in the valley, in a dying flame (haunting of hill house | nell/theo + hill house)

[fiachairecht]

in the valley, in a dying flame. the haunting of hill house - shirley jackson, nell/theo. 2k words, rated t. eleanor stays and theo returns. for slashmarks in everywoman 2019.

It is quite the strange thing, to look down upon a body that you once inhabited. Eleanor does not get the chance to see her body for some time, as Luke and Dr Montague and poor sweet Theo performed the required amount of fussing over the tree, the car, and Eleanor's body.

It is only once they have departed for the questionable safety of Hill House once more that Nell crouches down beside her body. It is in remarkably good shape — of course it is, Eleanor was an excellent driver who had known exactly what she was doing. Just a dent to her forehead, a twist to her neck.

She's smiling. Nell likes that; she wonders if Theo had noticed. She tries on a new smile, in this form that's not quite a body and not quite a house that she's found herself in.

It works, or at least she thinks it does. It feels like it does. The car windows are too cracked for her to see herself; she'll have to go down to the river or back inside. Hill House will tell her if she's smiling, or at least teach her how to tell.

Nell closes Eleanor's eyes but leaves the smile. Her ears are sticking out, like the lions that had once guarded the white marble house that she had pretended was hers. Silly Eleanor; Nell has a much better house now. One that's full of memories and people and things, not empty like the white house, not empty like the inside of Eleanor's head now.

Nell sits by her body, and strokes her hair, and considers her next steps. Sweet Theo is inside, as are all of the easiest ways to contact her. But perhaps Theo would return to the river, to the picnic? She had run that day, after all, and one must only run from what they love — why else had Eleanor gotten in the car that morning?

It's a paralysing source of indecision, the sort of question Eleanor would never have been able to answer on her own. Hill House was always better at that sort of thing, though, and Nell bites at a fingernail and wishes she'd left that part of Eleanor behind as well.

Theodora is inside right now, though, and that's what finally settles the matter for Nell. She can feel all of them, Luke and Dr Montague and dear sweet Theo, at least as long as they're on the grounds, and she must make use of all the time she has with them.

Hill House opens the front door to her before she even thinks to ask, and she passes through it with a nod of thanks. Nell shuts the door behind her, though. She has more manners than some of the other pieces of Hill House, and she wouldn't want Theo getting cold.

But no one is there when she enters Hill House for the second time that matters. There is no sign of Luke or Dr Montague or dear sweet Theo; the doors are all open on rooms that Nell had once sunk into and danced through and the rooms are all empty.

She cannot remember if anything has changed in those rooms since the night she went out on the roof. It seems as though it should be impossible — surely that was just the night before, surely there was no time to change anything?

Nell fidgets with the edges of Eleanor's jacket as she makes her second circle of the lower floor, the entryway, the parlour, the kitchen, the dining room. There's no food set out; perhaps the others had asked Mrs Dudley to stay away after the scene under the oak tree. But then they would all be going hungry, Luke and Dr Montague and dear sweet Theo, and Nell's heart aches at the thought.

She makes herself coffee, wondering if the noise will be enough to summon the others from where they must have retreated upstairs, but no one comes to see what the commotion is, or even to beg her for a coffee cup of their own. When she reaches for the sugar, she finds one of her favourite teaspoons has gone missing.

That would be Luke's doing, then; he always was one for shiny things, and one for things that Eleanor had liked. She almost felt a little sorry for him - for Eleanor, of course, he could never have held a candle up to dear sweet Theo, but he was a decent sort of lad. The type of lad Eleanor would tell stories to, the type of lad that Eleanor almost finds herself missing, now that she's Nellie-Nell-forever.

They had all helped her become that, Luke and Dr Montague and dear sweet Theo. Hill House had helped the most, of course, but Eleanor would never have stayed without them. She had needed other things in her heart, to bloom like oleander and jasmine under clear sunny skies before there was enough room for the house under the storm clouds.

Nell drinks her coffee slowly as she examines the thin layer of dust collecting on the sideboard. It's perfectly tidy and not at all neat — how had none of them noticed? Had Mrs Dudley truly been so cross with them? The plates have all been washed and dried and put away, though one stack is slightly shorter than the others. Nell promptly un-tidies the sideboard by setting her empty cup down upon it, the taste of the too-hot liquid lingering on her tongue. It gives her the same sort of satisfaction that Eleanor had felt that night when they moved all the furniture in the parlour, or when she and dear sweet Theo had pressed their beds together.

Where was dear sweet Theo? Rare were the days she couldn't be lured even from slumber with the smell of coffee, and Nell has lost track of the number of cups she has made by now. She has asked Hill House about the queer absence of her friends, of course, but it hasn't responded.

