Permanent Guest

Written for a contest and named for the Pretty Balanced song that partially inspired it.

Constellations of dust danced in the spills of sunlight that intruded through windows, and his steps stole silent across the rippling surface of aged floorboards. Nails protruded at odd angles from the door frames against which he set his hands, and birdsong entered freely where glass had been long since shattered.

The chambers were all but bare of furniture, all the more room to run and creep between them. Soundless and energetic, opening his hands to the warmth and luminescence that invaded his solitude from every angle.

Its walls lived around him, and the comings and goings of small creatures within them were impressed on his wandering thoughts. Its staircases seemed to run in circles at times, turning him back from the breezes and distant noises of the lower floors, but that day was special. The house lay in order, rooms leading reasonably into one another, and his steps directed him toward those uncooperative stairs.

His hand raced along the adjacent banister as he descended, taking its steps two at a time without disturbing the dust that lay atop them. They led downward in graceful, gradual curves, and ahead, opened on the most spacious chamber that the house had to offer.

Where the contents of bookshelves lay mouldering and shrouded in cobwebs, their details revealed and beautified by a pair of windows set high in the opposite wall. Where the floral pattern of the rug could hardly be made out, and a single bench allowed those in no hurry to revel in the warmth of solitude.

There was no solitude to be had that day, was there? Something had changed, slowing his steps to a near halt as he came within view of that low, simple bench.

Occupied. The thought was an electric jolt, a breath caught as his eyes stretched wide to take in every new detail. Every possible glimpse of the curiosity that had intruded on his lonely world.

No more than a child, shrouded in the sort of clothes that would be worn for outdoor adventures and dirty tasks. Smudged and scraped in ways that she didn't seem to notice, hair dark enough to both swallow and reflect the sun's light where it fell in tangles against her shoulders.

Hands lay braced in her lap to support the weight of an open, yellowed tome, a combination of esoteric writing and elaborate, page-sized pictures. Clever and quick were the eyes that absorbed those sights, a shade to match the latest hours of the nights that he often viewed through broken windows.

Then those eyes lifted from the page to meet his, and he found himself frozen in their gentle grasp. Noticed, for the first time since memory had failed him.

Her lips split to display a striking smile, and hands were raised to guide those pages shut. Setting that tome on the bench at her side, she pushed herself to her feet without hesitation, crossing the small distance between them as though approaching a friend she'd long waited to see again.

“So it's true,” she breathed in the voice of childish fascination. “You're the house sprite, aren't you?”

For a few seconds longer, he regarded her in silent befuddlement. The joy in her expression, the question that she'd posed so casually. Words that seemed to trail into a dark, empty part of his mind, where answers could not be formed.

Speaking in response felt like taking advantage of reflexes long unused, moving his lips in ways that required no proper consideration. “What did you call me?”

The confusion that crossed her face was momentary, obliterated by a swift resurgence of fascination and cheer. “The house sprite,” she repeated, as though explaining a simple concept to a younger child. “I was just reading about it. They use holly and blood, and coins, and it summons you to make the household rich and happy. But if they don't do it with love in their hearts, you make everyone in the house disappear instead.” Between one second and the next, her expression became grave, though its previous curiosity still shone bright in the darkest of eyes. “Is that true?”

“I-” The word caught and failed in his throat, and again, he was reduced to staring. Her eyes asked him more questions than she would speak, and every possible response seemed to brim from that same shadowy place inside. “I don't know,” he stammered in eventual admission. “I don't know that I've ever been elsewhere. I've been-” The question brimmed before he could consider whether it would offer any useful information. “What year is it?”

If anything, the query seemed to confirm and double the energy in her voice and beaming face. “Fifteenth of Cat,” she happily announced. “When did you think it was?”

Did he know? An image was there, something before his mind's eye that his imagination had not created. A calendar rimmed in gold and blue, dominated by the commanding presence of a dragon. “Eighth of Dragon,” he replied as the memory crystallized in his mind. Though the statement had no context, no true weight until she regarded it with such triumphant glee.

