Page 118 of The Staircase in the Woods

Owen would tell Hamish it was all right.

Hamish would tellhimto shut up.

And all the while, the house pushed on them. Owen felt it most keenly, because he knew what it was to become a domicile for the entity. Now, he could feel it creeping around them, a shadow slinking around their margins. And in them, too. Cockroaches in their walls, scuttling about. Even in the crawlspace, its whispers were distant, but ever present.

They alternated between long periods of simmering silence that erupted in bouts of yelling at one another. Hamish called Owen weak. Owen said Lore was a thief. Lore said Hamish was a fool. Around and around they went like that.

Then one day—or one night, did it even matter anymore?—Owen remembered thinking,I want to kill them,and the thought was crystalline in his head, like a fork tapping against a drinking glass. It was not the thought of, say, one sibling to another, fed up with their nonsense,I’m going to kill you, Becca. No, I’m going to kill you, Jeremy!It was a clear directive. He wanted to kill them. Same as he’d wanted to kill Nick.

And that’s when he knew, the house had them. This time, it was not so dramatic as it had been when he was alone—there, it felt big, bold, like he was an empty house on a buyer’s market, move-in ready, and one day, there it was, this entity, thisdemon,and it came in right through the front door. But this time, they’d left the crawlspace oftenenough, and the house had slipped in when it could. Like a squatter sleeping in the attic. All the while working on them, in them, at them. One beam or brace at a time. A scrape of putty, a splash of paint. Bits of décor, design, architecture. Slowly building a panic room inside each of them.

He realized this when they were back in the same pantry where he’d found the lighter—and where Nick had beaten him and left. By now they each had flashlights, and were grabbing whatever they could find off shelves. Lore grabbed a box of crackers, and Hamish groused at her, snatching it out of her hand and shouldering her aside. She barked at him, called him a “Republican piece of shit thief,” and Owen felt himself want to say back to her,Lot of nerve calling someone else a thief,but he bit back those words and instead started to say:

“The house always wins.”

And then, as if on cue—

The door opened—

And in walked Nick Lobell.

70

Pupillary Light Response

It erupted. Happened so fast, Owen barely knew what was going on.

Lore was the one who saw Nick first. She let slip a shriek of rage, a Valkyrie’s cry, and grabbed him bodily and hauled him into the pantry—dragging him through to the far side, slamming him against the wall. Hamish pushed in, a fist up, ready to fall, but Nick was fast, got under Lore, pistoned a fist into her ribs. Hamish clubbed him. An elbow—from who, he didn’t know—popped upward, into Owen’s temple, and it rang him like a bell. He saw supernovas swallowed by black holes, and he staggered into the wire shelves. One bit into the meat of his skull, and he felt warm blood going down his neck.

Flashlight beams went akimbo, and for a moment, all was in darkness.

Owen struggled to bring his back up to level—

And when the beam clicked back on, he saw that Nick was behind Lore.

She, facing out.

He, a knife to her throat.

Kitchen cutlery. Serrated steak knife. Ready to drag across the flesh of her windpipe, opening it up.

“Back the fuck off,” Nick hissed.

“Kill him,” Lore seethed. “Kill him.”

Hamish raised a fist. Every inch of Owen’s brain lit up like fireworks—he’s going to do it, he’s going to go for Nick, and Nick is going to kill Lore.

What have we become?

What has this place done to us?

Owen reached out, caught Hamish’s fist—

Hamish spun on him, roaring, shoving him backward.

Nick, cackling mad. The knife in his hand gleaming as the flashlight beam caught it and then spun away, throwing them into darkness again.

One pull, Lore is dead.