“Here,” Vani said, handing Delilah the notes. They were short, written in a giant, looping scrawl. The edges of the first two were jagged as if hastily torn from a notebook. Delilah read them aloud:
Finished the blessing today, and I can feel the love this house has for me, for Gavin. All around us things seem to have come to life and it’s glorious! I sat down with Gavin in the living room and simply breathed in and out and meditated on images of our future here. We have a lifetime ahead of us inside these walls. I’ve never felt so surrounded.
The bottom of the page was missing, as if only this section mattered.
“If I remember. . . there is a part of the ceremony,” Vani said quietly, “where you welcome life to the house. But it’s a subtle difference, okay, where you welcome your life to the house, or you simply welcome life. I fear Hilary has done this wrong. Terribly wrong. I fear she brought life to everything in the house.”
Delilah moved the second note to the front, scanning it.
I’ve met a man, a loved, a beloved. Will we move? Won’t we move? Ron hasn’t been to the house, and I don’t know that I want him here. It’s our safe place, our wonderland. And what would he think? There are so many things in this world that we can’t understand. But tonight at his apartment he asked me to bring Gavin and move in with him. I don’t want to leave our house! But I love him! I said I would think about it. And now I’m home and House is being awful. It’s cold, and I keep getting lost trying to find my room. Gavin was in the nursery and then he was downstairs. I brought him upstairs with me to get some medicine for my headache, and when I turned around he was gone again. I found him in the kitchen walking toward the counter with the knives. I yelled at the house. I told it to keep away from my baby. I hate that I did it. House loves Gavin. I know it does, but it had never scared me like that.
I write these things because I’m afraid to say them out loud. I thought if I saw them on paper I’d realize how silly I’m being. Looking at them. . . they don’t seem silly at all.
“See?” Delilah whispered. “Oh God.” She knew what happened. She knew. She knew.
The last note was a mess, more so than the others. The writing looked hurried and panicked, the words pressed too hard into sterile bank stationery.
Something has changed. My thoughts aren’t my own. My head hurts all the time now. I’m afraid of what I’ve done. I’ve tried to cleanse the air with sage. I’ve tried a frankincense smudge and pickled garlic, put salt all around the house. I’ve done any incantation I can find, and nothing works. The house scares me now. Last night I went to the basement to get a jar of peaches, and I was stuck down there for hours because the door locked. It LOCKED. It’s never locked before, and this time it did, with Gavin upstairs alone! I came out, finally, when the door clicked open, and Gavin was in his room, playing quietly. I feel. . . It sounds crazy, but I feel like this house thinks Gavin belongs to it. Not me.
Delilah glanced up at Dhaval in the rearview mirror, feeling grim. “This is awful,” he whispered.
“I think she’s dead,” Delilah said, with a feeling like a heavy anchor settling in her stomach.
“It was her,” Dhaval said. “I’m sure of it. We’ll get to the house and you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
Delilah returned to the note: