The House We Built Together, Yesterday

Charlie Winter

T wo new house spirits had arrived through the coal chute overnight. Sterling leaned forward on his cane as they trembled in the pile of Hudson’s Bay point blankets he’d set at the end of the chute. The light in the basement was bad, he noted, squinting at his guests.

“Time to get new bulbs,” he muttered. “Whole house is getting dark. Wasn’t like this when—” But the next word stuck in his throat, where he swallowed it down rather than force it. “As for you two, you’re not staying. I’ve made up my mind.”

He hooked his cane on the side of the coal bin and reached in. One of the shapes skittered around, but the other stayed small and scared so he fetched that first. Once the critter was lifted to eye-height, the darkness surrounding Sterling fell away. A greens spirit: rabbity in nature, but instead of fur wore a rustling pelt of furled leaves, cold-chewed at the edges. Its eyes were bright buttons of soft summer green.

The spirit kicked its back legs with an aggressive lettuce sound. Despite its protests, he checked its ears for lacewing larvae and its belly and rear for pepper spots. Then into his pocket it went with a series of high-end leaf crackles.

The other newcomer was still ping-ponging around the coal bin, trailing hisses like a punctured tyre. But Sterling’s hands remembered his work better than his failing eyes did. He took up the striped point blanket underneath it, swaddling on the way up so that, by the time it was within the range of Sterling’s vision, all that could be seen above the blanket’s edge was an indignant set of sea-grey eyes and two enormous bat-like ears.

“What are you, then?” Sterling asked, risking a twitch of the blanket to expose more of its furious expression. White teeth and a pink tongue were placed prettily in a face that was the marriage of a cat with a particularly petulant mink. Whiskers like sneezes of smoke puffed about as it spat. “Angry little beetle, aren’t you?”

“Pssssssssat!” snarled the creature.

“Fair enough,” said Sterling.

S terling put the greens spirit in with the patch of others he already had in the fridge. They huddled in a mass, twitching their noses and stopping his spinach from spoiling. He made himself tea, though it meant persuading the chicken-like tea cosy spirit to become less solid so he could reach the pot she nested atop of broodily. No brew she protected would ever grow bitter, or cold. Then he took his tea to the armchair by the potbelly stove, his newspaper dropped in his lap by an eager fetching spirit shaped like a Duck Tolling Retriever with fur that rippled, streamlike.

The armchair was set in the kitchen, too big for the place it had been put. It had a grand view of the kitchen sink but little else. Still, Sterling could shove his slippered feet against the stove’s warmth, and the light through the window above was enough to read his paper by, so he didn’t feel the need to sit elsewhere. Certainly not where the armchair had been prior, in the room just eight steps to the right.

A closed door stood between Sterling and that room. The house that Sterling lived in – big as it was, and with spirits rustling in every nook – was filled by doors closed and left that way. He only ever went from this armchair to the bathroom to the basement to the yard; the rest of the house might not have existed. At night, the armchair was his bed. His world, like his eyesight, had shrunk; his life was growing dark.

So be it, he thought, shaking the newspaper. Such was life. Such was growing old.

Nevertheless, even as his eyesight had narrowed over the years, he always knew where his spirits were. The tea cosy spirit clucked contentedly over his tea beside him. The fetching spirit was busy collecting balls of dust from under counters for the industrious tidying spirits, tiny spiders with golden eyes. A small bear-shaped spirit was visible only as two dark eyes within the depths of the potbelly stove, where it made heat without the need for wood. Tinier versions tumbled about atop the stove, not satisfied with merely boiling a little water. They were a rambunctious lot, and only really settled by cooking, which Sterling didn’t do anymore. He didn’t see the point of cooking for one.

He’d released the new spirit from his pocket before sitting. Now that it wasn’t swallowed by the dim light of the basement, he could see it clearer. It had fur as black as coal, but caught all through with threads of light, like spiderwebs, or the blurry streaks of moving stars. He didn’t know its purpose, yet. But all the house spirits who came to him had one. He’d just wait until that purpose showed itself.

Until then, the patter of its paws chasing sunbeams across the kitchen tiles was as comforting as anything might be. His life might have been going through a stage of ensmallening, but at least it wasn’t quiet. The kitchen brimmed with living sounds. And it was warm.

He closed his eyes for a nap, despite the early hour. But sleep came slow, as it always did now, and then there came a series of plik-plik sounds along with a pulling at the threads of his pyjama pants. Sterling opened his eyes to find the new spirit standing boldly upon his chest. Man and spirit surveyed each other.

The spirit crab-scuttled across his chest, this way and that, as if challenging him to bundle it up once more. Then it marched to a spot just above his heart, circled three times over, and settled down in a perfect ball of black-and-silver fur. There it began to purr, a rusty, rattling noise like chains slithering. Its paws kneaded Sterling’s shirt. It was a warm, beating, living weight, slight as it was on Sterling’s chest; he watched as it dozed, heart beating in time with its kneading.

Eventually the rhythmic purrs were too powerful to resist.

He closed his eyes and slept.

S terling woke with a start at a whistle from the window. The face of the local vet, half-raised by Sterling in all the important ways, beamed up there.

“Hey, Mr Tremblay. Checked the chickens on my way through. Here’s the harvest.” He passed a basket of eggs through, setting it on the counter. “There’s a meal in there for you to hot up, too. Anything else you need done?”

