Categories > Original > Horror > The House of Daria Vane
The House of Daria Vane
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Around three in the afternoon, we get the first phone call.
Daria and I are on our hands and knees in separate rooms, spraying at the invading spiders with squirt bottles full of holy water and bug spray. I'm not about to hazarad a guess at which of the two is more effective.
At the sound of the telephone, Daria's dog bounds down the stairs and into the living room, where I've just finished dusting cobwebs off the grandfather clock. Daria's parlor has the sort of unlived-in look you see in really old houses, the ones so old no one lives there anymore, so they've been turned into museums. The grand piano in one corner has music delicately arranged on the stand, so delicately that I know instictively it's never been played. A red velvet couch stands in front of the marble fireplace, as smooth as the day Daria bought it. The chairs across from it are stiff, old-fashioned arm chairs with flat cusions that must be hard as stone. The hands on the grandfather clock are the only things in the room that move, and even then, they do it hesitantly, as if they're afraid of waking the others.
The dog paws at the couch, whining low in her throat as Daria lifts the antique phone from its cradle.
"Hello?" I sit back on my heels, straining to make out the words on the other end. The kitchen is at an odd angle to the parlor, but if I subtlely shift myself, I can see into the corner where Daria clutches the phone and leans against a granite counter top.
Whoever she's talking to, they have a very low voice, but whatever they say obviously pleases Daria. "Yes, yes!" she says, with a school-girlish pleasure that well suits her young features. "I would be happy to." After a few more affermations and expressions of delight, she gives the caller her address and happily clicks the phone back into the reciever.
"She wants to see the house!" Daria exclaims, ducking her head into the living room. She tosses her hair in a golden spray out behind her and does a small twirl in the doorway. Then she frowns, taking in the sight of me kneeling in the middle of her living room, a spray bottle dangling uselessly in my imobile fist and her dog pawing at the carpet beside me. "Well, get on with it! She will not want to buy a house infested with these infernal spiders."
"Who won't?" I ask, out of real curiosity. Her glare darkens, and I squirt the bug spray superficially.
"Her name is Reproba Spero," Daria says. She watches me work for a few more moments before grabbing a broom out of the Butler's pantry and sweeping the dead spiders into a pile.
"Does she sound nice?" I ask.
Daria gives me a blank look, so I elaborate. "I'd rather not have Satan's bride as a neighbor."
"You put up with me well enough." Daria pauses. When I don't answer, she gives a low chuckle. "Besides, if she actually buys the house, it is unlikely she will be around long enough to prove a problem."
I bite down hard on my tongue to keep from responding. Daria's dog has curled up in teh doorway between the living room and the enterance hall, barking at every speck of dust that blows her way.
When I'm done with the carpet and grandfather clock, I start on the drapes. They are heavy lengths of scarlet cloth, so old they feel greasy beneath my fingers. The spiders have buried themselves deep into the fabric, and no matter how hard I shake the drapes, some little gray creatures inevitably remain behind. I have to pick them off with my fingers, a gross task I'd give a few years off my life to avoid.
But this will all prove worth it when Daria finally does something about Sybil. Hopefully.
"Clara?" I realize that Daria hasn't moved since she last spoke: she's standing next to the clock, with the cold elegance I've come to expect of her. But her voice is anything but cool and elegant.
"What?"
She puts out a hand to the armrest of one of the chairs, as if to prove it's real. Or to steady herself, though from what, I can't imagine. "Did you hear...something?"
"No." And I turn back to spider-pucking, amazed that I've suddenly found it preferable to a conversation with Daria.
"Hush--listen. There." Daria holds up a hand.
I listen: so does her dog. I don't hear anything. The dog does.
She scrambles up, barking softly, like someone trying to draw attention to a wild animal without drawing the animal's attention to them. Then, with a strange glance at Daria, she runs out through the flap-door in the kitchen.
Daria starts to go after her, then seems to change her mind. She drags the broom roughly across the floor, all her concentration on the dust.
But I, for one, find it hard to concentrate over the echo of a sound I can't hear.
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Reproba Spero comes by later that afternoon.
She is a heavy woman, with tiny eyes nearly lost in a landscape of wrinkles. She smells like bleach, and wears a brilliantly white blouse two sizes too small. With a dark wooden cane clutched in one thick fist, she walks through the front door with the air of a conqueror sniffing out a potential domain.
