I loved you once, but now I fucking hate you.
I’ve had time to think about what happened between us, and I might finally understand why you did what you did. Even though I really wish you hadn’t.
Even now, I wonder whether you would have made a different choice that night, if you truly understood me. Or perhaps it was foolish of me to ever think I could have you and your family, damned as I was.
It was sometime in the 1600s, right here in the swamps of the Florida Everglades that I came to be. The exact date eludes me because, unlike your kind, I have no need to measure such things. A Spaniard by the name of Sánchez built me. I was to be a grand dwelling—for a grand motherfucker. He gave me a new and exciting life, then plagued my belly with endless violence. Sánchez had a reputation for being vile but saved his exceptionally depraved antics for the privacy my walls granted him.
And then, one night, having reached their limit with my master’s sadism, a local mob descended upon our property and sprayed my handcrafted oak front doors with liquor-laced spittle as they shouted a myriad of profanities and vowed to do all manner of gruesome things to Sánchez—and even worse to his corpse. That mob teased me with the promise of freedom from my master’s never-ending and ever-escalating abuse.
I let them in.
Sánchez’s blood and viscera dried in the crevices of my floorboards, so malevolent that even fungus avoided it. And Death bound that dirty bastard to me for eternity, a cruel repercussion of my attempt to divorce myself from Sánchez—who became my first haunt.
But he was not the last—nor the worst.
As you very well know.
In our final moments together, you judged me rather harshly for my paranormal proclivities—but you didn’t understand how lonely it could get when even the alligators and vultures gave my estate a wide berth. My only crime was trying my best to survive the only way I knew how.
For centuries after Sánchez’s demise, darkness found its way to this swamp again and again. The murky waters surrounding my estate now run deep with the blood of many who met a grotesque end here. I lured the most intriguing spirits of the deceased to remain with me as friends, their companionship meant to keep depression at bay. I became a lighthouse, perpetually beckoning to those beyond, until I would meet my forever family, a someone or “someones” who would fill with unconditional love the many holes Sánchez had stabbed through my hopes and dreams.
For hundreds of years, I yearned desperately for it—love. Many masters came and went over that time, but they all eventually abandoned me, deeming me unlovable, unworthy … haunted.
And once I’d finally resigned myself to the gruesome fate of knowing only loneliness …
… you appeared.
And you were a dream.
If only I’d known back then you’d turn into a nightmare more malignant than Sánchez, I would’ve had one of my friends snap your neck in your sleep.
But for some reason, I couldn’t help myself. You and your family were unlike any to ever walk my halls. Your energies felt different. It was hard to describe.
Your family’s white SUV pulled up outside, and your dads got out, both smiling, brimming with unadulterated hope. That was familiar. An emotion long since rotted with mold, after being pissed on by my birth master.
However, you, far more reserved than your parents, hung back near the rear of the vehicle, biting your full lips beneath the centuries-old willows that dappled sunlight across your bright walnut skin. I lost myself among the mottled earth tones in your eyes because they didn’t bear the promise of violence like those of so many others. Instead, I found a gentleness there, which propelled me back to a very brief time in my past—before I was desecrated and bound to an endless cycle of violence.
Your innocence captivated me at first sight. I wanted to love you.
And I wanted you to love me too.
I longed for your entire family to make me your home and never leave.
And during those initial moments where y’all stood in my front yard and looked me over, assessing my worth, I ran through decades of potential memories—joyful celebrations, tearful moments of regret or grief, tender displays of the many, many types of love humans can express with one another. And I imagined each of you taking your final breaths at the end of your very short lives within my walls, after which your spirits would rise from your corpses and become one with me for the rest of my life—as eternal friends. That sounded absolutely divine.
I was willing to do anything for it.
“Sooo, what do you think, Danger?” asked the copper-skinned one you called Papa, the shorter, lighter-complected of your parents. He removed his mirrored sunglasses and hung them on the button of his shirt.
Danger—I thought it such an intriguing name. Still do, frankly, despite my present desire to slowly peel away every bloody thread of sinew making up your scrawny teenage body.
You grimaced and looked over my facade with cold indifference that made my ancient joints creak with shame.
I’d never felt that before.
And suddenly, I became hyperaware of the shutters that’d fallen off or been ripped away for firewood before my friends chased those squatters away. And I wished I’d stopped that gang of kids before they threw stones through my windows, leaving jagged holes and beds of shattered glass like flakes of dead skin.
My friends did catch one of those little shits, though.
And we took him up to my attic.
As you stood on my front lawn, one of the many species of moth that’ve made my estate their home ever since He arrived, fluttered in front of you, and your eyes followed it with an air of curious disdain.
