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Matty’s Clue

The story Nick told, he told as if he were possessed. It fell out of him—this tale of a house born when its owner killed his family, then himself, then the house. And how from it was born a cursed entity, a demon in the dark void. One that put out traps—like the staircase. An anglerfish dangling its glowing bait. Someone curious comes along and, poof, away they go.

And then it disappeared. It didn’t want more than one person to come in. It was better if they were alone. Like Matty. Like Nick.

This time, when they all came in together—

It had a harder time getting hold of them.

Nick, now relieved of the story, looked dizzy and sick. As if he had touched some foul source. He was pale, sweaty. His eyes, furtive and darting. He muttered, “I had to get close to it. It wants us to know it’ll get us eventually. It’s close. So close.”

Fuck that .

Lore snapped her fingers. “We—we know more about it now. Right? It was born—or reborn or whatever—in the late forties, on the heels of World War II, and it was forged in that pain. And it’s why we don’t see any rooms in here from before that point, right?”

“Or rooms that aren’t American,” Owen added.

“Right! Yeah.” More finger snapping. “What else?”

Hamish shook his head. “I dunno how this is helping us, Lore. Nick looks sick now…”

“I’m fine, ” Nick said bleakly. It was a lie, plainly. His lips looked gray and wormish. He shivered. Owen put an arm around him, and to Lore’s surprise, Nick leaned into it. Those two were not often close. It was nice to see.

Lore knew they needed to find a solution soon. Or what Nick told them—the warning from the house—would be spot-on. It would win. It would get in them eventually. Like erosion—all it took was time. It would, hit by hit, work them like a speed bag. Soon as there was one little rip in their fabric, it would climb inside.

She kept on babbling. “We know it’s worse when you’re alone. We know the rooms shift only when you go through them a certain way. The crawlspace is a constant; the rest of the house is variable.” She realized now that the little girl in that story kept herself safe by climbing into the crawlspace. Some sort of fail-safe put in place by the house? Here she was thinking like a programmer again. But all things, in their way, were programmed, weren’t they? Programmed by nature, programmed by nurture?

“We know it hates us,” Hamish said.

“That it wants to take us over,” Owen said, all too knowingly.

“That the people here aren’t ghosts, exactly,” Lore said. “They’re like copies. Memories. Some from houses that perished. Others from…” At this, she shuddered, thinking of her mother. “Our own heads.”

“The house wants power,” Hamish said.

“Power,” Owen said. “That’s another thing. It has power—electricity, I mean. And running water.” He pointed to the pipes and junction boxes here in the crawlspace. “Though where it comes from, I dunno. Or if it’s even real.”

There.

That was it.

A spark, struck in the darkness of Lore’s head.

She repeated the thing Matty had carved into that cabinet door: “ The heart is where the home is . Not the reverse. Not ‘the home is where the heart is.’ Why would he write it that way? Because he knew something. We’re looking for the house. For the home . The original one. And if you follow that literally—”

Hamish made a gasp face. “It’s an actual place. Here in the bigger house is…the original house. Somewhere at the heart of it.”

“At the center of the labyrinth,” Owen said.

By now, Nick’s eyes were half lidded. His breathing was shallow.

We fucked him up by making him get close to the house. Shit shit shit .

Only thing to do was to keep going. Keep talking. Keep figuring it out .

“We gotta find the center of the maze,” Hamish said.

“No,” Lore said. “Not exactly. Look at the pipes. The wires. They don’t go up into the ceiling. They all go—”

“Down,” both Hamish and Owen said at the same time.

“Right. And if you were to think of where your heart was, where would you think of it being? In relation to, say, your mind. Your head, your brain.”

Again, together: “Down.”

“Yeah. Down. Down deep in your chest. Protected by all this bone and meat. Fuck.” She looked down at the floor. “We busted through the walls and we came here. But…we never thought to fucking dig .”