The House that Hate Built // Gestation
The headaches had gotten worse. They ranged from dizzying to devastating, leaving Winstead curled in the fetal position on her floor. Her vision ebbed and flowed with the pain; her fingers could feel a ridge developing down the back of her head. Feeling lumps behind her ears and in her armpits, Winstead decided to brave the light and seek medical treatment.
She made it to the local clinic in a fugue state. She vaguely remembered being jumped and defending herself magically, but it had felt automatic, intuitive.
The clinic’s disheveled interior demoralized her, and the secretary didn’t even look up as she took Winstead’s name and replied, “Doctor Zell is with a patient now, just wait here.”
Minutes or hours later, Winstead felt a hand on her shoulder. A pallid figure in a lab coat guided her into the back room and onto a reclining seat.
“Winstead, is it? What seems to ail you?”
Winstead described migraines, muscle cramps, strange dreams. She complied as the doctor performed various tests, nodding uncomprehending as he described her as a vislae, apologizing that he was not and thus lacked some of the more distinctive abilities of vislae doctors. There was something odd about him that she couldn’t quite place.
He left the room while a scan was performed, and as he reentered it came to her: he was dead.‡
Dr. Zell held some images, his lips pursed and shoulders tensed as he flipped through them and then flipped through them again.
“You have something distinctive going on; I haven’t seen the like before. It’s acting tumorous, but it seems entirely magical. I can’t treat it, but I have a referral for Dr. Agatha. Here’s her Noösphere information. The growth seems to be progressing rapidly, if the timeline you gave me is accurate, so I would head straight there.”
Winstead thanked him, and her curiosity got the better of her. “How long have you been dead?”
The doctor looked confused briefly and then replied, “Oh! Do you mean back from the Pale? Several years now, but I’ve renewed my visa a few times.”
“If this goes poorly, will I need a visa?” Winstead asked.
“Yes, but there’s a fair bit of a waitlist right now—you might find yourself stuck at the Pale Embassy first. Do you have any skills that could help you jump the queue?”
“Not unless you count literature.”
“Well.” Dr. Zell handed Winstead a file. “Catafalque isn’t that bad, really, even if it’s not for me. It’s a great city, much like Satyrine. Good luck: I hope you visit it voluntarily.”
The more Winstead had stared at the Noösphere address, the less sense it made. Remembering the orientation, she’d borrowed a bike she found leaning against the warehouse and pedaled dizzily back to Phantom Life Anonymous. The queues had proceeded quickly, but the conversation hadn’t.
“Our Noösphere orientation is tomorrow afternoon. I’m happy to sign you up.”
“Okay, but I still need to talk to Dr. Agatha today.” Winstead shoved the paper toward the clerk. “How do I get onto the Noösphere?”
“You’re vislae; you just… tap into it?” The clerk tried to demonstrate, but Winstead couldn’t follow.
“How about I relay a message for you?”
“That would work. Tell her that Dr. Zell from Gatesmithe referred me, about a matter of some urgency.”
“Alright. Is there a way Dr. Agatha can get ahold of you?”
Winstead considered. “I’ll just come back here tomorrow.”
“Hold on, I might be able to get an address. . . . Here, it’s not in Fartown, but it’s not too far.”
Winstead thanked her and left.
Eating seemed to help the headaches, but before Winstead could strike out for Dr. Agatha’s address, nausea overcame her, followed by a blackout. The dreams came back all at once: museums, paintings, missing friends, and a spoken word rumbling in the background. Each time she strained to make it out, she awoke in excruciating pain.
Morning came, and the pain was worse than ever. The ridge now continued down her spine and had become a seam along her skull. Winstead stumbled out the door and got back onto the bike. The streets seemed to go out of their way to frustrate her as she tried to follow the increasingly confusing written directions. Her vision spasmed at times, and the back of her head felt dangerously close to rupturing.
When she finally reached the address, she got off her bike painfully and looked up at the warehouse. Her face twisted in confusion and pain, her vision blacked out, and she fell to the ground, convulsing uncontrollably.
Winstead awoke feeling well-rested and refreshed, which bothered her. She touched the back of her head, which was perfectly fine, then got up to take a glimpse in the looking glass. Everything was normal, and that somehow seemed wrong.
Well, that was that. She got herself dressed and was considering where to find breakfast when the scene outside her front door stopped her dead.
A gaping rift split the human body on her doorstep—a body she belatedly recognized as her own. The messily bifurcated back lay open to inspection, gore and viscera spread in all directions from a tear reaching from skull to sacrum. Two trails led off away from the house, slowly dissipating with distance. As her eyes followed the path of her own blood, a high-pitched keening sound began to rise from her chest. She fled the scene.
It was the well, she thought as she ran, it was that damned well! It must have cursed me when I tossed that coin in! She ran to return to it, headlong and oblivious to passersby and traffic, until she reached the well.
But it wasn’t there now. Instead, a very nice, manicured lawn with a beautiful picket fence moved slowly through the street like a boat parting water, dragging a series of buildings behind it. The street gracefully parted around them as they passed, moving back in when space allowed.
Winstead clambered over the fence and collapsed on the grass in panicked exhaustion onto the lead yard of the Stamwhence Parade.
‡ Misunderstood Beast