The House Bends

Journal Entry – December 8, 1871

The house shifted last night.

I heard it before I felt it — a slow, deliberate creaking, not of age or weather, but intention. When I walked the hall at dawn, the corridor seemed longer, the wallpaper subtly changed, as though the house had been thinking while I slept.

Mrs. Crane asked me where the stairs had gone.

The stairs were exactly where they’ve always been.

But when she stood in front of them, she looked at me like I was the one who’d moved them.

The fog is inside the walls now. I see it in thin, pale streams creeping through the cracks, listening. It settles behind my shoulders when I stand still, as though waiting for instruction.

And when I whispered, “Quiet the house,”

the floorboards stopped groaning instantly.

I didn’t expect it to obey.

But I think obedience is the point.