The House at the Coast

 by Icy Sedgwick

             If you asked me why I did it, I won’t be able to tell you why I bought a house at the coast, sight unseen. 

Well, it was sight unseen to me. My mother had gone to the viewing, and practically frothed with excitement the moment she stepped through the door. She’d bombarded me with so many photos and videos that I felt I’d set foot inside the house myself. I paused once during the sale, wondering if a three-storey townhouse in the most expensive coastal village was the best thing I could spend my money on. But my mother swept my worries aside, convinced that the husband and family I hoped would eventually occupy the townhouse with me wasn’t too far in the future.

Once I actually arrived at the townhouse, I wished I’d listened to my Inner Fusspot. Something about the house felt ever so slightly off. It wasn’t enough for me to figure out exactly what bothered me—it was like a single wrong note in the middle of a symphony. It wasn’t enough to ruin the whole experience, but it was enough to slightly sour it. The plaster moulding was original 19th-century work, the previous owner had left a fully-fitted kitchen like something you’d see on a TV cookery show, and the stained glass above the front door cast a mosaic of colours in the entrance hall just before dusk.

I wanted to love it. I really did. But sometimes, when I sat in the living room at night, I didn’t always feel like I was the only one in the room. The shadows in the kitchen didn’t always correspond to anything I could see in the kitchen. Once, I could have sworn a whispered conversation suddenly stopped when I walked into the dining room. I tried talking about it with my mother, who absolutely loves all those ghost hunting podcasts, but weirdly, she dismissed everything.      

“But Cassie, dear—it’s a new house. Of course you’re going to take a while to settle there. But don’t let your imagination run away with you,” she’d said, before moving the conversation on to discuss the new florist and her preference for rosemary over lilies in funeral bouquets.

So I tried to put it out of my mind. But I couldn’t make up my mind about the village, either, and it just kept making me doubt the house. The streets furthest from the seafront were a grid of townhouses like the one I’d bought, with wrought-iron lamp posts and double yellow lines painted on the cobbles. A posh high school for boys stood between the grid of houses and the train station, and every afternoon, swarms of the boys would whoop and holler outside. Their calls echoed around the tall brick townhouses, turning the streets into howling chambers open to the stone grey sky above.

A main street full of bistros, expensive clothing shops and gastro pubs led to the seafront itself, which was dominated by the looming ruins of a priory. Even the obligatory fish and chip outlets charged £5 for a bag of chips, seasoned with the finest sea salt and organic apple cider vinegar. Unlike my previous home, in a university student-dominated suburb that burst at the seams with charity shops, discount supermarkets and branches of Subway, I had no idea who my neighbours were.

Truth be told, I wanted allies rather than neighbours. I longed to know if they ever experienced the sensation of being stared at on the upstairs landing at night. Did they hear the faint tinkle of servants’ bells whose wires had long since corroded? Had they heard a swish of footsteps in the attic?

So, one afternoon when I heard the signs of daily life in each house, I tried knocking on the doors of the houses on either side of the townhouse. I still hesitated to call it my townhouse. Not yet. No one answered though I got the distinct impression someone was watching me through the expensive video doorbells that flanked the doors. Whoever lived there weighed me, measured me, and found me wanting.

At least, that’s what I thought happened. I thought they were ignoring me, and I went home, feeling rejected and determined not to Google the signs and symptoms of a haunted house.

The day after my wasted effort to meet the neighbours, I stood in the kitchen making dinner. My last client call had run over, so dinner was more like supper. I waited by the stove, basking in the warm light of sunset. 

The sudden knock at the door made me jump. It was a short, sharp rap, that seemed to say, “Come along now, I haven’t got all day.” Convinced it was one of the neighbours wanting to finally say hello, I abandoned the kitchen and made my way through to the hall. Another rattle of three sharp raps resounded against the front door before I could get there.

“I’m coming!” I yelled, unsure if my voice would carry through the thick wood of the door.

I slipped the chain free and hauled open the door. The welcoming smile I’d plastered on my face faltered when I realised the top step was empty. No one stood on any of the four stone steps that led up to the front door. My neighbours didn’t seem the type to play knocky-nine-doors, so I looked up the street.

And the world fell out from beneath me.

It was my street outside, alright. Just not the street I recognised. A carriage rattled by, its massive wheels bumping on the cobbles, and the shoes of the two horses pulling it left sparks in their wake. I blinked hard and looked again, but yes, a horse-drawn carriage was definitely making its way down the street. A couple walked along the pavement on the other side of the road. He wore a top hat and a debonair black coat, while she wore a pale lavender dress and carried a parasol. A man in overalls hefted a sack of something large and unwieldy out of a cart and down the cellar steps of a house three doors down. He left puffs of black dust in his wake.

