No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Now within a car, not even a minute from the dark iron gates that guarded its entrance, spears piercing the sky and catching stray clouds on its ends, Eleanor Crain sat and shivered. Her breath formed thick clouds before her, growing into her very own miniature cumulonimbus that faded into vapor against the windshield. She was not entirely sane, she supposed, so she could perhaps endure this and other realities as they came. Her fingers clasped around the keys she held in her hand, their tiny teeth biting into it, leaving the impression of the inside of the lock upon her palm. She had known, of course, that she would come back here. It was as inevitable as rain, or hail upon their tiny island of an estate, shattering their hopes and dreams like glass stained windows until they had no choice but to return.
She had returned.
The door clicked and suddenly she was walking down the unfamiliar path of gravel. How strange, she thought, that this should be unfamiliar to her, when all the house was like the reflection of her face, and she could see herself in every corner of its twisted and convoluted hallways. But, certainly her mother had always told them not to go too far from the porch; it was no wonder she could not recognize this.
As the first line of trees gave way to a gray sky that seemed to be pulled down by the magnitude of the house’s gravity, Nell looked upon Hill House and found that, against every opinion that her doctor had spinned, trying to convince her otherwise, it was very much not just a carcass in the woods. No. The light flickered and the door creaked open, a large mouth yawning, waking from its slumber. Not a carcass, she repeated, it was home.
I am home, she thought, and stopped in wonder at the thought. I am home, I am home, she thought; now to climb. So she walked forward, almost as though in a trance, and her feet took her higher and higher, up the hill and up the stairs, and up and up until she felt herself almost float in the air and marvel at how close the stars were. So close, she thought, that she could drink from that star spangled sky and dress herself with the clouds. Was this it? Her cup of stars? The real one, beyond all reason, beyond all doubt. Had she insisted enough upon it that now no one could take it from her anymore?
“Nellie.”
She turned, whirling on her feet to face the voice.
“Mommy?”
But the air grew denser then, and the spectral vision of the woman wobbled and faded in a second; her features dissolving into the watery night. Nell shook her head and tried to steady her breathing. It was not real, just a little spill; a dream within a dream, fueled by memory and fear.
The ringing of her phone startled her.
“Jesus!” She exclaimed, jumping in place.
She was too highly strung. For a second she thought she’d seen… Nevermind. Hadn’t they had mold problems? Yes. That was it, most like. Just that. It must be affecting her already. Between that and her excitable nature her mind was conjuring up all sorts of fantasies, and they swirled around her until she could no longer tell if the shadows had grown darker, or the figures that surrounded her were indeed there.
Her phone rang again and this time she fumbled to pick it up.
“Hello?” Her voice shuddered.
There was a fine crackle.
“Nellie?”
Nell sighed. Oh, Shirley, of course. She must be wondering why she’d called.
“Hey, Shirley.”
The line frizzled again.
“... your message”
Nell gave a humorless chuckle and palmed her forehead. She was sweating but cold.
“Uh, I can’t hear you right, Shirl. I-um-I… I sent you a message? About Luke?”
“Yes, yes. I heard. He’s alright Nellie. He’s… fine. Listen, I received a very worrying call from Steve, he said that dad told him you…”
There was a sputter and a crack and then her voice was lost for a few seconds to static.
“Sorry Shirl, you’re breaking up. Um, you said ah-s-Steve called?”
She was having trouble concentrating now because the shadows were tightening around her, and she still wasn’t certain whether the unseen presences she felt were just her anxiety, or even the mold. There were five faces around her, she thought, decrepit and worn and translucent and probably not real. She blinked quickly to dispel them, but the impression seemed engraved into her retinas and would not leave even when she closed her eyes.
“Nellie?” She heard her sister’s voice in her ears.
A hand landed on her shoulder, crawling over the cloth of her shirt toward her collar until it was curled around her throat.
“Yes, Shirl?” She whispered, voice thinning until she could barely breathe.
“Are you in the house Nellie?”
