Chapter 6: Blood Pact

The unseen perk of living with her parents was that Sophie had been insulated from many of the household chores. Not entirely, she helped out, took out the trash, did the dishes, but if she didn't do a task someone else would. There was a distribution of labor when she lived with family and, as long as she did help out, she never had to hear about it. Not now. Now everything was her problem. From the trash in the bin to the grass growing in the lawn, all of it was her responsibility. There were no buffers and no nags, just her and an unrelenting wave of chores. It wasn't unexpected exactly, just a little more extreme than she'd anticipated. She'd lived on her own before, but that hadn't gone well and she was trying to do better this time. Stay on top of these things. Get it done. And it wasn't all that bad because she didn't really have anything else she was supposed to be doing. No friends to hang out with or hobbies to attend to. It struck her now, now that she was alone, how empty her life felt. She should get some hobbies… maybe some exercise too…

      Anyway, it was within that never ending vortex of chores that Sophie now found herself. Her parents were coming tomorrow and she had been so fixated on the table she'd quite missed what the yard looked like. So, with no small amount of bravery, she had purchased and transported a lawn mower that day after work. And, with no small amount of exertion, had mowed both the front and back lawn. Between the effort and the heat she'd worked up a nice sweat, so it wasn't enough to mow the lawn. Oh no, she had to do laundry too. Why do laundry on the same day? Because, much like the trash and the recycle, the dirty cloths had built up. She'd done laundry with her parents, but somehow that had been less intimidating. Armed with very expensive eco-friendly detergent, she had set about doing the laundry in her own, idiosyncratic method. She had to wash the pants separately from everything else, not because the heat or spin conditions were different, but because her legs were different from her top. Very important distinction. And, having worn both pants and a top to mow the lawn, this meant doing two loads of laundry. Having planned better on previous weekends, this was a first of what would no doubt become many arduous tasks. At some point she was going to have to brave the shower again.

      Sophie squatted and peered into the dryer as if looking at it would make it go faster. It was her own fault; she'd waited until too late in the day to attend to the lawn. She hadn't wanted to do it. The anxiety had gripped her heart in a painful vice, this fear that she was somehow going to do it wrong. Her dad had always taken care of the lawn and she'd never been taught, but the principal was pretty simple. Make your way across the lawn with the mower in parallel stripes. It had taken a lot of mental effort to convince herself this was as simple as it seemed and, when she'd realized the bag needed to be changed, it had taken even more mental fortitude not to have a meltdown out where everyone could see. Tears had stung her eyes, but she'd managed to hoist the cut grass into a big, black trash bag that now peered out at her from the trash bin by her car. All that to say, it had been late in the day when she'd started sweating, late in the day when she'd started the laundry, and now it was late at night when she hoped to move things along a bit.

      There was this weird thumping noise and Sophie frowned. Never in all her years of doing laundry had she heard such a sound. It was low, almost more of a sensation than a sound, and pulsating much more slowly than the clothing in the dryer. She got on her knees and brought her face closer to the glass window on the dryer. The clothing inside spun, centripetal force holding it evenly to the cylindrical wall. It did not flop around like the noise would suggest, and if it was flopping it would've made a more consistent noise. Something like: thump, thump, thump, thump. Like the dryer was taking gigantic steps, trying to run away despite its bulk. This sound was more like: thu thump, thu thump, thu thump.

      Licking her lips and frowning, Sophie pressed her hand to the side of the dryer. It buzzed beneath her palm, but did not thump. She twisted her head and closed her eyes, willing the thumping to be the dryer. It did not comply, just buzzed, low and consistent. Yet she could feel the thumping inside her, insid her chest and in her bones. Feeling that fist of anxiety close around her heart again, Sophie slid her hand down the metallic side of the dryer to the floor. Pressed first her fingertips, then her whole hand, into the wood. Thu thump, thu thump.

      Why, then, do you say that I am mad, whispered a voice at the back of her thoughts.

      Her lips parted and she took a shaky breath. It was definitely coming from somewhere beneath the floor. Gingerly, she put her other hand down, then moved on her hands and knees down the hall towards her bedroom. Each shuffling motion made the beats louder, pressing against her palms and vibrating in her fingertips. Thu thump, thu thump, thu thump. Something… beneath the floorboards. Something alive. She stopped outside the bathroom, where the thudding was loudest, pounding inside her head. Inside her chest, where the fear was digging its nails into her heart. Sophie panted, looking down at the dark wood as if she could see through it to the source of the pounding. She couldn't, but as she looked it seemed the pounding just got louder. Faster. It was then that she closed her eyes, willing it away.