“What on earth am I looking at?” I asked.

I don’t know that I expected an answer, but I didn’t get one. No one even seemed to have noticed the dishevelled woman with a mane of loose hair and bare feet standing at her front door. I partially closed the door and heaved it open again, convinced the scene would have changed by the time I looked outside again. 

But another carriage rattled along the street, this time in the opposite direction to the first, and a pair of women in slightly shabby but otherwise smart dresses sashayed along the pavement. Both wore hats and gloves, and bustles that you could have hidden a small dog in.

I knew where I was. Just not when I was.

I stepped down into the street, the sudden scent of over-worked horses slapping me in the face. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat gave me a wide berth and tutted as she passed.

“Where am I?” I asked.

The woman simply tutted again and hurried away down the street a little faster. Rude.

A squeal behind me made me turn. My front door slowly swung closed behind me, and I ran up the stairs to try to stop it. It landed in the doorframe with an all-too-satisfying thud before I reached it and I howled. It was the kind of door you could only open from the outside with the keys, since the doorknob was purely decorative. While that helped with general security, it did mean I was now locked out since my keys were inside, hanging on the hook by the door.

I looked in the front window. The TV still showed whatever banal rubbish had been playing on BBC One. My mug still steamed on the coffee table beside my phone.

I don’t know what possessed me to bang on the door, given I’d been the only one home. But I raised my hand and gave a short, sharp rap on the door.

Somehow it dawned on me that I’d heard a knock like that before.

A muffled sound came from inside the house, and I found myself rapping on the door again—three short, sharp knocks. There was a scrape behind the door, and it suddenly opened, swinging inward. I half expected to see myself standing looking out into the street, but there was no one there. The TV burbled in the living room, and the smell of my supper drifted along the hallway. I lurched forward into the hallway before the door could close again and I slammed it shut behind me. 

What on earth was that? Was I hallucinating? No, hallucinations don’t open doors by themselves. I lifted the flap of the letter box and peeked out into the street. A sleek navy Tesla rolled by, its stereo pumping forth a tuneless noise that was more bass than actual song. I had never been so glad to hear bad music in my life. Someone walked past having an animated conversation on the phone.

There was a rap at the door. I yelped and scrabbled away from the door, taking refuge at the bottom of the stairs. There was no one there when I looked out—how could someone be knocking on the door?

“Who is it?” I called. 

Three short, sharp raps responded.

“You’ll have to answer it, you know.”

I squealed at the sound of the unfamiliar voice behind me. I leapt up and turned around to see a woman standing in the kitchen doorway. She wore her dark hair piled on top of her head, scraped back from her face in an unforgiving style. Her pale grey dress had long sleeves with elaborate puffs at the upper arm, and her skirt almost reached the floor. She looked like one of those people you see dressed up in a Victorian town, when they’re pretending to be a schoolmistress or piano teacher.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

There were three more raps at the door.

“Answer it.”

She folded her hands in front of her and gave me a long, cool gaze.

I edged across the hallway towards the door, trying to keep her in view. She continued to give me the same look and didn’t move an inch. I opened the door, but there was no one there—and the street beyond was exactly what I’d expect to see in 2023. I closed the door again and turned back to her.

“You created a loop.” The woman in grey turned and walked into the kitchen. I say walked, but it felt more like she glided.

“OK, so who are you, why are you in my house, and what are you talking about?” I asked. 

I followed her through the kitchen. She turned off the gas under my saucepan before sitting at the table. It was weird, she looked completely out of place and thoroughly at home at the same time.

“I am Isabella, and I am not in your house, rather you are in mine. Though now you have created a loop, I suppose we should call it our house. And before you ask me yet again what I mean, allow me to enlighten you. Sit.”

She gestured to the chair opposite. I sat down, pinching my leg to check if I was still awake. It hurt, so I assumed I was.

“This house is a somewhat unusual property and has been since its construction. It was intended as a home for the mother of the principal architect, and he followed the rather antiquated tradition of entombing a dog beneath the foundations to protect the building. Do not look so squeamish, practices such as these may sound barbaric to you and I, but they were once commonplace. Now, in doing so, the protective qualities went awry, and the house is somehow protected from the onslaught of time, as well as anything else,” said Isabella.

“So how did you end up here?” I asked.

“My husband bought the house from the architect’s mother. He at least had the good sense to die at the other end of the country, so he avoided being stuck in this infernal townhouse. I, sadly, died at home after a nasty fall down those stairs.”

“Ah. Yes, the crook on the top floor is a nightmare,” I said. 

