Present-day Georgia, the house on the hill

One hair at a time, Gerard plucked his mustache into symmetrical obedience. The old butler did not wince as he pulled the hairs out, the only sign that he felt it at all being a sharp exhalation from his nose after each pull. An errant breath would sometimes blow the captured strand out of his tweezers, falling to disappear in the fuzz of the bathmat he stood on. This bothered him. He preferred to see the fruits of his labor.

In his grimy bathroom mirror, Gerard’s gray eyes surveyed his work. He’d always anticipated pulling off the look of a severe older man, and he’d been right. He had the kind of face that belonged to a headmaster of a school for rowdy boys, all sharp cheekbones and enormous, dark pits for eyes. With a face like his, and hair that was mostly suggestive at the best of times, Gerard’s mustache was his remaining bit of vanity.

It was not a bushy piece of facial hair, nor the curly affair that some other parts of the American South so adored, but it was meticulously even. There was not a hair out of place on either side of his thin mouth, and each one stopped before the place where his lips met. It was an unimpeachable mustache.

Satisfied with his work, the butler retired his tweezers to the mirror cabinet and moved to the bedroom to begin his stretches.

His room in the house was uniform, modest without being sparse. The heads of the house had allowed him to decorate on his own, so the bedspread, oval rug, and floor-length curtains over the single window were the same shade of navy blue.

He began his daily stretches, exhibiting a flexibility that would make a gymnast blush. No man as old as Gerard could twist their body in the ways he could, but then no man was as old as Gerard.

Once he had sufficiently limbered up, he began to dress for the day’s work. The same white dress shirt with bone buttons beneath a solid blue single-breasted jacket and pants to match. He used to wear a bowtie, but the mockery had gotten to him. Now he wore a thin black tie, as nondescript as he could find.

He was halfway finished applying his cufflinks—bone to match the buttons—when the sound of a crash somewhere in the house interrupted him.

He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He’d have been more frustrated, were this not the exact same time he had heard the sounds of nonsense arising over the past few mornings. Maybe they were becoming more punctual, after all.

The butler finished doing up his cuffs and slipped into his favorite black leather shoes. Time to gather the children.

Husk was the best at seeking. He usually won their morning sessions of hide-and-seek when he was the seeker. He had an uncanny talent for it, born from a natural blessing. Yes, Husk always knew he had been special. His sister’s rubbish hiding spots rarely crossed his mind.

“Petal?” the small 10-year-old creeped through the usual haunts in their shared room. He snatched back the curtains from the window; nothing. He threw the doors to their wardrobe open; nothing! “Petaaaaaaal, where aaaaaare yooooou?”

She might be giving him the runaround now, but Husk knew that his sister would give herself up, eventually. He only had to wait for her to sniffle, or sneeze, or forget what she was doing and wander out of hiding.

Until then, Husk simply had to keep stomping around seeking for her, as was his specialty.

After determining that she was nowhere to be found in their room, he passed into the hallway and scurried to the bathroom. His little grubby hands pulled him up over the lip of the claw-footed bathtub to peer into its porcelain bowl. Nothing. Nothing in the towel closet, nothing under the sink, not even anything floating in the toilet water, hopeful though he was.

Husk was getting very cross now. Surely he had checked all the places where Petal could have hidden. They were strictly forbidden from playing anywhere away from the small top floor of the house they occupied, and he had already seeked the two bedrooms within an inch of their lives.

He stepped back into the gloomy hallway, hopeful that he had missed a Petal-shaped vase somewhere. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, only the shadows flickering under the lights embedded in the wall.

If Husk had better eyes, he might have noticed how much darker it was in the hallway than usual. If he weren’t so easily distracted, he may have realized that the lights in the wall should not have been flickering. They were 60 watt lamps, not candles. If he had better luck, he could have noticed the thickening of the air, how his throat had gotten scratchier the longer he stood there. Alas, he was a near-sighted scramble of a child, cursed with the worst luck in the world.

He still scanned the hallway, trying to catch what he had missed. There, beneath the base of one of the tall lamps at the end of the hall—something snagged his attention.

