December Routines

The alarm buzzed at 5:45 AM, and Maya rolled out of bed with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd made morning CrossFit a non-negotiable part of her routine. Jake groaned theatrically but followed suit, and by 6:15 they were walking through the gym doors together, travel mugs of coffee in hand and gym bags slung over their shoulders.

Maya had thrown herself into the workouts with renewed intensity since the move, finding that the physical exertion helped quiet the restless energy that seemed to follow her around the new house. She'd naturally gravitated toward Lisa during partner exercises; they were the same size and their similar strength levels made it easy to use the same weights in buddy exercises. What Jake noticed more than their workout compatibility was the easy way they touched during exercises, how Maya's hand would linger on Lisa's shoulder during breaks, the inside jokes that made them both laugh until they had to wipe tears from their eyes.

"Maya and Lisa are becoming quite the power duo," Marcus commented one morning after watching them demolish a particularly brutal partner WOD. Jake glanced over to see Maya and Lisa in close conversation, their heads bent together in a way that suggested intimate familiarity. They were still breathing hard from the workout, and something about the flush in Maya's cheeks and the way she looked at Lisa stirred an uncomfortable knot in Jake's stomach.

After the gym, they'd return home to shower and settle into their respective work routines. Maya had claimed the dining room table as her office, spreading her laptop and client files across the polished wood surface. Her corporate consulting work had picked up significantly since the move, with several companies seeking her expertise in organizational restructuring. The steady income was reassuring as they navigated mortgage payments and renovation costs.  Jake made occasional jokes about her being the ‘grim reaper’ as she made recommendations on layoffs; sometimes very large layoffs.

Jake's home office was finally exactly as he wanted it: monitors arranged for optimal workflow, reference books organized by topic, whiteboards covered with renewable energy project timelines. His environmental consulting business was starting to pick up, with municipalities across the Pacific Northwest seeking his guidance on solar installation feasibility and wind power integration. The work felt meaningful, each project a step toward the sustainable future he'd dedicated his career to building.  His income lagged far behind Maya’s, but that was the nature of environmental consulting.  He tipped a quick salute to the picture of Benjamin Franklin on his wall with the quote “Do well by doing good!” under it.

Evenings were devoted to house projects. They'd spent most of December painting the guest bedroom a warm sage green that Maya insisted would be "perfect for visitors." Jake had learned to navigate the Victorian's quirks: the way the bathroom door needed to be lifted slightly to close properly, how the kitchen faucet required a specific twist to avoid dripping, which floorboards creaked and which were silent underfoot.

Christmas decorating had become an unexpected source of gentle conflict. Maya had discovered boxes of vintage ornaments in the attic, carefully wrapped in tissue paper that crumbled at her touch. The ornaments were exquisite: delicate glass bells, hand painted wooden angels, silver tinsel that caught the light like captured starlight.

"These are so beautiful," Maya had breathed, holding up a tiny ceramic nativity scene. "We should use them all. I want a really traditional Christmas this year, something that honors the history of this house."

"They're nice," he'd agreed, examining a slightly tarnished star tree topper, "but let's mix them with some of our own decorations too. Make it feel like ours."  He paused.  “They’re kind of old fashioned.  Where were they, again?  I thought we went through all the boxes up there.”

“Oh, under the eaves.  It’s a big attic, we just missed them.”

Maya seemed determined to recreate some idealized Rockwellian Christmas, insisting they needed more garland, more candles, more of everything that would make the house look like a holiday postcard. An atheist who’d never shown a particular enthusiasm for Christmas, this struck Jake as a bit odd.   But he went along with it, attributing her enthusiasm to the excitement of their first Christmas in their own home.

The supernatural events were subtle enough to dismiss. Ornaments that Maya was certain she'd hung on specific branches would appear elsewhere the next morning. The Christmas lights they'd strung around the living room windows would flicker in patterns that seemed almost rhythmic, like Morse code spelling out messages neither of them could decipher. When Jake mentioned replacing the lights, thinking it was an electrical issue, Maya insisted they were perfect as they were.

"Old houses have character," she'd say, as if the flickering were a charming quirk rather than a potential fire hazard.

House Projects and Growing Strangeness

January 2020 brought a renewed sense of purpose to their home renovation efforts. The holiday decorations had been carefully packed away, and Maya and Jake threw themselves into more substantial projects that would make the Victorian theirs. They'd hired contractors to refinish the hardwood floors throughout the main level, a process that required them to relocate to the upper floors for nearly two weeks while the work was completed.

The bathroom renovation was Maya's pet project. She'd found original subway tiles at an architectural salvage yard and insisted on restoring the clawfoot tub rather than replacing it with something modern. 