      "Stop," she yelled, balling her hands into fists.

      And it did. It stopped. It stopped and left her in a terrible, vacuous silence. Now it was her own heartbeat that was unbearable, the sound of the gasps passing over her lips that was deafening. She opened her eyes and looked first at the floor, then over her shoulder. In the dryer the light was on and the cloths were moving, but the static of the machine wasn't there. It was just breath and pulsing blood. Her skin crawled and she looked back at the floor, willing her hands to uncurl. She pressed them into the wood, then tried to sit up. One hand, the one closer to the kitchen, came away from the wood freely, but the other was stuck. It was like… a magnetism. Curling her free fingers around her wrist, she tried to forcibly pry the hand away. The sounds of her effort echoed in the artificial silence.

      Until it finally released. Sophie lost her balance for a minute, pressing one set of fingers back into the ground and looking incredulously at the other. Her chest heaved and her heart stuttered, but she couldn't move. Her palm was pale except for a few blotches of color that, as she watched, kept getting brighter. Liquid welled up from her skin, ruby red and shivering in whatever field had pulled it from her veins. The blood levitated, coming together to form a bead a few inches from her skin. The magnetism pulled her hand forward again, over the beating heart of the house as it surged beneath her. It was all Sophie could do not to fall on her face. She let out a little whimper and tried to curl her fingers into a fist again, to catch the blood, but the force wouldn't let her. For a long moment the droplet of blood hung suspended between her palm and the floorboards, glittering in the light like an opaque gem. Then it sank into the wood and Sophie woke up on the couch.

      Her neck hurt and her chest was stiff. And there was a layer of sweat on her back and between her breasts. Her lips and eyes felt dry and, groaning, she heaved her upper body forward. Pressed an aching head into her palms for a moment, then, inhaling sharply, looked at those palms. They looked fine, normal. She curled and uncurled her fingers and rubbed her fingertips together. All normal. There was an empty wine glass at her feet and the sun had been down for what looked to be quite a while outside. The lamp next to her was on, as was the TV, but nothing was playing. It was just a dark screen with a red light at the bottom. She'd fallen asleep on the couch… and yet she didn't remember doing so. What had she been watching? What had she had for dinner? Why didn't she remember these things?

      Licking her lips, Sophie looked over the back of the loveseat and down the hall. It was dark. She stood, taking a steadying breath, and moved to the kitchen in a few stiff steps. Towards the darkness. Flicking on the light, she cast an accusatory stare at the parallel walls and dark floor. Nothing. Normal. Still, her chest didn't feel normal. It hurt. Her throat felt like someone had their thumb pressed into her esophagus. She didn't want to go down there. For a moment she stood in stalemate with the hall, with its emptiness and yellow walls. There was silence in the house; outside a car went down the street and in her chest her heart was convulsing, but in the house it was still. Then she all but ran to the end, taking a sharp right and plopping before the dryer. Tentatively she opened it (the sound it made was horrible and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end) and stuck her hand in. The cloths were there and they were dry.

      So, that, at least, had been real. And if that had been real… Sophie stood, forced herself to walk three steps to the middle of the hall, then squatted outside the bathroom. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she looked skeptically at the floor. It looked back, innocent, just a floor. She reached a hand down and ran her fingertips across the wooden surface. Nothing, normal, dry. No blood, no force, nothing. Just a floor. And what she'd had had been just a dream. The pressure was on her skin, this feeling of being watched, and she sensed the walls bend in around her, as if waiting for her to make her decision.

      "It's not real," she whispered to herself, standing and rubbing her hands on her pajama pant leg as if they'd gotten dirty. "Stop it. Get it together. You said this time would be different."

      She'd meant it too: this time would be different. It already was different. Just today she'd mowed the lawn and done laundry. And worked a full eight hours. And fed herself. Maybe that wasn't a lot for some people, but it was a lot for her. It was an accomplishment. What she was feeling now, it was just… solitude. Anxiety after a bad dream. A strange dream, but just a dream. Just like the feeling on her back as the walls pressed in was just the feeling of being alone. It had only been a few weeks. She wasn't confident, like Cas said. She just needed time. She'd get used to with time. She'd get used to it.

~

      Sophie forced herself to shower, very quickly and with her heart pounding the whole time, and she forced herself into bed. Her body was exhausted from spending the whole day and the previous night on edge, but anxiety still creeped in her mind and she tossed and turned. Mercifully, the man made of smoke did not make an appearance. It was peaceful, actually, not so much as a siren. When her alarm went off in the morning she felt remarkably energetic. Not the kind of slap happy you get after days of insomnia, where your bones are tired and your brain is just three circus monkeys on a trapeze. It was more like the sort of alertness you get after exercising. A sort of energy through the tiredness. For the first time since she moved in, it seemed, she felt awake.

