I.S.: The Rector House

Most of the windows were stained blue, so when I approached the house I realized that the facade was also like a giant shroud, forbidding sight into something mysterious. It held within secrets, that I was sure of even then, so when it came into my view I shuddered to think that I was going to go through with this. I was going to meet my family, blood stranger than strangers that passed on the streets.

Nervous as I was, I was able to steady my hand and knock, but I wasn't sure if anybody would answer. If the innkeeper was right, my father may very well be alone, perhaps already occupying his death bed. But in no time the door was opened by a beautiful young lady with blond hair and bright blue eyes (eyes that barely looked at me). She had on lipstick, but it wasn't applied well and her hair was a bit of a mess. Still, she was beautiful and well-shaped without the recognizable modesty of Anabelle. My appreciation brought a twang of guilt.

One of my sisters?

"Hello. I am Benjamin—" I began, but the girl interrupted me with a smile and a hug.

"Yes," she said. "I'm Verena. Your sisters will be coming soon. I'm sorry for your losses."

"You're not—?"

"A sister? Lord, no. I'm a friend of Margret's."

"Oh, then—You have heard of her passing?" I said, unsure of how to approach this.

Verena looked down, a sudden tear in her eye.

"Yes, I know," she said. "I will miss her so much.

"Please come in."

She stepped aside and I entered the House, which was kept dim, only a few lights illuminating the foyer and what I could see of the dining room. It wasn't much, gray painted walls, chipped, cracked and dull. The House seemed to threaten to swallow you with it's passages, but I wasn't going to let it frighten me. I really wanted to see this though to the end, even though I didn't know what was going to happen.

All too soon.

Verena's head cocked and she looked me over, biting her lower lip, threads of her light, long hair dangling and curling in front of her face. She looked ethereal and beautiful—all too beautiful, maybe even wickedly so.

"You are handsome," she said, a very audacious person, this Verena.

I could only change the subject: "My father?"

"Hmmm..."

She turned away from me, twirling graceful on toe tips, then twirling back with the same ease, her head again cocking to the side.

"I should see if your father is up, but I wonder if you should see him so soon. Maybe we should let him know first? I could tell him of you and see how he reacts," Verena said and, of course, I shook my head in protest—It should be me doing it. He should look on the face of his son, see me and realize then.

"Where is he?" I said.

-----

Father was in the room behind the door that skulked at the end of the hall. The walls upstairs were the same as the first floor, but, with the light even more minimal, I felt like I was adventuring through a mean cavern. There were many doors, all of them a brown oak finish, dulled, dusty, but they lent their color to an otherwise bleak atmosphere. My father's door was different—fashioned artistically, an ornate portal to an inner sanctum.

I knocked and waited for an answer. It was probably only a moment, but it felt like an hour lost in time, then he answered—a gruff, old voice, crackling and sick: "Who thehell is it?"

Through my resolve the cruel voice resonated with the knowing that I was about to step into the presence of my progenitor, the man whose very blood gave me life and the father that did not know that his son had survived. Despite all this I shuddered, opening the door and presented myself.

I first glimpsed his shape in the dark coverlets and I took a deep breath to steady my introduction, but I realized that the room smelled of death. It was the odor of biological function ceasing, microbes taking over, breaking down the fundament.

"What's wrong?" Verena said, her warm breath chilled the nape of my neck.

Startled towards the bed, I threw the coverlets back. The rigored-gray flesh was fixed, cloudy eyes, staring at the cold, were vacant of substance. The sweet revulsion of the voiding, the pungent escape of bowls, and the tallow tinge of sweat and sinew decaying, violated my senses and made me dizzy. Fear and anxiety, the flowers and fruit of horrible mind spells, drugged me: it froze the blood that pumped through my frantic heart and chilled me absolutely.

"He's dead," I said.

Verena frowned and shivered.

"It's suddenly cold in here," she said. "Do you feel that?"

I did. The cold and bitterness bit at the air.

"I know I heard him say something," I said. "I thought he told me to come in."

Verena's silken-marble fingers wrapped just above my elbow, curling around my arm. Her touch was like a shiver of current, but I wanted her hand to remain. I needed the communion, the warm familiarity of flesh.

