"Home Again, Home Again" by Shannon Boyle
Carmen, Alexa, and I gaze up at the crumbling brick architecture of the old Lisen house. It’s the kind of house that inspires urban legends, all overgrown bushes and broken windows. All it’s missing is a perfectly-timed lightning strike behind it before it can be featured in some slasher film. Everyone in Minesfield knows about the Lisen house and now it’s Carmen’s turn.
Carmen didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to come visit my parents. I should have told her Alexa was coming too. My sister hasn’t stayed at our parents’ place for longer than two consecutive days since she graduated college, but she just couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch Mom and Papá judge whether or not Carmen was The One. Carmen and I were staying in Minesfield for the week and Alexa decided to drive in from the city and join us. Every time I bring someone home, Alexa gets a kick out of it even though she’s two years older than me, and our folks inevitably say, “Nora’s found someone, when are you going to find a nice man and settle down?”
I guess being back in our childhood home for so long stirred up Alexa’s memories and she decided that Carmen needed to see the Lisen house: up close and in person. I tried to talk her out of it, but once Alexa gets an idea it was hard to drag her away from the ensuing adventure. After that my effort was purely spent attempting to prepare Carmen. I’m not sure I succeeded.
I’ve told her some of the legends already. It’s hard to leave out the Lisen house when I talk about home. It’s older than our parents, older than my grandparents, and even older than their parents, too. Everyone who drives through Minesfield sees it perched on top the tallest hill in town. It’s three stories tall, all done up in white paint that’s turned a murky gray over years of misuse. Most of the paint’s covered by the vines that have crept over the walls and up to the roof. A year before I left for university, the Minesfield windstorms took down half the chimney. Bricks still lay splayed across the ground where they fell. There’s only one window with any shutters left and none with any glass. The panes have all been shattered by the baseball bats of bored high schoolers. Once when she was in the tenth grade, Alexa accidentally knocked out an entire window frame on the south side of the house because she leaned too heavily against it.
That particular incident made it into one of Alexa’s favorite parts of the Lisen house: the stories. When she would later recount the events of that night to her friends, it was no longer her clumsy actions that had further damaged the house. Instead, it was a ghost or an escaped convict or a snarling beast that had done it. She would practice her tales on her unsuspecting little sister, telling me ghost stories about the house and trying to scare me into sleeping in our parents’ room so that she could have the bedroom we shared all to herself.
When I was older, she started taking me with her on her visits. It was one of Alexa’s favorite hang-out locations and it wasn’t unusual for her to make the trip up the hill three or four times each week. I liked to hang out with Alexa, my cool older sister with whom I was allowed to stay out past my nine o’clock curfew. While Alexa went and explored a house she’d seen a million times, I would content myself with playing or reading in the expansive family room on the ground floor. Sure, I went upstairs a couple times when Alexa found something so incredible she needed to share, but I mostly kept to myself and let her have her moments.
Now here we are in the dead of night in the middle of summer and once again in front of the old Lisen house. It’s beautiful outside, the night cooling Minesfield’s blazing summer heat and a slight breeze blowing through the grass. More shingles blow off the roof of the house each time the wind brushes it. We had to leave the car at the bottom of the hill and walk the rest of way to the house. Carmen and I follow Alexa through the cracked and overgrown path leading toward the front door. Branches stick out from the thick field of weeds, scratching at our legs as we pass. We’re still in our shorts and t-shirts from earlier in the day. I’m wearing my favorite shorts, a pair Carmen gave to me for my birthday last month. Alexa veers from the front path, stepping sideways past stray bricks to head around to the backyard. The beam of Alexa’s flashlight casts shadowed caricatures against the walls that loom over us.
“Are you sure we should be here?” Carmen asks. Her rich brown eyes are watching the house even as she speaks to me. I admit, the Lisen house isn’t that interesting to someone who didn’t grow up hearing the tales of grandeur. There’s some ambient light from the town at the bottom of hill and I can see that her lip is curled up to match both of her raised eyebrows.
“Don’t worry we’ll be fine,” I say as we progress toward the crooked back door of the house. Alexa has already made it inside and Carmen is right on my heels. The arm she’s not using to hold her flashlight brushes against my side with each step as she follows my movements across the path almost exactly. I almost stumble when she suddenly grabs at my shoulder as she trips over something hidden by the creeping undergrowth.
I try to steady her with an arm around her waist but her flashlight escapes her grip and tumbles to the ground. I can feel her chuckling at herself through my fingertips resting on her hip. I bend down to rescue her flashlight from the weeds and keep her hand in mine as she reaches to take it back.
“Seriously don’t worry.” I cup her cheek with my one free hand. Her face is warmer than usual and it’s too cool a night to blame on the summer heat. “It’s just a boring old house.”
“Yeah, don’t be such a baby, Car,” Alexa shouts as she pokes her head out from the door frame. “This place is great, c’mon!”