I take an immediate disliking to her.
Daria shakes Reproba's hand graciously, but I can tell the prospect of doing business with this beached whale of a woman is not a pleasant one for her.
Reproba looks no more pleased with Daria. She glares her over with an expression that can only be attempted after draining the juice from a barrel of lemons. She is here for the house, and nothing more.
"It's not very well kept, is it?" The first words out of Reproba's mouth. She taps the floor with her cane. Her assesment is not entirely fair: while Daria hasn't fixed any of the cosmetic damage on the exterior, the inside is as clean and organized as our combined powers could make it. "How long did you say you owned this house?"
Daria appears to make a few mental calculations. "Seven years."
"Really? It looks older than that." But you don't, her cane adds between rhythmic taps.
"It is."
And without another word, Reproba disappears into the dining room.
Daria, obviously displeased at having been upstaged in her own house, follows with a frown. She gestures for me to fix my hair and come after.
I run my fingers through my ponytail, reflexivly glancing in Daria's mirror to admire my handiwork. I gasp--not only is the image clearer than before, but there seems to be the slightest red glow of blood on its hands.
"Clara!" Daria hisses. I jump down from the landing, and go to help Daria with the exceedingly ornerous task of showing Reproba Spero her soul.
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Grandma always says that the best way to tell if someone is really interested in a subject is to see whether they examine the foundations. Reproba must be rather interested, because she requests to do exactly that, in just so many words.
"Good, very good," she says, in a tone that translates into it will do. "May I examine the foundations?"
Daria looks rather uneasy. It's amazing that a woman so ancient has still not learned to disguise her emotions. Maybe she's shaken by the idea of selling the house that has cared for her so long to a woman as bleach-and-acid as Reproba.
But she leads her to the cellar door, situated in a kitchen alcove. I bring up the rear. I'm a little uneasy about what we may find down there. Daria and I cleared out the entire first two stories, but neither of us started on the basement.
The door opens in a cloud of lavender-heavy dust. Reproba wrinkles her nose. I resist the urge to tell her that the dust smells far less foul than her own bleachy perfume.
We start down the basement steps.
Daria grabs a flashlight off a shelf: her celler has no electricity. Odd. I knew this house was old, but not that old. Maybe she isn't its original owner.
That's a strange thought. Has Daria built all her houses from scratch, or has she ever bought previously owned buildings? And if she did, did the current damage to the house transfer to her? It suddenly occurs to me that I have none but the most basic estimate of Daria's age. How old was she when she made her deal? She looksto be about twenty,but she may have been even younger. Eighteen? Fifteen? Sybil was about my age when her house burned down, and she signed her soul over...but she must have been about university age when she married for the first time.
My thoughts are interrupted by a pause in Daria's voice. She's been explaining mechanics to Reproba the entire time, a task I don't envy in the least. But she pauses, as our flashlight flickers and dies, and as a sudden hail of barking falls from up above.
Reproba screams: it's a strange, acidic sound in the blackness. It's too dark to see Daria's expression, but as I listen closely, I hear her muttering in a nother language. Latin, I think. She's praying.
After several tense moments in teh darkness, with the lavender filling my lungs and a chorus of horrible barking echoing above me, the flashlight flickers back on.
And the barking dies.
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Suddenly--too suddenly.
Not bothering to check if Reproba and I are all right, Daria shoves us aside and bound up the stairs like a woman possessed, taking the light with her. I stumble after her, Reproba close behind me.
Daria has already wrenched open the kitchen door, and she stands there, framed by a clouded, blood-red sky, starring at something in the backyard with her hand clutched over her mouth.
It's her dog.
Hanging from the thin maple tree in the back, with a lace scarf tight aroundher neck. Whoever strangled her, they did a poor job. The scarf has cut into her golden throat, spilling out blood into a puddle on the flattened grass. Spiders and dust cluster around the blood, like a beach surrounding the sea.
Hand prints--paw prints--form a circle around the maple tree. Then they break off for a little space, only to reappear...
On the doorstep, right in front of Daria.
Reproba screams, but I don't have the energy. An image comes to me, of a lace scarf like a bundle of spider webs, slowly closing around my neck. And then my vision fades, filled up by little gray dots, like so many spiders.