"I heard him say something, I swear it," I said. "He's been dead for how long and I thought I heard him say something through the door? You said. I mean, you offered to tell him I had come, but you knew he was dead?"

"I could feel that your father would be sleeping," Verena said. "He is very strict and has always been a very formidable Master." She giggled, a light, cool sound in heavy air.

Appalled and amazed that Verena had preternaturally ignored that my father was dead and my own horror, I gazed at her ariel beauty for an instant. And I couldn't believe my terror at that moment. I needed to escape, to get out of this space, but my feet were shocked to the floor.

"Can I show you something?" Verena said. I could feel her breath in my ear. There was something about her that was enchanting, powerful. Despite myself, it eased me enough to gain some element of self-control.

I nodded to her request and I warily slipped closer, took my father's sheet and drew it up over his crooked grin—a grin now congealed, a death mask. Then I followed Verena's slender form from the room, followed her to another set of stairs. On the next floor up, a hallway no different than the one below, Verena opened a door and let me into a room full of dolls—wood, bisque, porcelain, glassy eyes and extravagant, lacy dresses, silken gowns or fur robes, some with cloth shoes, others with well-made, leather heels.

One such doll grabbed my attention. I hadn't seen my sister Margret that well, but I could have sworn that the stitched, cloth doll on the bed look just like her.

"Mother?" I said.

"She made the best dolls ever," Verena said, her eyes rolling down. "I even have one."

"Isn't this Marget?" I said.

"No, silly. That's Margo."

I watched Verena move over to a chest of drawers, pull one and take out an old, tarnished photo-frame. She handed it to me and I saw that the picture was of me—or, at least, it looked like me.

"That's your father when he was younger," she said. "Look at this."

Verena took my hand and led me over to a painting: girls of different ages sat around two chairs. In one chair, a woman, who could only be my mother, sat with a weak smile, hands properly on her lap. In the left chair, an older version of the man in the photograph. Except his face was creased with anxieties, his brows arced in a way that made him sinister, dangerous. His blue eyes gleamed with a wisdom that I realized I'd never acquire from him.

And my heart sank.

"All the daughters loved him," she said, "despite the pain he brought to them, the abuse, the terror. But I loved him most of all. Even when his body became too frail to leave the bed, I loved him, sat next to him, read to him and kissed his brow lightly before he went to sleep every night."

-----

We buried him and Margret in a family plot on the estate grounds, which was now only Mother, Samuel and my sweet, lost sister. Verena stayed at the manse with me, catered to me, kept me company as I sat through the long hours reading from books that my father kept on the shelves.

I was at a loss, didn't know what to do. A part of me was frightened that the house was slowly getting into my mind, speaking things that weren't quite audible, but would, perhaps, get louder, until my mind was fractured with the screams of the damned.

Verena brought me the only liquor in the house—father's favorite: rum. I drank a glass whenever I felt the sharp, knowing fears that my life was desolate.

But I couldn't leave until my sisters arrived, couldn't leave because Verena's beauty was now haunting me. It wasn't just her ethereal allure, her ghostly charms and habits—no, it was her ensorcelling soul, lighting a warmth in me, a bonfire of the heart, and it was how her blue eyes looked at me with a loving intensity that I couldn't escape from.

As I skimmed through a book titledArs Oriundum ex Geotia in my spare time, I realized that my father was a strange man, devoting his life to the occult, but I wasn't sure how far he had gone with it. It was a tome of thick leather and heavy, tallow paper that crackled as you turned the pages, whispering and crackling along with the plumes in the fireplace. The strange Hebrew and Latin verses were written in a thick, black ink, some letters had partially run, or splotched to make some words unreadable.

I found pages of fertility magic, sortilege to perceive the imperceivable or to open gates of the mind and body to the micro-/macro-cosmic universe. I invested myself in meditation on these long, mundane hours, trying to test, perhaps provoke the tome into giving something that would let me see what mysteries veiled themselves in the mind of my father, the House and what it all meant for my family.

Maybe it was the only way of knowing why father could not love me.