The faces looked into hers with their endlessly white eyes. Dead, they were the eyes of the dead. She had to leave, now! The hand on her neck cut off the scream she let out.
“Listen, when she wakes up don’t try to… pressure her. Let her speak.” Shirley said, hands gesturing to try to keep them in line.
“Sure, Shirl. Like we need that advice.” Theo scoffed. “If you couldn’t tell, we weren’t passed out at the house, almost killing ourselves with a rope. Most of us are not suicidal.” She nodded her head towards Luke. “Although some of us seem like it.”
Luke’s chest rumbled.
“I’m not suicidal.” He whispered hoarsely, not raising his head. He’d been sitting on the floor besides the door since they’d arrived. His fingers traced the letters on the cover of Steve’s hit novel. “I just want bad shit to stop. I try-tried… to make it stop.”
Theo shrugged.
“Addict, suicidal… pretty much the same thing. It’s like,” She mimed injecting something into her veins, “dying little by little, until you’re gone.”
Steve stepped in between them, shielding the younger man from her anger.
“Look, he’s ninety days sober, we should all encourage that, right? And anyways, we’re here for Nell.”
Shirley frowned at the book in Luke’s hands.
“Have you called dad?” She asked. “Steve?”
“Wha—no! No, I haven’t called our elderly father who once let our mother commit suicide, Shirley. I don’t think he’ll have the answer to this problem, do you?”
“Nell’s not a problem.” Luke’s voice was lost in Shirley’s agitated response.
“Well he deserves to know.”
“He lost that privilege when he left us with aunt Janet and let mom die the same way Nell was trying to, okay?”
Theo groaned.
“Can we stop? You’re giving me a headache.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Steve, call dad. He needs to know Nell’s alright, if nothing else. He was the one she called, so I can only imagine he’s worried enough.”
“Oh, now you have feelings? How great for you Theo, to be able to choose when to turn your empathy on, and off, and on—”
Luke pressed the palm of his hand against the door, trying not to hear them. The smooth texture of the varnish revealed the warmth of the wood, but even deeper under it something else beat in time with his heart, alive.
“She’s awake.”
No one listened.
“She’s awake.” He tried again. “S-steve? Shirl?” They were scowling at each other. “She’s—”
“Yeah, I heard you.” Steve bit. “How would you know?”
The door creaked and Luke shuffled back to let it swing open. A disheveled girl peered from behind it.
“Nell!”
She stepped out tentatively.
“I’m not suicidal.” She said. Her voice was sandpaper, grating out the words like she’d been screaming for hours. Luke’s gaze trailed down her body to find her dirty feet, caked in mud. Maybe she had.
“Why did you go to the house, Nell?” Shirley asked, tiptoeing between her anger and her attempt at gentleness.
She shrugged. Her shoulders sagged.
“I needed to see it. Doctor Montague said it was just…” her eyes unfocused, as though seeing something beyond all of them. After a few seconds she sighed and recovered. “Just a carcass, in the woods.” She bit the inside of her cheek. The metallic taste and sharp sting of her teeth made it easier to remain calm. “That’s not what I saw, but he’s never been there so he wouldn’t know. I should have known he didn’t… he just didn’t understand it like we did.”
Theo shook her head.
“I knew it. I knew something was off with your new therapist. What kind of cuckoo would say that to someone unstable?”
Shirley frowned.
“Theo!”
“Sorry, but it’s a fact. Stable people don’t go to die in houses they’ve lived in for like three months when they were six, Shirl.”
Nell’s pupils had unfocused again, but she lifted her head when Shirley touched her shoulder.
“It’s okay. You can tell us whatever it is you’re feeling. We can fix this. You wanted us all to be together right?”
Nell nodded, still dazed.
“Yes. I just… last time, at my wedd—” she choked. “And not even then, I—” she gestured towards Luke.
“Yes, well, we’re all together now.”
Steve stepped forward.
“Listen, Nell, I know you’ve been through a lot, okay? But so have we. You can’t just do crazy things when it becomes too much. You can’t just show up at people’s workplace and harass them, or go to the house you used to live in and try to die!”