Carmen and I share one more glance before taking the last few steps to the entrance of the house. She doesn’t let go of my hand, though, and I keep up the contact as we pool our lights together on the ground in front of us, carefully watching for more hazards. Miraculously, Alexa is waiting for us on the other side of the door when we enter.
It’s darker inside the house than out, but soft moonlight pouring through the windows on the south side of the house. The walls and floor creak in greeting, resettling and adjusting to the weight of three new people. The entry hall opens into what used to be a family room. The air smells damp and faintly of rotting waste. Across from us is the staircase that wraps around half of the family room before disappearing onto the second level.
Carmen and I nudge the door closed and venture further inside. Furniture is sparse but what’s left could have originally belonged with the house. A long sofa half-covered by sheets takes up one wall. The remnants of a broken table are piled in the corner near the stairs. There are other items strewn about as well. Books, jackets, and even a pair of glasses left by decades of visitors like us. Once back in high school my friend Bobby left an entire uneaten pizza in the kitchen. Now there are some PopTart wrappers left by a hungry guest fluttering in the breeze beside the charred remains of a log inside the fireplace.
A flash lights up the room and jars my vision for a split second. I peer out the nearest window. It’s not the season for heat lightning, but I guess the night is pretty warm after all. Alexa doesn’t seem perturbed, though that’s no comfort. Carmen’s already been distracted again, her head turning back and forth as she processes in the scene.
Alexa darts off to investigate each room, her typical protocol for our visits. She immediately becomes entranced with every object she passes: a deflated soccer ball, a cracked lighter, an empty wallet someone might still be missing. Every time we come here, something new catches her eye. Alexa has always managed to find something different from visit to visit. I stand rooted to the spot in the center of the room, lazily casting my flashlight throughout the room. Carmen is still by my side though she drops my hand in order to hug herself instead, shivering slightly in the summer air.
She takes to perusing the room and tosses the beam of her flashlight against the walls. Shadows drift along with her movement, arching over the ceiling in one moment and disappearing entirely the next. Layers of paint flake from the wall. The wooden floors are scratched and scraped. There’s one impressive gouge in the wood near the fireplace. Alexa comes back from the kitchen and brushes right past us before heading straight for the stairs. As her footsteps thump against the rotting wood, I know we’ve lost my sister to the house for the night.
“So what’s the deal?” Carmen asks as our last view of Alexa’s ponytail disappears down the hallway on the second floor. “Why’s she still like to come here?”
I wish I knew the real answer. I’ve never figured out Alexa’s obsession with this house. Not when she came here every weekend as a kid and definitely not now. Maybe it’s just for old-time’s sake, or to see how the ancient house is holding up after all these years. Any time I ask Alexa, I receive a shrug paired with, “It’s cool.”
“She likes the story,” I answer.
Carmen laughs. It’s not much more than a short exhale of breath, but it’s there.
“Of course she’s the one who likes stories.”
I turn toward her, eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry?”
“This whole trip has been nothing but stories. I’ve heard more about you from Alexa than I have from you.”
I don’t know how to respond so I don’t say anything.
“Wow, great job proving my point.” Carmen casts her flashlight at the bottom of the staircase. A mouse crawls out from beneath the lowest step and scurries across a barren section of floor to a hole in the wall. Once it’s gone, she takes a seat on the bottom stair. After a moment’s hesitation, I join her. The arrangement isn’t very wide, so we end up having to sit thigh to thigh, blocking the entire path. Carmen hunches forward and rests her elbows on her knees.
“Well, what do you want to know?” I ask.
Carmen smiles while shaking her head.
I rest my flashlight on my lap, letting the beam illuminate the expanse of blank wall in front of us. I twist my fist around, two fingers up and tilted just right so that the shadow creates a bunny hopping across the peeling paint. Carmen laughs again, louder this time. I’m glad to have sufficiently distracted her. She arranges herself in a similar position with her flashlight on her lap and soon a shadow dog is chasing my rabbit across our makeshift stage.
We’re well into our impromptu puppet show when there’s a scream and a crash from upstairs. Carmen startles so hard her flashlight falls from her lap and clanks against the floorboards. The bulb flickers out as it rolls a few feet from the stairs. The darkness of the night becomes heavier with only one of our flashlights competing against it.
“She probably just dropped something,” I say and lay a comforting hand on Carmen’s shoulder. The last time this happened, Alexa had just been startled by an owl and ended up shattering a bottle against a wall. Thrown into the harsh relief of a single light her expression is exaggerated, but her lips are turned down and her forehead creased. I shout up to the second floor: “Alexa? You break something again?”
Waiting for an answer, I stand and scoop Carmen’s flashlight up from the floor. I try clicking the switch, but the bulb won’t light. I tap the barrel against my palm, no luck. I try again a little harder and still get nothing. I hand the useless thing back to her.
“We can share,” she says. I nod.
