The House - part one

The House.

I walked pass the house on the way to the river every day. And every day I got the same feeling. It’s a feeling that washes over you like a ripple moving out over the top of the water, but not so gentle. The first ripple hits hard almost suffocating. It’s a chore just to keep moving. But it slows and it eases and once I past the house I can no longer feel it. It is strange though that I feel this; well strange that it had only started that summer before the solstice it was just another house.

The feeling the house washed over me was that of sorrow. It wanted me to enter; it begged and screamed at me to enter. I felt such pity for the house. I wanted to answers its summons. But I was frightened. I wasn’t always though, the first few times it happened it felt wondrous and I wonder now why I didn’t just walk in the first time. But I had started to realise that I no longer saw the house as just stone and wood, it was alive and that realisation scared me, a house shouldn’t be alive. So each day I walked past and each day it called to me and I ignored it. And each day I felt guiltier and more hurt.

Our village is a small one; it has one long road with houses on either side. At the south end of the road is our market place. It is always busy; our village is renowned for its fresh fish and meat that we are granted by the river and woods. We get many trades coming in from other villages to the south but I digress this is not the story you wish to hear. The north end leads in to the woods and to the river. The house is the last right on the edge of the village and it hasn’t been lived in for a very long time. I don’t recall anyone living there while I’ve been alive. It is so old now that the woods have started to go around it; nature is claiming it as hers.

Having to go to the river became more and more of a chore. It seemed to take just that bit longer each time just that bit harder to walk past. I remember the last day I walked past the house. I finally managed to get to the rivers edge I dropped the bucket that I was carrying and fell down on to my knees. I splashed into the mud, making my brown trousers even browner. My father didn’t like that I wore men’s clothing but I asked if he would like me wearing the pretty expensive dresses the other girls wore and still have to work at the river, he goes quiet, that’s when I know I’ve won. But again I digress.

I turned my head back towards the house, there had been something different about it that day something that I couldn’t quite place, it had seemed that the call had been stronger more insistent, and much more human.
I closed my eyes and turned back towards the river trying to shake the feeling off, that’s when I heard my name.


“Alesiya”

I opened my eyes and looked around but saw no one. I stood up and turned looking back towards the village and again I saw no one. I convinced myself that I must have imagined it, that the walk past the house had made me more weary then usual. So I kneeled back down on the river's edge and cupped my hands in the cool water splashing it on to my face. Smoothing the water back through my auburn hair, I blinked rapidly and looked down into the river at my reflection. My green eyes stared back at me, and then they weren’t mine. The face in front of me morphed, my green eyes became brown my hair pulled up from my shoulders it turned brown and curled on to the top of my head just brushing the tops of my eyes. My face went from a feminine oval with soft full lips to show a masculine jaw line with lips that were full and curved in a smirk. The lips moved.

“Alesiya it is rude to not answer those who call”

I bolted up from the ground standing on the edge of the river eyes closed tight. I stood there my head screaming at me to run home. That what I saw wasn’t real I was just tired I was imagining it all. But I didn’t run home, I stood there for what seemed like eternity, trying to will myself to forget.

“My sweet, just because you close your eyes does not mean I am no longer here,”

And that’s when I did the most childish thing I have done in years, I covered my ears and started to hum an old nursery rhyme my mother taught me. But that didn’t help me, the voice just laughed.

“It is not your ears that is hearing me, it is your mind and your heart”

“You are not real!” I said out loud breaking my tune “you cannot be real!”
But again the voice just laughed.

“If I am not real, then who may I ask are you talking to?”

The voice turned smug I wanted to smack it then, my anger started to build.
“I am talking to myself! I am obviously going crazy!” I said aloud and I just heard more laughter. I hadn’t thought I could be so cruel to myself, for that’s what it had to be of course. Voices do not just appear in your mind, and faces certainly do not change appearance in reflections.

“My dear sweet one, do you honestly believe that I am you?”

“Who else could you be, my thoughts and voice are the only things that should be in my head!” I said aloud to the disembodied voice.

“I” the voice said “Am Narmer Requiem, I am here to save you”

That’s when the voice became serious the humour had evaporated like smoke. I uncovered my ears and opened my eyes everything was the same. The river flowed, the birds sang, and the trees swayed in the breeze. But I in that second had become apart from it all, I looked down at the river to a reflection that was once again mine.

“Save me from what?”