Jake enjoyed watching Maya get wrapped up in her aesthetic improvement projects around the house.  His real passion project was researching energy efficiency upgrades for the house. Jake spent hours in his office analyzing the home's energy consumption patterns, calculating potential savings from solar panel installation, and investigating the best insulation improvements for a structure built in the 1800s. The more he learned about making the old house energy efficient, the more he thought he might be able to pivot his environmental consulting business into doing this work for others with old houses.  The work for the energy companies paid the bills, at least some of them, but it was difficult to get passionate about.  And he always felt a little greasy after dealing with energy executives and their legions of MBAs.

As Maya and Jake worked tirelessly on the house, the construction seemed to awaken something in the house itself. Tools would migrate from where they’d been left, appearing in entirely different rooms with no explanation. A paint can placed in the guest bedroom would turn up in the basement workshop. Measuring tape would vanish from a toolbox only to reappear draped over the vanity mirror upstairs Maya had relocated from the attic.

"I swear I left the level on the kitchen counter," Jake would mutter, finding it balanced perfectly on the mantelpiece in the living room.

The temperature fluctuations became impossible to ignore. Rooms would suddenly become frigid despite the heating system working perfectly, or blazingly hot when the thermostat read a comfortable 68 degrees. The pattern seemed random, but Jake began to notice that certain areas of the house affected him more than others.

They found themselves gravitating to different parts of the large victorian.  Jake spent time in the kitchen, the sunny breakfast nook, and the upstairs master bathroom, where he started to take long soaks in the clawfooted tub.

Maya experienced the opposite pull. She was increasingly fascinated by what she assumed was Frank's workshop in the basement. The small study off the living room became her favorite place to make phone calls. She'd installed a comfortable chair there and often had cable news on in the background, muted.  She flipped through channels throughout the day, but Jake noticed with dismay that FOX news was more and more in her rotation.

Both noticed changes in their sleep. Some nights they'd fall into deep, restorative slumber, waking refreshed and energized. Other nights brought restless dreams filled with conversations in rooms they'd never seen, arguments in voices that weren't their own, emotions that felt borrowed from someone else's life.

The supernatural activity escalated with each day of construction. Doors would swing open in rooms they'd just left. The old radiators would clang and hiss at odd hours, as if responding to conversations only they could hear. Light bulbs would flicker in sequence, creating patterns that seemed almost communicative.

"Maybe the house is trying to tell us something," Jake suggested one evening after finding his solar panel calculations rearranged into neat piles.

Maya looked up from the renovation timeline she'd been updating. "Houses don't communicate, Jake. Old structures settle, especially when you're doing major work. The temperature changes are probably from disturbed insulation, and we're both just tired from the construction dust and noise."  She looked back down, and Jake thought he noticed an eyeroll he wasn’t meant to have seen.

"I know it sounds crazy," Jake persisted, "but it feels like the house is reacting to the changes we're making. Like it's trying to show us something."

Maya smiled indulgently and returned to her timeline. "It's just an old house adjusting to new owners. Nothing supernatural about renovation stress."

Lockdown

March 15th arrived with an email that changed everything. Maya stared at her laptop screen in the dining room, reading the message from her biggest client three times before the words fully registered. All in-person consulting engagements were suspended indefinitely. Remote work only. No travel. No face-to-face meetings. The corporate restructuring project she'd been leading, worth nearly forty thousand dollars over six months, was being "postponed pending reassessment of current market conditions."

"Jake!" she called toward his office. "Are you seeing this?"

Jake emerged holding his phone, his face pale. "Governor Brown just announced a statewide stay-at-home order. Two weeks to flatten the curve." He sank into the chair across from her. "The renewable energy conference in Seattle got canceled. The wind farm assessment I was supposed to start next week is on hold. Everything's just... stopped."

They sat in stunned silence, both processing the sudden collapse of their carefully planned lives. The house renovation projects that had seemed so important yesterday now felt frivolous, irrelevant in the face of a global pandemic that had somehow reached their quiet Portland neighborhood.

"Two weeks," Maya said finally. "We can handle two weeks."

But by the end of March, it was clear that two weeks had been optimistic. The stay-at-home order extended, then extended again. Their CrossFit gym closed indefinitely. Restaurants shuttered. The city that had hummed with activity and possibility just weeks before felt like a ghost town.

Maya's initial concern about lost income quickly transformed into something sharper and more political. She spent increasing amounts of time in Frank's old study, FOX news playing constantly in the background. Her phone calls with clients became heated discussions about government overreach and economic devastation.

"This is insane," she announced one morning in early April, gesturing at the television where Governor Brown was announcing another extension of lockdown measures. "Shutting down the entire economy for a virus with a ninety-nine percent survival rate? Small businesses are going bankrupt while politicians collect their full salaries."

Jake looked up from his own laptop, where he'd been researching unemployment benefits and emergency small business loans. "Maya, people are dying. The hospitals in New York are overwhelmed. This is about public health, not politics."