I turn our only flashlight toward the staircase and lead the way to the second level. The stairs creak under the pressure of our combined weight. Carmen’s so close I can feel her knees bumping into the backs of my legs as we ascend. Carmen doesn’t fare well with the dark. On a camping trip we took together a month ago, we stepped away from the bonfire for just a moment to get another blanket from the car and she kept a palm flat against my back for guidance the entire way. Now she’s got one hand on my hip, one finger curled onto a belt loop of my shorts to make sure I’m always within reach of her.
We step swiftly down the hall. I don’t like to spend more time up here than I have to. I’m mostly worried about the stability of this ancient, rotting, and rodent-infested house. Those aren’t the usual ingredients for sturdy architecture. And besides, everything else in the house is broken it makes sense that these floorboards would go next. Every time I come up here, I get this strange cold, clenching feeling right in my gut even when I’m well aware that Alexa is just goofing off.
There are only three rooms on this floor, which look like they used to be an office and two bedrooms. Carmen and I check each of them, but they’re all empty save of the mix of broken furniture and trash décor that matches the rest of the house. We head toward the end of the hall and face the second set of stairs that is so warped that the steps sag downward from the wall at an angle. Hoping it’s more stable, I stick near to the wall and lead the way up. If the other stairs creaked, this set is downright crying at the effort of supporting guests. The last time I climbed this particular set of stairs was years ago and I was much lighter. Even then I was sure the whole set would collapse and take me with it.
“Alexa?” I call when we make it to the top with no casualties. “Alexa, where are you?” I’m not surprised when we receive no answer. I push forward, Carmen still attached to me at the hip. There are only two rooms up here—two more bedrooms, one on either side of the hallway. The first we check is empty, which just leaves one more.
The dark wooden door to the second room is ajar. I press my fingertips against the rough wood and it swings open with ease. I aim the flashlight inside and Carmen peeks over my shoulder. She’s standing so close I can feel the warmth of her breath against my skin. The beam of the flashlight cuts through the darkness of the room, more shadowed than any of the others because the only window faces the north side of the house where the silver moonlight can’t quite reach. Alexa is sitting there on the dusty floor, head bowed and pouring over some new discovery she’s made.
“What the hell happened?” I demand. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“Where’s your flashlight?” Carmen asks.
I don’t wait for a response. I step inside the room, invade Alexa’s personal space. When I attempt to grab her arm, to gain her attention, to force her to look at me, to bring her home, she jerks away from the contact and nearly drops the item she’s holding. I notice that it’s a bound book, so large that it reaches entirely across Alexa’s laps, the covers tapping the floor on either side of her legs.
Alexa turns slowly to look at us with an expression I’ve never seen across her features. Her skin, normally pale, is ashen white. Her permanent smile has finally been wiped away. Her hands are trembling, the pages of the book rustling with each tremor.
“I—I threw the flashlight,” she says. The last time I heard her stutter over words was when she was seventeen and didn’t want to tell Papá that she’d scratched the car after pulling too far forward and scraping a metal signpost. “There was a noise, and then someone—and I threw it over there.”
Alexa doesn’t say another word. She lifts the book she’s holding with both hands, stretching her arms as far as she can toward me as though she’s offering me a gift. Whatever is so interesting is going to have to wait. Carmen is shifting from one foot to the other beside me, hugging her arms to her chest. The slightest noise is likely to send her fleeing right back down the hill to town without us. We’re down to only one flashlight and I’m not going to use it to explore leftover garbage. The heavy pages of the book rustle with the shaking of Alexa’s hands. I take a step closer to her, taking hold of the leather spine with my left hand and setting my right on her trembling shoulder.
“Alright, that’s enough for one night,” I say. I flip the book closed, thumb still wedged between the heavy covers, and I move to set it aside. The leather makes a dull thud against the scratched wooden floor.
“Wait a second,” Carmen says. She removes the book from my grasp and saves it from the fate of being ignored and forgotten like the rest of the mess in the house. Covering my hand with her own to direct our last flashlight toward it, she reopens the marked page that Alexa had been viewing when she handed it over. “It’s an album—Jesus Christ.”
She turns the tome in her hands, cradling the bottom against one forearm while she uses her other to point out the last photo on the open page. I shine the light against the thick paper. She’s right, there are Polaroids taped carefully inside sitting neatly next to each other. They’re all fairly dark, the flash of the camera barely bright enough to clearly see the subjects in the glossy photos. Only about half the book is full, the used pages fall heavy under the weight of their load and no longer stack neatly atop each other while the unused pages have not yet been coerced into defiance. The page Alexa had open still has space for three more photos.
The photos are all of people, I realize. Each instant Polaroid print depicts people, sometimes a pair sometimes a group, and all of them entering the house. Their eyes stare at some distant point outside the frame. I recognize the cracked wooden doorframe that we entered not thirty minutes before in the background of every photo. Carmen points to the last photo taped onto the page.
My own face stares back at me. In the photo, Carmen stands shielded behind me. Half of Alexa’s face is in the foreground, blurry with movement. A chill runs up my spine even as the warm summer breeze floats through the broken windows across the room. My image in the photo is wearing the same t-shirt and shorts I am.
