Guests were coming to dinner. This was such a routine occurrence that it scarcely required planning. Nevertheless, the family gathered in the kitchen to discuss what was to be done by whom. This too was routine.
Mother presided over the discussion, standing at the center island, her hands dancing through the air when she spoke. Even though most of the siblings had branched into some semblance of independence, they were obligated to return by a force so deeply embedded in their consciousnesses that none were fully aware of its existence. The older siblings suspected the sway their mother held over them, and they had begun to pull away as they matured. Still, the big house bound them as if to a web, which she herself was at the center of.
This newest engagement was yet another result of her tugging. Mother had begun to recognize the restlessness of her children, their desire to be free of her, but she knew something that they did not. She understood how their kind came into the world. She remembered how she and her mate had lovingly crafted their new home so many years ago. Like any male of good blood, he had sacrificed himself up to the structure when it was finished, allowing his flesh to become one with its walls. Only then had Mother been able to bring forth her children from the beams of the house infused with her lover.
Yet something had gone wrong. As the children moved away, they should have found mates and begun building their own houses, but they did not. They had moved into apartments, got jobs, had casual on-and-off relationships. She wondered if they lacked the instinct to build or had perhaps failed to attract appropriate partners. It was true, their kind had dwindled in numbers over the last few generations. What if there were no mates to be found? She pushed the thought away. They just needed focus. Were she to address the issue directly, however, it would do irreparable damage to their psyches. This was especially true of her sons, for it was important they come to such a decision of their own accord. Else, when the time came, they would fail to produce their own offspring. So instead, she found reasons to call them back again and again to the house, hoping it would influence them in some way. Still, she was getting older, and her children were becoming more resistant to her bidding. It had been months since she had last managed to gather them all to the house.
Tonight would be her last attempt to right her children.
* * *
The siblings rarely agreed on anything, so there was a great deal of shouting in the kitchen as each tried to be heard over the other. Maddie, as the oldest, believed that she inherently knew best. This irritated the others, who took it upon themselves to question each of her decisions. Derek, only a year younger, felt that he knew as much as she did and tried to best her where he could. When it had been his turn to move out of the house, he’d chosen to live twice as far away as Maddie had, though still within driving distance, of course. The twins, Robert and Richard, always sided only with each other. When one had decided to enroll at the local college, the other did too.
Mother thought it healthy for her children to have such arguments and, for the most part, stayed out of the discussion until final decisions were made. The social drudgery of a dinner party was only relevant to her insofar as it brought her children home and gave them something to do.
The current disagreement was about the salad dressing. Derek and Maddie were leaning toward a simple vinaigrette; the twins favored something creamier. The siblings knew that Mother wasn’t going to weigh in, and none of the four seemed likely to concede.
Suddenly, Richard said, “Why don’t we ask Anna?”
“Where is Anna?” asked Robert. The others looked around, surprised to realize that she wasn’t amongst them.
* * *
Anna, as it happened, was upstairs. She was the youngest of the siblings and the only one who still lived in the house, being not quite old enough yet to make her own choices about such things. She had been tasked with putting away the boxes of Christmas decorations that had for weeks been sitting in a corner of the living room. Pulling down the ladder to do just this, she had looked up, expecting the dark, hot mouth of the attic, and seen nothing but empty sky.
Forgetting the boxes of decorations, Anna tumbled down the stairs and burst into the kitchen.
“The attic is gone,” she said.
Ignoring her statement, Derek said, “Anna! We were just coming to find you.”
Mother shepherded her into the kitchen. “You’re needed as a tiebreaker, my dear. You really should try to be more involved.” She worried most about Anna, who she’d barely managed to pull from the last of the house’s reserves all those years ago.
“But the attic is missing!” Anna said again. She managed this time to catch the attention of the room.
“What do you mean ‘missing’?” asked Mother.
Maddie waved her hand. “It’s just another of her fancies.”
Anna’s siblings never took her seriously. “There’s nothing there,” she insisted. “Have a look for yourselves; it’s easy enough to see.”
As this seemed the simplest way to resolve the matter, the family moved toward the stairs, Anna trailing anxiously behind. Moments later, they were all standing at the base of the ladder, staring up in confusion.
“But where could it have gone?” asked Robert.
“My treasure!” cried Mother, which caused the siblings to share a look. They knew that nothing of value was kept in the attic. A few old boxes, decorations; mostly the space was filled with pink cotton-candy-like mounds of fiberglass insulation.
“We must call the police,” she declared. She hurried back down the stairs, and the rest of the family followed.
An hour later, two officers knocked on the door. They were quickly ushered through the house to see the problem for themselves.
One of the officers, Officer Dally, turned to the family. “When was the last time you saw your attic?” If either was surprised by the situation, they hid it well.