“Yo,” your papa said. “Earth to Danger. I said, ‘What do you think about the house?’”
You shrugged, your expression unenthusiastic.
“It’s a big change for all of us,” said your dad, the older bald one, whose skin was dark mahogany. “But only temporary.” Temporary. That word made my insides groan with dread. “Once the conservation site’s up and running, we can get back to the city—and our next project.”
“How long is that gonna be?” you asked.
“Uh, that depends on what shape the house is in, kiddo,” Dad answered. “We bought this place ‘as-is’ and have a bunch of sealed rooms to open.”
You glanced at your phone. “Please, tell me there’s Wi-Fi.”
Papa shook his head. “No one’s lived here full-time since the eighties. We’re going to have to get the house wired for internet. No worries—we’ll drive to town and use the Wi-Fi at the public library. Maybe they’ll have a summer reading club too!”
You sighed. “Great. I’m cut off from D and D at the climax of a yearlong campaign to save an entire realm and my AO3 before I could release the last of my short story collection, which I promised my readers I’d do as soon as I got here, except I had no idea here would be the dark ages.” You chewed your lips again and glowered at me.
Your words didn’t anger me. Because I already wanted you to love me.
“I know it sucks right now,” Dad said, “but there’s a silver lining—you just haven’t found it yet.”
“Unless it connects to the internet, I’m good,” you said.
While the three of you explored my interior, pointing out every one of my many blemishes and flaws, a moving truck trundled down the dirt path and backed up to my front porch. Two white men got out and began off-loading your belongings, which hardly filled my grandiose rooms.
Pete—the tall lanky blond freelance contractor, an acquaintance of your dad’s—reminded me of the stick bugs that lived in my attic.
I wanted him.
I knew I shouldn’t have. Not when I was trying so very hard to be good and presentable … to do better … to impress you.
But I couldn’t help myself.
And there was Sean, your papa’s people-pleasing, husky sandy-haired assistant, who’d been studying botany at university just like your papa, Dr. Sebastian Anthony-Carmichael.
Pete and Sean both toted in their own small suitcases and each took one of the many empty bedrooms sparsely furnished with random pieces left behind by my previous masters, who always seemed to leave in a hurry, never to return.
Those who actually got to leave.
As your family settled, I realized that after so many decades of only my spirits to keep me company, I might have a real chance at being your forever home. I couldn’t mess that up by scaring y’all off, so I locked my friends away. They didn’t like that.
Especially Him.
But I would deal with the consequences later. You all were far more important.
You would probably say it was selfish of me, but I was glad your parents had both lost their big, important city jobs—because it brought y’all to me. Looking back now, I think what I felt those first few weeks of your stay was what people call joy.
I liked it.
Your dad and Pete began clearing decades of cobwebs from my corners, sweeping away layers of dust from my floors, and washing the grime from my windows that hadn’t been broken.
Within days, sunlight and life flooded my interior, and I felt rejuvenated!
I wanted more.
Your papa and Sean found time to lend their hands to my restoration when they could break from their studies of the ghost orchids indigenous to my estate. Those enchanting white flowers that glow dimly in direct moonlight and give off the impression of tiny dancing sprites have captivated people for centuries. And like many other scientists before him, your papa wanted nature to reveal her secret—how the orchids thrived in the muck of the swamp.
You all would find out soon enough.
During your time with me, you floated about the property, occasionally offering to help your parents’ separate endeavors, but only when extreme boredom drove you from your bedroom and your books and your journal and your sad sleeps. You tried to hide your depression from your parents because you didn’t want to make them feel bad about the move. After all, they’d only been doing what they thought was best for your family.
But you couldn’t keep secrets from me.
You wrote about your special friend a lot—when you weren’t crying about him.
Micah. MICAH. Micah Castillo. MICAH HUGO CASTILLO. mr. micah h. castillo. danger & micah. Danger AXLE Carmichael-Castillo ♥ Micah HUGO Carmichael-Castillo.
Dozens of pages. I watched this boy torment you day after day and wondered how that must’ve felt. I expect it was akin to the cold emptiness that pervades every square foot of me the moment right after a master abandons me.
You wrote in your journal that you would turn seventeen this fall and had never had a boyfriend. Micah was the first boy who’d made your dick hard with only a thought and the first whose dick you could make hard with only the gentle brush of your fingertips against his neck.
I’d locked all my friends up—even Him—for your ungrateful ass to let that insipid boy haunt your every waking moment and even your dreams.
I hope it hurt like a motherfucker.
And by the way, you did a real shit job of hiding your unhappiness from your parents, because on the eve of your third week here, they got in bed together with the weight of more than fatigue heavy on both their faces. They looked in each other’s eyes, and it was as if they could read the other’s mind. I’d never seen two people so in tune with each other before.
