The House

 

Someone had been in the house.

Libertine knew it.

She stood in the doorway, staring.

“Look.”

She pointed towards the wall where the enormous antique mirror had once stood.

It was gone.

Not moved.

Gone.

In its place hung a cheap, ugly oval of something pretending to be what it certainly was not in her eyes. 

“No,” she whispered.

She walked further into the room.

The large television was gone too. A small dusty screened old one had replaced it.

Then another.

And another.

She turned slowly, taking everything in.

The jewellery. Rings, watches.

Gone.

The ornaments.

Gone.

Beautiful hand woven carpets.

Gone.

Even the beautiful old furniture had disappeared, replaced by things that looked as though they had been dragged from the back of an Ikea warehouse.

Inferior things.

Cheap things.

Things without history.

Things without a soul.

“Someone has been here while we were away.”

Her voice was quiet, but there was absolute conviction in it.

Her husband looked around.

“Libertine…”

“What?”

“Did you consider that we moved out already?”

She stared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“We moved out. Someone else is living here.”

She laughed once.

It wasn't a happy laugh.

“No. We live here.”

He said nothing.

“Don't look at me like that.”

“I’m not. Looking at you like anything.”

“You are.”

Then she saw him.

“There's David.”

The maintenance man was standing further down the hallway.

“Ask him.”

Libertine moved towards him.

“David. What happened here?”

He looked uncomfortable.

“What do you mean?”

“The furniture.”

He glanced around.

“I don't know.”

“The mirror.”

“I don't know.”

“The televisions. The jewellery. Everything.”

David shook his head.

“I haven't been in this house.”

Libertine stared at him.

For a moment nobody spoke.

Then her husband lowered his voice.

“Libertine, you know I'm on the edge right now.”

She turned towards David.

“I cannot work any longer.” He spoke quietly. 

He pulled up his trouser leg.

“Look at my leg.”

She looked.

The swelling was extraordinary.

One leg was almost twice the size of the other.

“Jesus.”

“I told you.”

“You need a doctor.”

“I know.”

He took one step towards her.

Then another.

His face suddenly changed.

The colour drained from it.

He reached for the wall.

“I'm not (...)”

He never finished the sentence.

He keeled over. Flat out, face to the ground.  Blood crept out from underneath him, slowly circling his head.

The sound of his body hitting the floor seemed impossibly loud inside the altered house.

Libertine froze.

Then ran towards him.

“David!! ”

Nothing.

“Call someone!”

But Libertine wasn't looking at the man on the floor anymore.

She was looking at the room.

At the hideous replacement mirror.

At the empty space where the old one had stood.

And then, very slowly, she noticed something reflected in the new glass.

A woman.

Standing behind her.

Libertine turned.

There was nobody there.

She looked back at the mirror.

The woman was still there.

Watching.

Waiting.

She recognized her, and yet didn't recognize her at all. 

And Libertine suddenly understood the most frightening thing of all.

Perhaps someone had been in the house.

Perhaps someone had taken everything.

Or perhaps the house had never belonged to Libertine in the first place.

Perhaps she had moved out and simply forgotten who lived there now.  What was happening to her?

 Somewhere beneath the noise of David struggling to breathe, beneath his body lying motionless on the floor, beneath the cheap furniture and the terrible new mirror, a woman's voice whispered angrily:

** Libertine.  You were never supposed to come back.**