Categories > Original > Horror > The House of Daria Vane
The House of Daria Vane
------------------------------------------------------------
The next day, Dad decides we should go visit Grandma's house.
If I didn't know better, I'd think he did it on purpose. Grandma lives on the south side, right down the street from the empty lot where Daria built her house, in 1908. There's still ash on that lot, and there are still memories. I don't like to walk past it if I can help it.
Sybil, for once, shares my distaste. Of course, she doesn't like to be reminded of fire if she can help it, but I think she sort of shares my feeling that there's still something on that lot that shouldn't be there. While I told her of my suspicions about Daria, I never mentioned where I found so much information about her. If I had, Sybil would have even more reason to hate the lot.
As it is, she tries everything she can think of to avoid coming with us. "But she's Cytheria's mother!" she excalims.
"She's accepted you into the family," Dad says crossly.
Actually, Mom always said that Grandma barely accepted Dad when they married, but I decide it wouldn't be in my best interest to say this. Sybil argues a few moments more, before finally slamming her fists onto the table. "Fine," she snaps. "I'll go." Just don't make me walk past that lot, her eyes add.
But he does.
We drive out to Grandma's in silence. I have a book in the back seat with me, but I don't feel like reading it. Sybil taps her foot on the floor in time with the music blaring from her headphones. Dad makes a strange sighing sound, like he wants to say something but doesn't know how to begin it.
We're nearly there, when road construction blocks us, and we have to take a detour.
"Take a left," Sybil says loudly, over her music. She's trying to sound nonchallent, but I can tell the prospect of driving past the burnt-out house really bothers her.
"A left will take us too far past Mom's house." Dad always calls his mother-in-law "Mom". I thought the habit might die when Mom did, but apparently, it's still going strong.
As he turns right, a road that both Sybil and I dread, I wonder aloud why he's decided to visit Grandma so suddenly.
He shrugs. "Just thought you liked to see her, is all." But I think it has something to do with his incurable writer's block--he'll sit in the kitchen and talk with Grandma for hours, conversations so fast and varied I can hardly follow them, but they do seem to help his creativity. And if they don't, Grandma has the largest wine celler I've ever seen in her basement.
It's here now, outside the window to my left. A square lot, filled to overflowing with ash and dust and small stones. The houses to either side seem to slant away from it, and the windows on the sides facing the lot are boarded or covered with flowery curtains.
Sybil turns the dial on her music and closes her eyes, humming along with Mozart.
----------------------------------------------
We reach Grandma's house about three minutes later.
She rocks on her front porch, pushing the swing she sits on back and forth with her toes. The same way any Grandmother would sit on the front porch, only mine holds a wine glass in her right hand and a pencil in her left, with a scetch pad across her knees.
"You took your time about getting here!" she calls, but with a good-natured smile on her face. I slam my car door and run up to her. She kisses me lightly on the cheek, and then turns her attention to my hair.
"You should wear it loose," she says drying, flipping my pony tail with a flick of her pen. She sets the wine down on the concret step beside her. Then she turns to my father, and smiles broadly.
"It's good to see you again."
He nods, opens her front door, and walks in without so much as a greeting. Sybil follows, and I can hear their voices through the walls for a few moments. Grandma has picked up her pencil again, and started drawing. I glance at the pad over her shoulder, but all I can see is a mass of curved lines.
A few moments later, Sybil appears in the doorway. "He wants you," she says to Grandma, pointing inside. Grandma sighs, picks herself up off the porch swing, and goes in through the door.
"And as for you," Sybil turns to me. "Your father seems of the opinion that I can cure my pyrophobia and your apparent pyromania all in one go. We're going down to the lot."
And then her hand is tight around my forearm, dragging me off the porch and down the sidewalk. I don't even have time to object, but even if we did, I think my mouth is too dry to form the words.
The summer air suddenly feels like ash on my toungue.
--------------------------------------------
We walk through the dust.
It's amazing, the amount of ash still clinging to this lot after all these years. No matter how much Sybil and I kick it up, or how much the wind tries to spread it, it's still there. And the dust keeps its secrets very, very well.
Sybil sniffs the air. It doesn't smell anymore, at least, not to my senses: but I think Sybil can taste something on this lot. The same way I can smell sickness, even where there isn't any.
"Wonder what's under here?" Sybil asks, kicking up a small cloud of ash. I shrug. I know what's under here, and I really wish I didn't.
"More ash," I say. "Stones." And bodies, one burnt down to the bones from the fire, and others more recently buried. Of all Daria's houses, this one has proved the most bloody.
Sybil nods. I wonder what she's thinking, as she gazes out over the ashy wasteland. Was this what her house looked like, after the fire? Is she thinking about her father? But all she says is, "I wonder why the city never cleared it out."