"Public health?" Maya's voice carried an edge Jake had never heard before. "What about the public health impact of unemployment? Depression? Domestic violence? All the deaths that will result from economic collapse?" She gestured toward the window. "Look outside. Beautiful spring day, and we're prisoners in our own home because the government decided they know better than we do about our own risk tolerance."

The argument might have ended there, but something about Maya's phrasing, "prisoners in our own home," struck Jake as extreme. This was their house, their sanctuary, not a prison. They had food, internet, each other. Millions of people were dealing with far worse circumstances.

"We're not prisoners," he said carefully. "We're doing our civic duty. Sacrificing a little comfort to protect vulnerable people. That's what communities do."

"Civic duty?" Maya's laugh was harsh. "Jake, they've destroyed the economy over seasonal flu statistics. Meanwhile, China gets away with covering up the initial outbreak, and somehow that's our fault?" She turned back to her laptop, typing aggressively. "I'm looking into getting involved with some groups that are organizing protests against these lockdown orders."

Jake felt something cold settle in his stomach. "Protests? Maya, those gatherings are what spread the virus. You're talking about putting yourself and everyone else at risk."

"I'm talking about standing up for constitutional rights," Maya snapped. "Freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, the right to earn a living. These are fundamental American principles, Jake. Or did you forget that while you've been hiding in the house terrified of fresh air?"

The accusation stung more than Jake expected. "I'm not terrified, I'm responsible. There's a difference between being cautious and being cowardly."

"Is there?" Maya's voice was getting louder, more aggressive. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like half the country has been convinced to surrender their liberty for the promise of safety. And you know what Benjamin Franklin said about that trade-off."

Jake stared at his girlfriend, searching for something familiar in her face. The Maya he knew was practical, science-oriented, skeptical of conspiracy theories. This woman sounded like she'd been watching too much Fox News and reading too many Facebook posts.

"What's happened to you?" he asked quietly.

Maya's expression shifted, becoming defensive. "What's happened to me? I've woken up, Jake. I've stopped letting fear control my decisions. Maybe the question is what's happened to you? When did you become someone who trusts the government more than his own judgment?"

The argument escalated from there, with Maya accusing Jake of being a sheep who blindly followed authority, while Jake accused Maya of being selfish and scientifically illiterate. They'd never fought like this before, with personal attacks and fundamental disagreements about reality itself.

By evening, they were barely speaking. Maya had spent the afternoon researching anti-lockdown groups online, while Jake had made calls to his elderly parents, his immunocompromised sister, anyone who might help him feel grounded in the reality of the pandemic's genuine dangers.

That night, they lay in bed with careful space between them, both staring at the ceiling and wondering how their relationship had suddenly become a battleground over issues they'd never disagreed about before.

The house seemed to pulse with their tension. Doors slammed shut in empty rooms. The heating system cycled on and off erratically, leaving some rooms stifling while others became frigid. And somewhere in the walls, if they listened carefully, they could almost hear the echo of other arguments, arguments of another couple who had found their love tested by forces beyond their control.

Isolation Deepens

By May, the lockdown had stretched into its second month, and the walls of their beautiful Victorian were beginning to feel like a cage. Maya had established herself permanently in Frank's study, her laptop surrounded by printed articles about economic impacts, constitutional law, and what she'd started calling "the real science" behind COVID-19 mortality rates.

Jake had retreated to his office, but found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on renewable energy projects when the world seemed to be unraveling. His environmental consulting business had essentially evaporated as clients focused on immediate survival rather than long-term sustainability goals. Without the structure of regular gym sessions and social interaction, his days felt shapeless and purposeless.  One day, rummaging through his desk, he found a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, crisp, unyellowed, as though bought yesterday.  

"I'm going for a walk," Maya announced one afternoon, pulling on her jacket with defiant energy. "Fresh air and sunshine. Remember those? The things that were supposed to kill us but somehow didn't?"

Jake looked up from his laptop where he'd been reading about small business relief programs. "Outside is fine, but the guidelines are still to limit contact outside of our bubble.  Which is just us."

"Recommendations," Maya repeated with obvious disdain. "Not laws, Jake. Recommendations. I'm a grown woman who can assess my own risk tolerance. I don't need Kate Brown's permission to exist in the world.  And maybe our bubble isn’t big enough."

She was gone for nearly three hours, and when she returned, she was energized in a way Jake hadn't seen in weeks. She'd apparently met other people in the park who shared her perspective on the lockdowns, exchanged phone numbers, made plans to attend a "Reopen Oregon" rally the following weekend.

"You should come," she said, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. "These are good people, Jake. Small business owners, working families who are losing everything while politicians play it safe with other people's livelihoods."

"Maya, mass gatherings are literally the thing that spreads respiratory viruses. You're talking about intentionally creating a superspreader event."

