Downstairs, she slides her feet along the floorboards, shaky and unconfident of her step in the dark. Evidence of her destruction is everywhere, feverish and manic, no wall left without violent slashes from the circular saw or hammer blows punched through plaster. Mold furs every surface. Putrid water slides between seams and puddles on the floorboards. Everywhere, she smells mildew, the toxicity of the lead, the insidious decay that they’ve swallowed down for months.
Deeper in the house, she hears Bren’s agonized breathing, his swallowed sob of rage as he surveys his house, his beautiful house that he loved so much, and the way she has destroyed it.
Her fumbling hand finds a light switch and she flicks it, but the bulb is dead. The house wants them sightless.
“Just give me Jude,” she whispers to the walls. “You can have Bren. I’ll make sure you have him all to yourself.”
A rustle sounds behind her. She whips around but only shadowsmelt down the wallpaper. If it was Jude, she’d know. She knows the way his heel hits floorboard; she has memorized every freckle and divot on his skin. She knows him; she made him.
She searches every nook, every corner, all the little spaces between sheet-covered furniture in half-renovated parlors, in the kitchen, under the table. In the hallway, Bren tips over, cries out as he drags himself upright again.
“Jude?Jude.” His voice is shattered. “Come on, little buddy. I’ll get you out of here, okay? I’ll get you out.”
Elodie lets herself into the downstairs bathroom, the piles of storage suddenly a minefield without light. She feels around toolboxes and paint tins and folded drop cloths that feel like leathery skin until her hand closes around the thick handle of a claw hammer.
She picks it up.
She is light as a whisper as she floats into the living room, the wood stain on the floor still sticky under her heels. The worst holes in the walls are here, courtesy of her first bout of energy, and she can almost see things coming in and out of the gouges. Long-legged things, stick things. Things built of twists of witchy wood and bloody string. A hysterical laugh bubbles up her throat, and she can feel herself sinking through her skin toward the floor. Her skeleton will be left standing alone, and she will be a smear of gore on the ground, still laughing, still laughing.
Everything feels wrong.
A small shadow skitters in the corner. She tightens her grip on the hammer and spins, but that’s when she sees the unmistakable shape on the floor—a mangled, foul toy rabbit with one eye missing, stuffing pulling from all its seams.
A small white hand snatches it and retreats into the dark corner.
“Jude.” She holds the hammer behind her back. “I know you’re scared, but Mama’s here. Mama’s got you.”
There’s a whimper, thin and rusted.
Elodie takes a step forward. “We’re playing hide-and-seek.” Her voice is so soft. “And I found you. I… win.” She holds out a hand toward the dark.
Then something crashes behind her and she jerks around, her heart in her mouth as Bren appears, gripping the doorframe and breathing hard.
“Jude.”
She whips back around to her son just in time to see him climbing into a small hole in the wall, only big enough for a child. His legs vanish inside before she can react.
But this makes no sense. She never made that hole.
Then she starts screaming.
She flings herself at the hole, reaching in as far as she can to grab for him, but only empty space greets her. Moist air closes around her fruitlessly gasping hand, as if the house breathed out a laugh.
“Jude!Jude!” She is out of her mind as she yanks at the splintered edges of the hole. “Jude, baby, come out of there! Don’t—don’t—Jude!”
The house will eat him.
The house is eating him.
Bren crashes into her, picking her up as he shoves her out of the way, and then jams his own arm into the hole. But he finds nothing. They’re both yelling for Jude, their panic merging into one contagious smear of terror.
She starts beating the wood with her fist. “He’s in the walls. He’s in— Bren,Bren. Get him out. Oh my god,get him out gethimoutgethim—”
“I’mtrying.” Bren surges to his feet and starts kicking at the wall, splintering wood and plaster as he makes the hole wider.
She always thought the space between the walls too wide.
Jude will get stuck. He’ll panic. He’ll breathe in mold, lead, and rot, he’ll die in there, he’ll die, he’ll die—
