The house is silent, its mistresses sleep under the ground. Nothing stirs within the encircling stone wall and hedge, which guard the borders of the estate.

But in the forbidden halls and corridors sealed away by the Trapdoor, something moves.

It arches. Bristly fur spikes out of leathery skin. Contorted limbs spasm jerkily, clawing at a starless sky. The chains binding it to the marble slab clink and rattle. The creature hisses, a long, slow exhalation of fetid air. It stretches to its full extent, testing the strength of the chains.

A screech of metal on stone rends the uneasy silence, echoing off the oak-paneled walls.

The creature laughs; a rasping, guttural sound. Its voice, the whisper of a scream, issues from cavernous jaws.

“It is time!”

***

The House

Renaye Delani stared moodily out the car window, watching trees and open fields whiz past. The colors blended together into a hazy blur.

“It’s beautiful out there, isn’t it, ‘Naye?” Yeah, for maybe the first five seconds, Renaye thought sarcastically. Aloud, she mumbled,

“I guess so,” to her mother’s, Anjela’s, question. Having lived downtown in a big city all her sixteen years, the abundance of green stuff had captivated and held her attention for the first part of the trip. But now, after three or so hours, the novelty had worn off. All those trees were starting to give her the creeps.

Anjela’s excited voice cut through her thoughts:

“Look, honey! There it is! Grandma’s house!” Which was so past tense, Renaye couldn’t help thinking, since Anjela’s eighty-seven-year-old mom had died the previous week, due to a stroke.

***

Renaye’s mom had been devastated. She and Grandma Lynne had kept close ties, even after Anjela had moved out to live with her boyfriend (and later, husband), Nathaniel. These ties had grown even stronger when Nat had died in a car accident just last month. Without her husband’s steady income, Anjela Delani could no longer afford the cost of the condo she and Renaye presently lived in.

More than that, it was just too painful to stay near so many reminders of Nat and his death. And so, after three torturous weeks of sympathetic friends, relatives, and neighbors coming by with casseroles and clumsy condolences, Anjela had announced, over yet another dinner of tuna fish casserole, that they were leaving.

“Where?” was Renaye’s first question, and then “how?” And, thought but not spoken, “why?” All my friends are here, my school, my memories… how can I just pack up and leave my whole life behind? But she kept silent, knowing that her questions would only add to he mother’s grief, and there was no way under the sun she was going to do that. Not to the person she loved most.

And so Renaye pulled down posters and pictures from her walls, saving some and dumping others. She packed up all her books, CDs, clothes, jewelry, and other possessions into cardboard boxes.

Looking up at the bare white walls and ceiling, trying to fall asleep on the last night she would spend in her own room, Renaye realized that she was- not looking forward to going somewhere unfamiliar, precisely, but- not regretting leaving behind the cramped walls that she was forbidden to paint or poke holes in. She was looking forward to leaving this place.

Renaye looked at the house as her mom’s red Jetta wound slowly up the long, curving drive, past two tall granite pedestals topped by strangely wrought statues. She craned her neck up to have a closer look, but they passed out of sight before she could see them properly. She resolved to come back and examine them.

***

Now, as the stone-paved drive curved around a circular courtyard with a fountain at it’s center: unused, from the look of the moss-covered stone; Renaye was able to get her first up-close view of her Grandma’s ménage. Anjela got her first in the eighteen years that had passed since she’d moved out.

Anjela was uneasy. After she had grown, it had felt… wrong, somehow, to have two adult women- her and her mother- in the old house. That was the reason why she and Lynne had kept up their correspondence in long letters and longer phone calls. The house hadn’t wanted her while it’d had another mistress.

Now that Lynne Delani was dead, it was her daughter’s, Anjela’s, turn. Then it would be Renaye’s. So it had been, and so it would be.

The house had stood empty before. But it was patient.

It knew it would not have to wait long.

Anjela had felt the calling just days after Lynne’s death.

Home, it said, it is time to come home!

***

Taking a large brass key from her jacket pocket, Anjela unlocked the large iron double doors. She grasped the two handles, each one shaped like an eagle’s head, and pushed, causing the doors to ponderously swing in on hinges that squeaked for want of oiling. She stepped into the darkened hallway, Renaye following closely behind her, gazing with interest at the many tapestries lining the corridor.

The first depicted a regal young woman, her auburn hair pulled back from her face into an elaborate headdress studded with what looked to be precious gems. Silky, flaming ringlets fell down her back and coiled on her shoulders. Her green eyes were haughty, looking down with scorn on any passerby. You dare to look upon me, those eyes seemed to ask, who one ruled this house and all the lands surrounding it? She was dressed in a gown of green velvet trimmed in gold lace. Hanging around her neck from a fine gold chain was a medallion- a crest, really- of gold. Upon the yellowy disk was engraved a serpent, curled into the form of a cursive letter ‘D’- for Delani, Renaye supposed, for this was her mother’s female ancestors’ maiden name. It was her last name, too, since Anjela had kept her own name and asked that her daughter take on the Delani title rather than Nat’s surname, Greymoor. Nat had agreed. Around the edge of the medallion were strange symbols, but the weaving did not show enough detail for Renaye to be able to read them. As a border, it seemed, the metal around the letters was worked into a pattern like a twisted rope.

Words in flowing gothic script , embroidered in gold thread, proclaimed the woman to be Tatiané Delani, founder of the House of Delani. A further message was written in Roman script, but the words were not of any language Renaye knew: Hadarim kri elé abado kri Delani ava tousa ensecriem. Elé Gardi kri elé Defendri.

“Renaye?”