Categories > Original > Horror > The House of Daria Vane
Weeks go by. Daria makes several attempts to get in touch with me, but I ignore each one. The investigation into her most recent murder goes poorly, as is to be expected, but my mind is not on that.
Sybil and I are lounging around the living room. Bach plays delicately in the background, when the phone rings sharply behind Sybil's lounge chair. She streatches out one long, elegant arm, plucks the phone off the reciever and holds it to her ear. I glance up from my book, Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, just in time to see her brown eyes go wide and her mouth open and close mutely.
She nods stupidly a few times. "We'll be there in a minute," she squeaks.Then, she slams the phone down and leaps to her feet.
"Get in the car." Her denim jacket is already slung over one shoulder, and she grabs her car keys off the kitchen counter. I stare after her for a moment, snap my book shut, and run out to her, Wilde still in hand. Bach is still blaring as I slam the door, but I'm too unnerved to care.
"What happened?" I shout out the door, hopping on one foot as I try to slip into my sandels. "Where are we going?"
"The realtor's office downstairs from your father exploaded," Sybil returns, and it's just now that I notice how shaken she looks. She pushes down hard on the gas pedal as soon as I slide into the seat next to her.
We take off faster than I ever expected her tiny Toyota to go, speeding down the quiet neighborhood streets at break-neck pace until we reach the highway. I can see Dad's office immediately, at least, I can see where his office used to be.
Massive clouds of black smoke rise up to our right, shot through with veins of red and orange. I can smell it even before we reach our exit. Sybil's cheeks are pure white beneath her make-up.
We pull over to the side of the street a few blocks down from the office. The roads are all blocked off by fire trucks, and even if they weren't, the dusty smoke is so thick here that we can't see past our own noses. I'm not sure who gets out of the car first, but seconds later Sybil and I are both standing beside the emergency rescue vehicle, arms stiffly at our sides. I'm still holding my book.
For five infinite minutes, I stand there, squinting through the slowly dispersing smoke at what remains of the realty sign. Nothing moves beyond that point but the ever-shifting dust and a few sparse flames.
And finally, finally, someone speaks behind us, in a weak, slightly hung-over voice. "Sybil? Clara?"
We both spin around at once, and Dad is standing right behind us, a fire blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He stares straight ahead for a moment, his blood-shot eyes rolling from me to Sybil and back again.
"Dad?" I say, holding out my arms.
He smiles, and walks over...right past me, to clutch Sybil tightly to his chest.
"Henry," Sybil gasps. She's trembling even more than I am, staring at the hell fire behind me as though she sees something more in it than the rest of us do.
I watch the two of them in silence, my arms still stupidly hanging out in front of me. "Dad..." I begin again, but he isn't listening to me. He's trying to explain something to Sybil, but she can't understand him and neither can I.
Hesitantly, I lower my arms. A huge gust of wind comes out from the west, blasting away the smoky cloud behind me. I turn and start into the dust.
As soon as I begin, I know it's a stupid idea. The streets clear quickly enough, but by the time I reach the parking lot, there's several inches of dust beneath my feet. It isn't as warm as I would expect, though, and the firemen aren't calling after me. At least, I think they aren't. The smoke seems to swallow up every sound.
Strangely, it doesn't smell so strong now that I'm in the cloud. I continue walking, closer and closer towards the office building. And now I see things, signs, chairs, computers, objects scattered around the lot that should by all means be incinerated. Pausing for a moment, I bend over to examin the soot beneath my feet.
I drop my book into the dust.
The tracks are here, streatching out in all directions, so numerous I can't believe I didn't notice them before now. They seem to be spiraling out from where I'm standing, as if I'm the source. I turn around, slowly, and then I notice something horrible in the air. It's the smell of lavender.
I run, kicking up dust beneath my heels. The hand-prints are everywhere, in the soot, through the rubble, and running over the objects scattered around like debris from some freak storm. Terror is real and thick in my throat, as though I tried to swallow something far too large.
The smoke is so dark in the sky, I can't see anything beyond the remains of the office complex. And as I lean against a blackened wall--a wall that's far too cold for having just been in a fire of this size--I hear a sound off in the distance, like the growling of a dog. Or a wolf. Or something far worse...
I think I scream, but if I do, the growling is loud enough now to drown it out. I try to run again, but my lungs are clogged with dust and soot and fear. I trip over something, and sprawl face first out on the ground. The soot is greasy between my fingers.
Right before my face, there's something square and lacy, and far to white. I reach out a filthy hand and grasp it in my fist, bringing it up to my eyes. It's a silk scarf. And it smells like lavender.
I know I scream this time, before everything goes black.
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I wake up in my bedroom.
The air around me is cold, much colder than it should be this late in the summer. I'm lying on my back, but my head is turned to the side. I can see my right hand clenched in an empty fist on the pillow beside me.