Something was wedged beneath the heavy lamp, but he struggled to make it out. He was aware now of the feeling in his throat, but his curiosity had overtaken him. Surely, this had to do with where Petal was. He walked deeper into the shadowy hall.

As he stepped towards it, he saw a pair of familiar black shoes behind the lamp. He lifted the edge of the base, pulled the strange mass from underneath it, and was greeted by the limp face skin of his sister.

Gerard had one foot on the stair when he heard the scream. It pierced even the butler’s deadened ears, rattling the windows in their panes two floors down. And worse; it was unmistakably Husk.

By the time the noise abated, Gerard was halfway up the next flight of stairs. On rounding the corner to the last stairwell, slingshotting himself off the banister towards the top floor, the butler came face to face with a child’s skull.

The lower jaw was missing, and there was a pronounced mound forming a shallow cone at the center of the crown.

It sniffled, pathetically.

“She’s cheating,” Husk pouted, slumping his tiny shoulders. He was sitting on one of the bottom steps, resting his skeletal head in his flesh-and-bone hands.

Gerard took a deep inhale through his nostrils, uncurling his body from the hunch he had sprinted upstairs in.

Husk held his other hand up, offering a strange, sagging, something to the butler. Gerard took it gingerly, delicate as he knew it was, and Husk turned away and sniffled. Without sinuses, Husk couldn’t actually sniffle, but he’d gotten very good at faking it when he wanted it to be clear that he was having a strop.

“Husk,” Gerard knelt down to the young child’s level, “I understand your indignation. Let’s try to remember not to screech quite so loud this early in the morning. Anyone would think the house was burning down, and I do not appreciate being unduly worried.”

His ward tilted his head towards Gerard, but wouldn’t fully look at him.

“Sorry, Gerard. It was very frightening!” Husk turned to look up the stairs into the darkness above, “I hate when she does that. It was only hide-and-seek.”

“Yes,” Gerard stood up and tucked his cargo under his arm, “it is disturbing to see Miss Petal ensconced so. I shall see to it.” He looked down and saw the little man still churning up a tantrum, affected huffs and puffs accompanying every breath. The butler rolled his eyes.

“Well… at least you’ve won your game, eh, Husk?”

The boy perked up.

“Have I?”

“I should think so. Cheaters never prosper, and in our house they certainly don’t win.”

“Oh!” Husk hopped up from his seat on the stairs, wiping imaginary tears away with his meaty fists, “well, that’s alright then, isn’t it?” He turned a cheery face towards Gerard, the violet pinpricks in his eye sockets twinkling brightly. It was a surprise to the butler how easily the boy shifted his moods. He had always heard children to be implacable in their tantrums, but perhaps that only applied to normals.

“Very good, young sir. Now, I think it’s time I go and retrieve your sister,” Gerard started his way up the steps, “it’s nearly time for breakfast.”

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“Ooh, can I watch?!” Husk clasped his hands together and tilted his head up to his caretaker, pleading.

“Certainly not. It’s dangerous, even for a proper nightmare, like me. Young troublemakers like you should steer clear.”

“Aw!” Husk slumped back down on his step, resting the roof of his skeletal mouth in his hands, all set to sulk again, “I never get to watch.” Gerard placed a gentle hand on the rising peak of his skull.

“There, there, Mister Husk. Maybe when you’re my age.”

-

Gerard came off the stair into pitch black. The house was never afforded much light as a general rule, but the top floor hallway was so dark it looked as though it could be miles underground.

Balancing the folded parcel in one hand, Gerard used his other hand to extract a lighter from his jacket pocket and flick it open. The meager flame did nothing for the length of shadow he was surrounded by, but it would do for what the butler needed. He waved it slowly from side to side, looking for a change in the void. He called into the darkness.

“Miss Petal? I believe we’re done with playtime for the morning, if you’d kindly come join us for breakfast. I’m not one to miss my scrambled eggs, you know.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then there came a noise like dry leaves against concrete, a whisper falling on him from directly above.

Gerard’s head whipped up and stared intently into the blackness above. He strained to define the sound, trying to discern words from the rasping noises. It was soft at first, but it built slowly as he focused.