This certain chapter, titledPorta ex Conspicio, spoke of theChazah, a gate of perception, to see, to know, to understand those things one could not behold, could not discern, could not fathom. I read it, I completed the meditations, but no matter how much I tried I still didn't feel any different, didn't see anything but a book with dried, waxy pages.

On October 31st, what seemed to be the coldest day of the New England year so far, I built a fire to keep the living room warm, spent some of my time watching the leaves fall from the trees through a window, as I contemplated the last phrases of theConspicio. That's when I saw them: lithe, slender young women, Lynn and Judeth. They carried nothing with them, traipsing down the dirt road, amber and violet leaves falling around them, some leaves catching their light, flowing hair. I went to the door to greet them and, seeing me, they both wrapped their arms around me, laughing, chaste kisses assaulting my cheeks and the corners of my lips. Body odor, vomit, urine and garbage wafted from them, their dresses muddy for some reason I couldn't yet guess.

"It's far warmer inside," I said, leading them to the living room, where they could warm themselves by the fire. I looked around for Verena, but I couldn't find her anywhere.

It wasn't until I again focused my attention on them that I realized a horrible truth.

"So, where are you two back from?" I said, politely trying to make reasonable conversation.

"Two back from?" Judeth said, clearly not understanding what I said before giggling. "Where's daddy?"

"He's passed," I said. I turned to Lynn, who looked at me for a moment and then her eyes rolled up, looking up at the highest window and smiling dreamily. What I said didn't seem to phase them much. "I'm sorry."

"Is daddy upstairs?" Lynn said.

They sounded like children.

"No, we buried him," I said. "He's in the graveyard."

Then I wished I hadn't said anything as they both looked at me with wide, wet eyes.

"Daddy went to theGraveyard?" Judeth said. Lynn began to weep and Judeth moaned: "Oh, no...Nobodycomes back from theGraveyard!"

They came to me, embraced me, wanting comfort. I held the girls for hours as they sobbed their tears, drooling on my shirt. I felt sorry for them, especially now that I realized that my sisters were clinically dim. Who knows where they wandered off to for days? They had to be starving.

Both girls were young adults, both a little older than me, but I had to treat them like children. Unable to find Verena to help me, I had to run a bath for them, undress them, sponge the dirt from their bruised, pale bodies and shampoo their long, blond hair. When I got the girls clean, I let them play with their dolls as I cooked them some food.

A part of me wanted to run away, leaving them here to die. Does that sound awful? I suddenly saw myself doing this for the rest of my life and had horrid daydreams about it. But, on the other hand, I couldn't leave them. They were my sisters and my heart pitied their situation.

What if I turned them over to the State? They could be locked up, looked after. They'd probably get better care than I could afford them.

That night, after putting them together in the same bed—something they demanded, never wanting to be too far away from each other—I waited with them until they fell asleep and heard the door open downstairs. I rushed down, catching Verena coming in.

"You left without warning me," I said.

Verena looked apologetic. "I needed to do a few things."

"My sisters came home today. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"That they're—uh, dim," I said. "They could have been wandering out there, unfed, getting hurt, what-have-you. I mean, I had to wash them and feed them, put them to bed. If I knew—"

"If you knew you wouldn't have stayed so long," Verena said. "If you knew that you would have to deal with them, then you would have taken off, sent a letter to the State about them."

"Something I may still do!" I said. "I could have used your help!"

"And how am I a servant?" Verena said.

I bit my tongue, realizing she was right. I was being unfair.

"Apologies," I said and Verena smiled, wrapping her arms around me. I could feel her breasts against my chest, her stomach against my manhood, which began to grow heavier, pulsing with need for her.

I kissed her, her lips were sweet, our mouths conforming and our tongues played to our senses, driving us wilder into a heated hunger. Her hand pushed between us and I felt her grab my stiffness through my slacks. She rubbed me, pushing her body into me, breathing rapidly, her wet lips parted and began kissing my neck.

"I have just one question," I said between breaths, putting a finger to her red lips for a moment. She kissed them, licked and sucked on my index. "In my letter, Margret states that I have three other sisters, not counting her. I couldn't make out her name. Where is she?"

"Right here," she said with a hot breath. "Verena. Margret was the only one of us who went to school. I'm the youngest, probably the brightest, but Marget got to go to school until they threw rocks at her. She knew how to write."

