THE POWER OF THREE (6 page)

             
She was astounded by the depth of feeling the walls held, how perfectly human those feelings seemed to her.

             
After that night, the walls talked constantly. They wept and sighed and rapped at the door of her mind wanting in. She would be forced to move if this kept up, but then all the walls everywhere would begin to speak, it didn't matter where she went. Even the most modern of homes, or the newly constructed, would have
something
to say.

             
She was able, after a time, to hear the thoughts of furniture, of sidewalks, of cars and
trucks. She heard the harsh whispering from the sea when she went to the shore. She heard the low booming voices of mountains in the Sierra Madres. In the end, after months of tuning in to the world around her, Linda heard the voice of the earth, of the moon and the sun.
I am forever
, said the sun.
I want to be like the sun
, the earth said.
I am complete in my being
, said the moon, with a giggle in its voice.

             
It was all so fantastic that she was like a spinning ball of sparkling fire moving from one moment to another. In her classroom the desk and chalkboard spoke to her. The clothes on the backs of the students whispered. The halls and the lockers, the teachers' lounge, the steps leading outside, it all spoke in small whispers, enchantments from the ether that only Linda could hear.

             
That was when she knew it was time. She was not only immured to the mutterings of all things, but she was resilient as well. As she had trained herself to monitor or shut the door against the thoughts of man or animal, she could now also cut off the communication going on between
herself
and all things that clattered and strove to share their worlds with her.

             
She got on the internet and found the house at 2242
Maycroft
for sale. She bought it the minute she closed the sale on the bungalow that wept to see her go. She retired from the university despite the Dean begging her to stay.

             
She packed her few clothes, boarded the plane for Alabama and never looked back.

             
#

             
Now.
Now she stood in her old home with her back to the door and the walls, floors, and ceilings shivered in either anticipation or dread, she did not know which.

             
"I've come to find out why you did it. Why you killed them."

             
Though the house was alive with movement that happened only from the corner of her eyes, Linda wondered if it would speak.

             
That day it didn't.

             
She placed her clothes in the closet and the drawers. Old furniture had come with the house and what there was of it, though scant, was enough. She went to the grocery and brought in bags of food to put away in the refrigerator, freezer, and kitchen shelves. She set out a skillet on the gas stove and heated olive oil. She threw in chopped vegetables--carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, broccoli,
chunks
of fresh tomatoes. She seasoned it with lemon pepper, a little saffron, and salt. She sat at the old wooden table in the kitchen and ate slowly, savoring the different flavors. The crunch of the broccoli and carrots made sounds that reverberated inside her head.

             
Outside her head nothing moved. Nothing voiced an opinion. There was not a sound.

             
"I'm patient," she told the house. "I'm here for the long haul. I'm not going anywhere. And I'm pretty damned old so if you want to try to kill me, be my guest. But I'll give you some trouble with that."

             
The walls were silent.

             
#

             
Linda sat in a rocker in the living room. She had never owned a rocking chair before. She really liked it. Liked the regular rhythm she could set it to, liked the movement of her body back and forth, almost like swinging in a swing. The room smelled like pine because she had mopped the floor with Pine-Sol. It reminded her of the old days, so many years ago, when she was a girl here and her mother mopped the floors with the same product. She breathed in deeply, feeling peaceful.

             
She had owned the house for four months. That it did not speak to her, that it held itself tightly together and stone cold silent, didn't bother her. She knew it would come around. It had business yet to do with her and her with it. If it was being stubborn, she could out-stubborn it. If it wanted to play this waiting game, she knew how to wait. All she had left was time--and her thirst for revenge.

             
She heard a car horn outside and it made her recall that days before she had heard a moving van pulling into a near driveway. She had stood in her front yard watching as a young family moved into the house next door. It was a mother, father, and two children--a girl around six and a boy who was probably nine or ten. She waved at them and they waved back, calling a hello. "Hello! Hello, how are you?"

             
Now as she sat in the rocker in the hours after lunch, thinking of little but how this house was obstinate and impenetrable, a knock came at the door.

             
She rose slowly, noticing her back was sore, but what did she expect, she was going to be sixty-one in a few weeks. She opened the door to find the girl from next door on her step.
"Hi there!
How do you like your new house?"

             
Linda liked children although, funny enough, she had never longed for any of her own. The little girl smiled to reveal a gap between her front teeth.
How adorable!
Linda thought, smiling back.

             
You too!
the
little girl thought back to her.

             
Linda's smile faded and was replaced with a questioning look. "You read my mind?"

