Their Curse: The Seventh House

Milo gazed up at the old manor, his eyes wide. He was supposed to live here?

He had lived in a lot of strange places in the past—his uncle ran a small ranch down south. Milo loved animals, and figured it would be great fun to help feed and clean them every day. It was a great disappointment to find nothing but old boars as he wandered the lonely grounds. Their eyes had glowed a strange silver in the shadows of the barn, and they snarled viciously whenever Milo was forced to creep in with their food.

When he stayed with his second cousin, however, he almost wished he was back with the boars. His second cousin and his wife had five daughters, all of whom took endless pleasure in chasing Milo around their skinny three-story house with sticky lipsticks and perfumes stretched out in front of them.

This place though, his seventh home, won the most interesting building award. The roof, for one, slanted steeply in random places, as if a giant had cut a wedge out of a stack of grey bricks with a knife. Out of it stuck at least three thick chimneys that didn’t seem to be in use at the moment, despite the stiff breeze and icy slush frozen along all surfaces.

The square windows were dark and lifeless, framed by exquisite designs etched into the brick and long icicles that looked even taller than Milo. The doors were only a few yards from where he stood now. They hid in the back of a shallow, square tube of house, drawn in towards the center. Apparently Milo’s great uncle twice removed often invited giants to dinner, for that was for whom the doors seemed to be built.

Milo took a deep breath and straightened his dark brown hair the best he could. The strange tall man who had brought him here had already driven away, leaving him feeling very alone and quite tiny next to the magnificent house. He steeled his nerves and, before he could change his mind, strode up to the door and banged hard with his fist.

He waited, his ears straining to hear something besides the creaking of the firm wind pushing around the trees. After waiting for a few moments, Milo knocked again, as hard as he could. The thick wood seemed to swallow his efforts, still only emitting a muffled noise.

“Hey!”

Milo jumped, turning around in alarm. No one was there. His cautious brown eyes scanned the yard carefully again, in case he missed someone.

“Hey, you!”

Milo looked up to see an old man nearly hanging out a window. “What are you, deaf?” The old man yelled hoarsely. “I told ya to come in twice already! You darned kids have killed your ears with those phony ears or whatever ya call ‘em! Look at me! I’m eighty-nine years old and still hear clear as a bell!”

Quickly, Milo hurried so he stood below the old man’s window. “Are—are you my great uncle?”

“Depends,” the old man croaked, “Are you my great nephew?”

Milo opened his mouth then shut it again, at a loss for words. Finally, since the man still stared down at him as if waiting for an answer, Milo shrugged and nodded.

“Well, git in here then!” the old man snapped, then disappeared from the window, slamming it shut behind him.

The boy ran to the porch where he had left his bags, picked them up, and opened the thick wooden door. He dragged his things inside, leaving them beside the door until further notice. The first thing to catch his eye when he turned around to face the room was the pair of large double doors directly in front of him. On both sides of the doors were rolling staircases that swooped up to the second level in a mass of maroon carpet. The ceiling was high, holding up two vast crystal chandeliers.

“Boy?” The hoarse voice called from the second floor. Milo ran up, quickly scaling the stairs until he landed in a narrow hallway. He crept across the creaking floor, stopping at the first open door. Inside sat the old man in a large, mustard yellow armchair, a grey cat in his lap. Up close, Milo could now see the old man’s face clearly—the wrinkled skin, the sunken grey eyes, the boney hands that stretched out in front of him on an intricately etched cane.

The room smelled of dust and old cigarette smoke. There was hardly any light save for the old lamp in the corner, since the windows were covered with heavy maroon curtains. The cat in the old man’s lap dropped to the floor and wandered over to the doorway. It sniffed Milo’s pant leg disdainfully, then disappeared down the hall.

The old man eyed Milo apathetically. “I have more need for a cat than for a boy,” he finally said. His pale lips twitched as he paused to swallow painfully. “I have been taking care of myself for the last three centuries! But—“ he heaved in a breath. “But we will be helping each other, I think. You need a house and food to eat, and I have some dusting you can do. You will clean what I tell you, and in return I will not turn you to the streets.” He chuckled huskily a couple times.

Minutes stretched on as he stared at Milo, silent. Not knowing what else to do, the boy turned to leave, then changed his mind halfway through. “Um,--?” Milo stared at his feet, his eyes darting up at the man every once and a while. “What would you like me to—to call you?”

The old man’s eyes bore into Milo’s skin, but he said nothing for a full minute. Finally, Milo inched out the door. “Uncle,” said the old man from in the room. Milo turned to face him in the hallway. He nodded quickly, then hurried away.

When he arrived at the ground floor, Milo froze. The cat lay beside his bags. Its legs were stiff, its grey torso still, and its eyes glassy and lifeless. A look of total indifference washed over his face as he stared at the dead cat. And so it began.

Milo fell into life at the manor with a strange kind of ease. Although the house was dark and empty, it was peaceful. He only saw the old man at meal times, when he received his next orders.

“Dust the parlor,” the old man had said the first day. “It’s one of the only rooms I use anymore.”

But whether or not he used rooms didn’t seem to stop him from telling Milo to clean them now. Once he had done the front room, the parlor, his bedroom, and the dining room, the old man began telling him to just start at one end of the hall and dust the next room in line.

After he was finished with whatever his uncle asked, Milo was free to wander the house as he pleased, exploring the endless halls and countless rooms. Two weeks from his arrival, he discovered a room with pink walls, pink carpet, and a pink-quilted four poster bed. It was, like the rest of the house, absolutely drenched with dust, but the tiny particles hardly bothered Milo by now. He walked over to the desk across the room and peered into the mirror above it.