Shirley spinned on her feet.
“Excuse me?”
Steve rolled his eyes.
“Yes, Shirl, I know. I’m a horrible brother, I should have told you and I need to do better. That fine with you?”
Her feet were cold, so Nell rubbed one of them against the other. Luke covered her toes with one calloused hand. His knuckles were raw and bruised.
“What did you find?” He asked, ignoring the fight still going on beside them.
“They were there.” She whimpered like a kitten. “And they were dead.” Then, because she knew Luke would understand, she added, “all of them. Abigail…”
Her brother grunted and rested his head against her leg.
“I’m sorry, did you just say Abigail?” Theo interrupted, and then all of them were paying attention. “As in Luke’s imaginary friend?”
Nell looked at all of them.
“Yes.”
“She is-was real.” Luke muttered. “For the longest time even I began to doubt it but…” He looked up at his sister. “She was…?”
Nell nodded, her eyes fogging up.
“She’s dead.” She cupped her lips. “Oh, God, and she was so little.”
“What do you mean?” Shirley asked, pulling on her sister’s arm until she was forced to turn to her.
“Remember the tea party?” Nell asked. “Steve, you wrote about it.”
Steve groaned.
“Why does my book always have to come up?”
“No! Listen to me,” Nell insisted, “you wrote about it, from a recount of our stories and then dad’s stories too.”
Steve rubbed his forehead.
“A-ha?”
“Abigail was real.” Luke mustered. “She was staying in my room when mom ca-came back.”
They were all quiet for a second.
“Okay, so if she was real, where was she when we all ran out to the car?”
The twins leaned a little against each other.
“Mom… well, not her. We were having a tea party… and… the sugar—” Nell tried.
“She died. Like you said in the book, Steve.” Luke finished for her.
“We should have died. We should be dead,” she swallowed, feeling the tears choke her until it hurt to speak, “like Abigail is dead. That day, when mom put strychnine in a little porcelain bowl and handed it to us–us, Steve, it was supposed to be us! Not Luke’s forest friend, not the little innocent girl. And we survived. We took our teacups and raised our pinkies and then dad saved us. He saved us. From fate.” Her eyebrows knitted. She could feel herself pouting, which made her feel foolish. Like a six-year-old. Like the little girl she still was.
“Fate?” Shirley asked, laughing in that Shirley way that meant she did not find the thing funny at all.
“No, you did not escape fate, Nell.” Luke interrupted. He mused his hair, grabbing a fistful of it and pulling gently as if to release a pressure building inside his head. “Fate intervened.” He tapped Steve’s book with one rough finger before opening it, and recited, “Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion.” His mouth twisted, then, with some humor, as he read the last line of the chapter, “Some of us took very little sugar.” He looked up at his brother. “That was witty, Stevie. Funny.”
Steve grunted.
“Fuck, don’t you lecture me too, Luke. Your sister, our sister is clearly in distress and we’re trying to do an intervention for her. All of this! Is for her,” he clapped his hands to emphasize the words. “And yes, Shirley, I understand that you hate the book. I understand that you all hate the book, but please. Just please. Can we focus on Nell, huh? Can we focus on this?” He waved an arm in her direction. “She just said she feels responsible for that little girl’s death. A death we didn’t even know about. A death dad kept from us. He lied, and lied, and lied to us and this is the result.”
“And why do you think that is, Steve?” Shirley snapped. “Theo, can you please intervene? You’re supposed to be a psychologist.”
“Fuck that.” Theo mustered.
“What was that?” Shirley’s eyes thinned.
“Look, you want to know what I think? I think Nellie is clearly dealing with survivor’s guilt, and dad was fucking in love with mom so he tried to make her seem like… I don't know, not a murderer? So yeah, I don’t think my expertise is what you all want. I think you just want me to ‘pick a side’,” she air quoted, eyebrows climbing her forehead in mock surprise. “So yeah, fuck that. I say we focus on actually helping Nell instead of trying to examine something… that mom, or-or dad did or didn’t do… what, twenty six years ago?”
