The Bended House
Her hair was wild as always, her freckles like embers flicked across her face, and her stomach bent inside her like an urchin taking possession. It was Halloween, and she didn’t follow the beliefs of ghosts. She wasn’t scared. Her parents hosted a fun halloween night at their property. The Yellow House. That was what they called it. Not as bright as the sun, but as tart as a lemon, the yellow house was big in her eyes. She had her own room among five other siblings, but spent a lot of her time in her sister's room instead.
The yellow house was open, and bright in her eyes. A pellet fireplace warmed up the always cold space, the open porch made the secrets of what were kept inside seem like they weren’t there at all.
She was four years old, and she was a ladybug for Halloween. With wings on her back and a red and black costume over her clothes. She felt pretty cool. Well, she felt really cool. Because she was a ladybug, and her older brother said that they were very cool. She had two older brothers, and all her cousins were boys. She didn’t mind. She was the baby of them all, and tagged along everywhere. On this night at the yellow house, she was running around in the twilight, her wings bopping on her back as she tried to keep up with the long strides of her older brothers and cousins.
The Yellow House was on a small uphill acre, and down that little slope was a large willow tree planted in the middle of a pond. Just on the other side of the willow tree and pond was an old building that had been abandoned for decades. There were no window panes, no doors, no furniture. It was just left, nice to look at. In the daytime, that certain house was just there. None of the kids played in it, nobody cared about it. It was a fly on the wall. It was always watching. She called it the Bended house.
The Bended house noticed how open the porch really was, saw what the house looked like when the pellets in the fireplace weren’t cracking, and could feel when the ladybug wouldn’t hang out in her sister’s room, and instead went to her room by herself. But at twilight, when the sun went even below the trees and the fog rolled in, when all there was left of light was a pale pink right behind the black treeline, the Bended house was more present than ever.
The ladybug heard it sometimes, but didn’t care to listen. Especially on Halloween night, when she had a pillowcase of candy and soon a game of trade with her siblings to get rid of those awful DOTS candy. Her father was driving the lawn mower, the blades turned off, and a small trailer hooked to the back of it, giving rides to all her cousins and siblings. She wanted a ride. She watched him drive them down the small slope from the Yellow House, around the willow tree and right in front of that abandoned, “bended” house. Some of the kids hopped off, others stayed on to go back up the hill.
She wanted to ride on it as well. She waited patiently at the top of the slope, in front of the porch where her mom and grandparents sat, having just changed into a sweatshirt and insisted she put on her own purple Huskie’s hoodie. She didn’t really want to; it would cover her wings. But she was obedient, and put it on anyway. That was okay, she knew she was still a ladybug.
Her father came back up the hill, and her cousins hopped off except for two, Jackson and Ashton. They stayed on. And so her father picked her up from under her arms, hoisting her up and into the trailer. He sat back down, telling her to hold onto the sides and don’t stand up. She listened. The other kids were laughing, running alongside it as she laughed inside of the trailer with Ashton and Jackson. Once he got to the bottom of the slope, he slowed just a bit, but didn’t stop. Ladybugs were cool, her brother said so. And so she hopped off even before he stopped the trailer fully, landing on her feet before losing her balance and falling back on her bottom. “That was hopefully cool” she thought.
The trailer kept on moving, and her father didn’t stop. She yelled for him, but his back was turned, and his frame kept rolling along the grass, further and further away. She didn’t cry. She was cool. She was four years old, not a baby.
She looked around, and the yard looked different now. It wasn’t bright, it wasn’t warm like when she was running around. There wasn’t laughter, only echoes of happiness in the distance. And to her right, the abandoned house. But it wasn’t nice to look at anymore. She sat on the grass, staring up at that abandoned house like it was a large foot, coming to crush the ladybug. This house never did anything to her. It never had spoken to her, or scared her, because she never acknowledged it.
She didn’t have her wings. They were tucked into her hoodie and she couldn’t fly away. She was stuck there in that moment, looking up at the Bended house as the windows creaked with absent glass panes, furrowing like a knowing teacher of the broken crayon hiding behind a student's back.
Her stomach, it was like a wet towel being wrung out. It was making her sick. Too sick to want candy, too sick to know why she was scared of it. The abandoned house knew things that she knew, but it understood those same things that she didn’t. The closed porch, the cold house, the questions that she wondered when she was in her room, and not her sisters. The house knew it all. The Yellow house was kind, and it didn’t know the things that the abandoned house did. And she did not like that.
It could see her. It could see the things she saw that she didn’t understand. It brought them to the surface, and it was most uncomfortable, and scary, and she did not appreciate that. The Bended house wasn’t scary. It was the reason that it was an empty house, and yet, it had so many things inside. That is what was scary.
There was no more light, all darkness. Her stomach squeezed her again. Not a grumble or whine, but a silent restraint, telling her that a ladybug flies away when it feels this way. Her breathing picked up, and her stomach told her throat to copy it. They both, together tightened, causing tears to come up.
She wiped them quickly with her purple hoodie, and the noises of the Bended house turned into groans. Groans like it quit showing her what was hiding, and instead showed her what was right in front of her face. She stood up, breathing through her mouth so her stomach was forced to give her a breath.
She turned, and began running. Past the pond and willow tree, past Ashton and Jackson, up the slope. The Bended house was behind her, behind her, behind her, right there, behind her. It was far away, but it was still right behind her.
She ran until she got to the porch, seeing her father hop off of the lawn mower. She let herself cry, knowing that he called her “his baby” anyway, and so four years old was a baby when she was with him. And she didn’t appreciate that either.
“You left me down there!” She cried, trying not to wail and be called dramatic again. Her father looked down at her, his face shifting to one of concern as he stayed standing, but his eyebrows didn’t crease. Not crouching, not touching. The bended house was watching, and maybe he knew that too. Maybe he knew that the bended house could see how cold the house was when he walked in, how closed the porch became when his car pulled in the driveway, and how she ran to her sister’s room when she was confused with what happened in her room.
She waited for him to say something, anything. He should. He had to have heard her yell. She yelled as loud as she could when she was in front of the Bended house. He just looked at her, that lady bug, with bent wings, and tears down her face, and he finally spoke.
“But my baby, I didn’t. You said you wanted to.”
The wounded ladybug stopped crying, like the wind had pushed her tears away. Did she say that? Had she insisted she get out there? She did jump out, yes, but she called him. She felt it in her stomach, again, “a ladybug flies away when it feels this way”. Maybe her father was right. But maybe her stomach was right. She felt sick again, a watery feeling filling her throat as she swallowed it down.
She turned back to the Bended house, seeing its windows in the distance. Did it see this too? Suddenly, the Bended house didn’t make her stomach feel this way. It felt much better than here, on the slope, safest from that scary place.
“No I didn’t.” She said timidly, swiping at her nose with her sleeve, looking down. She didn’t sound so sure. Not anymore. But her stomach made her feel so unsure. Her father smiled, and it made her stomach tighten once again.
“No. You wanted it.”
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