Nell finds the paper in the room that had once been Theo's, where the skeletons of big red letters still loom on the walls. Nell giggles — that had been ever so much fun for the house, though it had taken Eleanor longer to understand what they'd done together. She likes Theo's old room the best, out of all the rooms in the house, because it's the only one that still smells like her. By rights Eleanor's old room should have something of that presence still lingering, in the old double-bed where they'd once held hands, but Nell avoids that room now. She prefers to remember dear sweet Theo before she was afraid.

The letter itself, she writes in the nursery. It isn't cold there, anymore, which she sometimes thinks is strange because the rest of the house is so hard to warm. But in the nursery, she sits on the bed with her coffee and writes some of the things she would like to say, to Luke and Dr Montague and dear sweet Theo.

Mostly, of course, she writes, please come back. Sometimes she adds, Eleanor misses you dreadfully.

The replies pile up, unread, in the entryway. Nell isn't sure who's brought them — she hasn't seen Mrs Dudley since before the crash. She hasn't brought food, either, and Nell is starting to grow thin and sad without the meals she used to prepare. There is only so much one can collect from cupboards that aren't being replenished, after all.

Other people come by the house occasionally, though Nell doesn't recognise or want them. She sits with her back pressed to the big front door and doesn't budge, and Hill House doesn't budge either, not even when the strangers try the windows and bring their ladders.

Hill House, as ever, knows exactly what she wants: dear sweet Theo's bed constantly made in preparation for her return, coffee brewing in the kitchen, and all the balconies easily accessible. Nell doesn't ask for much, and the house asks for even less in return, and she thinks perhaps that is why they get on together so well.

She ventures out to the grounds, on nights when the clouds hang heavy over the rooftop and she wants to feel the rain on her skin. Nell has free reign of the grounds, much as Eleanor did, though now she has much less fear. There are no more secrets between her and the house, no more need to stay confined to her room. No more huddling under the duvet in the dark trying to decode its knocks. No more pacing the living room of her sister's house wondering if this is the day she is deemed to heavy a burden.

Nell runs through the trees. Nell dips her toes in the river and laughs in delight when the expected chill doesn't touch her. Nell sprawls on the great lawn, props her chin in her hands and recites all the best passages of all the best books in Hill House's library back to the house with no eyes and more interest than she's ever seen in anyone else. Nell is free, and no matter how many time she proves it to herself, she still feels the missing spaces inside of her where the world slips through, the places where Luke and Dr Montague and dear sweet Theo should be instead.

Nell is drawing dear sweet Theo the day she returns. She's found charcoal in the library fireplace — not her fire, she cannot remember the last time she'd felt the need to light a fire, the cold such a thing of the past, but her charcoal, now. Hill House is so good at providing for her, she cannot imagine why Mrs Dudley was ever needed.

It's thinking about Mrs Dudley that draws her attention to the gates, as if the woman would be there. Her charcoal stills on the paper, then, because someone is — but it isn't Mrs Dudley, and Nell is glad. It's the first thing she's felt since she noticed that dear sweet Theo was gone, so of course it is dear sweet Theo who is walking up the path towards her.

How had she left? Why had she wanted to leave? All that time Nell had thought she was just hiding somewhere, working up the courage to face the house again after everything that had happened, and she had been off the grounds — it isn't fair.

And it isn't fair either that dear sweet Theo is old, now. Her stories are written on her face, and not a one of them is about living with Eleanor in a white marble house with jasmine in the back and golden lions out front.

Dear sweet Theo's hands hover over the rusted iron lock still lying sleepily across the gates. Mr Dudley isn't there to open them for her — he's been spending more and more time in the village. But he isn't here, and dear sweet Theo is here, and all is not quite how it should be, but it is so much close than it has been since the day Luke pulled her back from the roof.

Hidden in the long grasses of the lawn, under the shade the house casts deeper than the dappled light of the trees, Nell watches dear sweet Theo notice all the signs she's left for her around the grounds. The skeleton of her old car is covered with a picnic blanket, she's moved the statues outside. Inside there's coffee brewing once again — can dear sweet Theo smell it? Does she remember their nights in the parlour? She lifts her face to the clouds as if she does, and Nell smiles to counter the blank glower of Hill House.

It's Theo, it's dear sweet Theo, and Hill House will welcome her as soon as she crosses the gates to the grounds and becomes Nell's once more, like she never quite was Eleanor's.

The gates swing open, at Nell's wish and the brush of dear sweet Theo's hand. Nell stands up, opens her arms and watches the horror of recognition sweep over dear sweet Theo's face.

A step over the threshold, and the clouds above part for the first rain Nell has seen since she stepped out of her car.