      She went into the kitchen, filled the little Italian coffee pot with water and coffee grounds, screwed on the top, and put it on the stove. Then she went back to her room and picked out a shirt, some pants, and a pair of socks. Normally she would've done this the night before and had them waiting in the bathroom, but she hadn't been fully operational last night. Her head hurt from napping on the couch and the memory of her nightmare felt like a finger running down her spine. Honestly it had been a miracle she'd brushed her teeth. Getting dressed quickly, she finished in the bathroom right as the coffee pot started to gurgle. Quickly transferring it to a cool burner, she poured the near black liquid into her mug and topped it off with a little water. Inhaled the complex mixture of aromas and smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like a long time.

      "Good morning coffee," she greeted after her first sip made her fully human. She looked over to the orchid in the window, with its white petals and unhappy leaves, and smiled again. "Good morning orchid. You don't look so good. Again. Maybe I need to move you? I'll ask Theo."

      Keeping the mug in one hand, she picked up the orchid in the other and moved into the living room. Tickled to find a table there, she set the plant down in the corner and slid into one of the bar stools. Took a sip of steaming coffee, set down the mug, and went to fetch her Tarot deck. She had just enough time before she had to leave for work to do her daily draw. It was a special day, the day she was going to have her parents for dinner, and she was curious as to what the universe had to say about that. Shuffling the deck as gently as she could, she spread the cards out in an arc across the table. Something must've gone awry in the shuffling because there was one card over to the right that was poking out above the others. Curious, she pulled it from its peers and flipped it over. A bound figure surrounded by swords like prison bars greeted her and her heart sank. The Eight of Swords. Being trapped. But she didn't feel trapped by her parents…

      Sophie set the card face up above the arc and collected the deck. Deciding that she would find herself and her parents each in the deck and that the card above them was how they were right now, she cut the deck in half and started looking. First she found her mother, the Chariot, and above it the Four of Wands. That was a good sign, it was a celebration card. So going into this dinner her mom was happy. Next she found her father, Temperance, and the card above that was the Seven of Pentacles. That one she had to look up; she got out her little book and flipped through to the Pentacles. The Seven meant long-term thinking and sustainability. So both her parents were coming into this optimistic. At least, that's what the cards said. Finally, near the back, she found the Moon, her own card. And above it was another card she didn't want to see. A person sitting up in bed weeping into their hands. Swords lining the wall above the bed. This was the Nine of Swords and it was appropriate because she was feeling anxiety and having nightmares.

      Her parents were not an issue; the Eight of Swords was for her. She was trapped. But she didn't know how or by what. Her nerves twisted in her stomach. The Tarot gave her a feeling of control, like a premonition, and in it she saw that she was the problem. Was it about tonight or just in general? She looked at the Eight of Swords and licked her lips, then fed it back into the deck and put the cards away. Finished her coffee and went into work. Tarot is a means of fortunetelling and as such has generalist properties. You can draw clarifying cards, like Sophie did, but too many just muddy the water. The deck meant what it said: Sophie was trapped now. She didn't know it, hadn't consented to it, but she'd made a deal with the house. A deal written in blood.

~

      The first hour or so of dinner was uneventful. Small talk. How was she settling in? Did she have any plans to paint? How was the commute? She made a roasted bell pepper soup and creamed spinach and there was some fawning over that too. It had been no small effort, the soup, and she was pleased to have a blender. The herbs had been expensive, but the bell peppers and spinach weren't bad. She'd gone to great lengths to mention how inexpensive the meal was. It was about halfway through that she noticed her dad quietly mourning the lack of a carb and vowed to include some bread on the next go. Bread wasn't that expensive. Or she could even make it herself, given the time. They talked about the orchid and Sophie mentioned that a coworker had gotten it for her, but not which coworker. Her parents- her mother, was old school and a little bemused that her daughter was not looking to be married. She didn't need to be married yet, but it seemed odd to Mom that she wasn't even looking. Dad thought he'd dodged a bullet. In either case, Sophie did not feel up to bringing up Cas. It had been sweet of him to offer to buffer her from her parents' attention, but she was relieved she'd turned him down. Besides, it was nice to see her parents again. She'd lived with them for two years and missed them.