"I'm talking about exercising constitutional rights," Maya shot back. "And standing up to authoritarian government overreach. But I guess you'd rather stay home and let them destroy the economy one 'two week extension' at a time."

Jake felt a familiar knot of frustration in his chest. These conversations always ended the same way, with Maya accusing him of cowardice and him accusing her of recklessness. Neither of them seemed capable of finding middle ground anymore.

"I'm worried about you," he said finally. "This isn't like you, Maya. The person I fell in love with didn't believe in conspiracy theories or political extremism."

Maya's face hardened. "The person you fell in love with hadn't watched the government destroy her business and lock her in her own home for two months. People change, Jake. They adapt. Maybe you should try it sometime instead of just accepting whatever narrative CNN feeds you."

That night, Jake found himself alone in their bedroom while Maya slept on the couch downstairs, claiming she needed to monitor "developing news situations" online. He lay awake listening to the house around him, the creaking and settling that had once felt comforting but now seemed ominous.

Through the walls, he could swear he heard voices: a woman's voice, sharp with frustration, and a man's voice, defensive and angry. The words were indistinct, but the emotions were clear. 

The similarities were too obvious to ignore, but Jake pushed the thought away. They were just stressed, isolated, dealing with unprecedented circumstances. People all over the world were struggling with similar tensions. It didn't mean anything supernatural was happening.

But as he finally drifted toward sleep, Jake had the sudden disturbing thought that their beautiful house was somehow feeding on their discord, growing stronger with each argument, each night they spent sleeping apart.

That night he dreamt of Elenor, standing outside their front door, beaconing to him frantically to leave the house, to run while he could.

Maya's Transformation

The change in Maya accelerated after the anti-lockdown rally. She'd returned from the event energized and full of new connections, her phone buzzing constantly with group messages from people who shared her increasingly radical perspectives on government overreach and pandemic response.

Jake noticed the physical changes first. Maya had always been fit, but now she spent hours each day in their makeshift home gym in the basement, lifting weights with an intensity that bordered on aggressive. She'd cut her hair shorter and started styling it in a way that emphasized angles rather than softness. Her posture had changed too, becoming more rigid, more confrontational.

"I've been thinking about getting a gun," she announced casually one morning while Jake made coffee. "For home protection."

Jake nearly dropped the coffee pot. "A gun? Maya, we live in one of the safest neighborhoods in Portland. What do you need protection from?"

"Have you been paying attention to the riots?" Maya gestured toward the television, which was tuned to Fox News coverage of civil unrest following George Floyd's death. "Downtown Portland is a war zone. These people are coming for the suburbs next, and when they do, I want to be prepared."

"Those are protests against police brutality," Jake said carefully. "And they're not coming for the suburbs, Maya. You're talking about buying a weapon based on fear-mongering propaganda."

Maya's expression grew cold. "Propaganda? Jake, I've seen the videos. Buildings on fire, businesses destroyed, innocent people attacked. That's not propaganda, that's reality. And while you're sitting here making excuses for domestic terrorism, I'm thinking about how to protect our home."

Jake stared at his girlfriend, searching for any trace of the woman he'd moved in with just six months earlier. That Maya had been practical but not paranoid, politically engaged but not extremist. This woman sounded like she'd been radicalized by internet echo chambers and cable news.

"Maya, listen to yourself. Six months ago you voted for Elizabeth Warren. Now you're talking about armed self-defense against civil rights protesters. Don't you see how extreme that sounds?"

"Six months ago I believed the system was worth reforming," Maya replied coldly. "Now I've watched that same system lock us in our homes, destroy the economy, and enable violent riots in the name of social justice. Maybe extreme times call for extreme measures."

She left for another "networking meeting" with her new political friends, leaving Jake alone in the house that no longer felt like home. He wandered through the rooms they'd so carefully renovated, looking for some trace of their former happiness, but everything felt different now. Colder. More hostile.

In Frank's study, where Maya now spent most of her time, Jake found printouts of articles about Second Amendment rights, constitutional law, and what she'd started calling "the government's war on working Americans." Her browser history showed hours spent on websites that Jake recognized as far-right propaganda outlets.

But mixed in with the political extremism were stranger elements: articles about "spiritual warfare" and "protecting your home from negative influences." Videos about "cleansing rituals" and "reclaiming your power from toxic relationships." It was as if Maya was preparing for some kind of battle that existed only in her increasingly paranoid imagination.

That evening, Maya returned home with a catalog from a local gun store and a stack of paperwork for concealed carry permit applications. She spread them across the kitchen table with obvious excitement, as if she were planning a vacation rather than arming herself for civil war.

"I've been talking to Tom and Linda from the rally," she said, referring to a middle-aged couple who'd become her primary political allies. "They've recommended a great self-defense course. Women-only instruction, very empowering. I'm thinking about signing up next week."

