The Far House
By Adam McOmber
1.
It is true we once lived in the Far House.
2.
It was dark. There was a moon. A cornfield.
3.
When we were very young, we’d wander in the rows.
4.
We played games like Dead as a Ghost and I Am the One Who Loves You.
5.
We crept and whispered. Sometimes, we’d even scream as if we were being murdered.
6.
We loved the idea of being murdered. We asked questions of each other: “How deep does the knife go?” And “How does bleeding feel?”
7.
“It’s wet,” we’d say. “Sopping wet. And I am so full of holes, I can barely walk or raise my arms.”
8.
At dinnertime, Mrs. Saville called to us from the window of the house.
9.
We loved our dinner even more than we loved playing murder.
10.
We’d run from the corn, scrambling up the hill and through the black door to the dining room. There were tall windows and paper flowers. Candlelight. Garlands made of acorns and dried chrysanthemums.
11.
We often had a dinner guest.
12.
Sometimes it was a man called Matthew. He was very ill. He would cough and cough. He’d spit into his napkin and wipe sweat from his brow.
13.
Matthew would say, “I’m sorry for ruining things.” But Mrs. Saville would touch his hand and tell him he wasn’t ruining anything at all.
14.
She’d say she was often ill herself. She didn’t have a cough. Instead, she had a tingling in her arm. A disorder of the nerves. Sometimes, in the morning, she thought she was going blind.
15.
Needless to say, we didn’t care for Matthew very much.
16.
Sometimes, there was another guest. A man called Roger Gray. We liked him much better than Matthew.
17.
Roger Gray was never sick. And he’d been in a war. He was very handsome with his black hair and blue eyes that looked so startling in the candlelight.
18.
Roger said the war had ended years ago, but he still remembered much of it.
19.
We wanted to ask him questions. Had a bomb ever fallen on him? Had he been run through with a sword? But we didn’t dare ask such things because we knew Mrs. Saville would be angry with us.
20.
When she was angry, she wouldn’t let us read our books after dinner. We’d have to go sit in the corner of the parlor and not speak or play our games. So, instead of asking questions, we would listen and hope Roger Gray would tell a story.
21.
There was one about a dark tunnel. And another about a hot air balloon. And yet another about a bell that only the dead could ring.
22.
We liked to fall asleep while listening.
24.
If it was the right kind of story and the right kind of sleep, we could crawl up the walls of the dining room and through the ceiling. We could clamber onto the roof of our house.
25.
There are other houses in the sky. Other fields. Did you know?
26.
We have seen them.
THE END
Author Bio: Adam McOmber is the author of three queer speculative novels, “The White Forest” (Simon and Schuster), “Jesus and John” (Lethe), and “Hound of the Baskervilles” (Lethe), as well as three collections of experimental short fiction, “Fantasy Kit” (Black Lawrence), “My House Gathers Desires” (BOA), and “This New & Poisonous Air” (BOA). His work has appeared recently in Conjunctions, Kenyon Review, and Hobart. He is the co-chair of the Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Hunger Mountain.