“That was more than a hundred years ago,” she excitedly informed him. “You are the house sprite! Lalo �" that's what the book called you. You're Lalo.”

A century spent in empty rooms. He remembered, didn't he?

Spent wandering through dusty corridors alone, pressing his hands to paintings that hadn't been updated or replaced in generations. The days had skipped so easily through his mind, so little committed to memory until she had pressed him to recall it. But if that much time had passed... “What of the people who lived here?”

Her expression was breaking again, and at last she seemed to realize the damage that her words might be causing. “My granddad said that they all went on a journey,” she explained with far less vigour and volume. “The ship sank in a storm, and they all died. You've been here all this time, waiting for them?”

Waiting for-

He remembered.

He remembered hovering behind, watching as a young woman in elaborate dress painted the lines of her face. Meticulous yet quick, turning to smile in his direction when she deemed her work complete.

A father bending over the ruffled concealment of a crib, lifting free the child who had squirmed and kicked within. Hugging the swaddled infant tight to his chest as he spoke, words meant for the sprite who watched from one of the room's corners.

“She'll be yours to protect one day,” the doting man had charged him. “All of this, until the day my line is no more. Their safety and prosperity will be in your hands long after I am dust.”

At that moment, the woman with the painted face had entered from another doorway. Older than in the last recollection, yet no less vibrant, extending her hands to accept the child from her lover. Her smile had been turned on the observing sprite again, and there had been no doubt of her happiness.

Dead. All of them dead, their chambers abandoned to cobwebs, and he was-

Hands clutched to his chest, throat closing against something that welled from his core. All of them gone, and he was alone, unchanging. He would never-

“No,” the child urged him, dragging him from those sudden, absorbing recollections. Her eyes brimmed with far different emotions, and her hand was extended toward his. For the first time in over a century, living, human warmth was passed through the skin of him. A moment's spark, a heart-stopping closeness as she continued to speak. “No,” she begged again, “Don't cry. I didn't mean to upset you. I- I'm sorry, I'll make it better. I don't have a house you'd like right now, but when I'm grown and I do, I'll come back for you. I'll-”

“No,” he interrupted in turn, opening his hand to hers. Desperate in the moment that implied his abandonment. “Don't leave for so long. The family that lived here �" there was much that they wouldn't have taken on such a journey.” Memories that flooded back like the wind through shattered windows. “Funds hidden in case of an emergency. If they have no descendants...”

Her emotions and expressions changed as quickly as those of any child, a return of fascination and unprecedented hope. Slowly, her other hand was raised to rest atop his offered fingers. Her voice hardly audible, as though fearing that her question might be answered in the negative. “There are riches? Really? I thought things like that only happened in stories.”

His response was an adamant shake of the head, closing his hand around hers with greater strength. “There are secrets left here,” he assured the staring, wondering child. “More than you might think. Please, let me show you.” And disguised behind those words, with far greater feeling �" please, don't leave me.

Understanding softened her features again, and she lowered her head in tender assent. “Okay,” she agreed, winding her fingers tight between his. “Show me.”

Seven days, she had reminded him on more than one occasion, holding up small fingers in indication. Every seven days, she could pull away from her typical life long enough to come and see him.

The pace at which he wandered those halls had changed, taking him past windows far more often, where he could peer into the world at large and monitor the changing of its light. The slow cresting of the day, then its gentle descent, plunging into restful shadow before the pale luminescence of the moon found its place overhead.

His thoughts were present in full, and he paid mind to the smallest of changes in that ancient house. Every room that might become unsafe, every slow, settling creak that sang through its floorboards. The patter and dancing of autumn leaves across its floors, carried by the breezes that entered through broken windows.

He had felt just how easily the world could slip away from him, thoughts of the past and of his own nature. How time could race by unnoticed, and it would never happen again.

He didn't want to miss a single day on which she ran up the fragments of the stone walk, dark hair bouncing beneath the sun's welcoming rays. The house would groan in acceptance as she pulled its door ajar, and her head would be inserted through that open space as a careful query, searching the room until she caught sight of him nearby.