When I’m able to tear my eyes away from the photos, Carmen eyes are boring into mine. She stays silent. I do, too. Alexa hasn’t moved an inch since handing the album over to Carmen and me. For a few seconds, none of us react.
Then, Carmen throws the album to the ground with a loud thud, the pages fluttering in protest to the abuse. She rips the last Polaroid from the page, pinching it between two fingers and waving it wildly in front of my face.
“What the hell is this?” The tremble in her voice was gone now, replaced with a piercing firmness. “Who the hell took this?”
When I don’t respond, Carmen exhales with a huff and paces a few steps away before turning back to Alexa who is still kneeling on the wooden floorboards, staring at a floating cobweb in the corner with an unfocused gaze. Carmen crouches in front of her reaching both of her arms out to latch onto Alexa’s shoulders.
“Where did you find that thing, Alexa?” Carmen shakes the shoulders in her grip, the force mussing Alexa’s sleek ponytail. “Where?”
Between the demand poured into Carmen’s words and the rattling shake, Carmen finally gains Alexa’s attention. With the color still washed away from her cheeks and breathing still heavy, Alexa lifts a quivering hand. She points to a portion of the room thrown into harsh shadow.
Before I can even react, Carmen releases Alexa, stands, and wrenches the flashlight from my grasp. The leather-bound album still weighs heavily in my hands. From where I stand behind her, I watch Carmen cast the beam of light into the corner. It looks just like the rest of the house: old, dusty, and broken. Against one wall beside a stained and torn mat with a tidy pile of musty blankets stacked on top of it. A small square table is wedged into the corner with wad of cloth shoved beneath one of the legs. Setting on top of the table are a lantern with a cracked glass and three royal blue packages of instant PopTarts.
“I’m leaving,” Carmen states. She doesn’t even wait for Alexa to hand her the keys to the car we left at the bottom of the hill. Carmen simply reaches down and takes them from her pocket. Alexa doesn’t put up a fight.
“Wait,” I say. I try to stop Carmen at the same time as I try to coax Alexa from her position on the floor. Neither attempt works, both slipping through my grasp. Carmen’s already at the door with the flashlight and showing no signs of slowing to wait.
I reach out for Alexa, grasping through air until I’m finally close enough to take hold of her forearm. I heave her into a standing position and tug until she complies with following me. We’re almost to the door when there’s another shriek from direction Carmen went.
I launch into the hallway, dragging Alexa along at a sprinting pace. She doesn’t seem to mind the mistreatment and seems to be doing her best to keep up with me. I can see Carmen at the other end of the hallway. Dividing our group and blocking Alexa and I from meeting Carmen at the stairwell is a large figure of a person. Carmen has the flashlight pointed towards us, casting the figure totally in shadow but an overpowering, sour smell of body odor is unmistakable. The person turns toward the ruckus Alexa and I made leaving the farthest bedroom.
“Family pictures for the album.” The figure has a man’s voice, deep and almost wistful.
I still can’t make out any features in the darkness. I’m still holding onto Alexa but I’m frozen to the spot. Across the hall, Carmen motions with the flashlight.
“Run!” she yells.
I don’t hesitate to follow her instructions. Still dragging Alexa, I make a break for the staircase. As we dodge around the man he makes absolutely no move to stop us. He just keeps muttering, “Family pictures for the album. Family pictures for the album.” As we pass, Carmen’s flashlight glints off an object the man is holding and I realize it’s an old Polaroid camera—the kind that instantly develops. I turn back and refocus on Carmen, grabbing the outstretched hand offered to me.
Once Alexa and I have caught up to Carmen, all three of us pound down the stairs and straight back out of the door we came in through. Running down the hill toward the car in the dark with one flashlight and dodging tall weeds and stray bricks isn’t easy, but we manage it just fine. Some of the sharper branches scrape at my legs but the stinging cuts aren’t enough to distract me from getting as far away from that house as possible. We pile into the car almost simultaneously, Carmen taking over the task of driving us back home even though I have to give her directions from the back seat where I’m sitting with Alexa. We both sprawl across the bench seat, still panting and sweating from our burst of activity.
The farther away we get from the house, the more tension that eases out of my shoulders. Carmen is has the steering wheel in a death grip and when we finally make it back to my parents’ house she has to massage stiffness from them. We let ourselves into the house as quietly as possible. None of us are ready or willing to wake my parents and explain what happened.
Alexa heads straight for the basement where she’s set up a bed for herself for the duration of our visit. She doesn’t say anything to us before she leaves, just looks at us both for a few long seconds before shaking her head and heading downstairs. Carmen and I retire to the bedroom I used throughout my childhood.
As the door clicks shut behind us, Carmen latches her arms onto my waist and leans her head on my shoulder. I instinctively wrap my arms around her torso. I rest my chin on top her soft curls of hair. We stand like that for a moment before exhaustion hits us and we concede to sleep, not even changing out of our clothes before we crash. In my last moments of consciousness before sleep overtakes me, I promise to tell more stories of my own tomorrow.
