Page 72 of House of the Beast

Chapter

I opened my eyes to sunshine in the familiar kitchen of my childhood.

Nothing had changed since the last time I was here.

It was a perfect, mundane afternoon frozen in memory.

The sea was as blue as ever, the sky a peaceful, hazy turquoise.

A warm breeze carrying the scent of ocean salt crept in through a window left slightly ajar, and layered underneath it were the indistinct voices of playing children and chattering neighbors.

Everything was as I remembered. The only thing that ever changed was me. Growing more bitter and angry every time I came back. Further and further away from the person my mother had wanted me to be.

I had been so focused on my revenge, I hadn’t cared. In fact, it had hurt to care, so I had stopped thinking about it.

Look where that had gotten me.

I pulled the chair with the patched-up leg out from the table and sat in the exact same spot where I used to sit for dinner.

Where my mother used to teach me my letters on quiet evenings and would smile at me and tell me “good job” at even the simplest progress.

All the remaining rage drained out of me, and with it, my spirit.

I slumped with my head hanging over the back of the chair and stared emptily at the ceiling.

After a while, another chair scraped across the floor as someone seated themselves at the table across from me.

At this point I had no energy to spare for surprise. Slowly, I rolled my head back up to see who it was.

Sitting there was a small figure with a familiar mop of dark golden hair. Six. His face here was whole, his cheeks full and healthy, his features pleasantly symmetrical. There was something different about his eyes, though—they were subdued, older.

Not Six. Ephrem.

No one had ever come into my mindscape before.

As far as I knew, it wasn’t possible to.

It was supposed to be one’s personal haven, the place one went for communion only with one’s elder god.

Yet Ephrem’s presence did not feel like an intrusion.

It was almost like he’d been here for some time, and I had only just noticed him.

And there, standing near the wall behind him, was the guard with the missing jaw, his grotesque face a stark contrast to our warm surroundings. I looked from him to my dead brother, finally beginning to feel the first stirrings of curiosity.

“How are you here?” was my most pertinent question.

“We are connected to you,” said Ephrem simply. “We have been for a while.”

I looked at the guard again. The last time I saw him, he had been standing in the dark corner of my room, lurking at the edges of my nightmares. “Are you... my ghosts?”

“I was your first ghost,” said Ephrem. His voice was the same as Six’s but the inflection of his words made him sound like another person.

He had been born an aristocrat’s son and spoke like it.

But his eyes were kind, just like the eyes I had seen in the little Thing that had taken his body.

He smiled, looking amused. “In fact, I’ve been with you since you could barely walk. ”

“Since I...?” I started, confused. I could not imagine what I might have done as a child to warrant a restless spirit haunting me. I certainly had never seen him, or any of my other ghosts, before Aster came into my life.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Ephrem, reading my mind. He was the same age Six was—the age he had been when he died, I assumed—but something about him was wiser than his appearance would belie. Technically, he was still my older brother.

“I was young,” he explained with a rueful smile. “I was lost, and confused, and I tethered myself to you. It was the path my father had set, though he didn’t know it at the time, and now I’m glad I did because I can give you this.”

In his hands there was suddenly a letter, which he offered to me.

My heart stopped.

I recognized the writing on the envelope. I had studied the letters written to me in this hand as a kind voice instructed me on how to read.

“My mother burned it,” said Ephrem apologetically. “But you know, House Carrine used to burn offerings to their ancestors. It was a custom from the old religions, before the elder gods took over. I found its ashes and thought I might keep it with me. I hope I haven’t overstepped.”

I could not answer. My shaking hands took the letter from him almost without my permission, as if controlled once again by someone else. For a long time, I only stared at the looping cursive on the envelope.

My duck .

How long had it been? Eight years, during which I had done my best to forget what that voice sounded like and how it felt to be given such a casual, nonsensical endearment. In the span of a second, it all came rushing back.

These were her last words, Euphina had told me.

A final message from my mother that she couldn’t give me in person, because I had left her.

Fear gripped me. I did not want to know what pain she had spent her last moments in; I had imagined it for myself enough times over the years, and it was almost too much to bear.

But I had to know. If I was to face my death soon anyway, it was better that I knew, so if somehow in the afterlife I found her again, I could apologize.

Steeling myself, I opened it and unfolded the letter.

Alma ,

I hope you are well, my sweet child. I hope you are happy, and that your father is providing you all you need, and that you have made friends in your new home .

I have been prepared for this for a long time.

This illness has taken enough from us, and now we may both be free of it.

My only regret is that I will not be able to watch my beautiful daughter grow into the upstanding young woman I know she will be.

I hope you will think of me from time to time, but don’t grieve my passing for too long.

You know I like it better when you smile .

Though I hope he is a better man than I thought, I doubt your father will worry after you the way I always have. So remember:

Eat well. Study hard. Play hard as well, from time to time. Remember to wear a jacket when it is cold. Find joy in small things. Know that you have brought me happiness in every moment of your life since you came into mine. I am so proud of you, my Alma, and I love you forever .

Your mother

My hands shook. Tears clouded my vision. Before the wetness could fall, I folded the letter back up and tucked it carefully, safely, into the envelope. I placed it on the table and faced Ephrem.

“Why isn’t she here?” I asked. I had always wondered this—why my mother had never appeared as one of my ghosts, why I had never seen her again even though I longed so much for it.

“She has passed on,” said Ephrem. “She lived a happy life and died accepting of her fate. You did not kill her. She is not your ghost.”

I put my face in my hands and began to bawl.

I cried the way I had when I was young. The way I hadn’t done since my mother had died, when the tears had been quiet and full of a different kind of desolation.

I filled my lungs with air and then let it out in great, hitching, ugly sobs, my ragged voice filling the small kitchen, echoing in the sunshine drifting in through the windows.