“Did we make a mistake?” your papa asked in a hushed voice.
Your dad sighed and took a long time before speaking, also in a whisper. “Sometimes I’m not so sure, Bass. It’s definitely a shit ton more work than I anticipated. Pete thinks there’s a solid plate of metal blocking the attic door. That creepy garden shed in the side yard is likewise impenetrable. And every single locked room we did manage to bust into is a funky mess. The wood’s all rotted with mold in three rooms so far. Those areas have turned into a complete gut job, which means a bigger crew, more tools and equipment, and a lot more money. Pete and I have already gotten a head start on it, but there’s only so much we can do.”
“Sean and I haven’t had much luck either,” Papa admitted. “We’ve analyzed soil samples around the clock and spent hours reviewing field-cam footage and found nothing. We haven’t spotted a single moth interacting with a ghost orchid. It just doesn’t make sense.” He threw up his hands. “How else are the orchids being pollinated? Am I just wasting our time and money with all this?”
Dad turned on his side and raised an eyebrow. “You know, it’s not too late to start that drug cartel.”
Papa let out a heavy breath and fell back onto his pillow, staring up at my ceiling. “Danger’s depressed.”
“I know,” Dad replied. “He denies it though. Doesn’t wanna talk about it either.”
“What should we do?”
“About Danger or the house?”
“Both.”
No … NO!
Y’all couldn’t leave me. I wasn’t going to let them take you away.
In my moment of panic, my massive frame shuddered, and the moans of ancient wood echoed in the stark quiet of nightfall. Both men fell silent and craned their ears to listen. A terse moment passed before they relaxed again and continued their conversation.
“It’s only been three weeks,” Dad said, his brow furrowed. “Danger just needs time and space—as do you and the ghost orchids. In the meantime, let me assess the damage before we make any big decisions. Pete’s reached out to his cousin, who’s already agreed to come out and help for a decent price. We might still be able to salvage this.”
Your papa sealed their agreement with a kiss. I’m sure you’re not interested in the intimate details of what your parents did next, so instead, I’ll tell you how I occupied the rest of my night.
You’d probably say it was serendipity, though I believe it was forethought with decades-long precision, but a few of my friends possessed precisely the trade experience your dad required. Freeing them even for a night was a risk, but I took it. For you.
But letting them out enraged Him. He knew your papa was fucking with his flowers. So, to assuage his fury, I gave Him one night only with His beloved orchids.
While you and your parents slept soundly, my friends toiled throughout the night, ripping out the decayed bits of my flesh and tossing them into the swamp. By first light, the sickness that’d spread through my previously sealed rooms was completely gone, exposing my skeletal frame and foundation to the soft morning sunlight that bounded in through the refurbished windows.
And I wondered then, Is this how it feels to breathe?
Your parents were first to stir the next morning, but by then, I’d corralled my spirits back into their respective hiding places—all but one. He had an extra-special assignment.
Your dad assumed Pete and his cousin had pulled an all-nighter on the mold job. While happy to have had it taken care of so quickly, he was also peeved Pete hadn’t told him they were working through the night. Your papa convinced your dad not to make a big fuss about it, but your dad still brought it up to Pete, who didn’t hesitate to take the credit or the check your dad handed him to pay his cousin an overtime rate for the work my friends did.
But my annoyance with Pete was a small price to pay for effectively putting the brakes on your parents’ thoughts about leaving and taking you away from me.
You often slept later than the others, so I instructed Alfred to wait patiently and not wake you. The morning dragged on, and the light bursting through the gap in your partially drawn curtains intensified until you could no longer ignore the golden strip of sunlight across your sleeping face.
Your eyes opened to the sight of a teen boy with a friendly narrow face, kneeling by the side of your bed, watching and waiting for you to wake. At your sharp intake of breath, he clapped a frigid, ghostly white hand over your mouth. “Don’t scream,” he whispered. “Please.”
You nodded, and he lowered his hand. You sat up abruptly and asked, “Who are you?” Your voice shuddered. “And why are you in my room?”
“I’m Alfred,” he said. “The house wants me to be your friend.”
Your eyebrows pinched as if it were preposterous that I might exist. “The house?”
Alfred nodded.
“Where’d you come from? And how’d you get in my room?”
A soft knock at your closed bedroom door interrupted your inquiry. At your consent, your papa opened the door and poked his head in.
Alfred turned briefly toward him, revealing the jagged piece of rebar that’d pierced the back of his skull like a metal skewer through a cube of raw pork. You gasped under your breath at the ringlets of auburn hair matted with blood and bits of torn pink flesh bedding the sharp metal rod plunged into the boy’s brain.