The pink room looked very grey through the smeary sheen of a reflection. Milo licked a finger and rubbed it along a particularly smudged bit of mirror. His breath caught with surprise.

Milo ran across the house, through the labyrinth-like halls he now knew well. He threw open the kitchen closet and grabbed a bottle of window cleaner and a relatively clean rag. When he got back to the pink room, he was gasping for breath, choking on the dust that had coated his lungs.

Finally, his eyes streaming, Milo sprayed the mirror and gave it a quick wipe down. Then he cupped his hands around a dimly glowing message. The words were written in a florescent glow-in-the-dark green, scrawled messily, as if in a hurry.

A curse will fall upon this family and it shall live in their blood. Thus, they shall live with their own blood, be named by their own blood, and be betrayed by their own blood.

He read it multiple times in quick succession until he knew it by heart. A curse… a curse on the family. There was one place he could find more about this message. Milo nodded to himself firmly once, then strode down the hall to the first room he had visited in this house.

The old man sat gazing at the blank wall of his bedroom, in the same mustard yellow armchair as always. He didn’t notice Milo’s presence until the boy was standing just beside him.

“Ho!” The man jerked in his seat and clutched his chest. “Boy, you need louder shoes! It’s a deadly thing, sneaking up on an old man. I could have a heart attack!” he croaked, rubbing his chest gingerly. “Go play somewhere else, or I’ll give you more work to do.”

“Please, Uncle,” said Milo, “I have a question.”

The old man scowled. “Children should do as they’re told. You are only here out of the kindness of my heart. Out! Out, before I throw you out by your ears!” He wheezed on the last word, succumbing to a bout of coughs.

“Uncle,” Milo ignored him. “Who did the pink bedroom down the hall belong to?”

The old man wiped his shining lips with a hand and cleared his throat roughly. “The pink bedroom? Funny you should ask about that particular room—it belonged to my little sister.”

“Your sister?” Milo stared in surprise.

The man seemed to enjoy that. “Yes, yes, she died when she was very young. About your age, actually, about ten or eleven.”

“What happened to her?” the boy pressed.

“So many questions, so many questions,” the old man mumbled. Finally, he sighed. “I might as well tell you. It’s a good story; I’ll enjoy telling it, I think.” He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, looking off into empty space. “I was thirteen years old, I believe. I was a strapping young lad. Mind you, I got in a fair bit of trouble in those days, but nothing harmful in the least. Not like my sister.” Again, he dabbed his trembling lips. “She was an odd one, everyone said so. Especially there near the end. See, she seemed to think the family was going to be cursed.” Milo perked up. “Yes, boy, cursed. It became her obsession, this supposed curse. She wrote the same words everywhere—on every paper she could get her hands on, on the walls, even in her breakfast oatmeal! She insisted that our old neighbor hated our family for stealing his land, so he placed a curse on us that would kill every person, every blood tie in our family.”

The old man paused to wheeze into his hand, then continued. “It’s nonsense, of course. I mean, look at me, eh?” He threw out his arms and barked a laugh. “Still alive and croaking!” He shook his head. “Still, it wasn’t any surprise when she up and died near the end of the month. Like a dog with rabies, she was so nutty, she was bound to go.”

Stretching, the old man let out a groan. “It’s about time for lunch, eh? I say we head to the kitchen and see what that old maid of a cook has made us.”

Nodding absently, Milo followed his great uncle downstairs. The old man took several breaks between trembling steps—more than usual. Milo eyed the hunched back in front of him uneasily, watching carefully until finally they were in the kitchen. The meal dragged by in silence, until finally the boy was able to escape back into the winding halls.

The next morning, Milo’s eyes snapped open. He woke up as suddenly as if an alarm had gone off beside him. He climbed out of bed and headed down the hall, knowing exactly what he would find. Turning into the old man’s bedroom, Milo walked up to the side of the large bed.

The still figure that lay beneath the covers was grey and shriveled, his eyes open but seeing nothing. It was just like before. It was just like finding his uncle cold and stiff, the boars all dead in their barn. It was just like waking up to silence at his second cousin’s house, and searching the girls’ rooms only to see stillness and smell that dusty rot that came with death. It was just like when he was five—the first morning he was an orphan. His parents had smelled just like this.

Milo dug in his pocket for his cell phone and called the number he had memorized that very first morning: 216-1296. He called the man who called him by his true name, the only person alive who knew it.

“Yes?” A deep voice answered after one ring.

“It’s done. When can I leave?” Milo stared blankly at his dead uncle.

“Did you name him?”

“Yes, I asked. He said to call him Uncle.”

“Good, good. I will be there immediately,” the voice said. “Another job well done, Aran. Seven down.”

“Yes, sir. Seven down.” Milo’s voice was lifeless, monotonous.

The line went dead, and the boy put away his phone. He had to go pack.

He slumped down the hallway for the last time, his bags clutched in front of him. This was his life. It wasn’t a good one, or a fun one, but who was he to complain? He moved from house to house, relative to distant relative, meeting death wherever he went. It wasn’t his fault. In fact, it was hardly the tall man’s fault either. No, it was his family who made the mistake in insulting a warlock. And now, their own blood—Milo—was exacting the man’s revenge. He lived with them, he named them, and they died.

That was who he was. He couldn’t change that any more than he could change his true name. Aran: their curse.

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This is for a school assignment. I have to rewrite it as part of my "independent project." Reviews would be much appreciated! Thanks!

--Anna