The house had grown again. Children ran through the new rooms in a state of excitement. Adults shook their heads in slight disquiet. Outside, the windows no longer corresponded with their location within.
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Notes:
1. Written on 13th April, 2022
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The house has always been haunted. But it hasn’t always been a house.
It is what it is. It is whatever it wants to be.
It is older than people, older than towns. It is older than birds, as old as trees, younger than stone.
It lives on dreams, then dreams itself. And as it dreams, it grows. It always has. It always will. You might as well ask tectonic plates to stay where they were born. You might as well ask the sun not to drag us down towards its heart and drown the whole solar system in its love.
The house is a labyrinth which encompasses us all.
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Notes:
1. Written between the 7th and the 9th of June, 2021
2. With one final sentence written in April 2022
“Mum! Mum! We found a new room!”
“Another one?”
“Yep!”
“It’s the second one this week!”
“This room was full of dolls!”
“They’re so creepy.”
“They all look at you!”
“And keep looking at you!”
“The whole time you’re in there!”
“And then you can hear them laughing when you leave!”
“One of them winked at me,” Daniel said. “And then her eye fell out!”
“Well, I always wondered where they all came from,” Agnes said. “You must have found their nest.”
“It’s behind Ethel’s bedroom!”
“You have to crawl through a little tunnel to get there.”
“There’s a door in my cupboard,” Ethel said. “That’s how you get in to see them.”
“And how they get out to see us!”
“There never used to be a door there,” Agnes said. “I’d have noticed.”
“We know, Mum.”
“We already told you this is a new room.”
“Well, don’t tell Oya and Anna,” Agnes said. “They might not want to know they live in a house that grows. It might frighten them.”
“Anna’s not scared of anything!” Ethel said.
“Well, Oya might be,” said Agnes. “You did say these dolls were frightening, remember?”
“We did not,” said Claire. “We said they were creepy!”
“They make you all shivery just to look at them,” Tina said.
“But they’re not scary at all,” Ethel said.
“Not even when they wink at you!” Daniel told his mother.
“And their eyes fall out!”
“And they start bleeding doll’s brains out of their eyeholes!”
“I really don’t think you should tell Oya,” Agnes said firmly.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 4th, 2021
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