Summer Dream

The House

The house needed to feed.

This was the way it had always been, as long as the house had had memories. It starved for years on end, it glutted itself for a few long days and nights, and then it slept again, only to wake up once more, starving. As long as there had been a house, there had been the cycle.

Before the house was a house, it had been a small clearing, barely big enough to be called such. The house didn't really remember this time. The first thing it truly could recall were the soldiers, foreigners marching behind their golden eagle standard. There had been maybe eight of them, apparently the number needed to subdue, torture, and kill thirteen local women. Blood spilled everywhere, sinking into the earth, and the entity that would become the house had been born.

Many years later, at last a small house -- little more than a hovel with a single room -- was built in the clearing. The entity slept, only waking when there were again thirteen people in its clearing. The house hungered. It didn't take much to persuade one man to start killing the rest of the inhabitants of the house, his own wife and children and other family members, messily dispatching them one by one before finally slitting his own throat. The bodies sank into the earth, becoming part of the foundations. The house was sated and slept again.

It awoke again when thirteen more people arrived in its clearing. The clearing was bigger now. The house was bigger now, finally large enough to be called that. It felt stronger now than the other times it had awakened, not yet strong enough to act on its own but strong enough to influence the world around it -- and it did, taking another thirteen bodies into its foundations, well fed and curiously contented as it settled in to slumber once more.

Many years passed before it became aware again. The house built on its clearing was now huge, a sprawling monstrosity of wood and stone. It had a man who called himself the lord of the manor, but the house knew how easily it could persuade the man to his wishes. There were more than thirteen people here now: family, friends, servants, and guests of the so-called lord. The number didn't matter as much now; it was more than the house needed, enough to sate it for years to come. And the house was stronger now also. It could do small things on its own. It lured the firstborn son of the lord to a steep staircase where it was easy enough to send the young man careening down to a broken neck. The youngest daughter was trampled by one of the lord's war horses. It took another child by having it accidentally cleaved in two by the lord himself; he had never seen the boy running towards him through the tiny slit in his visor. The final child fell from the highest tower, crashing to the stone courtyard below. The lord's wife it took less bloodily, letting her ceaselessly mourn her children until she herself died of starvation. It took servants with a plague, knights with drunken arguments, and priests with dystentry. Finally only the lord was left, a broken shell of the man he had been. The house let him die slowly, wasting away of drink and loneliness, though still not aware that this was punishment for daring to call himself its lord, before it returned to its slumber.

The cycle continued. The house awoke, the house fed, the house slept. It slept more lightly now, able to awaken and stretch itself. Sometimes it awakened to find itself grown again. Sometimes it made itself grow when it was alone. It added to itself, new rooms and wings. It felt around the world beyond itself to see what other houses looked like and disguised itself accordingly. It was perhaps a bit vain: it liked being larger than the other houses. It remained a manor, as respendent as any to be seen, but it was one with a checkered past. Too many people disappeared at the house for many to be at ease with living there. It seemed no one realized that the people who disappeared were actually dead, their life's blood helping the house to grow and become stronger.

It could change the world around it, but it could still only feed when there were at least thirteen people within its walls. Small deaths here and there sustained it. It didn't take those bodies, just the blood, just the death itself. That was enough to keep it going.

In the world beyond the house, wars were fought. Men died. Women lived alone in the house with their children. Sometimes the children cried, and the house creaked and groaned its response to the tears. It was a waste, all those deaths in foreign lands where the house could not use the energy.

The women and children left. The house was empty. Someone put padlocks on its gates and locked its front doors. The house seethed. It took this opportunity to grow again. It took away the conservatory and added an indoor heated pool. It lost the billard room and added a kitchen that was no longer separate from the main house. It took away the servants' quarters and added bright bedrooms with large windows. It lost the Victorianesque wallpaper and painted its walls in bright cheery colors.

New people came to the house. This time, it was two women and their small menagerie of dogs. The house liked the dogs. None of the dogs were quite right: one was missing a leg, another was blind, one couldn't move its bottom half, another only had one eye, and so on. The dogs did not chew on the house's door frames and mostly utilized the newspaper the women put down; the house made a point of opening doors when the newspaper did not seem to be enough. It made sure the dogs stayed within its fenced perimeter.

As much as it had ever liked any of its occupants, it liked its current ones. The two women did not call themselves lords of the house. They chatted gaily about its charm and personality. They called it their Summer Dream. They made small improvements that the house had not thought of itself. They treated it well, and it did the same in turn.

But it was growing hungry again.

It would have to find a way to feed without taking its guests. How it was going to do that, it didn't know, not yet. But sooner or later, a situation would present itself. It always did.

And finally it did. Its guests left to go on a trip. They appointed some young thing to take care of the house and the dogs while they were gone. The young girl decided the house was too large for her to handle by herself for the fortnight the women would be gone and invited friends to come stay with her. The friends invited more friends... and finally there were more than thirteen people in the house again.

It was time.