Siobhan
NOW
“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?”
“Jesus,” whispers Zara. Then, “Margot? Are you here?”
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 – something terse, frightened. She shakes her head, bundles Thomas close into her. “She wouldn’t let us go,” she hisses. “Not unless I brought her back.”
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 Haina did something 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.”
There’s a sound from downstairs: a deep, guttural moaning. It sounds like something giving way. It sounds like a woman’s voice, calling out in pain. It’s stronger than ever now, the pull inside Siobhan, dragging her down, down, down.
“You have to leave,” Siobhan whispers. “Now.”
Zara and Margot rise from the bed, Thomas carried on Margot’s hip, his face pressed into her hair. Together, they walk silently down the old stairs. The noise is getting louder. Siobhan’s flesh is tingling all over – impatient, something surging inside to break free. Not yet, she tells it. Not yet.
At the front door, Margot pulls Siobhan close. She smells like sweat, dirt, unwashed clothes. Her mouth finds Siobhan’s ear, her breath hot and urgent. “Haina only wanted to protect us,” she whispers. “She only ever wanted to be our mother. That’s why she did it.”
“I know,” Siobhan whispers. Margot pulls away, and Zara takes Siobhan’s hand in the doorway.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks. “Maybe we can all leave, together. Maybe Haina’s given up, maybe she’s…”
“I have to stay,” Siobhan whispers. What she doesn’t say is, I killed a man. I can’t go home. This is the only place that’ll have me now.
“Do you need us to go and get help?” Zara is asking.
Siobhan shakes her head again. She makes herself smile. “Just stay at the treeline for a little while,” she says. “Keep the camera recording. You’ll know when to stop.”
Zara stares at her, frowning, but she nods.
Siobhan watches as Zara, Margot and Thomas make their way towards the treeline, away from the house.
She watches them step over the boundary from garden to forest, and she feels the house cry out, a wrangling screech.
The ceiling above her head sags dangerously.
There is barely any blood left, no energy to feed it, nothing to keep it standing.
Through the gloom of the trees, Siobhan feels Thomas’s eyes on her, staring.
Then, she closes the front door, and she is alone.
Except, she isn’t – there’s a presence behind the study door, waiting for her.
A presence that’s been waiting for her to return since the night she ran from the house.
That night returns to her now in achingly clear detail as she makes her way for the final time down the hallway towards Haina’s study.
Haina’s hand on Elly’s back, pushing her down into that awful pit. The horrible seconds after, Haina turning, inexplicably stronger-looking, more vital, eyes like lava. Theo, scrambling at the edge of the pit as if he’d hurl himself right in after Elly.
“She jumped, didn’t you see?” Haina said, hands on her chest. “The people who come to this house are so broken, so fragile, my angel. She sacrificed herself. She did it for us, to feed the house.”
Siobhan hadn’t said anything at all. She was still recording. She couldn’t make herself stop. She was horrified to find that she was relieved, relieved that Haina looked better, that somehow, the house would stay standing.
“Where is she?” Theo screamed, launching himself at Haina. He had her by the shoulders and was shaking her so hard that Haina’s head snapped back and forth. She offered no resistance. “What did you do to her?”
“She’s at peace now, Theo,” is all Haina said. “She’s saved us all.”
Theo’s eyes had widened, as if she’d sent an electric shock through his skin. “You’re sick,” he whispered, and Siobhan had never heard his voice laced with so much venom. “You’re a murderer.”
Haina’s expression changed then, the smile disappearing. Siobhan noticed it before Theo did, the way her eyes were flickering and darkening, the way her fingers were extending into horrible, pointed claws.
“Theo,” she screamed. She flung herself at him and tried to pull him backwards, away from Haina, away from that horrible pit.
At first, Haina resisted, but then Siobhan felt her let him go, and they both went stumbling onto the cold stone floor.
Haina towered above them, still growing, still changing.
Her hex was mightier than any of the other women’s.
She was huge, her feathers the colour of fire. She was mesmerising. She was ruination.
“Run, Theo,” Siobhan whispered, pushing him towards the ladder with every ounce of energy she had.
Then they were both on their feet and running, pulling each other along.
Theo reached the ladder first, started to scramble upwards towards the light.
Before Siobhan’s foot hit the first rung, she felt something grab her shoulder, drag her back, spin her around.
She stood, face to face with Haina, with her hex, everything Haina had always been, something ancient and unknown and powerful beyond measure, something that had created the house around them through sheer will, something that had fed it year after year, done what she needed to do to keep it standing.
She was screeching – an awful, animal screech – but Siobhan could still make out the words.
“Why do you think I brought you here?” When Siobhan didn’t answer, Haina screamed it again. “Think about it, Siobhan. Why are you here?”
“To make the documentary,” Siobhan said feebly, struggling against Haina’s grip. “To show the world what Hex House is.”
Haina threw her head back, and it took a few seconds for Siobhan to realise that she was laughing. The sound was like nails dragged across metal. When she looked back at Siobhan, her eyes were burning. “You really thought I brought you here to make a fucking movie?”
Those words were ice water down her spine.
She couldn’t move – couldn’t do anything but stare at Haina, at the monstrosity of her, the majesty.
“No. You’re special, Siobhan. My angel. It had to be you, don’t you see?
The itch inside you. The ache. Here is the answer: this house is your home. It can’t go on without you.”
Siobhan looked desperately up the ladder, Theo’s feet disappearing as he reached the study above.
“This house passes hands,” Haina was saying. “It has to, to survive. It wasn’t always mine, do you understand?” Another wrenching cry, then, “Soon, it’ll be yours.”
Siobhan staggered back, every nerve ending burning. No, no no. From the top of the ladder, Theo screamed her name down into the darkness.