Carmen, Alexa, and I gaze up at the crumbling brick architecture of the old Lisen house. It’s the kind of house that inspires urban legends, all overgrown bushes and broken windows. All it’s missing is a perfectly-timed lightning strike behind it before it can be featured in some slasher film. Everyone in Minesfield knows about the Lisen house and now it’s Carmen’s turn.
Carmen didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to come visit my parents. I should have told her Alexa was coming too. My sister hasn’t stayed at our parents’ place for longer than two consecutive days since she graduated college, but she just couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch Mom and Papá judge whether or not Carmen was The One. Carmen and I were staying in Minesfield for the week and Alexa decided to drive in from the city and join us. Every time I bring someone home, Alexa gets a kick out of it even though she’s two years older than me, and our folks inevitably say, “Nora’s found someone, when are you going to find a nice man and settle down?”
I guess being back in our childhood home for so long stirred up Alexa’s memories and she decided that Carmen needed to see the Lisen house: up close and in person. I tried to talk her out of it, but once Alexa gets an idea it was hard to drag her away from the ensuing adventure. After that my effort was purely spent attempting to prepare Carmen. I’m not sure I succeeded.
I’ve told her some of the legends already. It’s hard to leave out the Lisen house when I talk about home. It’s older than our parents, older than my grandparents, and even older than their parents, too. Everyone who drives through Minesfield sees it perched on top the tallest hill in town. It’s three stories tall, all done up in white paint that’s turned a murky gray over years of misuse. Most of the paint’s covered by the vines that have crept over the walls and up to the roof. A year before I left for university, the Minesfield windstorms took down half the chimney. Bricks still lay splayed across the ground where they fell. There’s only one window with any shutters left and none with any glass. The panes have all been shattered by the baseball bats of bored high schoolers. Once when she was in the tenth grade, Alexa accidentally knocked out an entire window frame on the south side of the house because she leaned too heavily against it.
That particular incident made it into one of Alexa’s favorite parts of the Lisen house: the stories. When she would later recount the events of that night to her friends, it was no longer her clumsy actions that had further damaged the house. Instead, it was a ghost or an escaped convict or a snarling beast that had done it. She would practice her tales on her unsuspecting little sister, telling me ghost stories about the house and trying to scare me into sleeping in our parents’ room so that she could have the bedroom we shared all to herself.
When I was older, she started taking me with her on her visits. It was one of Alexa’s favorite hang-out locations and it wasn’t unusual for her to make the trip up the hill three or four times each week. I liked to hang out with Alexa, my cool older sister with whom I was allowed to stay out past my nine o’clock curfew. While Alexa went and explored a house she’d seen a million times, I would content myself with playing or reading in the expansive family room on the ground floor. Sure, I went upstairs a couple times when Alexa found something so incredible she needed to share, but I mostly kept to myself and let her have her moments.
Now here we are in the dead of night in the middle of summer and once again in front of the old Lisen house. It’s beautiful outside, the night cooling Minesfield’s blazing summer heat and a slight breeze blowing through the grass. More shingles blow off the roof of the house each time the wind brushes it. We had to leave the car at the bottom of the hill and walk the rest of way to the house. Carmen and I follow Alexa through the cracked and overgrown path leading toward the front door. Branches stick out from the thick field of weeds, scratching at our legs as we pass. We’re still in our shorts and t-shirts from earlier in the day. I’m wearing my favorite shorts, a pair Carmen gave to me for my birthday last month. Alexa veers from the front path, stepping sideways past stray bricks to head around to the backyard. The beam of Alexa’s flashlight casts shadowed caricatures against the walls that loom over us.
“Are you sure we should be here?” Carmen asks. Her rich brown eyes are watching the house even as she speaks to me. I admit, the Lisen house isn’t that interesting to someone who didn’t grow up hearing the tales of grandeur. There’s some ambient light from the town at the bottom of hill and I can see that her lip is curled up to match both of her raised eyebrows.
“Don’t worry we’ll be fine,” I say as we progress toward the crooked back door of the house. Alexa has already made it inside and Carmen is right on my heels. The arm she’s not using to hold her flashlight brushes against my side with each step as she follows my movements across the path almost exactly. I almost stumble when she suddenly grabs at my shoulder as she trips over something hidden by the creeping undergrowth.
I try to steady her with an arm around her waist but her flashlight escapes her grip and tumbles to the ground. I can feel her chuckling at herself through my fingertips resting on her hip. I bend down to rescue her flashlight from the weeds and keep her hand in mine as she reaches to take it back.
“Seriously don’t worry.” I cup her cheek with my one free hand. Her face is warmer than usual and it’s too cool a night to blame on the summer heat. “It’s just a boring old house.”
“Yeah, don’t be such a baby, Car,” Alexa shouts as she pokes her head out from the door frame. “This place is great, c’mon!”
