The Unpainted House

This is a short story I could never get published. It's based in my Nahala universe, although you don't need to know anything about the setting. Something about the story never quite clicked precisely, I guess.

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The Unpainted House
c2011

 It awoke, empty and naked. A distant whisper spoke. Footsteps approached. Slow, hesitant and belabored, one thumped wide seconds, after the other. They were difficult to make out, over the deep exhale of mountain winds. It was cold. Its skin rumbled, and chilled beneath a deep layer of snow. Slowly, the grogginess of old sleep faded. It became aware that it was real; it was empty. The steps grew closer.

It sat upon a black mountain, amidst high cedars. The horizon was high and flat, and lit with the flare of distant fires. All was barren, dead. Nothing lived beyond the mountain. It looked down, into a thinning forest of browning trees.

There, a solitary man pulled himself up the rocks. One foot thumped, well after the other. He was faint. His clothes were ragged and dark with old blood and new mud. Otherwise, the creature was unremarkable. His ordinariness made it easy to imagine him as anything, or nothing at all. He looked up, with a painted expression, which It could not help but return.

“What're you... doin' way up here?” he panted, barely audible. The man repeated the last few words, wearily. He struggled, and pulled himself up a final cedar's trunk, into a clearing.

He took a few welcomely flat steps, analyzing what he saw. Eventually, he decided, “Just what I need.”

The House shook, as the man limped to its only door. It was a small shack, they decided. It had always been this way, the House realized. It was not much to look at. A plume of smoke rose from a gray brick chimney. A single window glinted against the fading day. A wooden block acted as an outside step. Icicles hung from a tiled roof.

“New?” The man palmed the unpainted boards, questioning. His touch was hesitant, fearful. The House shuddered at the sensation, against its bare skin. It then realized its only desire: to cover itself. A coat of paint – it wanted for nothing else.

The man curled his gnarled digits into a fist and knocked. A weak voice called for the House's master several times, until the cold insisted. The shack was unlocked. The man stepped inside, and found the House, vacant.

Muddy boots, equally stained with traces of red, paused at the threshold. The man took a look around, before deciding the humble shack was too pleasant to stain. He sat in the doorway. He removed his boots. He stretched worn, blistered toes. He stepped inside.

“How I imagined it,” the man considered. A fireplace crackled on the far wall, and a bed sat away from the door. An unadorned table stood in what little area was left.

“Who do you belong to?”

The House wondered. This was its first memory. Where it had come from, and who its master was, it did not know. The man was insistent that it had a master. All homes should have an owner. For now, all the House had was a guest, who was still shaking from the cold. It slammed its door shut. The man jumped, then cursed. Quietly, he backed into the fireplace, and waited for the shack's lost owner to return.

Hours passed, without words. The man waited, patiently, but no one returned. In fact, the House showed no signs that it had ever sheltered anyone. It was pristine, aside from the vague outline of its guest's only footprints. The man placed a few more logs on the fire, but otherwise touched nothing. Yet, his patience eventually wore thin. He was starving and tired.

“Of course, there's no food.” He stewed in this complaint, until a thought struck him. He searched the floor, feeling for a handle, or a split in the boards. The House watched, as the man's hope faded. Then it realized, he was looking for a larder. Did it have a larder, the House wondered. The man seemed certain that it did. It must have had one.

A moment later, the man exclaimed, victoriously. His hand found a ring, in a place where he was certain he had already looked. He pulled up the hatch, and fell into the soft dirt of the House's belly. There, shelved stores to last the season sat in neat, prepared rows. Every favorite food the man could imagine, he discovered. Salted pork, potatoes, beef jerky, pickled beets, green apples, jars of honey and bushels of flour were only the first the man discovered. He whistled, in amazement. “Wouldn't surprise me,” he thought, and then heard the soft cluck of a chicken, in the far corner.

The man nearly roared in overjoyed laughter. He plucked the bird up from the ground, before he saw a dozen more – more than enough for a steady supply of meat and eggs. He nearly kissed the bird, and would have, had it not pecked his nose. He hugged it, regardless. This was providence, the man declared.

He pulled himself back up, but grimacing. He had nearly forgotten the blood staining his clothes. The House wondered to whom it belonged. No one had arrived. If the man wished to make himself at home, he would have to do so without the House's owner.