Mother pulled at her lip. “I believe it was some time last week I was up there.”
“And when did you notice it was missing?” asked Officer Dally.
Maddie pushed Anna forward, who looked down at the floor as she spoke. “I found it that way just this morning, sir. I was going to put those boxes there away, but when I pulled down the ladder…” Her voice trailed off.
They asked a few more questions and climbed to the top of the ladder to get a closer look. When they were finished, Dally looked to his partner, Officer Bis, who had remained silent to this point. Dally shrugged.
“Yes, all right,” said Bis. “It is most definitely missing.” He tapped his notebook. “We’ll get this going down at the station and keep you posted.”
They started to leave. On a whim, Mother stopped them. “We’re having a dinner party this evening. Would you boys like to come?” She knew that a greater number of guests for the evening could only aid her endeavors. How her children hated a scene.
The officers started to refuse, but at that moment the smell of tomatoes and garlic slow-roasting in the oven wafted down the hall. Mother could be very persuasive. They verified the time of the gathering and promised that they would return. When they were gone, the family returned to the kitchen.
“Should we put up flyers in case someone finds it?” asked Anna.
“It’s not like it’s going to be floating around loose,” Derek scoffed. “Someone’s taken it.”
“Who would do such a thing?” asked Richard.
Maddie tapped her fingers on the counter. “Don’t forget that we need to finalize the place settings, and I’m still not sure about that butter sauce with the fish.”
“The butter sauce will be fine,” said the twins together.
The siblings continued to bicker in this way for some time. Of course, they were mostly concerned about how the guests would react to the missing attic and how they, in turn, would respond to those reactions. The police officers would be fine, even if none of the siblings understood why Mother had invited them; after all, they’d been so kind and helpful. But the Aronsons were coming from down the street. They wouldn’t hesitate to share whatever they learned with the whole neighborhood. And the Daggs! What if they knew something about the attic or had been involved somehow? After all, it was the Daggs who’d stolen the family’s dog last winter. They even dared to trot the poor thing around the block on occasion. His coat had been dyed a sort of reddish color, but it was definitely him.
The Peters were probably not to be trusted either. They were from another nice part of town, but no one could tell by looking at them. They loved to appropriate the drama of others. Given a week’s time, the family would be hearing about their own unfortunate tale as if it had happened to the Peters instead.
“What if we just don’t tell them?” suggested Richard.
Maddie rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think they’ll notice when they arrive?”
“It’s not really visible from the road,” Derek said. He’d already gone outside to check. “Besides, who knows when this happened. None of us noticed it when we got here.”
Mother looked from one to the other of her children, her eyes bright.
Eventually it was decided that nothing would be said of the attic, and, if one of the guests were to bring it up, it would be discussed only in the most nonchalant of tones so as not to elicit glee or satisfaction in the less honorable of their guests.
Anna, who did not yet fully understand these kinds of things, asked, “Why do we invite them over if they create so many problems?”
Rather than answer such a question, her siblings looked around at each other and laughed. Mother smiled, secretly pleased by her smallest daughter’s divergence. Perhaps she would yet awaken to her true nature.
Anna groaned and threw her hands up. “If anyone needs me, I’m going to put those boxes in one of the closets upstairs.”
“Oh, that just won’t do,” someone said, but Anna had already left the room.
* * *
As the hour approached, the siblings settled into the rhythms of food preparation and table setting. Still, the first knock at the door startled them into a last-minute flurry.
Robert answered the door and found the police officers, returned as promised. He ushered them inside even as he wondered if inviting them on such short notice had been part of a greater scheme of Mother’s. But what could her intentions possibly be? Certainly, she hadn’t known the attic would go missing beforehand.
He followed the officers up the hallway but was stopped by a tug on his jacket. He turned to find Anna gesturing for him to follow. She led him into the darkened study and closed the door behind him.
She said, “Mother is up to something.”
“Oh, not this.” Robert reached to open the door, but Anna stopped him.
“You were thinking it, too. I could tell by the look you gave me.” She stared at him, her eyes shining white in the dim lighting. As the youngest sibling, Anna had developed a sharper level of insight through observing the others, and she didn’t hesitate to use it.
“Yes, all right. I was,” he conceded. “I hate how you do that. But what on earth could her motive be?”
“What is always Mother’s motive?”
“Attention. Right.” Robert nodded. “But the attic? There’s nowhere she could have put it. And she would have had to have had help. Do any of the others know anything?”
“Not that I can tell, though Maddie wouldn’t share if she did.” Anna rolled her eyes at the thought of her older sister.
Ignoring this, Robert added, “Richard would have told me if he’d heard anything. But what can we do except wait to see how it plays out?”