Carmen and I share one more glance before taking the last few steps to the entrance of the house. She doesn’t let go of my hand, though, and I keep up the contact as we pool our lights together on the ground in front of us, carefully watching for more hazards. Miraculously, Alexa is waiting for us on the other side of the door when we enter.
It’s darker inside the house than out, but soft moonlight pouring through the windows on the south side of the house. The walls and floor creak in greeting, resettling and adjusting to the weight of three new people. The entry hall opens into what used to be a family room. The air smells damp and faintly of rotting waste. Across from us is the staircase that wraps around half of the family room before disappearing onto the second level.
Carmen and I nudge the door closed and venture further inside. Furniture is sparse but what’s left could have originally belonged with the house. A long sofa half-covered by sheets takes up one wall. The remnants of a broken table are piled in the corner near the stairs. There are other items strewn about as well. Books, jackets, and even a pair of glasses left by decades of visitors like us. Once back in high school my friend Bobby left an entire uneaten pizza in the kitchen. Now there are some PopTart wrappers left by a hungry guest fluttering in the breeze beside the charred remains of a log inside the fireplace.
A flash lights up the room and jars my vision for a split second. I peer out the nearest window. It’s not the season for heat lightning, but I guess the night is pretty warm after all. Alexa doesn’t seem perturbed, though that’s no comfort. Carmen’s already been distracted again, her head turning back and forth as she processes in the scene.
Alexa darts off to investigate each room, her typical protocol for our visits. She immediately becomes entranced with every object she passes: a deflated soccer ball, a cracked lighter, an empty wallet someone might still be missing. Every time we come here, something new catches her eye. Alexa has always managed to find something different from visit to visit. I stand rooted to the spot in the center of the room, lazily casting my flashlight throughout the room. Carmen is still by my side though she drops my hand in order to hug herself instead, shivering slightly in the summer air.
She takes to perusing the room and tosses the beam of her flashlight against the walls. Shadows drift along with her movement, arching over the ceiling in one moment and disappearing entirely the next. Layers of paint flake from the wall. The wooden floors are scratched and scraped. There’s one impressive gouge in the wood near the fireplace. Alexa comes back from the kitchen and brushes right past us before heading straight for the stairs. As her footsteps thump against the rotting wood, I know we’ve lost my sister to the house for the night.
“So what’s the deal?” Carmen asks as our last view of Alexa’s ponytail disappears down the hallway on the second floor. “Why’s she still like to come here?”
I wish I knew the real answer. I’ve never figured out Alexa’s obsession with this house. Not when she came here every weekend as a kid and definitely not now. Maybe it’s just for old-time’s sake, or to see how the ancient house is holding up after all these years. Any time I ask Alexa, I receive a shrug paired with, “It’s cool.”
“She likes the story,” I answer.
Carmen laughs. It’s not much more than a short exhale of breath, but it’s there.
“Of course she’s the one who likes stories.”
I turn toward her, eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry?”
“This whole trip has been nothing but stories. I’ve heard more about you from Alexa than I have from you.”
I don’t know how to respond so I don’t say anything.
“Wow, great job proving my point.” Carmen casts her flashlight at the bottom of the staircase. A mouse crawls out from beneath the lowest step and scurries across a barren section of floor to a hole in the wall. Once it’s gone, she takes a seat on the bottom stair. After a moment’s hesitation, I join her. The arrangement isn’t very wide, so we end up having to sit thigh to thigh, blocking the entire path. Carmen hunches forward and rests her elbows on her knees.
“Well, what do you want to know?” I ask.
Carmen smiles while shaking her head.
I rest my flashlight on my lap, letting the beam illuminate the expanse of blank wall in front of us. I twist my fist around, two fingers up and tilted just right so that the shadow creates a bunny hopping across the peeling paint. Carmen laughs again, louder this time. I’m glad to have sufficiently distracted her. She arranges herself in a similar position with her flashlight on her lap and soon a shadow dog is chasing my rabbit across our makeshift stage.
We’re well into our impromptu puppet show when there’s a scream and a crash from upstairs. Carmen startles so hard her flashlight falls from her lap and clanks against the floorboards. The bulb flickers out as it rolls a few feet from the stairs. The darkness of the night becomes heavier with only one of our flashlights competing against it.
“She probably just dropped something,” I say and lay a comforting hand on Carmen’s shoulder. The last time this happened, Alexa had just been startled by an owl and ended up shattering a bottle against a wall. Thrown into the harsh relief of a single light her expression is exaggerated, but her lips are turned down and her forehead creased. I shout up to the second floor: “Alexa? You break something again?”
Waiting for an answer, I stand and scoop Carmen’s flashlight up from the floor. I try clicking the switch, but the bulb won’t light. I tap the barrel against my palm, no luck. I try again a little harder and still get nothing. I hand the useless thing back to her.
“We can share,” she says. I nod.