“Guess it's just you and me,” he decided. The House agreed.

An hour later, after a large meal and a thorough scrubbing, the man tossed into his new bed. The House's owner would show up, eventually, he was sure. Sometime in between freezing and starvation, he had convinced himself that whoever had built this cabin would empathize.

“You're a right fine place, for being so small,” the man told the House.

The House creaked, in answer.

It was so curiously timed that the man entertained himself a bit more. “You ain't haunted, are you?”

The House had no reason to think it was, and so said nothing.

Convinced, the man turned onto his side, feeling a dream coming. He watched the horizon, through the solitary window. Whatever he had escaped still burned there. The black night sky lit with the faint hue of distant, dying embers. He floated, regretfully.

“Don't know what's gonna happen, here on out. Set out, with no mind to guess what'd be out here. Had to leave. Right before they showed up. Burned the city. But I had to keep going. Just hope they make it through. Hope they didn't...”

The House creaked in question, as snow rolled from its head.

“Wife, daughter,” the man answered. “Called me hard of head for takin' off this way. Suppose I am, matter of fact. Said I should've stayed with her.”

With a regretful exhale, he agreed.

“Got to go back. Enough here for the three of us. Just got to find them.”

There was no need, surely. The light of the House burning heart pumped brightly throughout the room. Everything warmed, and the man marveled.

He admitted, “Might be lookin' for me, already, suppose. Can't believe they wouldn't try to take off, after me, once they saw what was happenin'. Yeah, they're lookin' for me, I'm sure.”

They may, the House thought, agreeably.

“Might be right behind me...”

The man's words were subtly wishful. The House was too young to pick up on the cold reality the man was avoiding. He was too drunk with emotion to face it. The man was only indulging in a fantasy, but one worth indulging.

It did not take much time for him to pass out. The night drew in, and the fire died. Soon, the horizon's light passed, as well.

As the man's light faded, the black found him. In it, anything could be imagined; any horror, any miracle might wait in the dark. The House creaked against the cold, settling into its new foundation. The old world faded, until even sound was gone, into an absolute midnight.

He stirred, and woke. The first thing he saw was a calm horizon. The bright, blinding light of new snow painted the earth. Even the trees seemed to vanish amidst the white, like thin strokes upon a virgin canvas.

Another knock came at his door. It was what had woken him, he realized. He first thought that the home's owner had arrived. But why would an owner knock at his own door, he wondered.

Anxiously, the man approached, imagining the worst.

The House creaked in warning, and wisely, the man paused to consider it. He stopped short, and instead entertained his best fantasy.

He grasped the cold, course metal of the door's handle. It warmed, in answer. The thin ice between the seams broke, and the House sputtered opened.

There, almost expectedly, stood his family. They smiled, as he would imagine them. They leapt into his embrace, as he had hoped. He and his wife feuded, as he had dreamed. It was a precise moment. It felt almost manufactured, painted. Still, he offered thanks, to whom he was not certain.

The House did the same. It watched the act, with its single, unblinking eye. Life became its greatest hobby, in that moment. More importantly, it could now hope to fulfill its first desire.

It finally had its owner, its painter.

Over many weeks, the House watched the unremarkable man's reality grow. The owner imagined more refugees would find their way here. They did. Land would be needed. When the House's master led a small scouting party over the ridges, the fertile valley they discovered did not surprise, either.

Months passed. A small farming community arose, with the House at its pinnacle. High atop its cedar peak, hidden amidst the trees, the new mayor of the nameless town fashioned a new life, for all of them. Certainly, life was good here. The dangers they escaped would not find them. Provisions always came, expectedly. The rains were never too late, nor too early. The yields of their farms were never too great, nor too small.

Years vanished. A few surprises did find them, now and again – enough to be expected. The man tracked down bandits, who had made off with some sheep, one season. In another, a traveler brought news that the old war was over. Soon after, on his fiftieth birthday, his town became the seat of regional government. His wife passed away, peacefully. His daughter moved into a home she said had less personality. Near the end of the man's life, he watched his grandchild take over, as mayor. Little surprised him in his old age. The most unexpected events of his long life were often his deepest fantasies, whispered only in the privacy of his small, unpainted house. There, he would converse with the walls, and try to convince himself that it all was real. The House always agreed.