“I know. I just hate how she does this. I don’t know why all of you even come back.”
Robert smiled wistfully at his little sister. He was by now old enough to recognize Mother’s pull as something beyond his control. “We come back because we must. You will too, you’ll see.”
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly, but she followed him out of the study.
* * *
The grand Victorian-style house gleamed in the evening light as the rest of the guests made their way up the drive. It had been built on a slight incline, placing it above and apart from the other houses on the street, so that anyone climbing up to the house felt as if they were simultaneously departing from the neighborhood below them. Rose bushes lined the front walkway, but not a single tree adorned the yard; they had all gone into the building of the house.
In the dining room, the siblings carried platters of food to the table as the last of the guests were seated.
“Everything looks wonderful,” said Liza Peter. There was murmured agreement.
The siblings had, as usual, outdone themselves. There was a mixed greens salad with bits of pear and walnut in a lemon vinaigrette, crostini drizzled with olive oil and roasted tomatoes, wedges of sharp cheese arranged with slices of smoked summer sausage, and bite-sized tartlets filled with bits of roast vegetables and parmesan cheese.
“Please help yourselves,” said Mother. “These are just the starters, of course, so make sure you save room.”
Dinner continued in this manner. The conversation was artificially pleasant, the food and drink of good quality. The siblings spoke only to their guests, but shared glances with one another across the table. For the main course, they had prepared thin fillets of white fish in a garlic butter sauce, pork medallions braised in wine, a mound of crisp-skinned fingerling potatoes, and asparagus spears shining with olive oil and flaky salt. Thick slices of crusty bread for sopping juices were passed in a bowl around the table.
Officer Dally groaned appreciatively as he took another bite of pork. “I say, Bis, we lucked out today.”
“Mmhm,” Bis agreed, his mouth full of potatoes.
Michael Aronson turned to them. “And how do you know our wonderful hosts?”
Anna looked to Robert as they both clicked to understanding. The officers’ presence guaranteed that the attic would come up. It was only natural that their guests would attempt to ferret out why such strangers had been invited amongst them.
“Let’s bring out dessert,” said Derek. The siblings jumped from their chairs and hurried to the kitchen. Pastries and sliced fruit were piled on trays at the ready.
“This is a disaster,” Maddie hissed as soon as they were out of earshot.
Anna glanced at Robert. “We think Mother did it.”
Derek scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“That’s why she invited the police,” Robert said. “Think about it.” Richard nodded slowly in agreement with his twin.
Leaning over the counter, Maddie put her head in her hands and shut her eyes. She groaned.
“Maddie?” asked Anna.
Maddie didn’t respond. When she straightened, her hands were balled into fists at her sides. She grabbed a platter and marched back into the dining room. The others followed.
“How terrible,” Sanda Dagg was saying. “I just assumed you were having work done.”
Maddie dropped her tray of melon none too gently on a corner of the table. Guests and family alike turned to stare at her. “Mother.” Her voice was sharp and controlled. “What have you done with the attic?”
Alarmed, Derek moved to stop his sister. Whispers fluttered between the guests.
Mother’s mouth quirked, and a bubble of laughter escaped from her lips. So, they’d found her out. Perhaps that meant they were beginning to understand. This thought only made her more certain of what she had set in motion. She drew something from beneath the napkin on her lap and clutched it to her breast. A look none of the siblings had ever seen before took hold of her features as she pushed herself back from the table.
She stood and shook her fist at the gathering, the object in her hand flashing as she did so. It was the latch that had held the attic door.
Richard started to ask, “Is that…,” but seeing her children’s eyes upon the small object, Mother lifted it to her mouth, pushed it past her lips, and swallowed. She beamed at her guests-turned-audience.
“That’s better,” she said. “It’s such a shame to leave things unfinished.”
The officers glanced at each other. Dally asked, “Ma’am, did you…eat your attic?”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to figure out?” she quipped. She felt herself swelling with the urgency of what she needed to do. She was pleased with the progress she’d already made and was not about to diminish the process. Not with so much at stake.
At that moment, the siblings wanted nothing more than for the guests to leave so that they could turn their energies to addressing this new situation. The guests, however, wanted nothing more than to stay. They watched with silent attention, as if this were a sort of planned entertainment for the evening. Maddie motioned for her brothers and sister to follow her into the kitchen while the officers continued their attempt to interrogate Mother.
“Now what?” Richard asked when no one else spoke.
“I can’t believe her!” Maddie exclaimed.
Anna asked, “Do you want me to go see if she ate the ladder too?” The others merely looked at her. “I mean, the latch was there earlier,” she continued, “and now it’s clearly not. She all but said it was the last piece, so…”
“Ugh!” said Maddie. She waved her hands at her sister. “Yes, fine. Go check.” Anna left.