So do I, but I know enough to be grateful that the Powers That Be have so far left the protective layer intact. It suddenly occurs to me that there is far too much ash on this lot for a single house. In fact, as I look at it, there seems to be more ash here now than there was a few years ago, when I found the unsinged journal detailing Daria's real estate history.
The landscape seems so surreal."I found a book here once," I say, glancing at Sybil to see her reaction.
She smiles crookedly. "So did I." Oblivious to my surprise, she shuffles out of the lot and back to the sidewalk where I stand. "What was yours about?"
This conversation may have taken a turn for the utterly bizare, but I won't make it worse by saying "Our next-door neighbor." So I purse my lips and act confused. "I don't know," I lie. "The pages were burnt out."
Sybil looks disappointed. "Oh. Well, I guess it's pretty strange that your cover survived, isn't it?"
"Yeah, strange. Was your book--"
"In better condition? Entirely." My heart leaps into my throat: Sybil sounds so much like Daria for a moment. "I had it back before the house burnt."
"You visited these people?"
She shakes her head. There's a strange smile on her face, tilted off to the side. It makes her face look unbalanced, grotesque. "No," she says. "I lived here."
There aren't words to describe my astonishment. I take a few steps back, nearly tripping over the meager strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. My mouth is moving, but no words come out. This is the house where Sybil's father died, I realize. Her father was the one who wrote the journal! And then something else occurs to me, something with implications almost too terrible to imagine...
"This house burned down in 1967," I say slowly, narrowing my eyes.
She nods. That horrible smile is still on her face.
"Sybil..." I say, "You're not that old!"
---------------------------------------------------------
But she is.
Of course she is. How many husbands has she had, before Dad? Far too many for the twenty-something she appears to be. Dad's words echo in my head: They didn't take care of themselves...or her.
But they took care of her, all right. The same way Daria is taken are of by her houses.
Sybil's father found Daria's book...he used the information in it to write his journal...it supposedly detailed everything Daria's done since the day she signed her house over to Death. Sybil must have read it, and must have decided that the benifits of such a deal outweighed the obvious liabilities. She did exactly what her father had died to prevent people from doing.
But where does that leave my father?
I don't know, and I'm too horrified to even think clearly. Sybil starts walking down the street, back to Grandma's house.
"Coming?" she calls back, daring me to point out what I've just discovered.
"Yeah." I'm coming--I just don't know where to go.
And then it hits me: I do know someone who can help me. Someone who knows everything there is to know about the kind of thing Sybil's gotten herself wraped up in. Someone who must know how I can get my father out of Sybil's hands.
And that person is Daria Vane.
------------------------------------------------------------
The next day, Dad decides we should go visit Grandma's house.
If I didn't know better, I'd think he did it on purpose. Grandma lives on the south side, right down the street from the empty lot where Daria built her house, in 1908. There's still ash on that lot, and there are still memories. I don't like to walk past it if I can help it.
Sybil, for once, shares my distaste. Of course, she doesn't like to be reminded of fire if she can help it, but I think she sort of shares my feeling that there's still something on that lot that shouldn't be there. While I told her of my suspicions about Daria, I never mentioned where I found so much information about her. If I had, Sybil would have even more reason to hate the lot.
As it is, she tries everything she can think of to avoid coming with us. "But she's Cytheria's mother!" she excalims.
"She's accepted you into the family," Dad says crossly.
Actually, Mom always said that Grandma barely accepted Dad when they married, but I decide it wouldn't be in my best interest to say this. Sybil argues a few moments more, before finally slamming her fists onto the table. "Fine," she snaps. "I'll go." Just don't make me walk past that lot, her eyes add.
But he does.
We drive out to Grandma's in silence. I have a book in the back seat with me, but I don't feel like reading it. Sybil taps her foot on the floor in time with the music blaring from her headphones. Dad makes a strange sighing sound, like he wants to say something but doesn't know how to begin it.
We're nearly there, when road construction blocks us, and we have to take a detour.
"Take a left," Sybil says loudly, over her music. She's trying to sound nonchallent, but I can tell the prospect of driving past the burnt-out house really bothers her.
"A left will take us too far past Mom's house." Dad always calls his mother-in-law "Mom". I thought the habit might die when Mom did, but apparently, it's still going strong.
As he turns right, a road that both Sybil and I dread, I wonder aloud why he's decided to visit Grandma so suddenly.
He shrugs. "Just thought you liked to see her, is all." But I think it has something to do with his incurable writer's block--he'll sit in the kitchen and talk with Grandma for hours, conversations so fast and varied I can hardly follow them, but they do seem to help his creativity. And if they don't, Grandma has the largest wine celler I've ever seen in her basement.
It's here now, outside the window to my left. A square lot, filled to overflowing with ash and dust and small stones. The houses to either side seem to slant away from it, and the windows on the sides facing the lot are boarded or covered with flowery curtains.
Sybil turns the dial on her music and closes her eyes, humming along with Mozart.
----------------------------------------------
We reach Grandma's house about three minutes later.