I turn our only flashlight toward the staircase and lead the way to the second level. The stairs creak under the pressure of our combined weight. Carmen’s so close I can feel her knees bumping into the backs of my legs as we ascend. Carmen doesn’t fare well with the dark. On a camping trip we took together a month ago, we stepped away from the bonfire for just a moment to get another blanket from the car and she kept a palm flat against my back for guidance the entire way. Now she’s got one hand on my hip, one finger curled onto a belt loop of my shorts to make sure I’m always within reach of her.
We step swiftly down the hall. I don’t like to spend more time up here than I have to. I’m mostly worried about the stability of this ancient, rotting, and rodent-infested house. Those aren’t the usual ingredients for sturdy architecture. And besides, everything else in the house is broken it makes sense that these floorboards would go next. Every time I come up here, I get this strange cold, clenching feeling right in my gut even when I’m well aware that Alexa is just goofing off.
There are only three rooms on this floor, which look like they used to be an office and two bedrooms. Carmen and I check each of them, but they’re all empty save of the mix of broken furniture and trash décor that matches the rest of the house. We head toward the end of the hall and face the second set of stairs that is so warped that the steps sag downward from the wall at an angle. Hoping it’s more stable, I stick near to the wall and lead the way up. If the other stairs creaked, this set is downright crying at the effort of supporting guests. The last time I climbed this particular set of stairs was years ago and I was much lighter. Even then I was sure the whole set would collapse and take me with it.
“Alexa?” I call when we make it to the top with no casualties. “Alexa, where are you?” I’m not surprised when we receive no answer. I push forward, Carmen still attached to me at the hip. There are only two rooms up here—two more bedrooms, one on either side of the hallway. The first we check is empty, which just leaves one more.
The dark wooden door to the second room is ajar. I press my fingertips against the rough wood and it swings open with ease. I aim the flashlight inside and Carmen peeks over my shoulder. She’s standing so close I can feel the warmth of her breath against my skin. The beam of the flashlight cuts through the darkness of the room, more shadowed than any of the others because the only window faces the north side of the house where the silver moonlight can’t quite reach. Alexa is sitting there on the dusty floor, head bowed and pouring over some new discovery she’s made.
“What the hell happened?” I demand. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“Where’s your flashlight?” Carmen asks.
I don’t wait for a response. I step inside the room, invade Alexa’s personal space. When I attempt to grab her arm, to gain her attention, to force her to look at me, to bring her home, she jerks away from the contact and nearly drops the item she’s holding. I notice that it’s a bound book, so large that it reaches entirely across Alexa’s laps, the covers tapping the floor on either side of her legs.
Alexa turns slowly to look at us with an expression I’ve never seen across her features. Her skin, normally pale, is ashen white. Her permanent smile has finally been wiped away. Her hands are trembling, the pages of the book rustling with each tremor.
“I—I threw the flashlight,” she says. The last time I heard her stutter over words was when she was seventeen and didn’t want to tell Papá that she’d scratched the car after pulling too far forward and scraping a metal signpost. “There was a noise, and then someone—and I threw it over there.”
Alexa doesn’t say another word. She lifts the book she’s holding with both hands, stretching her arms as far as she can toward me as though she’s offering me a gift. Whatever is so interesting is going to have to wait. Carmen is shifting from one foot to the other beside me, hugging her arms to her chest. The slightest noise is likely to send her fleeing right back down the hill to town without us. We’re down to only one flashlight and I’m not going to use it to explore leftover garbage. The heavy pages of the book rustle with the shaking of Alexa’s hands. I take a step closer to her, taking hold of the leather spine with my left hand and setting my right on her trembling shoulder.
“Alright, that’s enough for one night,” I say. I flip the book closed, thumb still wedged between the heavy covers, and I move to set it aside. The leather makes a dull thud against the scratched wooden floor.
“Wait a second,” Carmen says. She removes the book from my grasp and saves it from the fate of being ignored and forgotten like the rest of the mess in the house. Covering my hand with her own to direct our last flashlight toward it, she reopens the marked page that Alexa had been viewing when she handed it over. “It’s an album—Jesus Christ.”
She turns the tome in her hands, cradling the bottom against one forearm while she uses her other to point out the last photo on the open page. I shine the light against the thick paper. She’s right, there are Polaroids taped carefully inside sitting neatly next to each other. They’re all fairly dark, the flash of the camera barely bright enough to clearly see the subjects in the glossy photos. Only about half the book is full, the used pages fall heavy under the weight of their load and no longer stack neatly atop each other while the unused pages have not yet been coerced into defiance. The page Alexa had open still has space for three more photos.
The photos are all of people, I realize. Each instant Polaroid print depicts people, sometimes a pair sometimes a group, and all of them entering the house. Their eyes stare at some distant point outside the frame. I recognize the cracked wooden doorframe that we entered not thirty minutes before in the background of every photo. Carmen points to the last photo taped onto the page.
My own face stares back at me. In the photo, Carmen stands shielded behind me. Half of Alexa’s face is in the foreground, blurry with movement. A chill runs up my spine even as the warm summer breeze floats through the broken windows across the room. My image in the photo is wearing the same t-shirt and shorts I am.
