The Lady and the Lake

My husband died a few years back. I didn’t have any “marketable skills”. So at 48 I learned to do something no one else wanted to.

I handle asbestos. Pulling noxious poison out of buildings makes me wonder: What's the modern asbestos?

That’s why I was way out north. I’d been flown out to handle this old, old house. Cabin? No one knew how old it was. It had been built, rebuilt, added onto and then at last in the 70’s there was one final renovation.

The one where they very carefully filled the walls with poison.

I think the owners would’ve just let the place rot until it had fallen over but I guess the land where it stood had been declared a nature reserve.

So the government of Canada had flown me way out into the northern reaches of Manitoba to gather asbestos before the house was demolished.

The plane landed on the lake. Well, it felt like a lake. It was more of a frozen pond really, but it felt… Lake-ee, y’know?

The house was stunning. Right on the banks. For all its age and dustiness and hard-to-get to-ness, it must have been magnificent in its time.

The pilot told me it was too expensive to remove the rubble, but obviously they couldn’t have the bears and whatnot getting poisoned...

After I’d removed my equipment and luggage the pilot gave me a nod and said gruffly:

“Well, see you in two weeks!”

The engine had begun sputtering to life, so i had to yell:

“That’s it? Does this place even have a phone?”

I don’t know if he actually heard me. He nodded and said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of the engine. Then he taxied and was gone.

A little defeated, I turned to the house and began hauling my things there.

It turned out there was a phone! Several. All dead. More importantly though: there was a furnace. When I turned it on I could smell the dust burning.

The owner and the pilot had assured me everything was in working order. Frankly, I was shocked anything ran at all.

The next day I got to work. No sense in waiting. It was hard, hot work. I figured it’d kill me eventually. My boss had indelicately hinted that my age was actually kind of a bonus because of this.

Things were going well until I ran out of bags. Cursing my lack of preparation I climbed out of the attic and made for the kitchen.

I was nearly there when I heard her voice. “Valerie? Is that you?”

She rounded the corner and we stared at each other for a moment that felt like eternity.

I struggled to process her presence because… well, had she flown in?

Also she was completely, utterly and in every way gorgeous. She had this way of moving and just… being that reminded me of Mozart. Not his music, but in the same way that he was a virtuoso in that, she was in this.

“Are you Valerie?” She asked me. I was at a loss for words. She spoke again: “I have a headache.”

“How did you get here?” I asked. I hadn’t heard or seen a plane. She laughed musically. “I live here.”

She gave me this quizzical look with a hint of mirth that made my breath catch in my throat. To have her look at me like that…

She looked like she was 35. Maybe a little older. The way her hair and makeup looked, she was like if Morena Baccarin had grown up in the 60’s

I realized it was my turn again. “They… didn’t tell me anyone lived here!” I said, gathering steam “In fact, they told me no one lived here! Do you… have some... some way to prove ownership? Maybe… a deed?”

I had trailed off because I could see her struggling to contain a smile.

“Sorry, is there a joke I’m not getting?”

Her smile broke into a grin and she gestured around us and laughed out loud. “Of course I live here. You didn’t hear a plane did you? I’ve been here for ages! Really, this is where my roots are!”

“Weird.” I thought.

Out loud I said: “Do you want some medication? For your headache.” I turned to rummage in my first aid kit.

She looked at me blankly. “What would I do with that?”

I looked back up from my kit and she was gone. “Weirder.” I thought.

“Hey lady!” I said, getting up. “Where’d you go?”

She was behind me. Somehow.

“I’m here!” She said, chuckling. The chuckling was starting to sound ominous.

I whirled around and there she was. She’d scared the shit out of me.

“You scared the shit out of me!” I yelled, angrilly.

She looked downcast and apologized. She looked beautiful even when she was sad.

Feeling guilty about my outburst, I apologized as well.

She brightened “What if I make you a sandwich and I explain myself?” I hadn’t been working for long, but I was hungry.

We strode into the kitchen together and on the table there was a sandwich. A perfect, delicious looking sandwich.

I was confused and asked when she’d made the sandwich. “Just now! She said, smiling earnestly.”

“So fucking weird.” I thought for the third time that day.

I briefly considered that she might be trying to poison me. Then I remembered there was no way she could have known I’d be coming. “Unless she poisoned all of her guests?”

Then I realized I was staring at the fantastic looking sandwich, and she was staring at me. Awkwardly I took a bite.

It was amazing. The bread was soft and moist. The lettuce was crunchy. The flavour of the- It then occurred to me to wonder how she’d gotten fresh lettuce out here. I hadn’t brought any.

I interrupted her verbal diarrhea.

