Witch House by Dana Donovan Page A

what fires now make thee stronger.”
    Outside the room, the sound of slamming doors
and broken glass filled the halls. The clock on the mantle chimed
for noon, yet it was still only morning. Overhead, the light
flickered in irregular pulses. Dishes in the old china hutch
chattered upon the shelves before hopping to the floor in shattered
pieces. Behind them, the branches of the dead ficus erupted in
spontaneous flames, scorching wallpaper and blackening the window
above. Lilith flinched at a shadow that had come up beside her,
teased her hair and then faded in the light of the fire. Across the
table, something cold ruffled Ursula’s blouse, lifting it over her
breasts and scoring her bare stomach with lines resembling
fingernail scratches. She fell back in a startled jolt, breaking
her handhold with Lilith. A loud pop as that from a blown tire
snuffed out the candles, the twig and the burning ficus, but did
not halt the tremors shaking paint and plaster off the walls. The
table, bucking bronco-like, began hopping across the room, mowing
down chairs and crowding the hutch into a corner with enough force
to crack its mirror.
    “I think we should go now!” said Lilith.
    “Aye,” said Ursula. “Wither thou go, I shall
follow. Hasten and be done!”
    They fled across the living room, past the
fireplace with the clock on its mantle still chiming for the noon
hour yet to come. Objects large and small sailed across the room,
crashing at their heels. As they neared the front door, Lilith
feared that she would find it locked, but that did not happen. The
house, though protesting in upheaval, seemed more eager to expel
its guests than to consume them.
    Just after setting foot out the door, a
sucking rush of air followed them onto the porch, dragging with it
all measureable volume of air from the living room, resulting in a
structural decompression of the house substantial enough to blow
the windows in on the entire north side. With that last breath of
defiance, all paranormal activities ended; the rumbling
floorboards, the flickering lights, even the clock on the mantle
ceased. Telltale scars pockmarked the walls where nails and glass
pelted the room. The girls poked their heads inside once more to
look around. They turned to one another, smiles pulling at their
cheeks with pushpin dimples.
    “`Tis an angry one, that one” said Ursula,
“is he not?”
    “He does have issues,” Lilith replied. “That
should make this all the more fun.”
    Ursula drew a scolding bead down her.
“Lilith?”
    “What?”
    “Thou art smiling as a serpent smiles.
Methinks you wish to return, yes?”
    “Oh yes, sister, we shall return. I’m not
letting this one get away.”
    They accepted a ride back to the apartment
from Eva Kinsley, who had seen the flickering of firelight through
the dining room window and could not resist asking about it. Lilith
said to her, “He didn’t want us there.”
    “Who?” Kinsley asked.
    “Why, the ghost, of course,” said Ursula.
“Give us but his name and we shall tell thee. For aught I know,
`tis an angry soul indeed that death hath spite, for ner a spirit
more possessed as he with anger hath such a knave soul
embraced.”
    I could imagine the poor woman’s face.
“What?”
    Lilith leaned in. “She said he’s pissed.”
    “Oh.” Kinsley set her hands on the steering
wheel at the ten to two position and drove on, and that was all she
had to say about it.
    That was when Lilith first called to tell me
about the house. Later, while Carlos and I were driving out to the
Wampanoag Indian reservation, she and Ursula stole back there with
candles and incense to attempt a more structured séance.
    They returned to the dining room where the
spirit energy seemed gathered in greatest concentration. Ursula
pulled the table back into the center of the room and collected the
chairs around it. Lilith lit the candles, eight in all; four
yellow—one in each corner of the room—one brown, aligned with the
current