yesterday morning."
I hear some high-pitched gibbering on the other end, and then Daria says "Yes" a few times more. Cheryl must be her realtor, I decide, and lean back in my chair.
While the conversation drones on, I hear a harsh scuffing sound from upstairs. I pause for a moment, listening to Daria's voice: it shows no sign of slowing down. Carefully, cautiously, I stand up and leave the room, to begin climbing the stairs.
The soft, midnight-blue carpet on staircase cushions my footfalls. When I reach the landing, I see that I was right about the mirror: it doesn't reflect things clearly at all. I can only see my vauge silhouette...or can I? No, that shape is taller than I am, straighter. I lean closer to examine the reflection, but a low growling draws my attention back upstairs.
It seems higher pitched than the one I heard at the Veller house yesterday. I leap up the last few stairs and follow the sound, until I'm right outside the door to the master bedroom. Reaching out for the doorknob, my hand is shaking so hard I can hardly grab it. With a deep breath, I twist the knob and sent the door flying in.
I'm greeted by the most terrible noise I've ever heard, a cacaphony of barking and howling. I drop to my knees, hands over my ears and eyes tightly shut, when I feel something large place its paws on my shoulders and lick my face. Paws, certainly, and not hands...I open my eyes a small bit, and see that the creature before me is nothing more threatening than a golden lab.
The dog drops back to the ground, as I hesitantly reach out and stroke her silky head. She wags her tail, then ducks out from under my reach and curls up on Daria's bed, staring at the TV screen. Daria has a news station on, I see, and I walk out of the doorway so I can see what's showing.
The bright crimson Breaking News banner runs across the top of the screen, and as I kneel down beside the bed, I see a reporter standing in front of a place I know all too well: the Vetter House. And in the background, a group of policemen carry a body bag out from the yard and into a white van.
"Oh my..." someone gasps, and I turn to see Daria standing behind me, hands clasped over her mouth. I didn't even hear her come in.
The dog barks on the bed beside her, and she reaches out a hand to scratch her behind the ears. Then Daria turns to me.
"Go!" she says, gesturing towards the door. I jump up and run from the room, but not before risking a glance back. Daria has taken my stop on the floor, her dog curled up in her lap, staring at the TV screen with tears glistening in her eyes.
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