Jake watched her flip through pages of handgun specifications with growing horror. This wasn't just political disagreement anymore. Maya was transforming into someone he didn't recognize, someone whose worldview had become fundamentally incompatible with his own values and beliefs.

"Maya," he said quietly, "I think we need to talk to someone. A counselor, maybe. We're losing each other."

Maya looked up from the gun catalog with genuine surprise, as if the idea of their relationship being in trouble hadn't occurred to her. "We're fine, Jake. Better than fine, actually. I'm finally becoming the person I was meant to be instead of the person society told me to be. Maybe you should try it sometime."

But as she returned to her research, Jake caught a glimpse of something in her expression that made his blood run cold. For just a moment, Maya's face had looked different. Harder. More masculine. As if someone else was looking out through her eyes.

The moment passed so quickly that Jake convinced himself he'd imagined it. But that night, as he listened to Maya pacing downstairs, Jake found himself wondering if the woman he loved was disappearing entirely, and what was replacing her if she was.

The Affair 

Jake discovered the affair on a Tuesday afternoon in June when he came home early from a failed client meeting. His environmental consulting business was hemorrhaging money, and the solar panel company he'd been courting had just told him they were "reassessing their expansion timeline"; corporate speak for "we're not hiring consultants right now."

He walked through the front door expecting to find Maya in Frank's study with her laptop and cable news, but the house was eerily quiet. Her car was in the driveway, and her purse sat on the kitchen counter next to two coffee cups, both still warm.

"Maya?" he called, climbing the stairs toward their bedroom.

The door was cracked open just enough for him to see inside. Maya was in bed with Lisa, their naked bodies intertwined. They were talking quietly, intimately, Maya's hand tracing patterns on Lisa's bare shoulder.

"He doesn't understand me anymore," Maya was saying. "Jake's become so weak, so willing to just accept whatever they tell him. You remember what I used to be like, before I let myself get domesticated."

"You're finding yourself again," Lisa replied, kissing Maya's collarbone. "The person you were when we were together. Strong. Independent. Not some suburban housewife worried about mortgage payments."

Jake stood frozen in the hallway, watching his relationship disintegrate through a crack in the bedroom door. The physical betrayal hurt, but Maya's words cut deeper. She was rewriting their entire history, casting their commitment as weakness rather than love, their home as a trap rather than a dream they'd built together.

He backed away quietly, left the house, and drove aimlessly through Portland for three hours before returning. By then, Lisa was gone, and Maya was back in Frank's study as if nothing had happened.

"How was your meeting?" she asked without looking up from her laptop.

"Fine," Jake replied, pouring himself a large glass of wine. Then another. "Just fine."

Jake's Descent

The drinking started as a way to sleep. Jake would lie in bed next to Maya, knowing she'd been with Lisa that afternoon, knowing she was planning to see her again, and the knowledge felt like acid eating through his chest. Wine helped blur the edges, made the betrayal feel distant and manageable.

But wine led to whiskey, and occasional drinks led to nightly bottles. Jake would sit in the kitchen after Maya went to bed, working his way through their liquor cabinet while staring out at the backyard they'd once planned to fill with barbecues and laughter.

The blackouts started in July. Jake would remember pouring his first drink of the evening, then wake up on the couch with no memory of how he'd gotten there. Empty bottles would appear in the recycling bin, though he couldn't recall finishing them. He'd find notes written in his own handwriting; research about the house's history, angry rants about Maya's transformation, fragments of conversations he couldn't remember having.

One morning he woke to discover he'd apparently spent hours in the basement, moving furniture and boxes around. His laptop showed browser searches for "Morrison family Portland Oregon" and "Victorian house deaths 1990s." The wine cellar had been completely reorganized, bottles arranged by decade in a pattern that seemed meaningful but made no sense to his hungover brain.

"Did you go downstairs last night?" Maya asked over coffee, her tone casual but watchful.

"I don't remember," Jake admitted, which was becoming his standard response to most questions about his evenings.

Maya studied his face with an expression he couldn't read. "You've been talking in your sleep. Frankly, you’ve been saying some really weird shit."

Jake felt ice in his veins. "What?"

"Probably just stress dreams," Maya said dismissively, but something in her eyes suggested she knew more than she was saying. "Old houses can give people strange dreams."

Escalating Horror

The supernatural activity in the house intensified as Jake's drinking worsened and Maya's affair with Lisa became a regular occurrence. Doors that had occasionally drifted closed now slammed shut with violent force. The temperature fluctuations became extreme: rooms would shift from comfortable to freezing in seconds, or become so hot that wallpaper began to peel in corners.

Jake started finding objects that didn't belong to them: a man's vintage watch in the bathroom, old photographs tucked between couch cushions, bottles of pills with labels too faded to read. When he showed them to Maya, she'd shrug and suggest they were things the previous owners had missed, though Jake was certain they hadn't been there before.

