Every House Is Haunted

by Ian Rogers

  That night as the boy sat in the clearing that was his home, he thought to himself: Why shouldn’t I be allowed to chop down a tree that does not talk? A normal tree would not scream the way I imagine the great oak would had I taken my axe to it.

  So it was that then that the boy decided the great oak, which had clearly become senile in its old age, didn’t know what it was talking about when it came to talkless trees. The boy could speak of axes and carving knives since he knew them well, and the great oak could speak of other great oaks because it knew them well, but for a talking tree to speak on behalf of those that could not talk—well, that was just plain wrong.

  That night with conscience clear, the boy crept back into the dark forest and chopped down one of the talkless trees. He continued to take one tree every night until the only one left was the great oak.

  The boy was still unhappy with his body, so he picked up his axe and went back to the forest . . . or rather, the place where the forest once stood. Why shouldn’t I cut down the great oak? he thought. It is just a tree after all, and it serves no real purpose in this world. I will give it purpose, as I did the others.

  The great oak was waiting with its mighty branches crossed when the boy arrived and raised his axe once more. He brought it down against the thick trunk with a mighty chop, but the oak did not scream. Most unusual, the boy thought, and swung again. Still nothing.

  Then, when the boy had chopped halfway through the trunk, the great oak spoke:

  “I told you not to cut down my brothers and sisters and you did. Now you would cut me down?”

  The boy explained that he was giving the great oak a purpose, something it never had before. “I’m doing you a favour,” he said. “You should be thanking me.”

  “A favour indeed,” the great oak said, snort air through its knot hole. “Then a favour to you I will return one day.”

  The boy heard the great oak’s words but did not listen. He was not thinking of consequences. He was thinking of all the bodies the great oak would give him. Bodies for years to come, maybe a million if he used it sparingly (although he knew he would not).

  When he finished chopping, the great oak fell with a mighty crash that echoed across the land that had once been dense with trees. Immediately the boy set to carving the first of what was sure to be several handsome bodies for himself.

  After he finished, the boy left his tired old body and entered the new one. It was glorious! Never before had he felt so strong and able. His hands, more agile than any he had carved before, would surely be able to craft even greater bodies now. His legs were those of an athlete, his body almost as thick as the great oak from which he carved it. It was a most impressive body indeed!

  “You did not think I would stand idly by while you murdered me, did you?”

  The voice was that of the great oak, but it did not come from its fallen body. The sound seemed to come from . . .

  “Well then, maybe you did. After all, it was the same stupidity that cut me down which has now used me as a vehicle.”

  The boy spun all around, searching for the source of the voice, but he was the only one there. The voice seemed to have come from right over his shoulder. He reached around with both hands, feeling along his back, and found a knot hole. His mouth fell open in horror, destroying the smile he had carved into his face.

  “My turn,” Beth said.

  “Dear God,” the boy cried, “what have you done to me?”

  The knot hole hissed at him. “I am returning your favour!”

  The boy looked down at his hands as they began to move by themselves. He watched, frozen and helpless, as he picked up his carving knife with one hand while the other pressed against his chest like a sculptor getting a feel for his medium.

  “What’s happening?” he screamed.

  The knot hole did not respond. In fact, his back was completely silent as his hand went about etching lines all over his body in intricate detail. The carving knife stayed below the neck, covering the rest of his body with sharp, precise cuts.

  Finally, the hand went limp and dropped the knife. The boy looked at himself.

  “What have you done to my body?”

  “Your body indeed!” the knot hole bellowed. “I have done to you as you have done to me. I have created you in my image as you destroyed me in yours. To you I was a tree no different than the rest, fit only for your abominable wardrobe. Now you are a puzzle because I know not the reason for the things you do. I have left your head intact so that your mouth may cry and your eyes may weep, but never again will your tears take shelter in wooden palms, nor will you be able to run away from the things that scare or sicken you. Forever now, you will remain a wooden head with no body as you have existed before with no soul, no longer able to rob others of theirs. This is the favour I return to you.”

  The boy uttered a high, wailing scream as he watched as his body began to disassemble itself into hundreds of small, segmented pieces.

  The boy’s head tumbled to the ground, lying on its side so he could watch as the pieces scurried away like ants.

  His head lies there still, watching, waiting, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming, with nothing left to consider except the stretch of land where the trees once grew, and past that, endless time.

  Court shook his head. “Geez, Beth, do you always have to throw in a puzzle somewhere?”

  “I like puzzles,” she said. “Besides, what do you think these are made from?” She scooped up a handful of puzzle pieces, then turned her hand over and let them fall back to the ground. “Or that charm around your neck. And Harry’s precious board.”

  Harry had returned the planchette to his inside pocket. Now he unconsciously placed a hand over it like a man swearing an oath.

  “So what does it look like?” Court asked. He was excited, but he knew not to look over Beth’s shoulder; the last time he did that she had slapped him so hard his ears rang. “I’ve given you the past and Harry’s given you the present. Now, tell us what lies ahead?”

  “I don’t want to know,” Harry burst out. “I want to get out of here.”

  Court turned to him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Harry’s eyes darted back and forth. “I don’t like this place. The trees. There’s something wrong with them.”