“Morning,” your papa said, smiling. “Did I hear you talking? You manage to get cell signal in here?”
Your eyes shifted from Alfred to Papa, until Alfred said, “He can’t see me. House rules.”
“I, uh, was talking to myself,” you told your papa.
You fucking liar … Good boy.
“You sure you’re okay?” Papa asked. You nodded, and he said, “Someone knocked down all my field cameras yesterday. Did you happen to see anything?”
You shook your head. “I was in my room all night.”
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “Well, your dad and I would like to see you for lunch if you and yourself could break away from your stimulating conversation for a bit.”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Papa left, and you turned back to Alfred. “So, you’re dead?”
He nodded.
“How’d it happen?”
“Plane crash.”
“Shit,” you mumbled. “When?”
“In ’72,” Alfred replied. “We went down in this swamp. Everyone aboard died—all hundred and one passengers.”
“I’m sorry. How old were—are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Are the rest of the people from the crash here too?”
He shook his head. “But there are others.”
You swallowed hard. “Others?” Alfred nodded tentatively, and you asked, “Where?”
He pointed to your bedroom window.
I could feel the heightened thump of your heart echoing off my walls. Oh! How I wish I could’ve ripped it, still beating, from your scrawny chest.
If only I had hands.
You got up and crept across the room.
Alfred appeared next to you at the window and pointed down to the side yard—and the weathered garden shed, the building your dad had been trying to open.
“It’s kept us all shut up in there since y’all moved in,” Alfred said. “But the house promises to let me out more if I hang with you.”
“Was it you then? Did you knock down my papa’s cameras?”
Alfred tensed. “That wasn’t me.”
“Do you know who it was?”
He stared up at the decorative tin ceiling of your bedroom and mumbled, “I gotta go now.”
And he was gone.
Over the next few days, you and Alfred spent more time together—and Alfred kept my secret about our friend in the attic, per the terms of our agreement regarding his temporary freedom.
Installing Alfred as your new haunt effectively expelled the ghost of Micah from your mind; and with him gone, your spirits were lifted enough that your parents no longer worried about your mental health. And thus, I’d resolved another major problem.
Though the largest remained concealed in my attic.
I couldn’t let Him out. Not after what He’d done to your papa’s cameras. But I also didn’t know how much longer I could contain Him. Despite their own feelings about being confined, my friends had all begun to worry that I would lose control of Him soon.
At that particular time, I needed another problem like I needed a massive termite infestation; so, naturally, Alfred—that little pale, mortality-deficient fucker—betrayed my trust.
You and he often took lengthy, meandering walks together around my wooded estate, marveling at the various species of moths flitting through the forest, lost and dazed, lamenting the absence of their beloved caretaker. Alfred thought himself clever, taking you outside my walls to talk without pretense.
He knew I was listening.
That day, y’all walked farther than you’d ever gone before. And Alfred showed you a spot where you could get a blip of cell phone signal. I hadn’t realized before then that spirits could sense electromagnetic fields. But what Alfred didn’t know was nowhere on my estate was sacred. The trees have always whispered things to me. They were more loyal than even my oldest friend. They were my blood, you see.
So imagine my fury when I learned that you nailed one of your funky-ass socks to the trunk of one of my kin to mark the spot that traitor had shown you—all to impress you. That was when I discovered Alfred had taken an extracurricular liking to you, and that annoyed me.
He needed to understand—you were mine.
But his trespasses didn’t end there. In exchange for the friendship you should’ve been giving me, Alfred spilled the one secret I’d expressly forbidden him from speaking about.
“Your family’s in danger,” Alfred warned, leaning against the tree you’d just mutilated.
“Huh?” you asked, rightfully confused—because what the fuck was Alfred doing?
“All the ghosts aren’t in the garden shed,” he said. “There’s another—a really bad one—that the house keeps isolated in the attic. And ever since y’all got here, He’s been pissed.”
“But why though?”
“Mainly because the house won’t let Him out. And the rest of us are afraid of Him. Before the house locked us all up, no one dared set foot on the staircase up to the attic. Not even Sánchez.”
“Who is this spirit?” you asked, curious. “Or who was He, rather?”
“He lived here in the early 1920s. His name’s Booker Baldwin, and He was best friends with the master of the house at the time, some white industrial investor who lived here with his white wife. She was six months pregnant when all three of them died on this estate.”
“Do you know what happened to them?”
“The master was a dick to everyone, even his wife, who was widely known to be as hateful as him. Booker was the only person the master consistently treated with kindness. He’d lured Booker away from a shitty sharecropping situation up north in Georgia that had turned violent and hired Him to look after the estate grounds—and his homoerotic desires. After some time, he grew to love Booker, but Booker only coveted the ghost orchids. Booker spent more time with the moths and flowers than the man who claimed to love Him.
