A Haunting on the Hill

by Elizabeth Hand

Most houses sleep, and nearly all of them dream:

Something is going to happen. I am going to make something happen.

The darkness was like a liquid I couldn’t feel or taste or smell, but which somehow coated my eyes or was absorbed by them. I tried to lift my hand to my face but the effort was too much. Exhaustion pinned me to the bed, as I drifted between wakefulness and a bone-deep yearning for oblivion.

“Some call me witch, and through their hatred they’ve taught me how to be one…”

The light dissolved. I dissolved, feeling myself floating apart, face and limbs and vertebrae liquefying, to be absorbed like a stain by the walls around me.

Those who are denied joy must take delight In death and darkness…