The mirrors in the house began reflecting things that weren't there: faded images of faces like old pictures. Sometimes the images moved, often rapidly.  The images lasted less than seconds, but they were vivid enough that Jake started avoiding his own reflection.

Maya seemed immune to the escalating strangeness, or perhaps she simply didn't care. She spent her days in Frank's study and her evenings either at political meetings or with Lisa. When Jake tried to discuss the supernatural events, she'd dismiss them as symptoms of his drinking.

"Maybe if you weren't drunk every night, you wouldn't see things that aren't there," she suggested one evening after Jake mentioned hearing voices in the walls.

But the voices were getting stronger, more distinct. Late at night, Jake could hear arguments echoing through the house: a man's voice, angry and defensive, a woman's voice, sharp with years of accumulated resentment. The words were usually unclear, but the emotions were unmistakable: love curdled into hatred, dreams destroyed by stubbornness and pride.

One night Jake walked by Frank’s study and he could hear Maya on the phone.  He could tell from her tone, a sort of sing-song flirty voice, that she was talking to Lisa.  Even though he was past the wine stage of the night, and into the gin and tonic stage, he had to get out of the house.  He got his N95 mask and got behind the wheel of their Nissan.  He blearily made his way to the closest gas station. On the way home, flashing blue lights light up his rearview mirror.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”  The officer was a young man, trim in his polished state trooper uniform.  His voice dripped with disapproval.

“I’m sorry, officer, was I speeding?”  Jake focused on each syllable, trying to pronounce it as clearly as possible through his mask.  He prayed as he spoke that the officer would chalk up any slurs to the mask.  He’d followed the quarantine rules, the lack of contact, the handwashing protocols.  It was about time that payed off.  He’d followed the rules, goddammit, and the universe owed him one.

“You were swerving, pretty much all over the road.  Where are you headed?”

“Oh, I’m headed home.  I’m almost there.”  Jake looked down the street trying to focus.  His eyes snapped open and he smiled broadly. “There, I’m headed right there - that’s my house.”  Jake pointed; his house was about a block and a half away.  

The officer looked at him, dubiously.  “License, please.”

Jake tried to pull his license out of his back pocket, and somehow got his hand caught in the seatbelt, then managed to drop the license between the seat and the center console.  After what felt like hours of struggling, he managed to present the license to the officer, who studied it carefully, looked at Jake, looked at the house, then back at the license.  He walked away for a moment, speaking into his radio.  Jake’s heart thudded, a feeling of powerlessness overwhelming him.

“Ok, look.  No way should you be driving.  I think we both know that.  No, don’t say anything.  You’re almost home.  And you don’t have any priors, so this clearly isn’t something you do all the time.  So what we’re going to do is this: I’m going to take your license, and your keys.  We’re going to lock your car and you’re going to walk home.  Then, tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to sleep it off, you can have someone drive you to the station to get your license and keys.  I’m also going to write you a warning, so that if you ever pull this shit again, the next officer will know it’s a pattern, and not to let you off so easily.  Do you understand?”

Jake nodded.

“I’m going to need you to say it.”

“Yes, officer, I understand.”

“You know, I could have been a lot harder on you.  I don’t think a ‘thank you’ would be amiss in this situation.”

“Thanks…  thank you, officer.”

Jake walked back home.  When he arrived, he went in and made himself another gin and tonic.  And then he went back out to the front porch and pulled the pack of cigarettes and the lighter he had bought at the gas station out, and lit one.  As he smoked, his cheeks burned.  They burned with indignation.  They burned with the feeling that he wasn’t being treated fairly.  With each cigarette he smoked, that ember of resentment built toward a raging bonfire.

The Pattern Emerges

By August, Jake's research into the house's history had become an obsession fueled by alcohol and sleepless nights. He'd managed to track down newspaper archives, property records, even neighbors who remembered Frank and Eleanor Morrison. 

Frank and Eleanor had been happy once, a young couple full of hope who'd moved into the Victorian in 1948 with dreams of building a life together. Those dreams soon clashed with reality. Eleanor's support for women's rights had clashed with Frank's traditional values. Her growing independence had threatened his sense of masculine authority. Their inability to have children had left a void that politics and resentment had rushed to fill.

By the 1980s, they'd been living like enemies in the same house, Frank retreating to his basement workshop and Eleanor to her beauty salon business. Neighbors remembered the arguments that would echo from the Victorian at all hours, the police visits, the way their yard had gone from immaculate to overgrown as they'd focused all their energy on destroying each other.

There was an arrest record for Frank.  Jake couldn’t access the file, of course, but conversations with neighbors intimated that he’d gotten drunk and slapped Elenor around.  