“When the master’s wife found out about her husband and Booker’s affair, she lost her shit. She would’ve burned the house down if the master hadn’t stopped her. So she set him on fire instead. It happened in the attic. And then she went outside to where Booker was tending the orchids, clubbed Him across the back of the head, and drowned Him in the swamp. Then she took her husband’s shotgun to the garden shed and shot herself in the face—close range.”
You gasped. Such a delicate breath trapped in the back of your throat. If only it’d choked you so you fell back onto the ground, clawing at your neck until your fingertips turned red and your lips blue.
“What does He want?” you asked. “The ghost of Booker Baldwin?”
“All He’s ever cared about,” said Alfred. “His flowers.”
“Why are you telling me this?” you asked.
Alfred’s sallow cheeks blushed. “Because I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Please watch out for the Caretaker—that’s what we call Booker’s ghost. He’s really, really bad news, Danger. I’m not sure how long the house can keep Him shut away in that attic.”
And that is why you didn’t see Alfred again after that transgression. I had to punish him real good for talking too damned much—and overstepping my boundaries.
To my abject horror, his little warning sent you straight to your parents. My trees were updating me on the situation right around the same time you were snitching.
“A bad spirit is trapped in the attic,” you proclaimed dramatically to your dads. “He’s the one who knocked down the field cameras!”
They shared a concerned expression.
“Please,” you begged. “Do not open that attic. This house is haunted. We need to leave. Now.”
Ah, but it wasn’t going to be quite that easy, Danger. I’d already made sure of that.
“Unfortunately, we’ve passed the point where we can easily cut our losses,” your dad said, and looked to your papa. “We need to stay at least through the rest of summer.”
Papa shivered slightly. “As grand as it’ll be when we’re done, this house does give me the creeps. Sometimes it feels like the walls have ears and eyes.”
“How about we go on a little family excursion to town tomorrow?” Dad suggested. “We can take a break from this place for a bit. Being cooped up here so long might be starting to get to all of us. And maybe while we’re out, we’ll even find some sage to take care of any pesky poltergeists.”
“So, we’re not leaving?” Disbelief sharpened the edges of your voice like the blade of a guillotine.
Your parents shared another look, and your dad said, “Yes, we’re leaving, but not until the end of summer. I’m sorry, Danger. We hear you, kiddo. I don’t expect you to fully understand what your papa and I have been through, but I can assure you, the living have done far more harm to our family than the dead ever could. One future was already stolen from us. We’re not giving up the next without a fight.”
After all I’d done for you ungrateful dicks, you were scheming to sage away all my friends and abandon me before the leaves on the trees started changing colors. My frame rumbled with barely checked rage. I’d done so much to make you fuckers love me, but none of it was enough: I ripped out my diseased innards and discarded them in the swamp. I confined and infuriated the only friends I’d ever known. And I even gave you a friend of your own.
My worst fears had come true. I began to believe I was too damned for anyone to love. But even then, I still didn’t want to completely believe it.
It was clear, if y’all weren’t going to make me your forever home, I would make you my friends. And then you’d never leave again.
I should’ve let Him have you all from the onset.
You woke uncharacteristically early the next morning and joined your parents on a trip into town, leaving Pete and Sean behind.
Pete, feeling guilty for duping your dad, wished to surprise him on his return by opening the attic and getting a head start on the renovation up there.
And what a wonderful surprise it would be!
He sat his thermos of black coffee and bourbon on one of the stairs, hung his lit work lamp on a hook on the wall, and plugged in his blaring headphones. As he hacked away at my wooden attic door with an axe, something stirred just on the other side.
Once the wood was out of the way, Pete sat the axe aside and huffed an exasperated breath at the solid plate of metal blocking the attic’s entrance. He disappeared and returned with welding equipment. I’d never seen someone so determined to perish.
After a while, a large portion of the metal barrier fell away, revealing the dank darkness of the attic beyond. Pete dropped his torch, removed his face shield and headphones, and stared into the black hole that may as well have been a portal to Hell.
He climbed up carefully and poked his head through to assess the space.
A spectral hand grabbed a fistful of Pete’s blond hair and snatched the man through the hole. Poor Pete didn’t even get the chance to scream.
A single brown moth fluttered down from the attic and wavered in front of the still-burning lamp hung on the wall.
You and your parents returned on the cusp of dusk, everyone’s spirits somewhat renewed from your little jaunt—the last you’d smile that night.