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Around three in the afternoon, we get the first phone call.
Daria and I are on our hands and knees in separate rooms, spraying at the invading spiders with squirt bottles full of holy water and bug spray. I'm not about to hazarad a guess at which of the two is more effective.
At the sound of the telephone, Daria's dog bounds down the stairs and into the living room, where I've just finished dusting cobwebs off the grandfather clock. Daria's parlor has the sort of unlived-in look you see in really old houses, the ones so old no one lives there anymore, so they've been turned into museums. The grand piano in one corner has music delicately arranged on the stand, so delicately that I know instictively it's never been played. A red velvet couch stands in front of the marble fireplace, as smooth as the day Daria bought it. The chairs across from it are stiff, old-fashioned arm chairs with flat cusions that must be hard as stone. The hands on the grandfather clock are the only things in the room that move, and even then, they do it hesitantly, as if they're afraid of waking the others.
The dog paws at the couch, whining low in her throat as Daria lifts the antique phone from its cradle.
"Hello?" I sit back on my heels, straining to make out the words on the other end. The kitchen is at an odd angle to the parlor, but if I subtlely shift myself, I can see into the corner where Daria clutches the phone and leans against a granite counter top.
Whoever she's talking to, they have a very low voice, but whatever they say obviously pleases Daria. "Yes, yes!" she says, with a school-girlish pleasure that well suits her young features. "I would be happy to." After a few more affermations and expressions of delight, she gives the caller her address and happily clicks the phone back into the reciever.
"She wants to see the house!" Daria exclaims, ducking her head into the living room. She tosses her hair in a golden spray out behind her and does a small twirl in the doorway. Then she frowns, taking in the sight of me kneeling in the middle of her living room, a spray bottle dangling uselessly in my imobile fist and her dog pawing at the carpet beside me. "Well, get on with it! She will not want to buy a house infested with these infernal spiders."
"Who won't?" I ask, out of real curiosity. Her glare darkens, and I squirt the bug spray superficially.
"Her name is Reproba Spero," Daria says. She watches me work for a few more moments before grabbing a broom out of the Butler's pantry and sweeping the dead spiders into a pile.
"Does she sound nice?" I ask.
Daria gives me a blank look, so I elaborate. "I'd rather not have Satan's bride as a neighbor."
"You put up with me well enough." Daria pauses. When I don't answer, she gives a low chuckle. "Besides, if she actually buys the house, it is unlikely she will be around long enough to prove a problem."
I bite down hard on my tongue to keep from responding. Daria's dog has curled up in teh doorway between the living room and the enterance hall, barking at every speck of dust that blows her way.
When I'm done with the carpet and grandfather clock, I start on the drapes. They are heavy lengths of scarlet cloth, so old they feel greasy beneath my fingers. The spiders have buried themselves deep into the fabric, and no matter how hard I shake the drapes, some little gray creatures inevitably remain behind. I have to pick them off with my fingers, a gross task I'd give a few years off my life to avoid.
But this will all prove worth it when Daria finally does something about Sybil. Hopefully.
"Clara?" I realize that Daria hasn't moved since she last spoke: she's standing next to the clock, with the cold elegance I've come to expect of her. But her voice is anything but cool and elegant.
"What?"
She puts out a hand to the armrest of one of the chairs, as if to prove it's real. Or to steady herself, though from what, I can't imagine. "Did you hear...something?"
"No." And I turn back to spider-pucking, amazed that I've suddenly found it preferable to a conversation with Daria.
"Hush--listen. There." Daria holds up a hand.
I listen: so does her dog. I don't hear anything. The dog does.
She scrambles up, barking softly, like someone trying to draw attention to a wild animal without drawing the animal's attention to them. Then, with a strange glance at Daria, she runs out through the flap-door in the kitchen.
Daria starts to go after her, then seems to change her mind. She drags the broom roughly across the floor, all her concentration on the dust.
But I, for one, find it hard to concentrate over the echo of a sound I can't hear.
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Reproba Spero comes by later that afternoon.
She is a heavy woman, with tiny eyes nearly lost in a landscape of wrinkles. She smells like bleach, and wears a brilliantly white blouse two sizes too small. With a dark wooden cane clutched in one thick fist, she walks through the front door with the air of a conqueror sniffing out a potential domain.