“…WIIIIIIIIINNING…”

“Yes, well,” the butler could not stifle the shiver that ran along the length of his spine, but he kept his footing, “it’s hardly winning when you’re bloody well cheating, and you know that. Your brother is very upset with you.”

“AHHHH…HUSSSSSSSSSK?” Gerard pulled at his collar. The air around her had gotten smothering, and he was beginning to get short on breath.

“Quite,” he shifted his hold on his precious cargo, turning it in his hand. He needed to resolve this quickly, “now come down and get dressed so you can apologize for spoiling your game.”

“NOT SSSPOILING! DON’T WANT TO!”

The darkness around Gerard suddenly grew thicker, tightening and flexing like a muscle. The thumb of fire his lighter produced diminished, sinking him further into the sticky shadows. He bristled at the cheekiness of his ward, but also with real tension. There was danger here, and he needed to nip it in the bud.

“Now, Miss Petal, if you don’t stop this at once, I shall have to tell your mother about your misbehaving.”

“…MOTHERRRRR?” Gerard’s light ticked up slightly as some of the black shrunk away. He seized his opportunity.

“Yes, the lady of the house. Somehow I doubt she would approve of your naughtiness, don’t you? You and I both know how she feels when you run around without clothes, don’t we?” He flicked open the folded sheaf of delicate material he’d been carrying, letting it unravel to its full length.

As it unfolded, it revealed itself for what it was: an empty sleeve, shaped like a child-sized wetsuit in the design of a young girl, complete with a head and hair in ginger pigtails. Even to the butler, it was haunting in its emptiness, with open holes at the mouth and eyes, and black bars of undergarments painted onto the skin.

Once the feet fully unfurled, there was a sharp intake of air from the ceiling and everything moved at once.

The force of displaced air through the hallway punched the wind out of Gerard, staggering him. As he recovered himself, the hall revealed itself in its normal brightness, the lights on the walls returning to a steady, electric glow. A quiet creak turned his attention to the door to the children’s room, which stood slightly ajar. Through it he could see shadows flickering against the wall, dancing as though in firelight. One of those shadows thickened as Gerard watched, resolving into a solid, inky blackness, filling the bottom four feet of the cracked doorway. From this patch, a small hand punched out into the hallway, flexing open and closed repeatedly with an impatience that rippled its glossy surface.

“Don’t look!” The voice squeaked through, pitchy, accusing, and demonstrably less sinister.

Gerard flicked his lighter closed and walked his young ward’s skinsuit over to her grasping hand. She snatched it away from him and attempted to slam the door, but the butler laid his hand against it, holding it fast.

“Now, Petal,” Gerard fixed his eyes on the two indents he could see at the top of the small pillar of shadow, “we have talked several times about this sort of behavior, have we not?”

“Yes, sir…” If a shadow could be ashamed, this one was. He could hear the sound of shuffling feet and there was an impossible blush of shame fading purple across the ebony of her face, “I just!... Husk always wins… and that doesn’t feel very good, and I thought, well, I’ve only really got the one thing that I’m good at to win this sort of game, and I thought it’d be alright if I was careful! I didn’t mean to lose it, I promise, Gerard!” The longer she was in contact with her skin, the more grounded Petal became, and the words began to spill out of her in a torrent.

The old butler sighed. Sometimes, he felt that he had more in common with the average nanny than expected.

“I understand, Petal. No one likes to lose. But it is not safe for you to do that, you can’t control it. As you get older we can talk about how to use what you can do, but not now. Now it’s too dangerous, and if you do it again, I won’t be the one to bring you back. Do you understand?” His gaze bore into her, daring her to disagree.

“Yes, Gerard. Not ‘til I’m ready. I’m sorry,” the blush in the darkness deepened.

“Good.” The butler gave a single nod and stood. “Now, breakfast is in five minutes. Your brother and I will be waiting for you in the dining room. He turned on his heel and walked coolly to the stairs, leaving the door to creak closed behind him.

On his way down, the butler gathered Husk and, placing a hand on the back of his bony head, led the boy away from the hallway he was trying to peer into. The little monster looked expectantly up to his wizened watcher.

“Is there bacon today?”