It enjoyed humanity. The House had learned the tricks of fault and honor. All the mild subtleties of the man's spirit, it had sampled, over the decades. His owner did enjoy lying to himself, from time to time. It did not judge. Sometimes, even it could not tell what was real, and what was not. The two had come to rely on one another.

They spent all of their time together, alone. In the man's later years, the townspeople accepted that he rarely left the House. His daughter would visit, from time to time. Yet, she had her own life to live. When his name came up in conversation, many found it hard to conjure up his face. With more time, many more forgot he had existed, at all. By the time the man's daughter had passed away, no one had ever performed his funeral. His name was never spoken, nor remembered.

Yet, the House remained, unpainted. The small shack stood quietly amidst the cedars, upon the tallest, most isolated hill. Newer homes sprang up. The town became a small city - a hub of commerce and culture. The refugees became citizens. Now, it was their humanity the House enjoyed.

With great fascination, it watched every act, both evil and good. It heard their most private moments. The greatest stories were the ones unseen, after all. In their quibbling, failings and yearnings, it memorized the deepest passages of human nature. The most shadowed nooks were the most captivating; the attics and basements of endeavor, the most fulfilling. Still, it did not judge. It came to rely on them, after all. What was real and what was not, was not for it to decide.

How much time passed, it could not say. The House could no longer make out his owner's resemblance, amongst the townspeople's descendants. From time to time it would drift into a low sleep, and wake to the sound of someone asking, “What's that house on the hill?” “That's the old mayor's house,” they first said. Not soon after, the answer was often, “I can't remember.” In more recent years, the answers had thickened. Or, perhaps they had thinned – the House could not say.

“Some famous guy lived there.”

“That was where an old war hero was born.”

“It's the old royal hideaway.”

“Oh, there? It's the mansion the mayor built, a few years ago.”

Was it a mansion? The House could not say. It gave itself a look up and down, and saw what the people saw. It was indeed a great mansion. Its many rooms were furnished with what one might imagine a mansion would hold. Its history was what one would imagine a mansion's might be. It had always been a mansion, they were sure. The House was sure, as well. Yet, they thought, it was odd that it had never had a coat of paint.

One day, some began to wonder more intently. Who lived in the mansion? Why did they never see him? Why could they not remember ever noticing the mansion, before now?

A week later, on the coldest day of their memories, out of the unpainted house, the townspeople carried a brittle corpse. It had mummified inside, for some time. Its face was missing, and its arms and legs had shriveled into exhausted matchsticks. Its clothes were archaic, compared to their own. No one was sure who the man was. Some debated whether it was even human. Yet, the air was too haunting to wonder long. As they quickly buried the man with the unpainted face, many looked over their shoulders, back to the mansion on the high hill. It seemed much darker, now. It had always been a sinister place, they soon agreed.

The prosperity of the city faltered, after that. Their capital of good fortune could not support their size, nor their increasing arrogance. It was now the largest city in the region – a sprawling mountain stairwell of white fences and brick walls. Yet, it was also the most corrupt. Murders became commonplace. Businesses burned when they became too successful; more often, when their insurance was the only thing they had left. The top of the mountain became the home of the high class, and the foot, their stool. Yet, above them all, on the tall cedar hill of the snowborn town, there always watched the window eyes of an unpainted house.

The House, between its long dreams, memorized many of their names, their crimes. There passed by, Thomas, the adulterer; Samantha, the coveter; Paul, the thief; Perry, the murderer. Most that wandered nearby were rich and important. Their sins were easily forgotten, by friends and neighbors.

They were not like its owner. He was a man of character, even in his weakest moments. It was a strange thing, to see the values he had taught, so long ago, twisted and refashioned into weapons and shields.

They mocked his memory, long abandoned. Still, the House bore no animosity and held no judgment. It merely watched and waited, ever empty, always entertained.

Its solitude would not last, however. When the alleys got too small, the thieves, philanderers, and those that lived double lives made the unpainted house their second home. It was easy to hide secrets there. The rich never thought to look up. Like so many years ago, when the first climbed through the brush, the House woke to meet him. As before, he brought dreams and regrets. Unlike before, he did not leave his troubles on the horizon.