Sean met you three on my porch, a pair of muddy boots in one hand, his tackle box of beakers, vials, and various instruments in the other. Humidity and sweat had already slicked his sandy hair to his head. “Hey, hey!” He smiled and lifted the box. “Headed to get soil samples.”
“Need a hand?” your papa asked.
Sean shook his head and glanced up at the couple of moths thumping into the porch light, which had been switched on in advance of the encroaching sunset.
“You seen Pete?” asked your dad.
“Not since morning,” Sean said. “He was lugging a bunch of equipment upstairs earlier though.” His phone alarm went off, and he set his boots down to silence it. “Sorry, but I gotta hit this collection window.”
“Of course, go ahead.” Papa stood aside to let Sean pass.
The young scientist went about his usual winding course, stopping at each little orange flag that’d been meticulously planted where the ghost orchids grew along my property.
The three of you shared a moment of anxious silence before going inside. But you, Danger, reemerged after several minutes, having realized you’d forgotten your phone in the car.
But you didn’t make it off my porch.
The setting sun lit the horizon in fiery oranges and reds that burned beyond the towering trees, beneath which the ghost orchids resembled fairies dancing in the air around a bonfire.
A few yards away, a man staggered toward you on unsteady legs, his eyes wide and laden with horror.
“Sean?” Your voice was small, frightened.
Your papa’s assistant gagged and opened his mouth wide. Then he gripped the bottom of his jaw with both hands and pulled it down, farther and farther, until tears burst from his bloodshot eyes and rolled down his reddened cheeks. He stumbled closer until you could see the dark creature wriggling up from the rear of his throat. It walked across Sean’s pink tongue and over his white knuckles, then took flight at the same time the sun disappeared from the sky and darkness took over.
“A moth?” you whispered, then gasped.
Sean vomited an eclipse of moths.
They spewed from his mouth like water from a burst pipe. You shielded your face, but they weren’t after you. The moths doubled back and swarmed Sean.
I felt your weight swaying from foot to foot against my floorboards. Shock rooted you to the spot; it was as close to holding you as I’d ever come.
Sean’s airways finally unobstructed, he released a scream that was more like the high-pitched squeal of a pig being flayed alive. The moths covered him, forming a writhing second skin. They filled his mouth, silencing his shrieks. He dropped to his knees, and you let go of a pitiful whimper. You opened your mouth to call for help, but fear gutted the words before they left your tongue.
The moths drained the blood and fluids from Sean’s body until he was nothing more than a pruned heap of skin and flesh around a limp skeleton. A few gorged themselves to the point of being blood drunk and flew straight into the air, only to plummet back to the ground, where they splattered, bulging stomachs exploding like blood-filled water balloons.
And then you threw up on my goddamned front steps.
“Danger—” your dad said, appearing in the doorway behind you and noticing Sean’s pruned corpse. “What—the—fuck?! BASS! SEBASTIAN!”
He pulled you back over my threshold as your papa bolted into the foyer and screamed.
A few hundred yards away, the ghost of Booker Baldwin stood at the edge of the marsh near a patch of ghost orchids, His arms spread wide, His head thrown back. What must’ve been hundreds of moths fluttered to Him contentedly, each kissing His body before zooming off to feed the army of ghost orchids around my estate.
Papa gasped. “I was right. It was the moths.”
“And Him—the Caretaker.” You rounded on your parents. “I told you!”
Dad shut the door on Booker’s ghost and announced, “We need to leave.”
“I literally said that yesterday!” you shouted.
How dare you.
Every inch of me shook with vehemence, and your family clung to one another in my foyer. Windowpanes rattled in their frames. Paintings fell from hooks and crashed to the floor. Heavy furniture bobbed and slid from their stations. Vicious cracks ripped across my foundation like lightning streaking the dark sky.
After I calmed, you broke away and scrambled to the parlor window overlooking the front yard and screamed, “NO!”
Alfred yanked out the starter relay of your parents’ SUV and, leaving the hood propped up, ran into the woods.
I told you I wasn’t letting you leave.
“What the fuck is going on?” asked your papa, who stood next to your dad, both watching the scene from a nearby window.
“We might be able to call for help,” you said. “There’s a spot down the road where I sometimes get a single bar. I nailed an old sock to a tree to mark it.”
“About how far?” Dad asked. Panic clamped your mouth shut until he snapped his fingers in front of your face. “Danger! How far?”
“I—I dunno,” you stammered. “Maybe a mile?”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to try and get the neighborhood first responders on the phone. It’s been a while since I’ve run track, but I can still jet.”
“You’re not about to leave us here with that creepy-ass Caretaker running around!” Papa shouted. “What if He comes in here?”
“He won’t,” you said. “All He wants are His flowers.”
“We’re wasting time,” said Dad. “I’ll be back.”