Luke grunted. “Mom wasn’t in her right mind when it happened. It wasn’t her.” He winced as his sibling’s loaded gaze fell on him. He could feel their eyes, like physical things, touching his skin. It made him shiver. “Well, it’s true. Whether you believe me or not. Whether you believe Nell or not.” He fiddled with the book before setting it aside. “About everything. You never believed us and that’s the real problem.” He laughed, low in his belly. A rough, worn out thing that barely touched his eyes. “No wonder we’re so fucked up. You would be too if you saw the things we’ve seen.”
Shirley threw her hands up, sighing.
“Well, I tried to keep us reasonable, but that’s the problem,” Steve drawled, exasperated, “it’s mental illness. We’re sick, all of us. None of the things you’ve seen are real. They’re not, I’m sorry. They’re delusions, hallucinations…”
A loud bang startled them all into silence.
“Nellie?”
They followed Luke’s shuddered question. Shirley whimpered.
“Wh-h-what…?” But her breath ran out before she could finish the question.
“Nell-Nellie?” Steve hesitated, almost stepping forward.
In the spot where their sister had stood she floated, covered in shadow. Her eyes bulged from the head like a fish too long out of the water. Her tongue was splotched in dark blue and purple. The air seemed to pick up the edges of her dress. Like a person in a windtunnel, she appeared to fall, and fall, and fall. Forever. Steve looked into the face of the dead creature and felt his stomach churn. Panic and grief swirled in a grimace that never finished forming. Her head was tilted to the side, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. As he followed it the world tilted with him.
“Steve?”
His ears were muffled. He heard his siblings calling him as though from under the water.
“Steve?”
He was falling, but the world fell with him until he was sure they would all have to walk on the ceilings and pull down their shirts.
“It can't be…” He whispered.
The familiar dead gray eyes called to him as he fell. You’re my older brother—they said—you’re supposed to protect me. The bent neck lady. Nellie. He was going to vomit.
She screamed. Hard. Whoever had been trying to keep him upright let go at the sound and he collapsed down to the ground, hyperventilating.
“Guys what's— Steve!” the vision was gone and in its stead his sister stood, worriedly looking around the same way she had years ago, during a particularly hard storm.
Steve shook. His chest was not working. He inhaled short raspy breaths. His hand flew to his throat, massaging a spot that held the phantom pain of guilt and panic.
“Nell…” he choked out. Tears formed in his eyes. “Nell,” he couldn’t do this. Couldn’t pretend to be fine when this was inside him. His sister bent and rubbed his back. His sister… “You…” He tried again. She was concerned about him.
“What happened? Everyone was acting so weird and looking at me like they'd seen a ghost…” Nell was saying. “And no one heard me!”
Steve pulled her down, stuffing her into his chest as he felt fat beady tears rolling down his cheeks. Nell looked over her brother’s shoulder and found the rest of her siblings, looking down at them with their faces pasty and pearled in sweat.
“What’s going on?” She whispered. “What happened?” She crouched down beside him. Luke’s arms encircled her too. “Oh.” He gave her a squeeze.
“It was her, Nellie. We saw her. We all saw her.”
“Her?” She asked, frowning toward her sisters. Theo had composed herself, the wall she built around her heart half-broken but erect. Shirley was still white.
“The Bent Neck Lady, Nell.” Luke held her closer. “She was you.”
Nell blinked in stunned silence.
“What?”
“It… it was. You saw her too?” Steve asked, swallowing sour tears.
“No.” Nell said. “No, no! She's not… she looks nothing like me.”
“Well, no, she didn't, but she did.” Luke said.
“How could you tell it was me?” Nell crossed her arms over her chest, in defiance of their truth or seeking comfort she wasn't entirely sure.
“It's me.” Luke said, rubbing her shoulders. “I was born knowing you. For all the five minutes I was alive without you all I did was wait for you. I saw her, just like you said.” He helped Steve stand up. “We all saw her. She was you.”