  Court snorted. “Beth, your story scared poor old Harry. Can’t you tell him what happens next and calm his nerves?”

  Beth looked down at the almost-finished puzzle. The campfire scene was almost complete. Even in the small picture, Court’s wolfish grin was clearly visible. So was the dark, foreboding shape of the trees that leaned in toward their circle, as if they had been listening to their triptych story.

  “Will you please finish that thing and tell us the future?” Court sounded impatient, almost a little frightened.

  Beth fingered the final piece of the puzzle. She looked up at them with dark, dancing eyes. “I don’t think I see one.”

  THE HOUSE ON ASHLEY AVENUE

  1

  Charles and Sally pulled up to the house at a quarter of eight. They sat in the car, basking in the air-conditioning and the picture-postcard view before them. It was one of those perfect Toronto summer evenings, with the setting sun bathing everything in a rich orange glow. Ashley Avenue looked as if it had been dipped in bronze.

  Charles turned off the ignition and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Sally glanced down at the bulge in his pants pocket. “You okay down there?” she asked.

  Charles ignored her. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly, and opened his door.

  Sally smiled devilishly to herself and opened hers. The humidity hit her like a physical force; she felt invisible hands press against her chest and force the air out of her lungs. A warm breeze buffeted her bare arms and legs.

  It was only the middle of June and Environment Canada had already issued half a dozen humidex warnings. A lawn-watering ban was in effect, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at th
e verdant lawns on Ashley Avenue. The only exception was the one at number seventeen—it was dead as the people who had lived inside.

  Sally looked up and down the street. According to Charles, who had become her de facto tour guide since she had moved to the city a year ago, they were in Rosedale, one of Toronto’s most affluent neighbourhoods. Occupied by the sort of personage who could get away with ignoring a city-wide lawn-watering ban without getting fined, or who could easily afford to pay it if they did.

  Number seventeen stood at the end of the street, next to an overgrown lot that looked as if it might have been a Little League field once upon a time. Sally could just make out the diamond-shaped remnants of the baselines. The house itself was a large two-storey dwelling with a wraparound porch and a tall elm in the front yard. A set of flagstones made a path to the porch. The Westons had died here four days ago, but one would never have known it to look at the place. There was nary a police cruiser nor piece of crime-scene tape to be found. Sally wasn’t surprised. The residents of Rosedale paid for a great many things here, but she didn’t think scandal was one of them.

  “Unassuming, isn’t it?”

  Sally shrugged. “Looks like any other house on the block. Except for the lawn.”

  “Just remember what it really is,” Charles said. “How did Jimmy put it?”

  Sally smiled thinly. “He called it the architectural equivalent of a great white shark.”

  Charles frowned. “Not entirely accurate, but close enough at any rate.”

  “It doesn’t look dangerous,” Sally remarked.

  “Did you expect it would?”

  She gave the house a long considering look, then said: “No. I . . . I don’t know what I expected.”

  “Expect nothing.” Charles’s voice was calm and collected, but Sally thought she heard something else underneath—nervousness. “Don’t allow your mind to focus on any one part of it. If you start to feel funny, close your eyes and imagine you’re walking a tightrope. Think only of keeping your balance.”

  Sally glanced down at her shoes, a pair of high heels she had purchased earlier that day. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Charles heard the wry note in her voice and gave her an appraising once-over. “You’ll do fine. You look great. Just hang back and let me do most of the talking.”

  Sally nodded and looked at the house again. One of the Eight, she thought. I can’t believe I’m really going inside one of the Eight.

  After smoothing down his tie and checking his suit for wrinkles, Charles finally opened the waist-high gate and started up the flagstone path. Sally followed. She found it was easier to not look at the house if she was moving. She needed all of her concentration to keep from falling down and busting an ankle.

  She wasn’t used to wearing heels, but today’s assignment required professional attire. It wasn’t a problem for Charles, who had probably popped out of the womb in a suit and tie. He always referred to his clothing by their manufacturer: his Armani suit, his Saki tie, his Gucci loafers. Sally, on the other hand, wouldn’t have known the difference between Donna Karan and Donna Summers. She tended to dress for comfort rather than style, and thus owned nothing that qualified as “professional attire.”

  Charles reached the front door, and Sally had to hurry to catch up. He knocked, and a moment later the door was opened by a young man who looked as if he had been sleeping in his business suit for the last couple of days.

  “Mr. Weston?”

  The young man nodded. “Ted. Ted Weston. You’re with the city?”

  “We’re with the Mereville Group,” Charles replied. “An insurance company working on behalf of the city.”

  Ted Weston nodded, but the vacant look in his eyes said he wasn’t registering this new information. “Please come in,” he said, and stepped aside.

  As she followed Charles across the threshold, Sally realized she had been holding her breath, and let it out in a long exhalation. They were standing in a small foyer. Sally heard gentle sobbing to her left and looked into the dining room, where two women were sitting at a long mahogany table. The crying woman was thin with mousy hair that looked as if it hadn’t seen the business end of a brush in about a week. The other woman was short and fat and draped in a ridiculous orange sarong that, in Sally’s opinion, made her look like an enormous beachball. The fat woman was patting the thin woman’s hand and muttering words of consolation.