I take an immediate disliking to her.
Daria shakes Reproba's hand graciously, but I can tell the prospect of doing business with this beached whale of a woman is not a pleasant one for her.
Reproba looks no more pleased with Daria. She glares her over with an expression that can only be attempted after draining the juice from a barrel of lemons. She is here for the house, and nothing more.
"It's not very well kept, is it?" The first words out of Reproba's mouth. She taps the floor with her cane. Her assesment is not entirely fair: while Daria hasn't fixed any of the cosmetic damage on the exterior, the inside is as clean and organized as our combined powers could make it. "How long did you say you owned this house?"
Daria appears to make a few mental calculations. "Seven years."
"Really? It looks older than that." But you don't, her cane adds between rhythmic taps.
"It is."
And without another word, Reproba disappears into the dining room.
Daria, obviously displeased at having been upstaged in her own house, follows with a frown. She gestures for me to fix my hair and come after.
I run my fingers through my ponytail, reflexivly glancing in Daria's mirror to admire my handiwork. I gasp--not only is the image clearer than before, but there seems to be the slightest red glow of blood on its hands.
"Clara!" Daria hisses. I jump down from the landing, and go to help Daria with the exceedingly ornerous task of showing Reproba Spero her soul.
----------------------------
Grandma always says that the best way to tell if someone is really interested in a subject is to see whether they examine the foundations. Reproba must be rather interested, because she requests to do exactly that, in just so many words.
"Good, very good," she says, in a tone that translates into it will do. "May I examine the foundations?"
Daria looks rather uneasy. It's amazing that a woman so ancient has still not learned to disguise her emotions. Maybe she's shaken by the idea of selling the house that has cared for her so long to a woman as bleach-and-acid as Reproba.
But she leads her to the cellar door, situated in a kitchen alcove. I bring up the rear. I'm a little uneasy about what we may find down there. Daria and I cleared out the entire first two stories, but neither of us started on the basement.
The door opens in a cloud of lavender-heavy dust. Reproba wrinkles her nose. I resist the urge to tell her that the dust smells far less foul than her own bleachy perfume.
We start down the basement steps.
Daria grabs a flashlight off a shelf: her celler has no electricity. Odd. I knew this house was old, but not that old. Maybe she isn't its original owner.
That's a strange thought. Has Daria built all her houses from scratch, or has she ever bought previously owned buildings? And if she did, did the current damage to the house transfer to her? It suddenly occurs to me that I have none but the most basic estimate of Daria's age. How old was she when she made her deal? She looksto be about twenty,but she may have been even younger. Eighteen? Fifteen? Sybil was about my age when her house burned down, and she signed her soul over...but she must have been about university age when she married for the first time.
My thoughts are interrupted by a pause in Daria's voice. She's been explaining mechanics to Reproba the entire time, a task I don't envy in the least. But she pauses, as our flashlight flickers and dies, and as a sudden hail of barking falls from up above.
Reproba screams: it's a strange, acidic sound in the blackness. It's too dark to see Daria's expression, but as I listen closely, I hear her muttering in a nother language. Latin, I think. She's praying.
After several tense moments in teh darkness, with the lavender filling my lungs and a chorus of horrible barking echoing above me, the flashlight flickers back on.
And the barking dies.
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Suddenly--too suddenly.
Not bothering to check if Reproba and I are all right, Daria shoves us aside and bound up the stairs like a woman possessed, taking the light with her. I stumble after her, Reproba close behind me.
Daria has already wrenched open the kitchen door, and she stands there, framed by a clouded, blood-red sky, starring at something in the backyard with her hand clutched over her mouth.
It's her dog.
Hanging from the thin maple tree in the back, with a lace scarf tight aroundher neck. Whoever strangled her, they did a poor job. The scarf has cut into her golden throat, spilling out blood into a puddle on the flattened grass. Spiders and dust cluster around the blood, like a beach surrounding the sea.
Hand prints--paw prints--form a circle around the maple tree. Then they break off for a little space, only to reappear...
On the doorstep, right in front of Daria.
Reproba screams, but I don't have the energy. An image comes to me, of a lace scarf like a bundle of spider webs, slowly closing around my neck. And then my vision fades, filled up by little gray dots, like so many spiders.
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