Exactly four minutes and fifty-three seconds later, the three inhabitants of this peculiarly haunted home sat around a dining room table located just off the kitchen on the first floor.

Luckily, Petal was back in her human suit, with only the occasionally visible crinkle at the suit’s edges, pigtails laid over her shoulders where she could easily reach them when nervous. The shadows in the room all stayed in their proper places. Unluckily, there was no bacon.

“Well, children,” Gerard dabbed a dot of hot sauce away from the corner of his mouth, “in what ways will you be busying yourself while I’m out today?” The children were usually left to their own devices. They were almost never brought outside the house, barring the most dire of emergencies. The people in town still gave Gerard strange looks, and he looked human. Mostly

“I’m going to be in the garden!” Husk was speaking between mouthfuls of eggs, shoveling them under his top row of teeth into whatever passed for a mouth beneath. “I’ve got lots of dead bugs to find.”

Gerard nodded sagely, “Yes, I imagine so, Mister Husk. And what about you, Petal? What are you doing with the day today?”

“Oh!” Petal had already finished her eggs. She didn’t like anyone to see the way she ate, disturbing as it was even beneath the disguise, “I don’t know yet, erm… I’ll probably go in the garden, as well. Get some air.”

“Yes, that sounds excellent, doesn’t it?” The butler tried to nod reassuringly at Petal, but she somehow appeared to become less comfortable. Gerard was not the best at bedside manner, but he still liked to make an effort.

The first few years of being a caregiver had been easy. Every day had been an opportunity to teach his wards something new. Gerard had used some of his early decades to complete a few advanced math degrees, and the twins were quick studies.

So quick, in fact, that by their tenth year they had exhausted all of the subject material Gerard had prepared for their primary curriculum. They could not only recite the capitals of every state in the country, they also had a basic understanding of each of their different ecologies and economies. They were surprisingly competent in the subjects Gerard thought to put to them, but there were certain subjects that they each took their special shine to.

Husk could tell from a single discarded clump of fur or fragment of chitin what kind of creature had left it and how long ago. He was endlessly fascinated with how things decompose, and loved spending his days in the garden.

Petal could hear a person’s accent and determine where they came from, as specific as the county, by the time she was eight. Though a quiet girl, she was always engaged, always watching. She preferred to observe while her brother tore through the shrubs lining the backyard’s edges.

Gerard often wondered what his two charges would grow to be, with their odd affinities and abilities. But it was not his job to be curious.

He waited until they had all finished their breakfasts before collecting the plates and loading them into the old dishwasher.

He came back into the dining room where the twins were finishing tidying up. He stood there patiently, giving them time to finish their post-meal chores. Once they had returned to stand beside their chairs and started the dishwasher, Gerard cleared his throat and pulled out a thick, iron coin from his jacket pocket.

“Call it in the air, please, Mister Husk,” he flicked the coin up powerfully, the metal singing as it somersaulted above him.

“Heads!” the small boy barked out his answer the second the coin jumped. It spiraled back down into Gerard’s hand with a thunk, and the butler opened his fingers to reveal it. On the top of the coin was carved a crude pelvis with laurels framing it on either side.

“Ah! Tails, I’m afraid, Husk. Petal, you’re in charge of the house while I’m out today,” the young boy groaned in disappointment, and Petal allowed herself a small dance to celebrate. “You remember the rules?”

“Yes sir!” Petal never forgot the rules, “don’t answer the door. Don’t irreversibly ruin anything in the house. Don’t let anyone see you. And don’t let Husk stink the place up!”

“I don’t stink!!” Petal had added the last one in, much to Husk’s frustration, but Gerard favored her with a small smile.

“Be that as it may, Mister Husk, you’ll be good and listen to your sister, won’t you?”

The boy’s hollow eyes cast around the room, looking for any kind of escape from this pending obligation. Finding none, he affected a dramatic sigh.

“Yes, I’ll listen to Petal.” For one without lips, Gerard found him very talented at mumbling when he wanted to.

“Good man. I’ll be back at the regular time today. Is there anything you’d like while I’m out?”

“Bacon!!!”

“Anything not meat?”

“…”

“Very well. Be good, children.”