The Seams Have Splintered, Too.

Episode 6.

I thought the peak of the house’s violence had found me, that no greater shadow could loom up underneath. It was forward from here – toward sunlight, toward solace.

I’d seen the midnight hour, now to morning.

But when I rose one day to meet it, Kombucha was not beside me.

I searched for signs of her everywhere. Felt for warm spots in the couches and the chairs, surveyed for drips of water around her bowl, inspected windows for smear marks from her nose…

But she was nowhere.

I called for her and was met only with silence, one that I had never heard before, though I felt fluent in the language – years of practice reading wordless meanings… in a gesture, in a tone, in atmospheres…

And yet, there was no meaning here. Not in that house. Not in that moment. The walls were lifeless, no longer holding breaths, but breathless altogether. The doorways hollow, the dark rooms barren. Not even threats of them lurking within. I heard no footsteps, voices… felt no stares…

I was alone.

In a way I’d never been.

Time escaped in the vacuum of a day. There seemed too much and too little of it at once, daylight diminishing with hope as I turned over all the nooks where she could be hiding, calling her name defeatedly, voice weak as I chased nothingness around in empty circles.

Why had she run from me?

Outside, the world was just as still and silent. A soft and steady snow was filling in the frazzled tracks I’d made before. I scanned the backyard, hopeful.

There were no new footprints, though.

I paced the perimeter slowly to be sure. But only nothing… its empty heaviness sounding in my heart upon each hour…

By evening the snow fell harder than before, the air so cold each flake froze like a crystal, cleaving rough and angry paths against my skin.

I retreated for the fractured warmth within.

When the gray sky glanced toward nightfall, I filled two bowls with food for her – one for the kitchen, one for the porch. I waited for her once more.

Night descended unnoticeably as I gazed between the kitchen and the door, loath to leave for fear I’d miss her arrival.

I realized I hadn’t eaten a thing since waking. But no part of me could care. I’d eat when Kombucha was home again, sleep once she was nestled back safe beside me. My vigil for her enveloped the pull of needs. I needed only to know that she was okay.

I needed to find her.

With her leash clutched close to my heartbeat, I curled up in a cold, kitchen chair, and continued to wait, mulling through the next steps I would take if she was still missing by morning.

It was nearing three fifteen when the kitchen lights flicked on.

I stood.

I hadn’t lit them with my own hand, but this time, it didn’t frighten me. Its buzzing glare seemed a long sought-after message – the house was speaking again.

A light flickered on in the foyer. With a swell in my throat, I followed, the metal clasp of Kombucha’s old leash knocking listlessly at my kneecap as I moved.

When I reached the front door’s coatrack, the hallway lights upstairs started to glow. I carried onward.

Though my body ached from the cold and the stiff of the chair, I moved myself quickly – up the old stairs to the hallway, guided once more as the lamp came to life in my room.

The lit path ended there, but the trail itself didn’t. I heard a sound, in the attic above – the familiar pitter patter of claws prancing on wood.

“Kombucha!”

I rushed for the closet and pulled on the attic's hatch handle, realizing as I did so that the key to unlock it had been lost to the woods long ago.

Still, it opened for me.

I didn’t pause to question, only hurried toward the scrambling of her feet. I could hear her sweet whining so close to me…

I stumbled then, hard, my palms and knees scraping on wood. I could feel blood seep through my jeans but the pain didn’t register.

“Kombucha,” I breathed, standing swiftly. I reached out a hand…

But the worst of their tricks had deceived me.

The attic was empty.

Like a poor, hopeful fool, I flew blindly for the chamber, pushing the hidden door inward only to find them there, waiting: she, that same face in the mirror, he, a shadow on the wall.

They were staring at me. I didn’t dare look, but I knew it. I felt it.

“Where is she?” I whispered, my eyes on the floor.

And they stared.

There was weight in my hands then, familiar… The curve of my gold fabric shears caught the path of my thumb…

Before I had presence to fear this, I heard barking outside. Familiar, again.

I departed the chamber in an instant, fled down from the hatch to my bedroom, to the kitchen, nearly tripping again as I fumbled in the dark for the back door.

There was no light outside save the shrouded illumination of the moon. I stood still and listened.

The barking had ceased, so I called out again… and again… and again…

I picked kibbles from her food bowl and scattered them to the snow with the wind.

“Kombucha, come home, please!”

Even the shrill of my voice barely echoed a sound to me.

Remembering the shears in my hand, I glanced back toward the window, wondering if maybe I’d mistaken the barking’s direction – had it come from elsewhere in the yard? – but the window was… nowhere.

There was only the thick, central glass looking out from the main attic room. No others around…

I kept searching, squinting my eyes at the siding, at the rooftop for anything.

Then a light came on; dim, but so bright in the dark that it startled me. It was shining from that main window frame.

There was a figure within. The woman.

No mere reflection this time, she reached up and beckoned me, her arm falling notably flat where a hand should have been.

As I watched her, unmoving, a taste of blood came through my teeth. I grimaced, my fist clenching tight on the shears and the leash.

What had she done to her?

I ran without thinking, without seeing, only knowing that the surge in my chest felt capable of accomplishing things.

“Bring her back!”

There was no longer light in the attic when I reached it, nor any sort of glow in the chamber when I kicked in the door.

“Bring her back!”

I seethed at the darkened room corners, my whole body shaking, enraged.

“Speak to me! Now!” I demanded.

But nothing, until the sound of a bark came again. Just behind that same impossible window as before.

“More games then… I see.”

But this time, the trick was on them. Whatever horror lay beyond that sealed window had no hold over me.

I'd already lost everything.

I laughed.

“Have it your way.”

In one thrust, I sank the scissors in deep through the velvet, ripping down to, then through the thick seams like a butcher carves meat. I continued to rip until the cloth fell like flesh at my feet, then I glanced back up, panting.

I saw.