While this exchange was taking place, Derek had begun to feel the hint of an idea rising from some buried place in his mind. “What if she’s planning to consume the house?”
“But why?” asked Robert. How was hardly important. The siblings knew that if Mother wanted to do a thing, she would.
An understanding was slowly forming in Maddie’s mind as well. “She’s been restless for a long time,” she said. “I think it’s Father.”
For the siblings, the suggestion was a grave one. The topic of their father was strictly forbidden. Mother had never told them anything about him, and they had known from an early age not to ask. Each of the children in their own time had come to question whether he had even existed.
Richard was the first to speak. “How can you be sure?”
Maddie started to answer when they heard Anna on the steps. Robert put a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell her about this,” he said. “It will only scare her.”
“But what do we do about it?” Derek asked.
Before anyone could respond, Anna reentered the kitchen. “Yep, it’s gone.”
“We have to get all of these people out of here,” said Robert. A sense of urgency rippled through the kitchen.
“This will ruin us,” Maddie muttered to herself. Then, as loudly as she could, she shouted, “Everyone, quick! The roof over the garage has disappeared too!”
As she had hoped, the guests crowded into the entryway. Once everyone was outside, she locked the front door. “Someone lock the back,” she directed. One of the siblings sprang to her bidding.
The guests soon realized the diversion for what it was. When they couldn’t get back in, they gathered around the dining room windows, pressing their hands against the glass to peer in. Officer Bis rapped on the glass. “We need to ask a few more questions,” he shouted.
Mother stood staring around the room in anticipation. She pretended not to notice her audience as she listened to her children calling out to one another in panic. Good, she thought. That meant they knew she was serious.
She waited until they had hurried back into the room, their eyes upon her. Then, she reached out and pulled one of the slats from the wooden blinds. She put the end of it into her mouth and began to chew. The familiarity that washed through her was almost overwhelming. When she had begun to consume the attic, she had been shocked by the taste of her lover. Each mouthful brought him back to her. She continued to eat. Within moments, the length of the slat was gone. She reached for another.
Anna cried out, “Mother! What are you doing? This is our home!”
Something of Anna’s cries pulled at her distanced older sister. Maddie stepped forward and took her arm. “Anna, there’s nothing we can do.”
“But why is she—” Anna stopped speaking. Her mother pulled off chunks of the drywall, working steadily through them. Anna looked around at her siblings and felt the loss in their expressions radiate through her.
Robert spoke gently, his voice full of knowing, “She’s ending things.” Anna looked around. The others nodded in hushed agreement, but for her, this idea was incomprehensible. Her mother was still strong and forceful. More importantly, she loved them.
Anna crossed the room, stepping over the splinters of debris that littered the floor. She grabbed hold of Mother’s arm. “Please, stop this,” she all but whispered.
Mother had been watching her children speak, but unable to hear their conversation over the sound of her own chewing, she dared to hope they had reached something of the realization she wanted for them. What else could bring them together in such quiet understanding and unity of purpose? When Anna came to her, she felt that she would burst with joy. Her children and her line would continue. She placed the length of baseboard she had been eating against a chair and pulled her daughter into her arms.
She spoke into her daughter’s dark hair, “My dear, I have no choice but to finish. I do so happily, knowing I have succeeded and my beautiful children will flourish. Do not worry for me; I go to be with your father now.”
To Anna, Mother’s words were like the ramblings of a stranger. She stumbled free of her grip and fled to her siblings. They encircled her, pulling her from the room.
Mother crooned after them, a long, low, wordless sound. She spun around the room, once, before abandoning herself wholly to her task, pulling the exposed beams from the walls and lifting them to her mouth.
Derek winced at the sight. “Come now, it won’t be safe soon. There’s nothing more to be done here.”
“What do we do about them?” Richard gestured toward the windows.
Maddie waved her hand, exhausted. “They’ll get bored or scared and leave. I can’t care anymore.” The outer wall of the dining room had begun to sag, causing the floor above to shudder and sway.
They left reluctantly, making their way across the damp front lawn.
Anna gazed at the collapsing house, Mother somewhere inside. “But what do I do now?” she asked.
Robert stopped and put an arm around her shoulders. A thought tickled at the back of his mind like the tugging of a single silvered thread. “I suppose now you’ll build your own house. We all will.”
“Can I stay with you until then?”
“Of course,” he said.
As Anna looked back a last time, something inside her broke loose and bubbled up through the uncertainty and loss that had filled her a moment before. A quiet smile crept across her face. Anna would build her house or she wouldn’t. The choice was entirely her own. She turned away from the place of her birth and followed her siblings down the lamp-lit street.
* * *
Image by Tom Morbey via Unsplash
