Lonely House Seeks Baba Yaga

Meg lifted her head from the mud in the bottom of the ditch and squinted. The sun was halfway into the sky, the crickets were chirping with deafening regularity right by her ears. She screwed up her face, trying to remember the night before.

When she remembered, she wished she hadn’t. She’d been huddled up on her favorite bench. It had been a nice night, not so bad to sleep outside this time of year, and the bench was behind a thick clump of trees, shielded from the eyes of passing policemen. She’d never even seen her abductors coming. They had grabbed her, pinning her to the ground and tying her up, giggling over how hard she fought. They laughed a lot, sounded young, reeked of cologne. University students, probably. The kind that wouldn’t look at a bag lady like her unless they were going to make her the butt of their jokes.

She took stock of herself. Bruised, sore, covered in mud. Otherwise fine.

“Use or be used, that’s how the world works, right Meg?” She spoke out loud to herself to chase away the feeling of worthlessness crawling inside of her like a slug. She patted her pockets and groaned. They’d taken all her cigarettes. Scumbags. She didn’t know which way to go to get back to the city.

“Nothing for it. Get on your feet.” She mumbled, staggering up out of the weeds and mud. She began trudging down the gravel road, smacking her lips to try and moisten her dry mouth. Maybe it was the right direction. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it didn’t really matter anymore.

She walked slowly. She was hungry—but what’s new about that, Meg? Her hair had mud plastered in it, and as she trudged she absently picked clumps of mud off her cheek. By noon, she was not sure she would ever reach the end of this infernal gravel road. To a city girl, it was an isolated hell. Just the silent heat beating down on her head, the whine of the mosquitoes, the itchy mud caked all up her side, the stabbing blisters in her feet. As the time wore on, one slow step after another, her thirst grew from a desire into an obsession, her mouth painfully dry, her breath hoarse, her head throbbing.

And then she saw the house.

It sat there like it had popped into being out of a sentimental greeting card: an adorable white cottage with a red tin roof and black shutters with flower baskets on the windowsills.

Meg stopped and stared; her mouth open. No cars. No lights on . Nobody was home. Some people, she thought, don’t lock their doors when they leave the house…There would be water inside. Maybe even a clean glass. She tripped and stumbled across the yard, wide-eyed, desperate, shoving open the door without even noticing that it was unlatched.

She stepped into a cozy kitchen. There were rugs on the floor, saucepans hung on the walls, a kettle sat on the stove. She slammed through the cabinets, found a glass, filled it up—and for a long, delicious moment there was just water, wonderful water, pouring down her throat. She filled it up again and drank, not minding when some of it dribbled out of her mouth and spilled down her face.

Her most immediate need satisfied, she stood at the window and noticed why she’d tripped on the way in. For such a beautifully kept up house, it seemed to be sitting in a patch of brush and pine trees. And there was no driveway.

Her natural wariness returned to her in a flash. Slowly she turned a full circle, eyeing the house around her, alert to the possibility of watching eyes. Comfortable couches, a picture window, a fuzzy blanket folded neatly on a footstool. Wood floors, gingham curtains and—she opened the fridge—a full refrigerator. Some vegetables, but also lunch meats and cheeses and mayonnaise. Meg loved mayonnaise.

What happened next was a delirium of indulgence. She was no more capable of stopping herself than she would have been able to throw away a cigarette if she’d been handed one.

She made herself a sandwich slathered in mayonnaise, she had a glass of lemonade, she opened all the cabinets and just stared at the fully stocked shelves, reading the labels on the jars slowly, sounding them out loud.

“Pea-nut Butt-er. Tom-a-to Sou-p.”

She touched the couches. She ran her fingers over the curtains, stared in awe at the bookshelf but did not dare put her hands on the books.

She found a bathroom with fluffy towels and little shaped soaps. When she came out twenty minutes later, her hair was clean for the first time in weeks, and her leathery skin was two shades lighter. She made herself a mayonaise sandwich and a cup of tea and then she took them and sat on the couch and just stared around her in goggle-eyed amazement. Too deliriously content to even contemplate the return of the owners, Meg staggered back to the little bedroom she’d found at the end of the hallway, tucked herself under the quilt, and was asleep even as her head touched the pillow.

Fear woke her as the first tinge of light came through the bedroom window. What on earth had she been thinking? She’d always kept her head low, always stayed out of trouble as best as she could. What would happen when they found her in here? A fine? Prison? Worse? The owners could have come back at any moment and what would have happened if they found her, dirty, ratty old Meg in their adorable house?

Terror galvanized her. Trembling, she scrambled out of bed, threw on her coat, her socks and shoes and rushed out the door. She stumbled on the way out through a mud patch in the lawn and hurried down the road, intent only on getting as far from the house as possible.