"Clara?"
Someone whispers my name. I lift my head up off the pillow and try to unclench my hand, but the fingers are stuck in place. Grinding my teeth, I use my left hand to force them apart.
"Why did you go back to the office?"
I turn my head and see Dad sitting on a chair beside my bed. He holds a book in his lap, running his fingers up and down the spine. "Clara?"
"Suprised you even noticed," I snap. The memory fills my head, of Dad running up to us out of the fire truck and taking Sybil in his arms. Sybil, not me.
Dad shakes his head. "Why do you hate her so much?" he asks.
"Why do you trust her so much?" I counter. "Do you know how many husbands she's had before you?"
With a sigh, Dad plops his book on the bed beside me. It's the copy of Wilde I carried with me into the fire. A few specks of dust remain on the cover, and I brush them off thoughtfully while Dad answers.
"They didn't take care of her, or themselves," he says. "She's had it hard, Clara. That's why I went to her first today. Her house burned to the ground when she wasn't much older than you are now."
This isn't news to me, but it certainly wasn't very close to the top of my mind. Sybil's fear makes a little bit more sense now. She lost a parent, too. But I don't want to admit it, so I bury my face in the pillow. It smells like fresh cotton.
"What happened to your office?" I ask after a little bit. I think my question is muffled by the pillow, but Dad seems to hear.
"Something exploaded in the one below," he says calmly. "Everyone inside had to be dug out by the emergency rescuers."
I let out a small gasp. "Are you okay?"
"I was late to work."
"Oh." I hope the pillow muffles my disappointment.
He stays in the room a while longer. I wish he would leave, so I can have some time alone with my thoughts. I want to ask if he saw the footprints, heard the growling. I want to know about the lavender, and if I was the only person who could smell it. I want to know about the scarf. But I'm afraid to ask. So I turn my head away and look out the window.
The floorboards creak, and a few moments later I hear my door slam. Dad's gone. The faint patter of rain starts to sound on my window, and as I watch, the glass fills up with little sparkling drops like diamonds. Or tears. The smoke at the ruin must have made me a bit floaty, because I find myself wondering why the cold in the air doesn't freeze the raindrops.
And when I close my eyes, I can see snowflakes, falling down over Mom's headstone. That's the way it looked the last time I saw it. A short, straight-sided chunk of granite sticking up out of the snow, with her name chisled into it with tiny strokes that looked like fingerprints. Or like the marks my tears left in the snow.
Fresh, hot tears slid out from under my eyelids. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, pull up the blankets, and fall asleep.
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Sybil and I are lounging around the living room. Bach plays delicately in the background, when the phone rings sharply behind Sybil's lounge chair. She streatches out one long, elegant arm, plucks the phone off the reciever and holds it to her ear. I glance up from my book, Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, just in time to see her brown eyes go wide and her mouth open and close mutely.
She nods stupidly a few times. "We'll be there in a minute," she squeaks.Then, she slams the phone down and leaps to her feet.
"Get in the car." Her denim jacket is already slung over one shoulder, and she grabs her car keys off the kitchen counter. I stare after her for a moment, snap my book shut, and run out to her, Wilde still in hand. Bach is still blaring as I slam the door, but I'm too unnerved to care.
"What happened?" I shout out the door, hopping on one foot as I try to slip into my sandels. "Where are we going?"
"The realtor's office downstairs from your father exploaded," Sybil returns, and it's just now that I notice how shaken she looks. She pushes down hard on the gas pedal as soon as I slide into the seat next to her.
We take off faster than I ever expected her tiny Toyota to go, speeding down the quiet neighborhood streets at break-neck pace until we reach the highway. I can see Dad's office immediately, at least, I can see where his office used to be.
Massive clouds of black smoke rise up to our right, shot through with veins of red and orange. I can smell it even before we reach our exit. Sybil's cheeks are pure white beneath her make-up.
We pull over to the side of the street a few blocks down from the office. The roads are all blocked off by fire trucks, and even if they weren't, the dusty smoke is so thick here that we can't see past our own noses. I'm not sure who gets out of the car first, but seconds later Sybil and I are both standing beside the emergency rescue vehicle, arms stiffly at our sides. I'm still holding my book.
For five infinite minutes, I stand there, squinting through the slowly dispersing smoke at what remains of the realty sign. Nothing moves beyond that point but the ever-shifting dust and a few sparse flames.
And finally, finally, someone speaks behind us, in a weak, slightly hung-over voice. "Sybil? Clara?"
We both spin around at once, and Dad is standing right behind us, a fire blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He stares straight ahead for a moment, his blood-shot eyes rolling from me to Sybil and back again.
"Dad?" I say, holding out my arms.
He smiles, and walks over...right past me, to clutch Sybil tightly to his chest.
"Henry," Sybil gasps. She's trembling even more than I am, staring at the hell fire behind me as though she sees something more in it than the rest of us do.