  “. . . s’okay . . . let it out . . . normal to feel this way . . .”

  It was hearing the fat woman’s platitudes that helped Sally get over the initial shock of being inside the house on Ashley Avenue. Watching the metronomal rise and fall of her meaty paw as she patted the crying woman’s hand had the effective of a hypnotist’s command, snapping her out a daze she didn’t remember entering.

  From behind her, Ted said: “That’s my sister, Dawn. She . . . she hasn’t been so good.”

  “That’s understandable,” Charles said. “This is not a good time. We apologize for this intrusion.”

  Ted led them into the dining room, clearing his throat to announce himself to the two women. “Excuse me, Ms. Morningside.”

  The fat woman stood up and gave Charles and Sally a cool, appraising look. Then she reached into her pocket, took out a business card, and handed it to Charles. It said:

  TANYANKA MORNINGSIDE

  SPIRITUAL CONSULTATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS

  “You are also family of the departed?” Morningside inquired.

  “My name is Charles Courtney, and this is my partner Sally Wakefield.” Sally raised her hand and wiggled her fingers in a small wave. “We’re insurance investigators with the Mereville Group. We’re here on behalf of the city.”

  “Investigators?” the psychic said suspiciously. “I don’t understand. You’re investigating me?”

  “Not at all. The police informed us of the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Weston. One of the detectives mentioned that the children of the deceased were concerned about the circumstances surrounding the death of their parents and had decided to pursue—how shall I say—‘alternative avenues of investigation’?”

  The psychic seemed to inflate with rage. “If you’re implying that I’m—”

  Charles held up his hand, cutting off her words. “I’m not implying anything, Ms. Morningside. We’re not here to interfere. Just to observe.”

  The psychic’s face became infused with colour. “I am a . . . I have worked with the police on several occasions . . .”

  Charles’s lips spread in a warm grin. “Then we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

  “Ms. Morningside, if I may speak frankly.” Charles raised his hand, placed the first and second fingers to his lips, and cleared his throat. “You’re here, I presume, to contact the spirits of the deceased persons in this house, in the hope of better understanding the circumstances under which they died. I will go one step further and say that you are probably operating under the assumption that this house is haunted.”

  The psychic started to speak, and Charles cut her off a third time with his upraised hand. “The Mereville Group has no interest in the supernatural. That includes communicating with the dead or investigating haunted houses. We are perfectly neutral in this matter.

  “But one thing our client, the city, does care about is Rosedale. If you yell shark at a beach, everyone runs out of the water like their asses are on fire. If you yell haunted house in a neighbourhood such as this, a lot of people are going to be placing calls to their friends on the city council. Are you starting to see things from where I’m standing?”

  “Yes, I think I do,” Morningside said. “You’re talking about covering up what happened here.” She crossed her arms defiantly. “I don’t care if you’re here on behalf of an insurance company, the City of Toronto, or the King of Siam, I am here on behalf of these people.” She gestured grandly to Ted and Dawn Weston.

/>   Charles clapped his hands together like a teacher calling the attention of his class. “Fine, okay, I didn’t want to do it this way, but here goes.” He cleared his throat in a theatrical manner. “Since Mr. and Mrs. Weston are deceased, the house is once again the property of the city. As representatives of the city, Ms. Wakefield and myself have more right to be here than anyone. Now while I wouldn’t dream of telling Ted or Dawn Weston to vacate these premises, I feel I must tell you, Ms. Morningside, that the Yellow Pages are full of psychics, and if you have a problem with us being here, then I’m sure we can find someone else in your line of work who would be more . . . accomodating.”

  The psychic stared into Charles’s icy blue eyes for a long time. Her cheeks were very red. A thin glaze of sweat had formed on her forehead.

  “I need to work in absolute silence,” she said finally.

  Charles exchanged a look with Sally. “We won’t say a word.”

  The psychic looked at them both steadily.

  Sally ran an invisible zipper over her lips. “Not a peep,” she said.

  “Fine,” the psychic said. “Let’s begin.”

  2

  They sat around the mahogany dining room table. No one said a word. They were all watching the psychic. They weren’t clasping hands, but Sally figured it was only a matter of time. The table was astringently bare under the glow of the single overhead light fixture. It made Sally think of old gangster movies, stool pigeons sitting in bleak interrogation rooms, while grizzled, chain-smoking cops paced back and forth.

  The psychic stared around the table at them with dull, heavy-lidded eyes. She looked as if she were about to go into a trance . . . or maybe she was trying to remember if she unplugged the iron before she went out. Finally, she pulled a pen and a sheaf of blank paper out of a satchel bag on the floor next to her chair and placed them on the table before her.

  “Clear your minds,” she intoned.

  Sally thought, That shouldn’t take you very long, and the psychic’s head snapped back as if she had been slapped. She stared at Sally. Sally looked back with innocent surprise—an expression she had down pat. She practised it in front of the bathroom mirror in her apartment. A slight widening of the eyes, a rising of the eyebrows, a gentle tilt of the head. Oh, goodness, is something wrong?