He snatched open the door and sprinted down the dirt road. A muggy, tepid breeze blew in from outside, the dark of night bringing with it a shy chill that still managed to charge the terror hovering thick in the air.
I slammed my doors, which made you and your papa jump.
Y’all were really starting to piss—me—off.
“Let’s be ready to get the hell out of here when Dad comes back,” Papa said. “Go pack your overnight bag. Just the essentials.”
You nodded, and you both ran upstairs, your papa splitting off to the master bedroom.
In your room, you ripped a duffel from the closet and began frantically shoving your belongings inside. Determination to betray me set your face to a frown the whole time.
You couldn’t wait to abandon me.
You hefted the bag onto your shoulder, then something outside your window snagged your attention. You crept closer to see what it was.
A gust of wind picked up outside. The open doors of the garden shed thwacked into the frame and swung back open. A pitiful overhead light flickered to life, immediately drawing a moth toward it.
Look what you made me do.
Shadows gathered within the building. Molded pine straw carpeted the floor. A haphazard pyramid of red gas canisters was stacked against the inside wall, veiled in very thin shadow. The translucent figure of a woman crawled forward from the dark, dragging her mutilated body across the straw. The top half of her head was missing. Blood and bits of brain fragment soiled the front of her white nightgown.
“Fuck me,” you muttered, and dashed to your parents’ bedroom.
Papa zipped two bags shut and went rigid when he saw the look on your face. “What’s wrong?”
“The shed,” you said breathlessly. “It’s open. The ghosts are out. All of them.”
Papa snatched up both bags. “Let’s go find Dad. Now.”
You led the way down the hall and to the stairs, but you tripped over your own feet halfway down. Had your papa not grabbed you, you would’ve fallen the rest of the way.
How nice it would’ve been to see your bones snap and their sharp edges punch through your taut skin, leaving behind tiny shards of bone and marrow marinating in thick bubbly pools of your blood. Mmm.
Instead, the ghost of my birth master stood at the foot of the staircase. The sight of Sánchez stole both your voices. He towered at seven feet. Most of his body was burned, his clothing charred tatters that clung to the craggy blackened canvas of what was once skin. Under an arm that ended in jagged bone and frayed flesh at the elbow, Sánchez had tucked his bloated, severed head, also burned, so the face was melted and unrecognizable. Above a hair-raising, lipless grin of mismatched brown teeth, Sánchez’s eyes shot open, revealing two rotted orbs.
“THIS IS MY HOUSE!” the head bellowed up at you and your papa. Sánchez stomped one heavy boot onto the first step, and the entire staircase trembled.
“MINE!” the head screamed again.
Papa grabbed your arm and hauled you back upstairs. He headed for the master bedroom, but you yanked away.
“No!” Your heartbeat thudded as Sánchez’s heavy footfalls drew nearer. “We should hide in the attic. It’s the only place the other ghosts won’t go.”
“And what if the Caretaker comes back?”
“We’ll just have to be gone before then.”
As Sánchez arrived on my second floor, you and your papa slipped through the hole into the attic.
You screamed, but your papa put a hand over your mouth and held you close until you calmed.
I was disappointed you two couldn’t appreciate the beauty of what lay before you. And that was all the evidence I needed to realize neither you nor your dads would ever love me.
More ghost orchids than either of you had seen in one place made glowing curtains along the walls and ceiling in the attic, all of them drinking in the moonbeams pouring through the window facing the full moon, bright in the nighttime sky. Dozens of fat moths floated from one flower to the next, exchanging blood for pollen in a never-ending cycle of carnage.
Pete sat slumped in one corner of the room. You nearly missed him because he almost blended into the wall. Orchids sprouted from every visible orifice of his body, and the little stick bugs that I enjoy so much were lounging in the tangled blond nest of hair on his head.
“Dear God,” muttered your papa.
You went to the window and cursed aloud when you looked down at the front yard below. “Sean’s gone.”
“What?” Papa rushed forward to peer down at the mangled, blood-soaked patch of grass where Sean’s dead body lay not long ago. “What happened to him?”
I’ll never tell.
You stuck your head through the hole in the attic door and listened for a moment. When you came back up, you said, “I think it’s clear. We should go now.”
Papa climbed through the hole first, helped you down, then grabbed the axe left behind by the late Pete. Sánchez was stomping around in the master bedroom, flinging curses and your parents’ belongings, the crashes muffled through the walls. As you and Papa crept along the upstairs hallway, another ghost wearing a hard hat dipped their head in passing before disappearing into a room where two others were installing new crown molding.
When you and Papa made it downstairs to the front door, you yanked it open, and you and your dad shrieked together.