      "It's actually really neat," she was explaining her new project at work. "The balloon is a lot less invasive to insert into the vein. You know, with a stent they really need to cut a big hole, but the balloons are super small. They just slide in and then inflate until they press on the vein wall."

      Sophie stacked up their bowls and plates and took them into the kitchen. Dad followed her to the bar and leaned on it, putting his chin in his hand.

      "How do they know they've gotten the drug onto the balloon at all," he asked, frowning a little as he thought about it.

      "That's why we're looking at the veins and the release profile in the blood. And Keith says they're going to ship us some balloons to look at too. I only got started today. Coffee?"

      "You read my mind."

      He smiled softly at her and Sophie beamed back. She got started unscrewing the Italian coffee maker and brought the coffee ground holder over to the trash can. They were this morning's coffee grounds and had long been cool, but she was so focused on making coffee she didn't consider other hazards. Mom followed her into the kitchen and was leaning against the countertop next to the trash. It was a dual trash-recycle bin and, when she lifted the lid, the full recycle was exposed. If it had been filled with cans that would've been one thing, and there were some cans, they just weren't the primary occupant. As Sophie scraped coffee grounds into the trash Mom inspected the recycle. Her mouth tensed as she debated whether or not to say anything. She didn't want to spoil the night, but…

      "That's a lot of bottles," Mom observed, speaking to Sophie's turned back as she continued to clean the coffee pot.

      Sophie's hands dropped onto the counter by the sink and her face fell. For a moment she just stood there, making a fist with one hand and holding the coffee ground receptacle tightly in the other. Then she turned on the water, filled up the coffee pot, and rinsed off the remaining coffee grounds. Piled fresh ones into the coffee pot, pressed them down, and screwed on the lid. All this was done in silence and she put the pot on the stove in silence. There were a few beeps as she turned on the heat, then she pressed her hands to either side of the stove and hunched forward. Her curls obscured her face.

      "They're wine bottles, Mom," she said tersely.

      "It's only been a few weeks," Mom pressed as gently as she could, trying not to betray her own anxieties.

Expose her fear, the memory of finding her child in such a deep pit of despair. She was a professional engineer used to dealing with complex and delicate situations, but truth be told, she was used to bulldozing those situations. It was an uncommon occurrence that she felt scared of anything. This, those bottles piled to the rim in the recycle, scared her. Dad straightened his back and folded his arms, dipping his chin to his chest. Sophie kept her head down.

"It's just wine," Sophie muttered.

"It's a lot of wine. Are you sleeping? Having mood swings?"

"Mom I'm fine!" Sophie snapped, straightening and turning. She held out her hands to either side of her body and did whatever the next step down from yelling is. "Look around! The house is clean, the dishes are done, the lawn's been mowed! I'm handling it!"

"That's not what I'm saying-"

"Yes it is. You didn't think this was a good idea. You didn't think I'd be able to live on my own."

"Sophie," Mom said defensively. "I bought a house for you- we both did. We're paying a mortgage for you. What do you mean I don't think you can live on your own? I am just saying that that is a lot of wine and you're not supposed to be drinking at all."

Sophie brought her hands up and ran them over her face. Tears were pricking in her eyes and she felt angry at them. Angry at herself for not controlling it better, for escalating. She took a deep breath and held it, biting her lip.

"Honey, be honest with me, are you okay? You're right, I am worried about you living on your own, but you're also right that the house looks great. If you tell me you're okay then I will believe you."

Sniffing and rubbing her eyes, Sophie willed her hands back down to her sides. Shook curls from her face and made fists. Letting out her breath in a low stream and tucking her chin to her chest, she looked up at Mom through dark eyelashes.

"It's a lot," she confessed, keeping her voice low. Dropping her gaze, she continued quietly. "It's a lot and I'm stressed about how expensive everything is and I've been having nightmares. But I'm still sleeping and going to work. I'm managing. That's just wine, it's nothing to be worried about. I'm okay."

"Okay," said Mom, nodding and trying to twist her face into a smile. "Okay."

~

That night, like the night before, there were no nightmares. The man made of smoke didn't come. He didn't need to. The deal had been made. She hadn't left, had stayed long enough to acclimate to the house, and now they were bound. In this world together. That's what Sophie had felt that morning and that's what she would continue to feel, the house's power. Its resolve like a narcotic in her blood. It was a slow process, changing a person, but the house had time. Now that Sophie could no longer leave, it had all the time it would require. But hunger ached in its… gut was the best word to describe it. In its very being. Starvation. It had been so long and would be longer still. The changes would take time, but not too long. Not too much longer now.