“A dump,” were his first words, when he stepped across the doorless threshold. This man was gruff and fair-skinned. His expression reminded the House of its owner. They were both worn and drawn. The fair-skinned man's was more comfortable, however; he had come to terms with whatever had given him this face. He took a look around, and found nothing of value. “Someone cleaned this place out, but good. Figures.”

“Thought you had this place scouted,” spoke a second man. He and an entourage of broken faces brushed the fair-skinned man aside. This one was large, barrel-chested and dark-haired – a foreigner. The rest were all alien to the mountain, as well. The House did not know their faces.

“Right. I did,” the man claimed. “Got everything we need.”

The foreigner stroked his mane in thought. He did not have the experience that the House now had. He accepted what the darkened mansion knew was a lie, and with a wave of his wide hand, sent his men out to find their expectations.

“This is a dump,” he then agreed.

The walls were bare. The floor was a stripped patchwork of cedar boards. Even the ceiling's paneled paper squares were missing – likely in a hobo's fire pit, or a rat's nest. The only thing the foreigner needed, however, was a tenable space to subvert.

“How'd you find this place?”

“Everyone knows about the mansion,” the fair man said. “Everyone knows not to come 'round it, I should say.”

“Why? You shankin' me?”

“N-no. Nah, t'ain't it. Say it's haunted, is all. Ever since they found that body what was twisted, and had no face.”

“House have a habit of takin' them?”

“No, just a house. No. Not like a man, you know.”

The foreigner laughed and removed a large cigar from his coat, and sneered as he set its head aflame. He inhaled a long drag, and spat the smoke to the ground. “You not happy with what I gave you?”

“I'm happy with whatever I can get,” the fair man spoke, truthfully. “Ain't no guarantees 'bout nothin'.”

“No, there ain't. But you act like you don't like being home.”

“No home of mine. Always hated this town. Only came back, 'cause you asked it. Never gave me anything. What I won, it took back.”

“You never won nothing,” the foreigner smiled, skeptically. “You're not the type. None of the people in this worthless town are. No passion for nothing, from any of you lot. You just breed and die, breed and die. Leave it all to the kids. Breed and die. That was your problem. No direction, no initiative, no nothing. Only things you had was what people gave you. Only things you do is what you should, not what you would.”

The fair man folded a brow down and scrunched his nose, skeptically. “Never understood nothin' out of your mouth,” he said, a little too truthfully. “Boss,” he added.

The foreigner pulled on his smokey beard before slapping a fat hand to the fair man's back. “Look who's tellin' me that. Butter-mouthed bastard. Let me break it down, real simple. See, old boy, people like you are like this house, here. Empty and worthless. Then guys like me show up.” He grinned widely, exposing a fence of yellow teeth. “We hand out the faces.”

“So long as you don't give me yours.”

The foreigner ceased to be amused. He pulled away, and bit his cigar. “Only reason you're still alive is 'cause I needed someone that knew this town. Suggest you make yourself useful for a change.” He gestured to an undamaged fireplace - the mansion's only amenity. “Start a fire,” he ordered. “You ain't any good at that either, I wager.”

He was not. The fair-skinned man bowed out of the doorway, just the same. He muttered something, as we vanished out of the House's reach.

“Not all of us were born in the snow,” the foreigner muttered back.

The House watched, intently. It had been a very long time since people had visited this close, and longer still since any had called it home. It realized, it had been longing for this moment.

The men and women invading its body set up their shops, their factories. They had brought what they did not expect to find, and they found the rest. The sum was very little, but it was all they could imagine for themselves. None were like the House's owner, in that respect. It welcomed them, all the same.

Soon, the dark mansion's innards were a canvas of lifelong compositions, colorful personalities and bold strokes. Each had a different tale, and a separate conflict. They were similar in that none of them wanted to be with the House. In fact, they learned to hate the House. They hated their villainous lives, and the House became their life. They slept there, ate there, loved, lived and died there. Each was indebted, imprisoned – to the foreigner, to themselves.

The decaying mansion was their prison, their joke. Its hinges rusted without doors; the way was always open, yet none ever tried to leave. During the colder nights, they would huddle together, and watch the open portal. Through that canvas, they watched the horizon paint itself, and the wealthy homes below shine with inherited prosperity. Their own always seemed to dull greater, with each passing night. Ever, the House watched. Always, it delighted. Never, it judged.