She rocks on her front porch, pushing the swing she sits on back and forth with her toes. The same way any Grandmother would sit on the front porch, only mine holds a wine glass in her right hand and a pencil in her left, with a scetch pad across her knees.
"You took your time about getting here!" she calls, but with a good-natured smile on her face. I slam my car door and run up to her. She kisses me lightly on the cheek, and then turns her attention to my hair.
"You should wear it loose," she says drying, flipping my pony tail with a flick of her pen. She sets the wine down on the concret step beside her. Then she turns to my father, and smiles broadly.
"It's good to see you again."
He nods, opens her front door, and walks in without so much as a greeting. Sybil follows, and I can hear their voices through the walls for a few moments. Grandma has picked up her pencil again, and started drawing. I glance at the pad over her shoulder, but all I can see is a mass of curved lines.
A few moments later, Sybil appears in the doorway. "He wants you," she says to Grandma, pointing inside. Grandma sighs, picks herself up off the porch swing, and goes in through the door.
"And as for you," Sybil turns to me. "Your father seems of the opinion that I can cure my pyrophobia and your apparent pyromania all in one go. We're going down to the lot."
And then her hand is tight around my forearm, dragging me off the porch and down the sidewalk. I don't even have time to object, but even if we did, I think my mouth is too dry to form the words.
The summer air suddenly feels like ash on my toungue.
--------------------------------------------
We walk through the dust.
It's amazing, the amount of ash still clinging to this lot after all these years. No matter how much Sybil and I kick it up, or how much the wind tries to spread it, it's still there. And the dust keeps its secrets very, very well.
Sybil sniffs the air. It doesn't smell anymore, at least, not to my senses: but I think Sybil can taste something on this lot. The same way I can smell sickness, even where there isn't any.
"Wonder what's under here?" Sybil asks, kicking up a small cloud of ash. I shrug. I know what's under here, and I really wish I didn't.
"More ash," I say. "Stones." And bodies, one burnt down to the bones from the fire, and others more recently buried. Of all Daria's houses, this one has proved the most bloody.
Sybil nods. I wonder what she's thinking, as she gazes out over the ashy wasteland. Was this what her house looked like, after the fire? Is she thinking about her father? But all she says is, "I wonder why the city never cleared it out."
So do I, but I know enough to be grateful that the Powers That Be have so far left the protective layer intact. It suddenly occurs to me that there is far too much ash on this lot for a single house. In fact, as I look at it, there seems to be more ash here now than there was a few years ago, when I found the unsinged journal detailing Daria's real estate history.
The landscape seems so surreal."I found a book here once," I say, glancing at Sybil to see her reaction.
She smiles crookedly. "So did I." Oblivious to my surprise, she shuffles out of the lot and back to the sidewalk where I stand. "What was yours about?"
This conversation may have taken a turn for the utterly bizare, but I won't make it worse by saying "Our next-door neighbor." So I purse my lips and act confused. "I don't know," I lie. "The pages were burnt out."
Sybil looks disappointed. "Oh. Well, I guess it's pretty strange that your cover survived, isn't it?"
"Yeah, strange. Was your book--"
"In better condition? Entirely." My heart leaps into my throat: Sybil sounds so much like Daria for a moment. "I had it back before the house burnt."
"You visited these people?"
She shakes her head. There's a strange smile on her face, tilted off to the side. It makes her face look unbalanced, grotesque. "No," she says. "I lived here."
There aren't words to describe my astonishment. I take a few steps back, nearly tripping over the meager strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. My mouth is moving, but no words come out. This is the house where Sybil's father died, I realize. Her father was the one who wrote the journal! And then something else occurs to me, something with implications almost too terrible to imagine...
"This house burned down in 1967," I say slowly, narrowing my eyes.
She nods. That horrible smile is still on her face.
"Sybil..." I say, "You're not that old!"
---------------------------------------------------------
But she is.
Of course she is. How many husbands has she had, before Dad? Far too many for the twenty-something she appears to be. Dad's words echo in my head: They didn't take care of themselves...or her.
But they took care of her, all right. The same way Daria is taken are of by her houses.
Sybil's father found Daria's book...he used the information in it to write his journal...it supposedly detailed everything Daria's done since the day she signed her house over to Death. Sybil must have read it, and must have decided that the benifits of such a deal outweighed the obvious liabilities. She did exactly what her father had died to prevent people from doing.
But where does that leave my father?
I don't know, and I'm too horrified to even think clearly. Sybil starts walking down the street, back to Grandma's house.
"Coming?" she calls back, daring me to point out what I've just discovered.
"Yeah." I'm coming--I just don't know where to go.
And then it hits me: I do know someone who can help me. Someone who knows everything there is to know about the kind of thing Sybil's gotten herself wraped up in. Someone who must know how I can get my father out of Sybil's hands.
And that person is Daria Vane.
Sign up to rate and review this story