The screams from inside the pit are so loud that neither Elly nor Haina hear the creaking of the ladder behind them, or the footsteps of two people approaching. One is running, an arm outstretched, shouting something impossible to make out. The other is following more slowly behind, holding a camera.
Theo and Siobhan are seconds too late to stop Haina from bringing her head close to Elly’s and whispering, “You have the love of the whole house.” They’re seconds too late to stop Haina’s other hand from finding the small of Elly’s back and pushing, lightly. That gentle push sends Elly tumbling downwards into the black, into the house’s waiting, starving mouth.
For Elly, there is a long moment of nothingness, of silence, of respite from fear and noise. Then, an all-over glow, a blissfulness, because she knows her wings are at her back, that her feet are now claws that can rip flesh, that her taut belly is rounded and feathered. She feels it, when the house takes her, when it melts the flesh from her bones. It isn’t horrible, it isn’t painful – it is euphoric. She feels everything that she is, all her strength and her fear and her memories and her love and her anger and her passion. It all leaks outwards into the walls around her, into the bricks and mortar, into the floor above her head, into Haina’s body. She feels it fortify, give life, preserve the house for whoever might come next.
But it’s more than that. Her death will be important, she knows, for reasons she can’t even guess at. She can sense it though, and she has never felt so needed. She has never felt so strong.
Her last thought is of Thomas.
My boy, she thinks.I’m finally worthy of you.
NOW
Siobhan and Zara stand on the doorstep of Hex House. They are soaked through, shivering. Siobhan has lost the feeling in the tips of her fingers, but she can’t bring herself to care.
“I can’t believe we’re really here,” Zara says shakily. She looks up at the house with trepidation, as if at any moment, arms might sprout from the walls and grab her. “Do we… do we knock?”
Siobhan turns to her. Zara is still holding her camera, pointing it at the door. She understands now, for the first time, how jarring it must have been for the women when she and Theo arrived bearing cameras and microphones and equipment; how it must have felt like the seams of their lives were torn wide open.
“No one is going to invite us in this time,” Siobhan says. “But Haina will know we’re here.”
The old handle is cold and wet under Siobhan’s hand. She pushes it down and the door swings open. At the sightof the hallway, she holds her breath. This is a different house to the one she’d entered four years ago. Back then, it had been warm, welcoming, bathed in a glow from table lamps, the floors freshly scrubbed. This house looks as though no one has used it in a very long time: there are no rugs anymore, revealing dangerous-looking holes in the floorboards. There’s a single bulb overhead, fizzing and flickering. The picture frames on the walls are smashed and hanging askew. The whole place smells like mould, like rot. It is so, so quiet.
“Jesus,” whispers Zara. Then, “Margot? Are you here?”
There’s no one in the parlour, where a jagged crack splits the grand piano in two and stuffing is leaking from the sofa cushions, or the kitchen either, where the cupboards are bare and cockroaches scuttle by their feet. As they walk quietly through the house, Zara’s camera records it all. Siobhan knows how sad and ruined it’ll all look on film.It isn’t supposed to be like this, she thinks,it wasn’t always.
They pause at the closed door to Haina’s study. Zara starts to move towards it, but Siobhan puts a hand on her arm. “Not yet,” she says. Instead, they head up the staircase, careful to avoid the places where the wood beneath their feet has softened and fallen away. With every step, the house seems to groan in protest, as if even the pressure of their footsteps is painful. They walk along the landing towards the dormitory. Siobhan remembers there being forty or so beds in here, but now there is only one. The curtains are drawn, so the room seethes in a moody, sour-smelling glow. It’s freezing, many of the windowpanes cracked and jagged, the curtains flailing inthe wind. Siobhan thinks the room is empty, until someone whispers, “Zara?”
They approach the bed slowly to find two small figures curled up under a blanket. Margot, impossibly thin and pale, her eye shining in the dark, and a small boy with reddish brown hair and freckles across his nose.
“Margot?” Zara’s voice is fragile and small. “My god, Margot.”
She rushes towards the bed and scoops Margot into her chest, crying quietly, whispering words Siobhan can’t hear. The little boy watches with wide-eyed curiosity, then he looks up at Siobhan. She feels every hair on her body stand on end. He looks so much like Elly: he has the same questioning look, the same uncertainty Elly always seemed to carry with her, as if she were never quite sure that she was welcome or wanted, as if she didn’t have the same right to take up as much space as anyone else. As if she were always waiting to be punished.
I’m so sorry, Elly, Siobhan almost says out loud.But I’ve found him now. I’m going to make sure that he’s safe.
“You’re so big, Thomas,” she says. Thomas clings to Margot, flinching away from Siobhan’s attention.
“Go away,” he says quietly.
Zara pulls away from Margot finally, and Margot turns to Siobhan.
“You came,” she says. “I didn’t think that you would.”
Zara grips Margot’s hand. The camera has been propped on the bedside table, still recording. “It’s going to be okay now,” she says, smoothing down Margot’s hair. “You can come home.”
Something flickers across Margot’s face – somethingterse, frightened. She shakes her head, bundles Thomas close into her. “She wouldn’t let us go,” she hisses. “Not unless I broughtherback.”
Zara and Margot both stare at Siobhan, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Where are the others?” Siobhan asks, and her voice doesn’t sound like her own.
Margot looks away. “Long gone. All started when you left. When Elly disappeared. Haina said she didn’t survive her ceremony, but we knew that wasn’t the truth. You’d run off in the night like that, and we knew then that Hainadidsomething to her, something that made the house feel well again, just for a little while. Turns out, all she did was lie, lie, lie.” Margot wipes at her nose with her sleeve, and Zara holds her closer. “The flock stopped bringing food. The women started leaving, and Haina just… let them go. She knew we didn’t trust her anymore, do you understand? One by one, they all left. But Haina never let them take Thomas.I need his young blood in this house, that’s what she said. And I just… I just couldn’t leave him. I’ve tried to leave but we just keep finding the house, over and over. She won’t let us go.” Margot’s whole body shudders. “She’ll never let us go.”
Siobhan looks around the desolate room, remembering it bright and teeming with life. She thinks of Elly, looking at herself in the full-length mirror, admiring the size of her bump. Siobhan feels calm, truly calm, for the first time in months, even years. All around her, the house groans, and her bones seem to answer in the way they become heavy and dull. For the first time, maybe in her life, she is exactly where she needs to be.
“I’m going to stay,” Siobhan hears herself say. Her voice is firm and low. “I’ll be her blood. You can go now, Margot. She’ll let you go. Thomas, too.”