Then the smile would break wide, and she'd shove the door open with greater strength, crossing the threshold to throw her arms around his waist. Warmth would spread through the cold in him, and worries would fall away all together as she pulled away to grasp his trailing hand.

Promises were spoken where only he and the house could hear them, spilling from her lips with greater elaboration as the weeks passed them by. Her body became longer and lither, her hair expanded in vast, tightly wound curls, and her plans for the future were spoken more boldly.

“I won't touch it,” she reminded him yet again, casting a nod in the direction of the door he'd shown her on the day of that first meeting. “Not until I'm old enough to own property. Then I'm going to buy the little studio on the corner of Lakeside. It's been empty for years, no one wants the bother of fixing it up.”

Once, he had hardly been a participant in those conversations, listening in contented silence as she expressed her every thought. Years of prodding and encouragement, however, had taught him to raise his voice in answer when she lapsed into such expectant pauses.

“You do?”

Her fervent nod was accompanied by the dancing of those countless curls. “It's going to be beautiful,” she assured him, bracing open hands against the edge of the bench on which they sat. “We're going to clean it up, paint it blue. To match the lake at this time of year.”

'We'. It was a word that still lowered his head, silenced his voice despite the fact that it was his turn to speak. Something that she clearly didn't miss, turning her gaze on his with greater curiosity and a hint of worry. “You don't like the idea?”

“I like it,” he was quick to assure her with an answering shake of his head. “I just...hope.” Sounded so foolish and clumsy to put it into words.

Yet she had never made him feel that way, gentle in how she urged him to continue. “Hope?”

“That it comes to pass,” he continued with less volume, letting his eyes drift to one of those great windows on the room's opposite side. “The people who lived here expected to be back in six months. By the time you found me here, I didn't remember them or myself. If something kept you from coming back, how long would it be before I forgot you and this as well?”

“I think it's something good about you,” she responded with a shrug and not a moment's hesitation. “Just how house sprites are, right? You don't hold on to what happened before, for good or bad. It's all about what could happen in the future, and what's happy about right now. I want to live like that.”

Reluctance drew his chin closer to his chest. “I-”

“Which is why,” she concluded, “I'll always come back, until the day I can take you there. So don't worry so much.”

Five golden coins arranged in the pattern that the book had shown. A fresh-cut sprig of holly placed in their centre, crowned by no more than three drops of her own blood.

With that laid out atop the table's splintered surface, there was nothing for her to do but hold her breath and focus her racing thoughts. On the face, the name, the intent. The hope that made her heart pound so madly beneath the surface.

It was no palace, not nearly as opulent as the house where she had found him. Two rooms on that floor, no door in the wall that separated them. A ladder leading to the loft where sleep could be taken, if it hadn't been filled to the brim with wooden boxes.

All dust and water damage, windows loose in their frames and a front door that screamed on its hinges. It smelled like the lifespans of generations of rodents, and not for the first time, she found herself wondering if he'd deign to inhabit such a place.

It must have been so beautiful, the home that he'd been haunting for the last century-and-some. A house sprite under those circumstances would have been something close to a prince, and in light of that, her offering was so-

Not the way it had looked when she had turned away. The holly was missing, and her heart increased its feverish pace as she looked about in search of it. It couldn't have fallen, there was no wind to blow it. Even if it had, she wasn't-

“You're right,” a familiar voice sounded on her left. Airy in its masculinity, never raised above a soft conversational tone. “It's going to be beautiful.”

Turning abruptly to the other side, she found herself regarding the figure who had greeted her every seven days for much of her childhood. Translucent to the point where his very presence seemed like a trick of the eyes, still dressed in the ruffles and dark silk that would have suited a nobleman of the last century. Dark of hair and fascinated in expression, his fingers pinched over the fragile holly that had been offered.

“You-” The word faltered on its way out of her throat, and a moment's silence was required before she could try again. “I wasn't sure you'd come.”

The holly was turned between his fingers, crushed beneath their grip. Gone without a trace when they parted again, and turning to face her in full, he offered the brightness of a smile.

“I would never turn down an invitation from you,” he assured her with absolute confidence. “Now, tell me �" where are we going to begin?”