“I mean, alone with the house,” Delilah explained slowly. “The house is. . . possessed, or haunted. It’s raised Gavin. It’s been good to him, all his life. But when he and I started seeing each other, it didn’t react well.”
“She’s telling the truth, Amma,” Dhaval whispered.
“I think it was the house that called you,” Delilah told her. “It’s a trap. I think the house did something to her.”
To Delilah’s horror—or possibly her relief; could it somehow be both?—Vani seemed to want to believe her. “You knew something was different about the house,” Delilah said.
Vani didn’t answer, instead asking: “Why didn’t Gavin tell anyone?”
“It was all he knew. When he was little he didn’t know anything else, and when he figured out he was different, he was afraid he would be in trouble, or something would happen to the house. That people might take him away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Delilah?”
“I’ve been gone for nearly six years!” Delilah cried. “We all thought the house was creepy, but none of us ever got close enough to see more. It wasn’t until I came home and started following him—”
“Stalking, more like,” Dhaval teased, and both females threw him a look.
“—and he took me inside,” Delilah continued. “At first I thought it was amazing. I mean, it seemed like a miracle. I wish you could see what I saw. I didn’t say anything then because I didn’t want it to be dissected or studied. But when Gavin and I became closer, the house. . . It started to resent me.”
Vani’s eyes narrowed, concentrating. “Resent you?”
“It’s horrible, Auntie. It stalked us. It was the house that hurt my arm, not Gavin, not me! It set my room on fire to destroy the money we’d saved so we could go somewhere else together. It can possess objects, like Gavin’s clothes. It can possess people who go onto the property. That’s how no one has ever taken Gavin away: Social workers come to the porch and the house makes them think everything is fine.”
Horror crept into Vani’s voice. “How does it do this?”
“I don’t know,” Delilah admitted in a shaky whisper. “I don’t know if it’s one spirit or a million inside, but it feels like there are a lot. Everything has its own personality. Some things are nice—like things in the living room. Some rooms have never liked me, like the kitchen or the dining room. Or,” she added, feeling her cheeks heat, “Gavin’s bedroom. They just want Gavin. I swear. If he never left the house, it would never bother anyone.”
“And he wants out now?” Vani asked.
“Yes, but even if he didn’t, I would burn it down to get him out of there.”
Vani stood, walking over to the mantel where she had a line of family photographs: a portrait of Dhaval kneeling with a soccer ball, a framed photo from her wedding. “Hilary played around too much with blessings and cleansings, souls and spirits. She came to me hoping I would know more—my mother was a very spiritual woman, you see—but I assured her I simply follow Hindu teachings. There isn’t anything mystical about me.”
Delilah glanced at Dhaval. He’d mentioned a blessing ceremony before, but this was the first time Delilah felt dread trickle like ice into her blood when it was mentioned. “Do you think she might have done this? With the blessing ceremony?”
“Hilary dabbled in a lot of different religions, chose what she liked about each. She talked to me about blessing her house. She had a. . . power about her, but it seemed innocent enough. She was a free spirit, maybe a little flaky, but she had good intentions. She’d left her husband, who I think wasn’t a very good man, and moved here to buy the house. She wanted to grow her own food out there, wanted to live differently from the way most of society does. When she started talking about blessing the house, I told her it wasn’t a good idea. I had family who knew about that stuff, but I didn’t. Not enough.”