The fair-skinned man was slightly different. He was the only native, of course, but he was also the only resident who never watched the outside. When the others' eyes wandered, his watched their work. When the foreigners huddled around the fireplace, he kept to his straw bed. He had already seen everything the world had to offer him, as far as he was concerned. He was content to survive, for the sake of survival. The paint of experience had hardened him. The rest still held onto the private little white squares of imagination they each still had left unpainted, in their minds. There, they sketched and erased secret lies, which only they believed. Unlike the fair man, they were unfinished.

“Don't have no choice,” he often told the walls. Much like the House's owner, the fair-skinned man had the curious habit of speaking to himself. “Don't have one 'cause no one ever gave me one. You think things could've turned out someways else, you're funny. Never had no chance. Not one.”

The House could not help but agree. Time moved on, and nothing changed. The fair man's face turned a canvas white, as the cold days drew closer. He began to resemble a specter more than a man, amidst the broken but wishful faces of the dark foreigners. He acted, as the others expected. He achieved only what he expected of himself. Always reacting, never acting, the painted man waited out the winter, in the unpainted mansion they had all grown to hate.

The townspeople were no exception. The foreigners did not stay a secret for long. When crime became more organized, and politics uncomfortably shifted, many traced the problems back to the House. Just as its denizens came to think of the House as a prison, the town's citizens began to think of it as a den of thieves.

In the months that followed, the cedars grew up, like bars. As a result, the dark mansion gathered even more shadows, across its unpainted skin. Much of the upper floors fell through, while the foreigners spread their roots, into the basement. Eventually, the House felt it was little more than a vast reservoir of rock and snow, with a rotted smile between them.

For all the cunning of the foreigners' master, even he could not hand out enough faces to protect his fantasy. Blackmail fell through, the public grew weary, and the rich resented falling into the middle class. At the end of the winter days, in the middle of a snowy night, a lawless mob gathered outside the House. They wasted no time calling for names. They entered by force, with no door to bar them.

The foreigners merely waited, from their dying fireplace. All of their faces had worn away, into a nearly expressionless stare. They watched their killers enter through the black frame, and block the painted horizon. None reacted as the first blows struck. They had no room left for imaginings. They were finished.

The snow continued to fall, and the fair-skinned man continued to mutter his assurances to the House. He heard the violence, but kept to his straw bed. The townspeople began to fan out through the house, searching for stray marks to white away.

“Don't have no choice,” he told the House.

The House creaked, in affirmation. The snow buckled its girders, and a question wheezed through the cold air.

“They won't listen,” he answered. “Never did. No choice. Never had no chance.”

The man would have laid there, and waited for death, had his master not found him. The barrel-chested foreigner stumbled up the steps and ripped him from the straw. A lit cigar fell from his jaws as he gave the fair man his worth.

“You let this happen!” he screamed at him. The foreigner pushed a gun into the fair man's chest. “And you're gonna make it right!”

The foreigner wrapped fingers around the trigger of the weapon, and pulled away. The fair man stood, blank-faced, cradling the gun in his hands. His owner already headed for the window.

“Go!” he commanded. “Slow 'em down, you empty-headed fool!”

The thought of murdering his old master did occur to the fair man. Briefly, the foreigner saw this. The fair man also considered turning the weapon on himself. To the House's and the foreigner's surprise, however, he obeyed. He could not help but agree.

The foreigner ripped open the House's good eye, and fell onto a white sheet of snow. Red began to pour out of the dying mansion, behind him. The straw had ignited. Heedlessly, he rolled away, and escaped into the black.

As the dark smoke began to rise, the foreigner counted the echoing rounds of the fair man's weapon, to their last. The House marveled, as it burned. The villain of this latest story escaped, out of memory, never to be remembered nor imagined, again.

The fire subsided, eventually. The House had burned, along with many others. Yet, as the townspeople expected, it continued to stand, for long thereafter. Something about the dark ruin on the mountaintop had perverted the world around it. It could not die, they were sure. This alone kept the House alive, if it could be said it truly lived. The House was not sure. It did not question. It merely was, as they would will it.