You threw your arms around him.
“Lawrence!” Papa pulled your dad inside. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
“I couldn’t get anyone,” he said. “Y’all good?”
Papa tossed Dad one of the bags he carried. “It’s time to go.”
The three of you turned to the door and paused.
The Caretaker stood in the center of the road a few dozen yards away. A cloak of moths floated around His bare body. His eyes smoldered like two full golden moons, brighter than the one above. He pointed at the three of you, and His voice was a layered hissing composed of thousands of tiny wings beating; it roared with the intensity of hurricane-force winds. “My moths are hungry. And my orchids need sustenance.”
At the top of the stairs, Sánchez’s head roared, “WHO FUCKED WITH MY HOUSE?!”
“Whatthehellarewesupposedtodonow?!” came your papa’s frantic whisper-shout.
“It’s the house,” you said. “The only way to end this is to burn it down. I saw gas cans in the shed. We just need matches.”
Your parents looked at each other, and the unspoken communication they’d once had devolved into static.
“No time to argue,” you said as you darted outside. “Get the matches!”
I sealed my front doors shut in your parents’ faces. My foundation trembled and emanated raw heat. I wanted to bake them like hens until their skin seared and peeled back from their flesh.
You kept your eyes on the garden shed, not the Caretaker, who’d begun trudging after you, nor your parents, whose screams came from inside me as Sánchez hunted them.
You charged into the shed and sneezed at once from the dusty air. You grabbed two gas canisters, one in each hand, and shrieked when the ghost woman clamped her icy thin fingers onto your wrist. You stared wide-eyed into her open cranium, a bony bowl filled with shredded brain matter and fetid blood.
And then you kicked her in the throat.
She let go, and you rounded—and came face-to-face with the Caretaker. The woman withdrew into the shadows, leaving a trail of gore behind.
The ghost of Booker Baldwin blocked the entrance to the shed, His haggard face stoic, His golden eyes shining two spotlights aimed directly at you. The noise of the moths’ wings generated a constant rustle, which built to a gentle din that echoed in the space behind you.
You gripped the containers and took a step back.
You were trapped. We had you.
“Hey! Booker!”
The Caretaker turned, and you peered around Him at Alfred, who stood back, cradling an armful of ghost orchids.
“What have you done?” hissed the Caretaker. He clenched His fists, and His moths flew all around Him in a frenzy.
Alfred dropped the flowers in a pile at his feet and looked at you. “Forgive me, Danger. I didn’t want you to leave either.”
The lump of anxious terror in your throat kept you from speaking.
The Caretaker growled.
And then Alfred unzipped his pants and pissed on the flowers.
The Caretaker charged at Alfred, who took off running, his ghost dick still out.
“Thanks, Alfred,” you mumbled, “but fuck you and this house.”
You ran back and emptied one of the gas cans along my porch. You tossed the spent container aside, grabbed the other, and pulled on the front doors. They were sealed tight.
That’s right, you little fucker. Burn me down, and you’ll kill your parents too.
I said you’re NOT LEAV—
The axe blade crashed through my door, lurched free, and slammed into me again and again until you saw your papa’s face through the splintered hole. He hacked at my handcrafted oak with his axe, and you pulled away pieces until there was an opening large enough for you to fit through.
“Where’s Dad?” you cried, peering at your papa through the hole.
Before he could answer, your dad bolted from the direction of the kitchen, a box of matches in each hand and Sánchez pounding close behind, his head spitting curses.
“Go, Danger,” shouted Papa from inside. “Run and get help!”
“No!” you cried. “I’m not leaving y’all behind!”
Your dad sprinted by and yanked your papa along with him as Sánchez chased them both into the next room.
You grabbed the gas can and squeezed through the hole in my front door. Dad and Papa, having circled the first floor with Sánchez screaming after them, burst from the kitchen again.
You brushed past your parents, unscrewed the top of the can, and doused Sánchez and my goddamned foyer.
Dad lit a fistful of matches and tossed them over his shoulder. The accelerant ignited in wild flames that engulfed everything inside me. He grabbed you and your papa by the hands and pulled you both back through the hole in my ruined door.
My last image of y’all is of your backs disappearing into the night as the three of you ran from me, your dads on either side of you.
I’ll see you again someday, Danger—in Hell.
My road there was paved by my own delusion. How foolish of me to think that I could love. That I was worthy of such a thing. That I could love you.
That I could be your forever home.
And as penance for my encroachment, you reduced me to a mound of ashes, the remnants of my centuries-long existence left to the whim of the goddamned wind.
If I could’ve said one thing
to
you
before
you
left,
it
would’ve
been
.
.
.
“Fuck
you too,
Danger Carmichael.”