“Where’d you get the lettuce?”

She froze mid sentence, smiling innocently and looking puzzled. “The lettuce? I-”

I flipped the table on her. Literally. I was bigger and I figured I could overpower her.

I guess she must have dived under the table as it had flipped because she was in front of me.

Lunging forward I tackled her, pinning her wrists to the floor. My face was inches from hers.

Through gritted teeth I snarled: “Listen here you little snake. It’s time for some answers. I don’t know where you got that sandwich, but- Who are you?”

“The house!” She shouted, tearfully. “I’m the house.”

“What do you mean you’re the house?” I yelled. She was obviously insane.

Her sorrow began to turn to anger. “I am.” She said in a deeper voice. “This house.”

Her eyes began to darken. Like deep, terrifying pools of black opal.

Then I noticed her wrists. I had had her pinned for sure. Somehow, my hands were gradually passing through her. Like sinking sand. Her hands looked insubstantial.

I jumped back and scrabbled toward the opposite counter. Blindly, I felt behind me for something; anything. Luckily there was a block of kitchen knives. I pulled one out and brandished it.

I didn’t see it, but something fell out of the cupboard behind me. It must have been heavy because it knocked me out.

When I came to, I was in a comfy bed. My head was bandaged.

“Are you all right? I thought I broke you.” She was standing over me.

My head hurt. In my foggy brain I reasoned that she’d have already killed me if she planned to.

I slurred: “I’ll be okay… Are you a house?”

She laughed again. That musical laugh.

She smiled at me again and said through her mirth. “I am! Now you know. Let me explain.”

In the evening that followed I learned of house spirits. How any home that’s lived in eventually gets one. How many assume it’s ghosts, when really it’s just the house being a house.

She told me how she was very old. How she had been built (she said borne) by a wealthy couple named Valerie and Ruth back in the fifties.

“I was a refuge for them.” She said proudly. “Everyone just thought they were sisters or best friends, but I knew. With me they could be themselves.”

She told me how she had loved them. How eventually they had passed. Then she told me her name. Carson Cottage. Something to do with roses in the atrium?

When The House finished talking she was subdued. A more somber version of the girl I’d met hours ago.

Suddenly, my eyes widened and I sat up in horror.

“Carson! They’re gonna tear you down! That’s why I’m here!”

I realised what this might mean for her now. She wrinkled her nose and said grimly. “I thought they might.”

“We have to do something! You can’t just let them murder you! You have to leave!”

“I can’t leave, dear. Not anymore than you can leave your body.”

Carson seemed thoughtful. “I have had a really good run. I even fell in love! Most homes never get that. I think I might welcome a demolition charge...”

I was a little shocked at how cavalier she was being. If I’m being honest, my desire to save her wasn’t entirely selfless. Something about the way she was, just...

I tried to argue, but in the end, she was smart and quite firm. Having heard close to a hundred years of arguments I guess she had gotten pretty good at winning.

Soon I realized that I couldn’t change her mind and that I should respect her wishes. So I did what I could. I pulled the asbestos out of the attic, and was delighted when she told me that her headache of 40 years had gone away!

Carson sat with me while I worked and we would talk. I felt kind of special. That she had chosen me.

In the evenings I could see her savouring the setting sun. Knowing, I guess that these were her last.

We would get a little drunk and play monopoly badly. I did not beat her once. To which grinned fiendishly and glibly responded: “The house always wins!” While raking in her earnings. She also made jokes about me being “inside her” that made me blush.

Every now and again I’d catch a sigh. Or a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. I couldn’t have known it then, but after so long alone, she was beginning to love life again.

That’s why on the morning the demolition charges were to be set, she rolled over, whispered in my ear a request for a favour.

As I packed my things on that last day, I looked around the house. Despite its decrepitude it was still lovely. Maybe more lovely, now that I’d come to know it.

My final task was to finish the digging. I had my bags outside all ready when the plane came to pick it up.

I walked through the house one more time. Touching door frames and furniture. Smelling the wooden floors.

Then I heard the engines. Two planes. One for me, the other carrying a demolition crew.

As I climbed into my plane I looked back at her. Tears in my eyes. I had fallen in love again, and I would never forget her. My house, my Carson, my love.

As we wheeled away on the icy winds, I looked through my now heavy bags. I’d left all of my belongings behind. Instead, my bags held bricks. Cornerstones. Foundations. A fraction of the whole.

I hoped it would be enough.

Carson thought it might.

Say what you will about working with poison. That hazard pay is incredible.

Now, my life had a new direction. To build a home.

I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes. Her face flooded into my mind. I smiled.

“The house always wins."