             
The little girl glanced down and put her hands behind her back.

             
"You don't have to ashamed of it.
Or afraid.
Do your parents know?"

             
"No."

             
"Come inside and we'll talk."

             
In the living room Linda now turned on a lamp near the sofa and sat next to the little girl whose name was Diane
Blume
. "All right, tell me, how often do you read minds?"

             
"All the time."

             
"How long have you been doing it, Diane?"

             
"Since I was little."

             
Linda held back her grin. "About how old when you were little?"

             
The little girl shrugged shyly. Then she said, "When I was three?"

             
A tiny blip crossed Linda's mind. She had been three when she first understood she could
hear what other people were thinking. She had been six...

             
"How old are you now?"

             
Linda almost narrowed her eyes to hold back the answer she was sure to come from the girl.

             
"I'm six!"

             
That's when the walls began to talk.

             
Same as
You
, they said, a unison of singsong voices. Though they weren't unpleasant voices Linda had jumped up, coming off the sofa like a shot. She looked at the walls.

             
"Miss Linda, what's wrong?" The girl was up too and coming to stand
near
her.

             
"It's..."

             
"The walls?"

             
Linda stared down at the child. "You can hear the walls?"

             
Diane didn't even have to answer. Linda read her mind and knew everything. This child was like her doppelganger, her double. She had been born with the gift and she hadn't had to wait for years and maturity or strive to learn how to hear the thoughts projected out from animals and objects. She already had been listening to walls.

             
"Come, sit back down." She led the girl back to the sofa where they took their seats. Linda held the girl's hand. "Tell me what you know about this house."

             
It's a bad house, Miss Linda. It wants to kill you.

             
"It's killed before," Linda said.

             
The child sat quietly, listening, but not for Linda's thoughts. Now the house was talking to her, but not to Linda. After some moments the girl looked up into her face and talked to her in silence.

             
Yes, it's killed before. It was built in 1879. It was made by a bunch of people who all lived here together. They knew...they knew...magic. They had rituals. They made sacrifices. Blood sacrifices.

             
She couldn't take it any longer. She didn't think she wanted to know anymore, not now. This time when she stood, Linda pulled the girl along to the front door. "I don't think you should come here again. It's using you. I think it's dangerous here. Not just for me, but for you, too. Do you understand?"

             
"A house never told me before it wanted to kill someone." The little girl looked sad and lost, unable to process all that she knew.

             
"It's just this house, Diane. There must be places in the world where bad things happened and the walls soaked it all in and grew in evil ways. This is one of those places. Don't come back, all right? Stay with your parents and don't let anyone know all the things you hear. People won't understand. They'll think something's wrong with you and there isn't. You believe me, don't you? There's nothing at all
wrong
with you."

             
Plumbing the child's mind she could tell her words were being accepted, but there was still a great deal of fear. It was like walking through a jumbled room full of bright toys, where some of the toys were coming alive, and the young mind couldn't take it all in.

             
Once the girl was gone, Linda sank against the door, her eyes closed. Was it a coincidence that through her long life she had never come across another person with such a strong gift as her own and then when she had returned to this house the child next door was not only like her, but possessing a gift much too strong and heavy a burden for a six-year-old? It had been Linda's experience that coincidences were something to look upon with skepticism. This was
too much
of a coincidence.
A once in a lifetime event.

             
She was sure she had been right in warning the girl away from this house. Though she was the one who had communicated with it, Linda couldn't in good conscience involve a child. Not in this house. Not in a place stained in blood and roaring with murder lust.

             
She couldn't hear it, but she knew it
roared,
knew it as well as she did the back of her hand.

             
#

             
She woke at 3A.M. with a roar in her head. She sat up, holding her temples as if her head might explode. It wasn't a noise caused by a physical headache or pain. It was the house.

             
Roaring like
Niagra's
waterfalls.
Roaring like a mad tornado.
Roaring in anger and murderous rage.

             
"STOP IT!"

             
Instantly the house
quietened
. Linda was now wide awake and could feel the blood pulsing in her temples where she still held onto her head. She removed her hands and balled up the sheets in her fists. The room felt as if it were spinning. She tried to hold onto reality, but maybe that's what this was, at least in this house. Then the memories came flooding back so swiftly they caused her to hold her breath. She felt as if she'd been knocked in the chest.

             
...she was six years old. It was 3A.M. and the noise woke her. She could hear her mother's thoughts all the way down the hallway.
Get away, get away from me!