Page 24 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Eighteen

Past and Future in the House of Quiet

Someone is scratching on the door. Little fingernails, dragged down the wood, over and over. It takes the House Wife a long time to notice because there’s so much noise, but eventually she hears it.

It takes her even longer to realize she’s still standing in the middle of the room. Sometimes she forgets things, like how to tell her legs to move when she needs them to. It’s hard, having a body. “Open the door,” she says to herself.

It works. She walks over and unlocks it. One of the noisiest children, a young girl with red curls and full cheeks, is waiting in the dim hallway.

“Mouse?” the little girl asks.

The name is like a splinter jammed under her fingernails. The House Wife shudders, shaking out her hands. There’s a tugging inside her chest, but the thread is too frayed. It snaps before it can pull anything free. “Mouse?” she whispers back.

“Are you in there?”

The House Wife considers the question. It’s hard to keep her mind on questions, to listen to anything other than the heart of the house, desperately beating beneath all this noise. But she does her best. At last, she shakes her head. “Not anymore, I don’t think.”

The House Wife has made the little girl sad. Then the girl shrugs, her frown disappearing. “But you’re not in the bog with the others yet.”

“Not yet. Would you like to come in? I’m supposed to be careful and only take one of you at a time, but no one is watching rightnow.”

“No. That’s not how I die.” The little girl states it as fact, and the House Wife believes her. She nods and closes the door once more. They were never allowed to tell her no before. The House Wife closes her eyes and whispers a promise to herself and to the heart of the house.

“They’ll all be quiet soon.”

Everyone is quiet in the end.