House of Longing | Part 1 of 3 [a nightbb story]

The house exuded a dusty, nostalgic aura when I first saw it. It had been empty for many years, but still it seemed well taken care of. The paint shone like new and though it gave off the air of age, the porches were always clean and swept. The only sense of messiness came from the rose bushes planted around the house whose flowers seemed to bloom without end, falling into luscious piles below. The bushes were so entwined that the house seemed almost to rise up from them. No matter the season, the bush gave for roses in various stages of unfolding. That alone was a sure sign that the space was haunted.

But in this city, that’s nothing new. Ghosts are always roaming, slipping through the barriers put around the Fourth Quarter. An everblooming group of roses bushes on a quiet street tucked away in the Third Quarter was hardly something that stood out. But this ghost was different to me… I was drawn to her.

The rumours of her were known throughout the neighbourhood. She was a kin who had fallen into unrequited love with her neighbour. Day after day, she longed for the object of her affection but fear prevented her from speaking her heart. When the story was told to me the teller shook their head in confusion, at a loss to understand why she had chosen this path. After all, she had been too afraid to speak her heart and faded away right? What a tragedy! But my heart felt another truth as I returned to the house to gaze at it, losing myself in thought. The smell of the roses surrounded me.

Maybe it wasn’t fear that had driven her, but an inner knowing that her beloved didn’t feel the same way. It didn’t seem so strange to want to live in a beautiful world of desire. I could imagine that rather than give up that world, she committed herself to her feelings and became them. Death is not always what makes a ghost. Sometimes a soul can become a spirit by letting themselves fall into overwhelming emotion. Their hearts lose connection to this reality and their magic turns their bodies into spirit. They become an embodiment of their desire at the height of them, their beautiful hearts bursting into flame.

I was enamored of the story. I was a writer, often lost in my own fantasies of life and spinning tales that could quicken the hearts of others. But mine remained unmoved and when I heard her story I felt I could understand her desire, if not share the object of it. I lived a dry meandering existence. My memories and habits were empty to me, echoes of unexplored communal myths about happiness that I could not embrace but could find nothing to replace with. There was a distance to my life, an ever-building sense of displacement, and I often wondered what the point of it was. Our city was a shining thing, our systems an ode to our collective desire to make each other happy. But still, I couldn’t seem to find it within myself - the feeling of my heart being set aflame. I wondered if she had felt the same - if her heart quickening in desire that was unrequited was preferable to returning to a life with no heat and no fire. 

After I had returned to visit the house many times and it had appeared in a half a dozen of my stories, I registered my name to occupy the house. Surprisingly, the City and its AI approved it… with conditions. Because it had been so long empty and rumoured to be haunted, they would agree to the move only if the best in charms and barriers would be cast around the space to ensure I as their citizen was safe in my surroundings. They laid out a safety plan for me, complete with tearing out the roses and planting new ones. Every ghost needs anchors to keep them to a place and they wanted to rid the house of anything that was holding her there. The roses were too much of a presence in the space, their scent was everywhere. Surely there must be some connection. They gave me a supply of crystals attuned for banishment and would send their cleaners to work. As their representative explained it to me, I felt a rush of panic but quickly regained myself, not allowing a hint of it to show. I wouldn’t let them send her away. 

I returned to the house at night and even though I wasn’t much of a gardener, I dug up the roots of as many of the roses as I could without suspicion. I wrapped them gingerly and despite being bitten by many thorns I felt they were the most precious things I had ever held. The feeling was quiet and small, but it was warm. At the last moment, I also chose to collect handfuls of petals and buds that had fallen.

 As I wrapped it all in black silks, I noticed as a small rosy light began to wax and wane in the attic window. A warmth filled me and a knowing filled me and I knew that whatever held her was not only the flowers. She had something precious in the attic that I could protect. Before I knew what I was doing, I had entered the house and was climbing the stairs up and up until I stood at the attic door. It was radiating heat and a soft glow came from beyond it. I tried to turn the handle but it was locked. I nodded and placed my hand on the wood.

“I am here for you,” I whispered softly, willing her to hear me. “We will share this house together.”

The glow faded.  A giddiness filled me as I stole away with my treasures, my hands scratched and my spirit quickening.

The weeks of waiting were almost unbearable. I tended her roses in my old apartment, getting stuck on their thorns many times. Even my newfound passion could not make me a good gardener. But I felt somehow the roses knew and took pity on me. They did not flourish under my care, but they stayed alive.

Finally, with the City’s approval I moved into the house. The tumbling lushness of the roses had been cleared back and replaced with other flowering bushes but to me still the house exuded a rosy scent. 

“Be careful,” the City’s housing representative told me as they handed me the key. “Even though the roses are gone, there may be some irregularities - lights flickering, objects moving, strange things like that. Please be careful. If you see anything strange, please contact us so that we can continue the banishment.”

They handed me a card and I nodded solemnly, pushing my glasses up my nose. Outside I was the cool figure of a serious writer who had no time for ghosts. Inside, I trembled.

As I walked through the empty rooms of my new home and touched the walls, I noticed how thorough of a job the cleaners had done. It seemed unbelievable that dust could live there. But the rosy scent permeated the space, a scent without physical reason or cause. Despite the charms they had embedded in the walls, she remained. Relief relaxed my limbs and I danced a little as I walked. 

I lovingly unwrapped the roses I had saved and planted them in the backyard, earning more cuts in the process. I was dirty, and bleeding, and the happiest I had ever been. I was home and eventually, she and I would know each other.

Hey! My name is Ciel Sainte-Marie (aka So Nefarious). I'm a writer and artist hanging out on Steem, writing stories, and studying games. You can read my previous short stories: The Ghost at the Auction Party and The Unexpected Ghost.