I pulled away from her, still heavily aroused by all of this, but terrified with what almost happened.

"Dear God!" I said.

"God has nothing to do with this!" Verena shouted. "Love me! Take off my clothes and do what you want to with me! Now, Brother!"

"No! Verena! I don't understand why you're doing this! I don't get it!" I shouted.

Verena began to sob then, her small body shrinking even more. I thought she was going to fall off her feet, but I didn't touch her. Iloathed to touch her, suddenly. But through her tears she began to explain some of the things:

"When Mother got sick she told us about you," Verena said. "She told me that you were born before me and that you lived in London. She said that she took you from Father, so that Daddy's sortilege wouldn't harm you, make you dim like my older sisters. The only reason I was able to stave off the evil was because, by the time I was six, Daddy was already sick. I'm even surprised that he lived as long as he did, being sick. The evil in him, I guess, made him stronger, kept him alive to torment us."

I still wish that I was able to have met her, my mother, trying to imagine the painting of her as real as Verena was, standing there before me, head cocked, turned down, eyes staring into space as she twisted her toes into the rug. (Dear Lord, what is happening to me, here? Despite my rush of distaste for her actions, was there a part of me that still wanted to sleep with her?)

"We loved Daddy. Even Mother, despite how horrible he was. I mean, I hated him," Verena said, "and loved him. A lot of the time Margret and I wished him dead, but we loved him too much to kill him ourselves. He made us do things for him, things I don't ever want to remember."

"Remember? Please, tell me," I said.

Verena told me about how, after her Mother's death, Samuel had cut his wife's fingers off for their supper one night; how Verena and her sisters were forced to seduce men, that father loathed, to get them to come back to the House.

"He would chop them,chop them, oh God, and we'd eat them. Good God, weate them!" Verena said, sobbing now. The memories obviously very terrifying.

"Oh my God," I said, reaching to touch her pretty face, sorry for her, but withdrew my shaking hands. This was wrong! I had to remember that she was an alluring wraith, so it was natural to be attracted to her, to want to touch her—but it was a sin, a crime against God and only a base desire.

"We'd make girlfriends for Daddy, bring them home and then he'd lock them up in the basement. In the basement he tore off their clothes, made them pee in jars, made them sleep in dried seed that he did to them every day. He-He made them do things that they didn't want to do. And hisbelt—he'd take it off, make them suck him while he beat their shoulders with it, until they bled, their back in tatters; until he was done with them and he'd cut their throats, chop them like he did the men, chop them up and make us eat them too."

"You don't have to tell me—" I said, but she interrupted me, letting it all come out—these horrible things I didn't want to hear.

"When he got sick and couldn't leave his bed," Verena said, "he couldn't do everything that he wanted. He couldn't eat meat anymore, so we fed him chicken and menstrual blood and told him that it was the vitality from one of his women. Smelling the female in the juices, he always believed us.

"And he couldn't take care of his own lust anymore, so Margret and I—we had to take turns stroking his man-thing until he was satisfied. Of course, Margret wouldn't have me do it until I was old enough, but I still had to do it. You see, we were the smarter ones. Not as dim as Lynn and Judeth. It was up to us to make him happy until he died."

I hushed her with soft shushes, holding her away from me, her head lolling from her shoulders, letting her cry away from me. I couldn't believe everything she said. Could a man be that awful? That evil?

I was never angrier, never felt more hate for a human being then I did for my father just then. I took her to her bedroom, the one with the ragged dolls and the family painting—probably things moved from other parts of the house.

Then she pushed her body up against mine, her thin limbs wrapped around me. I was caught off guard, wasn't ready for her sudden movement. She pressed her nubile breasts against me, her hands began running through my hair.

But I didn't push her away. I want to say that I was utterly raptured with revulsion, but I'd be lying if I did not say that her firm pressing made me quiver and weak, almost dominated by her charms.

Before I found the courage to force her off me, before I managed to redeem myself, she pulled away and said: "I'll show you."

She led me through the kitchen, attempting once or twice to take my hand. I kept my distance, believing that the currant of her touch wouldn't allow for me to release myself from her again.