Interfictions Read Online Free Page B

two years later Mrs. Blank woke one night to find that she was alone in—House. She searched every room twice, but could not find her last remaining family member, her young William.
    It was the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, and when Mrs. Blank stepped outside onto the front porch, she found a set of footprints in the snow that gathered on the steps. She followed them down and out the front gate, around back of the house and through the orchard, where they came to a stop at her husband's grave, at the tree where William last saw Ephraim. Mrs. Blank called out for William, but she only got her own voice back. That and the screech of an owl crossing the face of the moon above her.
    Suddenly a rumbling came from inside—House. Mrs. Blank looked at the dark backside of the house, at its gingerbread eaves and its square roof, at its dark windows tinseled with starlight, and shuddered at the thought of going back in without anyone waiting for her, without her son beside her. The house rumbled again, though, louder this time, and she went without further hesitation. Some women marry a house, and this bond neither man nor God can break.
    William's body was never found, poor child. Like his brother, he vanished into nothing.
    But we say the orchard took him.
    Everything you need
    It took Rose and Jonas Addleson less than a year to make their doomed daughter. Full of passion for one another, they made love as often as possible, trying to bring her into this world, trying to make life worth living. This was perhaps not what Rose felt she needed, but Jonas wanted children, and what Jonas wanted, Rose wanted too. That's the thing about marriage. Suddenly you want together. You no longer live in desire alone.
    What Rose wanted was for Jonas to be happy. She would marry him within a day of meeting him on the front porch of—House during that fateful blizzard, knowing this was to be her home. The house had told her. And soon it had become apparent that Jonas didn't want her to leave either. When she went to call her mother, he had interrupted to say, “Would you like more tea?” When she had moved toward the front door, he'd stood up and said, “Would you like to lie down and rest?"
    They shared more whiskey-laced tea, and before the night was over Rose found herself sitting next to Jonas on the sofa, holding his hand while he told her his family's story. How his grandfather had owned the button factory during the war, how his father had killed himself twenty years ago by placing a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. How his mother had worked her fingers to the bone taking care of everything: the house, Jonas, his father's bloody mess in the bathroom. “I found him,” Jonas said. “I was ten. On the mirror in the bathroom. There was blood all over it. He was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Mama scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn't come out. Not until she asked the house to help her."
    He paused, gulping the story down again. Rose watched the way the column of his throat moved as he swallowed. She wanted to kiss him right there, where the Adam's apple wriggled under the skin. Instead she asked, “What did the house do?"
    He looked at her, his eyes full of fear. “She told me to leave the bathroom. So I left, closing the door behind me. I waited outside with my ear against the door, but I couldn't hear anything. After a few minutes passed, I knocked. Then a few more minutes passed. I was going to knock again, but before my knuckles hit, the door swung open, and there was Mama, wringing her hands in a damp rag. There was no blood on her, not even a speck. And when I looked behind her, the carpet was as clean as ever, as if no dead body had bled to death on it."
    "The house loves you,” Rose said.
    Jonas looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?"
    "It loves you. Can't you feel it? It's trying to tell you something."
    "If it's trying to communicate,” said