I wasn’t sure what else to say. How do you give your condolences to someone who’s been dead for over a century? Thankfully, she gave a small smile.

“Quite. Anyway. I watched other people move in, and move out again, as people do. Only two other people died in the house, and I am sure you must have been aware of them. They are both incredibly sweet ladies, but they are also very shy, so I daresay you shan’t see much of them,” she said.

“So am I dead as well? Is that why I can see you?” I asked. 

“Not at all. You can see me because I choose for you to be able to see me. Once I realised another loop had been created, I felt it best to come and give you my advice, should you choose to heed it. I have seen this happen on two other occasions.”

“Were they able to sort it out those times?” I asked.

In my head, I cursed my mother for persuading me to buy the house. I could have had a nice new-build further inland, one with a view of the marsh and space to park my car. Not this weird time-travelling townhouse with its own resident ghosts.

“They were. The first time I believe was an accident, but the second time was because the gentleman took my advice.”

“Good! OK, great, so you know what’s going on and what I need to do,” I said.

A wave of relief washed away the curses at my mother. Isabella knew what to do, I could fix this, and then get on with life. And check the property listings again.

“The loop is not created when someone from the wrong time steps out into the time in which the house was born. No, the knocking creates the loop. You opened the door because you heard a knock at the door, but you stepped outside. Then because you knocked, the house skittered out of time and past-you heard the knock and opened the door. But when you stepped back inside, past-you stepped outside, and so it is doomed to continue.”

“OK so two questions. First, if this keeps happening, then why haven’t I been hearing more knocks since I came back in? And second, who did I hear that first time?”

“Excellent questions. To the first, the knocks have been continuing to happen, which is why I brought you into the kitchen. You have not heard them because the two occupants I told you about earlier have been pressed against the door to dampen the sound. To the second, it was a genuine knock. A cold-caller, I believe. The house attempted to protect itself, which is why you saw an earlier century in the street instead.”

I sat back in my chair. I knew cold-callers were irritating, but so irritating they’d prompt a sentient house to protect itself? Maybe my mum had been right, and I should have put up one of those ‘no cold-callers’ signs.

“And now for what you must do to end it. If you simply try to ignore the door and never answer the knocking, you will either be driven to the point of distracting by the knocking, because it won’t end, or you will end up opening the door anyway the next time that you go out. The only thing that seems to reset the loop is to go out of the back door, all the way around to the front, and then let yourself back in with your keys.”

“Why does that work?”

“I am unsure of the mechanics, but the keys seem to tell the house that the rightful owner is coming in, and it need not try to protect itself.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because I cannot stand that incessant knocking any more than you can.”

Isabella smiled at me. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have her around the house after all. I mean, I did need a companion to watch all those box sets with. 

I got up and went to the hallway. I unhooked my keys from beside the door, trying to ignore the bizarre triple thump. I supposed that was the result of my invisible roommates’ efforts to dampen the rapping.

I walked back through the house. Isabella stood in the kitchen.

“Two more questions before I pop out. First, why did you say it was now ‘our’ house? And second, will you be here when I get back?” I asked.

“One of the unfortunate side effects of creating a loop is that the house claims you. So, if you have the misfortune to die at home, you will join me, and our shy friends through there. Whether that is a punishment or not is entirely up to your own judgement. And yes, I will. If you wish me to be visible, then you need only say.”

I nodded and unlocked the back door. As I walked down the long, narrow yard, I wondered what might have happened if I’d left the back door open. When I went out that first time, would I have been able to walk in the back? Might that have stopped a loop? I’d never know now. I unlocked the gate and stepped into the alley that ran the length of the street. I followed it until I reached the side street that eventually connected with my street.

Everything looked and sounded completely normal. Teenagers whizzed by on electric scooters. A man walked a dog that was wearing a flashing collar. A couple of guys were on the green at the bottom of the street, messing about with a drone.

I reached my front door and skipped up the steps. The key slid into the lock with a satisfying ‘thunk’, and I swore I heard the house heave a sigh of relief when the lock clicked open. I pushed the door inwards and stepped over the threshold.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called. 

I hung my keys back on the hook. The scent of my supper lingered, and my stomach growled. I set off down the hallway towards the kitchen. I half expected to see Isabella still sitting at the table, but the room was empty. But someone had laid the table and served up my supper in a bowl. I sat down and practically inhaled the food. Even if I strained my ears, all I could hear was the ticking of the clock and the faint chatter of the television in the living room. 

I washed up my supper things and headed through to the living room. I got comfy on the sofa and started scrolling through Netflix for something to watch.

There was a rap at the door.

 

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  TWO TECHNO TALES

by John Shirley

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