--

Full dawn came later to the little house in the strand of pine trees. The morning light sent beams across the housefront, glinting across the windowpanes. And with the sunlight, the house woke up. It shook itself like a bird fluffing its feathers, so that its shutters rattled and its curtains flapped. Then it paused, swinging the open front door a couple times as if testing that it really had been left open, that its occupant had run out so quickly she forgot to even shut it.

Then it stood up on two long, yellow, scaly legs. It cocked itself sideways, peering behind the strand of trees. It cocked itself the other way, looking behind some bushes. A distinctly dismal droop came into the blinds over the windows. And then, it saw the footprints Meg had left through the mud. With a perky bound, it hopped the mud hole and headed down the road after the footprints.

--

Meg had seen the skyline of the city in the distance and was breathing a sigh of relief. She’d get back downtown, to all her favorite haunts. It wasn’t comfortable and it wasn’t warm and cozy, but Meg knew the streets and the streets knew Meg. They just picked you up and dragged you out here. An inner voice said. You’re not safe. Nobody would care if they’d murdered you, you’re not important enough. She pushed that thought aside. Nobody would really hurt good ol’ Meg. Sure, she wasn’t smart or pretty or important, but she’d always known that. Never had been. Stupid college boys will be stupid college boys, that’s all. No harm done. But her fingers drifted nervously to her cigarette pocket and her lips trembled involuntarily.

It was at that point that she heard a heavy thump-thump-thump coming down the road behind her. She turned around and saw a white cottage with a red roof and black shutters striding towards her on giant yellow chicken legs.

Rather understandably, she screamed, and fainted.

She woke to find herself in the cottage, lying on the soft couch with the fuzzy blanket over her. Everything around her rocked gently from side to side. Swearing, she toppled off the couch and tried to stand. The floor tilted under her. The pots and pans leaned out from the walls. The floor tilted the other way. The pots and pans clanked against the wall. Half falling, half crawling, she ran to the door and began pounding on it, screaming, “Let me go! Let me go!”

Finally, her brain registered what her eyes were seeing through the door window. Outside, the city was slowly trundling by. She squinted. She recognized this place. They were on West Ave, walking down the center of the road. People on the street were screaming. Somebody, probably a policeman, was on a bullhorn.

Her street instincts kicked in again. Don’t be seen, don’t be noticed, especially not by policemen. She hunkered down against the door and held her breath as the house continued stomping down West Ave. Finally, it stopped swaying, paused for a moment, and then settled gently down to the ground. Meg lay on the floor, too petrified to move. She heard voices outside, more bullhorn shouting…exhausted, she eventually fell asleep.

The moonlight was pouring through the window when she woke. Slowly she got to her feet, tried the doorknob. It opened with a quiet click. She stared out at the vacant lot around her. This was the old place down Monteith Road, where they’d had Elber’s Construction signs up for years and never broke ground. With a rush of relief, Meg hurried out the door—and then she paused. She went back inside, grabbed the fuzzy blanket, and then sprinted across the empty lot faster than she’d ever moved in her life.

She went back to her old bench. She found an old, half used cigarette on the ground, and lit it. Then she huddled up on the bench, with the wooden slats pressing into her back, thinking about the soft couches in the walking house and the pillows and the food. Maybe those boys drugged me, she thought, but not seriously. She’d been in the house. She’d seen it and felt it and Meg was not blessed with enough imaginative power to convince herself not to believe the concrete evidence of her own eyes and ears.

Similarly, when she heard the snide giggle right behind her and smelled the cheap cologne, she didn’t waste time not believing that the same stupid frat boys were targeting her again. She just ran. But they were healthy and strong and in seconds the breath slammed out of her body as she hit the ground. They were openly jeering now, kicking her and laughing as she hunched in and tried to protect herself.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The frat boys stopped giggling.

“What the—” One of them managed, and then a scaly yellow leg swooped out of the darkness and booted him halfway across the park. The house loomed over the other boys. The windows were menacing, the shutters flapped violently, the large taloned legs stood on either side of Meg. They took the hint. They ran. The house watched them go, fluffed itself irritably with a shiver of shingles and shutters, and then sat down in a huff just yards from Meg. She inched herself up into a sitting position, staring at the house.

It flapped its front door open, impatient.

She just looked at it, eyes wide.

It wagged the door again.

Meg got up, clutching her fuzzy blanket to her chest. She took a step forward. Magical walking houses couldn’t possibly be safe. Still, if it offered an unlimited supply of mayonnaise and bread and a soft bed… She took another step. And then another.

As she reached the front stoop, a mat slid out of the house and halted at her toes. It read, “Welcome Home.”

This is the fourth story about a house that I’ve written. The fourth. I would never have predicted that sentient houses (friendly and otherwise) would be such a theme in my writing life, but apparently they are on my mind a lot. If you’d like to read the other results of my weird obsession with live houses, they are Incorporeal Estate (which, okay, the house isn’t technically alive but it’s about a house and it’s one of my favorites so…) Consumed, Consumed II, and A January Evening.