They'd died in 1995, but the circumstances were unclear. The newspaper reported a car accident on a rainy night, but the details were vague. No other vehicles involved. No evidence of mechanical failure. Just Frank and Eleanor, found dead in their car at the bottom of a ravine, as if they'd driven off the road in the middle of one of their endless arguments.

When Jake tried to share what he’d found with Maya, she dismissed it as the paranoid fantasies of an alcoholic. "You're losing your grip on reality, Jake. Maybe you should worry less about dead people and more about saving your marriage."

January 6th

The television was on again, volume low but insistent, the blue-white light flickering across the kitchen walls. Every station carried the same looping images: crowds waving flags, voices shouting into bullhorns, politicians’ faces framed by split-screen outrage. Maya sat at the table with her laptop open, but her eyes never left the crawl of headlines.

“They’re stealing it from us,” she muttered, her fingers drumming against the tabletop. “Months of lockdowns, trillions in wasted money, and now they want to pretend the election was clean?” Her voice was sharper than she intended, but she didn’t pull it back.

Jake leaned against the counter, nursing a glass of bourbon that wasn’t his first of the day. The cigarette burning in the ashtray beside him had been lit automatically, thoughtlessly, the way someone reaches for water when thirsty. He hadn’t smoked in ten years, but now the nicotine pulled at him like an old friend.

“You sound just like him,” Jake said softly.

Maya turned her head. “Like who?”

“The house,” he said, though that wasn’t what he meant. He meant Frank — the voice that had begun to leak out of her mouth in their arguments, the fury that wasn’t hers but had taken root anyway.

Maya laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the only one in this house who’s paying attention.”

The overhead light flickered twice, then went dark for a full second before humming back to life. Neither of them moved. They were used to it by now.

Jake poured more bourbon, the ice clinking loud in the silence. “You think screaming at the TV is going to change anything? You think your rage makes you more free?” He stubbed out his cigarette with unnecessary force, leaving a smear of ash across the porcelain dish.

Maya’s hands clenched on the table. “At least I care. At least I’m not drowning myself every night like Eleanor.”

The name slipped out before she realized it. The moment it landed, the kitchen seemed to tighten around them, the walls pressing closer, the air heavier. Jake froze, his glass halfway to his lips.

“Who?” His voice was flat, but his eyes searched hers with something like fear.

Maya opened her mouth, but nothing came. Her throat worked soundlessly, as if another voice wanted to speak through her but hadn’t yet found the right words.

The faucet dripped once. Then again. A third drop fell, thick and red as wine, splashing against the steel basin with a metallic ping. Jake set the glass down hard enough that bourbon sloshed over the rim.

The house exhaled. It was the only way to describe the sudden draft that pushed through the kitchen, rattling the windowpanes and stirring the smell of smoke and something older — hair tonic, floor polish, roast beef gone sour.

Maya rose to her feet. “You’re weak,” she said, but the timbre of her voice was deeper now, almost masculine. “Always hiding, always afraid to take control. You’d let them take everything from us.”

Jake laughed, a broken rasp that wasn’t his own. He picked up the cigarette again, fingers trembling as he brought it to his lips. “And you,” he whispered, smoke curling from his mouth like a ghost, “always counting dollars while the house burned down around you. You think money is going to save you?”

The television popped, the picture fragmenting into static. For one terrible second, both of them heard voices layered over the white noise: Frank shouting about respect, Eleanor’s voice sharp with betrayal — and then their own, tangled together until it was impossible to tell whose argument belonged to which century.

Maya pressed her palms flat on the table. The wood felt warm beneath her hands, as though another pair rested there too. Jake leaned back against the counter, dizzy from drink and smoke, and swore he felt someone’s arm settle across his shoulders in mock comfort.

From somewhere deep in the house came the sound of a door slamming. Then another. Then another. The house was pacing, restless, impatient.

On the TV, the chaos in Washington escalated: chants, flags, fists in the air. In the kitchen, silence fell, thick and waiting.

The argument bled away into silence, but the house refused silence.

From the ceiling above, a steady thump began, not footsteps this time, but something heavier, dragging across the attic floor. The sound moved from one end of the house to the other, circling like a predator.

Maya and Jake froze, listening. The dragging stopped. Then, with a splintering crack, one of the kitchen cabinets flew open, hurling a stack of plates across the room. They shattered at Jake’s feet.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, but the words came out with Eleanor’s rasp, as though his throat wasn’t his own.

Maya turned on him, her eyes wide and fever-bright. “You can’t keep hiding behind her,” she snapped, though her voice dropped low, thick with Frank’s fury. “She wasted her life on resentment. Don’t you dare make me into her.”

As if in answer, the lights flickered off completely, plunging the kitchen into darkness. Then the house filled with sound: a gramophone’s waltz, faint and scratchy at first, swelling until the walls pulsed with it. Horns blared, violins screeched, and beneath the music came voices — Frank shouting, Eleanor screaming, the words indistinguishable but the hatred unmistakable.