When I’m able to tear my eyes away from the photos, Carmen eyes are boring into mine. She stays silent. I do, too. Alexa hasn’t moved an inch since handing the album over to Carmen and me. For a few seconds, none of us react.
Then, Carmen throws the album to the ground with a loud thud, the pages fluttering in protest to the abuse. She rips the last Polaroid from the page, pinching it between two fingers and waving it wildly in front of my face.
“What the hell is this?” The tremble in her voice was gone now, replaced with a piercing firmness. “Who the hell took this?”
When I don’t respond, Carmen exhales with a huff and paces a few steps away before turning back to Alexa who is still kneeling on the wooden floorboards, staring at a floating cobweb in the corner with an unfocused gaze. Carmen crouches in front of her reaching both of her arms out to latch onto Alexa’s shoulders.
“Where did you find that thing, Alexa?” Carmen shakes the shoulders in her grip, the force mussing Alexa’s sleek ponytail. “Where?”
Between the demand poured into Carmen’s words and the rattling shake, Carmen finally gains Alexa’s attention. With the color still washed away from her cheeks and breathing still heavy, Alexa lifts a quivering hand. She points to a portion of the room thrown into harsh shadow.
Before I can even react, Carmen releases Alexa, stands, and wrenches the flashlight from my grasp. The leather-bound album still weighs heavily in my hands. From where I stand behind her, I watch Carmen cast the beam of light into the corner. It looks just like the rest of the house: old, dusty, and broken. Against one wall beside a stained and torn mat with a tidy pile of musty blankets stacked on top of it. A small square table is wedged into the corner with wad of cloth shoved beneath one of the legs. Setting on top of the table are a lantern with a cracked glass and three royal blue packages of instant PopTarts.
“I’m leaving,” Carmen states. She doesn’t even wait for Alexa to hand her the keys to the car we left at the bottom of the hill. Carmen simply reaches down and takes them from her pocket. Alexa doesn’t put up a fight.
“Wait,” I say. I try to stop Carmen at the same time as I try to coax Alexa from her position on the floor. Neither attempt works, both slipping through my grasp. Carmen’s already at the door with the flashlight and showing no signs of slowing to wait.
I reach out for Alexa, grasping through air until I’m finally close enough to take hold of her forearm. I heave her into a standing position and tug until she complies with following me. We’re almost to the door when there’s another shriek from direction Carmen went.
I launch into the hallway, dragging Alexa along at a sprinting pace. She doesn’t seem to mind the mistreatment and seems to be doing her best to keep up with me. I can see Carmen at the other end of the hallway. Dividing our group and blocking Alexa and I from meeting Carmen at the stairwell is a large figure of a person. Carmen has the flashlight pointed towards us, casting the figure totally in shadow but an overpowering, sour smell of body odor is unmistakable. The person turns toward the ruckus Alexa and I made leaving the farthest bedroom.
“Family pictures for the album.” The figure has a man’s voice, deep and almost wistful.
I still can’t make out any features in the darkness. I’m still holding onto Alexa but I’m frozen to the spot. Across the hall, Carmen motions with the flashlight.
“Run!” she yells.
I don’t hesitate to follow her instructions. Still dragging Alexa, I make a break for the staircase. As we dodge around the man he makes absolutely no move to stop us. He just keeps muttering, “Family pictures for the album. Family pictures for the album.” As we pass, Carmen’s flashlight glints off an object the man is holding and I realize it’s an old Polaroid camera—the kind that instantly develops. I turn back and refocus on Carmen, grabbing the outstretched hand offered to me.
Once Alexa and I have caught up to Carmen, all three of us pound down the stairs and straight back out of the door we came in through. Running down the hill toward the car in the dark with one flashlight and dodging tall weeds and stray bricks isn’t easy, but we manage it just fine. Some of the sharper branches scrape at my legs but the stinging cuts aren’t enough to distract me from getting as far away from that house as possible. We pile into the car almost simultaneously, Carmen taking over the task of driving us back home even though I have to give her directions from the back seat where I’m sitting with Alexa. We both sprawl across the bench seat, still panting and sweating from our burst of activity.
The farther away we get from the house, the more tension that eases out of my shoulders. Carmen is has the steering wheel in a death grip and when we finally make it back to my parents’ house she has to massage stiffness from them. We let ourselves into the house as quietly as possible. None of us are ready or willing to wake my parents and explain what happened.
Alexa heads straight for the basement where she’s set up a bed for herself for the duration of our visit. She doesn’t say anything to us before she leaves, just looks at us both for a few long seconds before shaking her head and heading downstairs. Carmen and I retire to the bedroom I used throughout my childhood.
As the door clicks shut behind us, Carmen latches her arms onto my waist and leans her head on my shoulder. I instinctively wrap my arms around her torso. I rest my chin on top her soft curls of hair. We stand like that for a moment before exhaustion hits us and we concede to sleep, not even changing out of our clothes before we crash. In my last moments of consciousness before sleep overtakes me, I promise to tell more stories of my own tomorrow.