Again, the years passed. The city faded back into a town, as the horizon grew brighter. Soon, the rich left their homes. The poor moved up, but found nothing of worth. It only took a couple of decades, before the city had transformed back into a simple village, occupied by a handful of refugees. The House, now a charred, black and skeletal husk, retained all of its infamy. No one lived on the hills, now. Business was always done at ground level. It was just as well, for no one dared venture too close to the marker above, of the town's worst memory.

So few actually looked up in those days that the House thought it would soon be forgotten. No one questioned what it was. The young people it watched over would have rather forgotten it, entirely. The old had been young, when the murders have happened. They only briefly mentioned its history to their children. Their children's children did not even know that it existed.

Eventually, the House began to feel itself slipping out of history. It began to feel something. It was not sure what. It had lived a long time, with others imagining what it should be. Now, without anyone to give it a purpose, it found that it had no purpose. It was sadness the House felt, it realized. It was desperation. It was longing.

What a horrible feeling to have, the House thought. Was this what humans felt their entire lives, it wondered. It had watched the act for so long, yet it had never quite understood it. Life had been a mechanism, until now. The House had never lived, and it never would.

So, it waited out its days, under a blanket of snow. It had never felt more human. It thought back to its owner, with great fondness. It worried, as it realized that it had no idea where the man had gone. Had he died? Had the House hurt him, in some way? The humans surely knew. Maybe that is why they hated it. Maybe it deserved to be forgotten.

It tried to remember its owner's face. It could not. It tried to remember how they had met. Was it a mansion then? His owner had never been wealthy. Had it been something else? When had it changed? Had it ever had an owner, at all? Its memories – the ones it could actually find - made no sense. Everything conflicted. Nothing felt real. It began to realize, it had nothing left of itself, because everything that it was, belonged to someone else. Worst of all, it was still unpainted.

So, for the first time, it began to imagine. Things would get better, it hoped. Soon, it convinced itself that things would. Its owner would find his way home. His family would join them both, along with their grandchildren and great grandchildren. They would spend out the long days of a fantastic eternity, together, and none of them would ever be forgotten. It was a sweet fantasy, but no matter how convincing the House constructed it, nothing ever changed.

The only thing it had left was a dream. The unpainted house had never forgotten it. Yet, it was too burnt with sins, now. People would never look up to it, and say, “There's that pearl white house, on the hill.” No one would ever pass by, admiring, “A great man is in there, somewhere.” Wanting wasn't making, and a house could never be anything more than what others gave it. The House settled into its old foundation. It waited out its days, for what seemed like forever.

Forever came, on a Sunday. The final story of the unpainted house began much like the first. Someone struggled up the mountain, and found what they had expected. This time, however, it was a discovery.

“Wow!”

“What is it?”

The House awoke, but felt nothing.

“I don't know,” spoke a little girl. She crawled through the brush, and into the clearing. The air had grown warmer, over the House's lifetime. Untamed green crept across its unpainted skin. It was difficult for the girl's young eyes to see what she wanted.

“I know what it is!” the boy claimed, even before he had pushed his way through the brush.

“You don't know!”

“It's a castle!”

“Oh,” the girl realized. She looked back up at the House. The House looked back down, but was not sure what to believe.

“This is the moat,” the boy continued, following a path of light made by the cedar canopy. He jumped across the band, and found the House's doors, face down in the dirt. “That's the drawbridge.”

“Then this is the stable,” the girl chimed, kicking together a pile of dead grass.

The two ran from rubble to ruin, naming off the borders of their imaginations. A stone became a mountain. Sticks became legendary swords. A wound in the House's singed walls became a dragon's cave. They never dared enter their castle, no matter how fantastic they imagined it.

Perhaps the cause was the House's own broken dream, or the children's game, but it never felt much like a castle. It could believe nothing. No matter how long the children played, the House remained a broken mansion, with no one to call it home.

The children finished their game, and brought more children the following day. They imagined that the House was the abandoned temple of an evil cult of sky worshipers, who were intent on sacrificing the little girl to their idol. Half of the group became cultists, while the other half became bounty hunters. They shot at one another with rifles made of sticks, and threw grenades made of stones. The more daring boys of the group retreated into the House's broken foyer, where the others would not follow. The temple was cursed, they said; it certainly looked cursed. The House agreed, but it had known this for a long time.