Jake fumbled for the counter, his hand brushing against the revolver’s cold steel, but he pulled away as though burned. He could smell Eleanor’s perfume now, cloying and sweet, wrapping around his throat like a noose. His hands trembled for another cigarette, but he had none left; instead, he felt the phantom press of a lighter in his palm.

Maya staggered back from the table. The wallpaper was shifting before her eyes, patterns peeling away into older layers — cheerful florals, then yellowed stripes, then bare plaster etched with words scratched deep into the lath. MINE. MINE. MINE.

The chandelier above them began to sway, faster and faster, until one crystal prism broke free and shattered on the floor. The shards reflected the kitchen in dozens of fragments: in one, Maya saw her own face twisted into Frank’s; in another, Jake’s reflection wore Eleanor’s weary smile.

“Maya,” Jake said, but the voice that came out was not his, it was Eleanor’s, desperate and tired. “Don’t let him do this to you.”

Maya’s mouth opened, but Frank answered through her: “Respect is all that matters. Without it, a man is nothing.”

The house roared then, a guttural groan that came from the foundation itself, shaking the floorboards beneath their feet. Every door slammed at once. The windows rattled in their frames. A rush of icy air swept through the kitchen, carrying with it the acrid stink of cigarette ash and the sour tang of old wine.

Jake staggered against the counter, coughing, eyes watering. He saw shadows moving in the corners, not just tricks of light but figures: Frank in his work shirt, fists clenched; Eleanor with her hair loose, face streaked with tears, a cigarette burning down between her fingers. They argued silently, mouths moving in a loop of rage that had never ended.

And then the figures turned to face them.

Maya’s breath hitched. She felt Frank settle inside her bones, his fury filling her chest until she could hardly breathe. Jake felt Eleanor’s exhaustion, her bitter resignation, pressing down on him like weight. The music rose to a fever pitch, the scratchy record skipping and repeating, skipping and repeating, until it became a chant: ENOUGH. ENOUGH. ENOUGH.

The temperature dropped so suddenly that frost bloomed across the window glass. The faucet turned itself on, water streaming red for three long seconds before running clear again. Upstairs, something heavy crashed; a wardrobe toppled, or perhaps a body.

Jake clutched the counter, the revolver gleaming beside his hand. Maya stood across from him, trembling with rage not entirely her own. The house was alive, its walls pulsing with fury and despair, demanding resolution.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The ghosts behind them did not fade; they leaned closer, whispering into their ears, pulling their strings. The house was no longer content with echoes. It wanted an ending.

The house had gone mad.

Every door slammed again, then again, then again, until the sound became a heartbeat pounding through the walls. The chandelier crashed to the floor, glass scattering like frozen rain. The radio static and phantom waltz twisted together into one unbearable shriek.

Maya clutched her ears, screaming wordlessly. Jake staggered backward, coughing in the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that had no source. The specters of Frank and Eleanor loomed behind them, larger than life now: Frank red-faced with fury, Eleanor wild-eyed and weeping, their mouths locked in endless argument.

“Stop!” Maya shouted, her voice not her own. “Stop, for God’s sake!”

And then — it did.

The silence hit like a blow. No music. No voices. No slamming doors or shattering glass. Just the faint hiss of the overhead light and the hard sound of their breathing.

Maya dropped her hands, trembling. The room was empty. The smoke dissipated like fog burned off by the sun. The air grew still.

Jake blinked through the tears in his eyes. The figures were gone. The walls were only walls, the windows ordinary glass, the house just wood and stone and paint. For the first time in weeks, he felt entirely himself.

“They’re gone,” he whispered. His voice was his own again; small, shaken, human.

Maya swayed where she stood, suddenly hollow, as if something vast had been ripped out of her. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked across the kitchen at Jake. Her eyes were red, her face pale, but it was her — only her.

“They’re gone,” she echoed, though her voice cracked on the words.

The house agreed. Its silence was absolute. No echoes, no creaks, no sighs. As though it had exhaled its last.

On the counter between them, the revolver waited.

Neither moved for a long time. The television continued its endless loop in the background: crowds surging, voices chanting, the chaos in Washington mirrored in miniature here, in their quiet Portland kitchen.

Jake’s hand twitched toward the gun, then stilled. Maya’s gaze locked on it, her breath shallow.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Neither can I,” he said.

But the weight of everything pressed down on them; the lockdown months, the arguments, the ghosts that had used them like puppets, the exhaustion of carrying so much borrowed rage. The silence stretched, unbearable.

And then the shot came.

A single gunshot, sharp and final, echoing through the empty house.

The television crackled once and went dark.

Outside, the street lay quiet, winter air unmoved.

Inside, only silence remained.