Starter House A Novel by Sonja Condit

table, a kindergartner had almost died of a peanut allergy three months earlier. The fourth graders and the kindergartners never crossed paths, yet the girls knew. Don’t sit there, it’s got the poison touch .
    Who would know about her house? She couldn’t ask CarolAnna Grey, who had already concealed so much and would be on guard against further questioning. Ella Dane was obviously no help. It eats babies, Madison said. Lacey had to know before the baby came.

 

    Chapter Thirteen
    ALL LACEY’S LIFE, she had watched her mother know the unknowable: she’d kept Lacey home from school the day of a tornado, she could always find a lost thing by standing still and repeating its name. Social studies book, social studies book—you were studying in bed and it’s fallen between the mattress and the headboard. Coincidence, Eric called it, when Ella Dane greeted him by name on the telephone without benefit of caller ID. Lacey always carried an umbrella if Ella Dane suggested it, no matter how bright the day seemed. So if the house was dangerous, how could Ella Dane not know?
    Lacey went into the kitchen and said, “Mom, did you feel something come through here just now?”
    Ella Dane had closed her computer and was stirring a pan of refried beans on the stove. “We’re having burritos,” she said. “Grab some plates, would you?”
    Lacey opened the cabinet and pulled out a couple of plates. “Did you?”
    Ella Dane moved the pan off the heat. “There was a draft on my neck.”
    Lacey took a breath and held it. Ella Dane used to read tarot for her friends, and then stopped, five years ago, because (she said) she was getting too good at it and did not want to open herself to demonic influences. Her last boyfriend, Jack McMure, specialized in spiritual cleansing, coming into homes that had suffered violent crimes or unhappy deaths and chanting until the spirits left. If anyone would believe her, Ella Dane would, but Ella Dane had lived in the house for a month and sensed nothing. And if she did believe, she’d call Jack in, and Lacey would have to explain it to Eric.
    “Are you feeling something in the house?” Ella Dane said. “Bibbits has been nervous. He’s an old soul, you know. Very sensitive.”
    “There’s a little boy; he keeps coming in,” Lacey said, and something crashed upstairs: broken glass, and then something heavy, tumbling and shattering as it fell.
    “Bibbits!” Ella Dane cried, and the dog barked once and then retreated to the safety of a cage of chair legs. He was shivering, with his black lips pulled off his teeth in a soundless snarl, and the stub of his tail tucked low. His panting accelerated and deepened into a cough.
    The house rang with cracks and claps, and a long rending splinter, some thick piece of wood, twisted until its fibers ripped, and the air conditioner surged on again, flooding chill air from every vent. Ella Dane rushed for the stairs, with Lacey following more slowly. Footsteps crossed the upstairs hall, which was visibly empty, with a fat serpent of dust drifting and the afternoon light striking slant columns through it. The footsteps hurried through the dust, and not one mote turned in their wake. The bathroom door slammed open and rebounded from the wall.
    “Who’s there?” Ella Dane said in a soothing voice. “We won’t hurt you.”
    Her courage took Lacey’s breath away. This invisible thing shook the house from door to roof, and Ella Dane promised not to hurt it? Lacey wished she herself could be so bold.
    All the upstairs doors stood open, except Ella Dane’s. The dust rotated through the sun-slant, and behind the white door Ella Dane’s room exploded. Lacey shrieked and covered her face, while Ella Dane hugged her. The noise went on and on, a pounding fury, footsteps racing around the room, splintering wood, flying objects crashing into walls; such a sound should have been the harmony to a scream of rage, yet they heard no voice. It ended at last, and Lacey