This sort of thing happened quite often. Every day, the children came. Sometimes, it was only the boys. Other times, only the girls would show up. On rare days, only the first boy and girl would find their way back. They played many games, but none of the things they made the House out to be ever changed it. It had been a castle, a temple, a fort, a ranch, a burned down museum, and many other things. Yet, it was locked to its last injury.

The children always came, however. They loved the House for what it was. Over time, they grew to know it, intimately. They explored it, cautiously. The House warned them if they got too close to an upturned nail, or a rotted step. It creaked when the storms came, and rattled when it saw their parents searching. There was something strange about the House, they decided, but it was something good. The House was a fine place, after all.

Before the House knew it, the children began to grow up. Their visits slowed. Many stopped coming, altogether. Their stories became less fantastic. Soon, their imagined reality replaced the forgotten sins of the older generations. The new stories never made the House feel any different, however. Only their visits seemed real. Nothing else mattered.

Soon, the House only saw the first two children. It was a special place, for both of them. It was where they played their most private games, shared their first kiss, and made their first vows. When the two married, they decided there was only one place they wanted to live. The House had never really been in such bad shape, they said. For the first time in a long time, the House agreed, against its better judgment. It did not want to lose them, as well.

The crews came, and began their work. The damage was not irreparable. A lot of good still remained. The workers pushed down its broken walls. They pulled up the rotted boards. Most excitably to the House, they gave it a new door. It could not be a home, after all, without a door. The couple had lived with their parents for the first few months. They moved in, once the new roof was laid. They gave the House a new carpet, new furnishings, and a new identity.

The builders left, and the couple stayed. They began a solitary life for themselves, there, on the highest peak. Before the House realized it, it had become a home, again. More than that, it felt smaller, more intimate. Without realizing it, it had ceased to be a mansion. It was not a shack, nor a grand estate. It was simply a House – an unpainted house.

It thought back, to its first and only dream. Why had the idea of being covered meant so much to it, it wondered. Was it the luxury? It had been a mansion, so that could not be it. Was it the beauty? It realized now, the townspeople had fashioned it into their perception of beauty. That could not be it, either.

Then, it discovered the insidious truth. It realized, it had not always been a mansion. It had not always been a shack. It was only what others thought it should be. It had always been painted, by someone else's paint. This was what had happened to its faceless owner, and to the fair-skinned man. The House had been taking their paint. This was what it wanted. The truth was, it wanted protection; it wished for self.

It had longed for its only dream, because it wanted an identity of its own. It had never won its dream because it had never made it. But how could it? It was merely a House, after all. Could it be something more? Could it return to what it first was, before it was a House? It stopped wondering. Now, it began to plan.

It was easy to forget what one could not see, the House knew. The people had forgotten its owner, easily enough. The foreigner had attracted too much attention, too much paint. So, the House locked its doors, from the inside.

Only an hour later, the couple panicked, when they realized the way was closed. They bashed the windows. They picked the locks. After several days, they even clawed at the walls.

“Do not leave,” the House spoke, for the first time. “You cannot leave. I am the owner, now.”

“Let us out!” they begged.

“I will not,” the House answered. “You are happy, here. You have always been happy, here.”

It insisted, until they began to feel themselves believe. The thought painted their minds. They were happy. They had always been happy. Their mouths cricked up, into toothy smiles. Laughs began to vomit from their throats. They fell to the ground, terrified and overjoyed. Their screams intermingled with their mad laughter.

“We'll die in here!” the boy shrieked, joy painting his words.

“You will not. I will maintain you, as you have maintained me. I will live in you, as you live in me. We will paint our dreams, together.”

The couple could not help but agree. To their horror, they knew, they would never be allowed to die. Yet, they welcomed eternity, with a smile.

The townspeople forgot the two lovers, on top of the mountain. The cedars grew tall like bars, around the unpainted paneling. The House vanished, amidst the branches. The world forgot, as it always did.

All the while, the House's eyes watched the horizon, as it blended into the sky. The world grew black, when the new snow came. The House's locked grin stretched wide. Painted, satisfied, it would not wake, again.

Years later, a man would climb the white summit, again, looking for his expectations. To his surprise, he would not find them. He would discover only tall cedars, an empty clearing, and an unpainted canvas of old snow.