I watch the two of them in silence, my arms still stupidly hanging out in front of me. "Dad..." I begin again, but he isn't listening to me. He's trying to explain something to Sybil, but she can't understand him and neither can I.
Hesitantly, I lower my arms. A huge gust of wind comes out from the west, blasting away the smoky cloud behind me. I turn and start into the dust.
As soon as I begin, I know it's a stupid idea. The streets clear quickly enough, but by the time I reach the parking lot, there's several inches of dust beneath my feet. It isn't as warm as I would expect, though, and the firemen aren't calling after me. At least, I think they aren't. The smoke seems to swallow up every sound.
Strangely, it doesn't smell so strong now that I'm in the cloud. I continue walking, closer and closer towards the office building. And now I see things, signs, chairs, computers, objects scattered around the lot that should by all means be incinerated. Pausing for a moment, I bend over to examin the soot beneath my feet.
I drop my book into the dust.
The tracks are here, streatching out in all directions, so numerous I can't believe I didn't notice them before now. They seem to be spiraling out from where I'm standing, as if I'm the source. I turn around, slowly, and then I notice something horrible in the air. It's the smell of lavender.
I run, kicking up dust beneath my heels. The hand-prints are everywhere, in the soot, through the rubble, and running over the objects scattered around like debris from some freak storm. Terror is real and thick in my throat, as though I tried to swallow something far too large.
The smoke is so dark in the sky, I can't see anything beyond the remains of the office complex. And as I lean against a blackened wall--a wall that's far too cold for having just been in a fire of this size--I hear a sound off in the distance, like the growling of a dog. Or a wolf. Or something far worse...
I think I scream, but if I do, the growling is loud enough now to drown it out. I try to run again, but my lungs are clogged with dust and soot and fear. I trip over something, and sprawl face first out on the ground. The soot is greasy between my fingers.
Right before my face, there's something square and lacy, and far to white. I reach out a filthy hand and grasp it in my fist, bringing it up to my eyes. It's a silk scarf. And it smells like lavender.
I know I scream this time, before everything goes black.
-----------------------------------------------
I wake up in my bedroom.
The air around me is cold, much colder than it should be this late in the summer. I'm lying on my back, but my head is turned to the side. I can see my right hand clenched in an empty fist on the pillow beside me.
"Clara?"
Someone whispers my name. I lift my head up off the pillow and try to unclench my hand, but the fingers are stuck in place. Grinding my teeth, I use my left hand to force them apart.
"Why did you go back to the office?"
I turn my head and see Dad sitting on a chair beside my bed. He holds a book in his lap, running his fingers up and down the spine. "Clara?"
"Suprised you even noticed," I snap. The memory fills my head, of Dad running up to us out of the fire truck and taking Sybil in his arms. Sybil, not me.
Dad shakes his head. "Why do you hate her so much?" he asks.
"Why do you trust her so much?" I counter. "Do you know how many husbands she's had before you?"
With a sigh, Dad plops his book on the bed beside me. It's the copy of Wilde I carried with me into the fire. A few specks of dust remain on the cover, and I brush them off thoughtfully while Dad answers.
"They didn't take care of her, or themselves," he says. "She's had it hard, Clara. That's why I went to her first today. Her house burned to the ground when she wasn't much older than you are now."
This isn't news to me, but it certainly wasn't very close to the top of my mind. Sybil's fear makes a little bit more sense now. She lost a parent, too. But I don't want to admit it, so I bury my face in the pillow. It smells like fresh cotton.
"What happened to your office?" I ask after a little bit. I think my question is muffled by the pillow, but Dad seems to hear.
"Something exploaded in the one below," he says calmly. "Everyone inside had to be dug out by the emergency rescuers."
I let out a small gasp. "Are you okay?"
"I was late to work."
"Oh." I hope the pillow muffles my disappointment.
He stays in the room a while longer. I wish he would leave, so I can have some time alone with my thoughts. I want to ask if he saw the footprints, heard the growling. I want to know about the lavender, and if I was the only person who could smell it. I want to know about the scarf. But I'm afraid to ask. So I turn my head away and look out the window.
The floorboards creak, and a few moments later I hear my door slam. Dad's gone. The faint patter of rain starts to sound on my window, and as I watch, the glass fills up with little sparkling drops like diamonds. Or tears. The smoke at the ruin must have made me a bit floaty, because I find myself wondering why the cold in the air doesn't freeze the raindrops.
And when I close my eyes, I can see snowflakes, falling down over Mom's headstone. That's the way it looked the last time I saw it. A short, straight-sided chunk of granite sticking up out of the snow, with her name chisled into it with tiny strokes that looked like fingerprints. Or like the marks my tears left in the snow.
Fresh, hot tears slid out from under my eyelids. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, pull up the blankets, and fall asleep.
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