I cried for a long, long time. By the time I was finished, I felt drained—but also cleansed. My heart was still heavy, but some of the weight that had been pressing on it for the past eight years had finally been shed.

Not a word of blame. I had been terrified for so long that my mother resented me for leaving her alone to die, but there had not been a single word of blame in her letter.

Only love and the small reminders of care she had always given me, condensed into words on paper that felt as warm as her comforting hand always had.

I had brought her joy. My terrible self had given something to her, when I thought I had been nothing but a burden.

A small hand took my metal fingers and held them warmly.

I had a sudden memory of an unknowable shadow reaching for me in the clouded moments between sleep and waking, always halted before it could come close enough.

Now we were finally speaking face-to-face.

I wiped my face messily with my sleeve and looked up to see Ephrem smiling at me.

“I’m glad I stayed with you,” he said, “if my keeping that letter has brought you some peace.”

“I’m sorry if you weren’t able to move on because of me.”

He shook his head. “It was only at first that I was trapped—and only because I did not know any better. My bitterness should have been directed at my father. By the time I realized, I could have let go—but I have helped more than one person by staying, and that makes it worthwhile.”

I sniffled pathetically, trying to dry my face with my sleeve. “More than one person?”

“Six, of course.”

Six. The anomaly, the enigma, the unexpected friend. “Are you the reason why he was able to live past his Meister’s death?”

Ephrem tilted his head, thoughtful. “I assume so. When you found him, a part of my soul you carried went back into him. He won’t remember any of this, of course, nor anything from my own life.

But he is closer to human than anything else made by the Tinkerer.

I’d say it was the result of Father’s ritual—he got closer to finding the key to melding humanity and godhood than he knew. ”

“So, he did succeed?” I said, agitation stirring again. I still had a chance of stopping him before he found his secrets in the Church— but I felt as though I had yet to see how everything fit together. “But you said he wasn’t aware. You said he set a path to me, and I don’t understand.”

“That was the other reason I wanted to stay with you,” said Ephrem, now subdued. “To help against that dark thing that walks in your shadow.”

A cold dread settled in my gut. “Aster.”

Ephrem nodded gravely. “He got into you young too. He’s done a great job of keeping me away all these years, but I’m thankful we finally have an opportunity to speak.”

“He’s...” I trailed off. A picture was being formed, and it was one I did not want to see. Yet I knew there was no avoiding it any longer. “He’s working with my father.”

Ephrem gave me a wry smile. “I don’t imagine your monster actually wishes to grant Father any favor, but he wouldn’t be against facilitating some of his plans. After all, Father was the one who awakened him.”

“Awakened?”

“Father murdered me,” Ephrem stated blandly.

I blinked at his frankness, and he smiled.

“I’ve had enough time to come to terms with the fact that he is not a good man.

He murdered me for a purpose. A sacrifice of the flesh as an offering to a god of eld.

He always assumed that his ritual hadn’t worked, and in a way, he was right—it hadn’t been complete.

But he had in fact made contact. The only difference is, the thing he tried to summon latched onto you instead. ”

My head felt light. The thing he had summoned. Something that had gotten its hold on me early.

A friend I had found as a child.

“I tried many times to reach you over the years, to warn you. So did he, once he found out.” He gestured at the mutilated guard who had been watching us unmovingly. “But that one in your soul is very clever, and he knew how to keep us away.”

“What is he?” My voice shook. “He’s not the Beast.”

Somewhere, a baby began to cry. The thin wail of a newborn thing drifting to us through the door of my home.

There had never been anything beyond that door. Nothing in this space existed apart from this kitchen, my temple. My heart began to race.

I had to see where that cry was coming from. I had to know why the owner of it called to me.

“Go,” said Ephrem. “It is time you knew the nature of your dark companion.”

“Thank you,” I said to him quickly, taking his hand again, this time in my flesh hand, and squeezing it. “I was scared of you for so long, and I’m sorry. If I had listened sooner, if I had reached back, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” said Ephrem gently.

Then his voice turned chiding. “But, as your elder, it is now my job to berate you. You blame yourself for everything. Even the things that no one would think to blame you for. If you spend all your energy fighting yourself, how shall you defend against the ones who actually mean to hurt you?”

Though his words were gentle, they sent shame rushing hotly through me. I found myself unable to meet his gaze. “I don’t know how not to,” I admitted.

He grinned smugly—exactly the kind of grin I would imagine on an older brother. “Whenever you find yourself doing it from now on, imagine I am scolding you. Maybe in time you’ll finally listen.”

I snorted. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’m only glad we got to meet, Sister.” He paused, then laughed. It was a bright sound, cutting through that wailing for a moment to fill the room with light. “I always wanted a sibling. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?”

Despite everything, I found myself smiling back. “It is.”

In that moment, I knew I would not see him again.

He had completed his purpose. His soul was finally free to move on, unburdened.

I could not help but wonder what things would have been like if he had been alive—if I had found another friend after my mother’s passing, if my life had had his brightness in it.

I squeezed his hand again, and he squeezed back.

“Go now,” he said. “Find the one that has been hiding in your soul for so long. You have friends with you, even if you don’t know it.”

He smiled at me one last time. Our hands parted.

I stood and took a long look around my childhood home.

I looked my fill of the worn wooden floors, the warm sunlight filtering in through the windows.

The rickety table with notches on its legs from my mother marking the progress of my growth.

The chipped counters where she had taught me how to cook.

The crying had grown louder, the call tugging me forward. I nodded a goodbye at the guard, at my brother, and went to the door.

What lay beyond it, I did not know. I only knew it was something I could never come back from.

For so long I had ignored all the warnings about my monster—but if I wanted to be the person my mother had believed I would become, a person I could admit to being without shame, I had to find out. I had to face the truth.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.