Sterling creaked his way upright, upsetting the new spirit from where it was snoozing on his chest. It scrabbled into his coat, finding a place to curl up in the breast pocket of his shirt, where it stayed. “About time you showed up,” he said. “I’ve come to a decision, but I’ll be needing you, Ajappatuq.”

“It’s Rabbit, Mr Tremblay.” Eyes bright with interest, Rabbit left the window and came to the back door, where he lingered in the mud room with snow dripping from his boots. “What do you need?”

“I’m going on a walk,” announced Sterling, Rabbit’s eyebrows rising. “And you’re coming. I’ve got more house spirits than I’ve got house—”

“Hey now, you’d have plenty of space if you just opened a few—”

“Not done talking,” snapped Sterling. “I’ve got more than I need, and not enough life in me to look after them all. I want to put them elsewhere.”

Rabbit examined him slowly. “You’ll keep some though, won’t you? Hate to think of you sitting here without company.”

Sterling gruffed, “No need for that. Now, get the baskets and put some plates down for the house hippos to drink from while we’re gone. Then it’s time you showed me all you’ve learned of catching things that don’t want to be caught.”

T hey walked together, Sterling and Rabbit, and each had long enough knowing of the other that it was a walk made companionable by shared silence. Sterling had trained him in vetting since he’d been a boy, covered in bites from things he shouldn’t have been grabbing at. Back then, it hadn’t been house spirits in the coal chute that Sterling had been waking to, but a pint-sized Ajappatuq in the mud room with his arms filled with beaver or mink or coyote pup.

“Found it alone, Mr Tremblay,” he had said every time. “Can we help?”

Then Sterling would take the animal into the surgery at the back of his house, now behind another of those currently closed doors, and while he was seeing to the creature’s wounds the youngster would sit in the kitchen with a plate of butter tarts and his bites being seen to by—

But that was a long time ago.

The walk through the forest surrounding his home was much like it used to be, for all that Sterling hadn’t taken it for some years. The sunlight sharp on freshly fallen snow and the world quiet in admiration. Those spirits that could walk did so, playing about in the snow as they went; those that couldn’t sat in the baskets hanging from Rabbit’s arms.

The new one, the mink-kitten creature with no purpose, stayed tucked mostly inside Sterling’s shirt, head popped out to watch the world pass by. Occasionally, it meeped as Sterling showed it a leaf or an interesting stick. It was a pleasure to see the creature bristle with curiosity, eyes taking in everything; Sterling had forgotten how big the world could be, when one was small and very new.

They came out of the forest on the coastal path, waves rolling far below on stony shores against the cliffs. In some places, the forest came right to the sea, which churned icily.

Rabbit finally spoke. “You could move into town, you know,” he said, not making eye contact. He said it in the same way someone else might mutter an uncomfortable secret, wishing all the time it could be left under the rug to collect dust. But Sterling’s life was filled with spirits for fetching. Not even dust stayed where it should be in such company. “Stay with me, even. I’d figure out the space—”

“Don’t need looking after, Ajappatuq,” snapped Sterling. “Let me grow old and die where my roots are. If trees are allowed that dignity, then so should I be.”

“It’s Rabbit. And you’re not that old.”

Sterling scowled. Old enough that no one he saw out shopping knew him by name anymore. Old enough that the horses he’d foaled were all gone. The furriers he’d fought with at the bars of his youth had faded away, along with the market for furs.

“Papatsi built us our house,” was all he said, the spirits clustering to look up at him. The new one pressed its head against his chin and purred threadily. “I’ll die where he did. Now, be quiet. We’re almost there.”

W ith Rabbit’s help, Sterling delivered his spirits without fanfare or thanks. They slipped a heating bear through the letter slot of a local fisherman’s closed-up cabin. Sterling knew the man from long ago in the way so many old men knew each other: in time passing and caught snippets of news, like that the fisherman’s wife was gone some six months now and that the fisherman, in all the decades Sterling had known him, had never liked to put the heat on without someone else there to keep the house warm for.

To a lumberjack with a young son, who Sterling had heard was getting into trouble in the usual ways young boys got into trouble, they left a fetching spirit rolling about in the yard. Fetching spirits came with endless curiosity and a limitless energy to match, and in Sterling’s opinion there wasn’t a spirit more suited to roaming the woods and finding things to investigate. Such things boys needed, keeping their heads busy along with their hands.

To a lonely farmer, who’d married young and learned the hard way that growing up sometimes meant growing apart, they left what Stirling thought of as a dictation spirit. They were mostly useful for transcribing patient notes, in Sterling’s experience. But Rabbit suspected these spirits, who came in shapes as gaudy as parrots, could be goaded into talking about anything, if one spent enough time chatting at them to teach them how. It was a long time since Sterling had wasted sufficient words around the house to engage their interest.

On and on the two men went, tucking spirits through the cracks under doors, in letterboxes and tree houses. Spirits for rising bread and picking books; for folding socks and making beds with perfect corners. All manner of creatures left the baskets to their new homes, until there was no one left but Sterling and Rabbit, and the mink-cat creature still in his pocket.

They stood outside Sterling’s house as the sun went down in a golden spill over snow. Sterling looked up at the house, which towered above in sunset glory. It was a thing of beauty, built by Papatsi right down to the last cupboard knob. And now it would be emptier than ever.

“Time for bed,” he declared.

“In the chair again?” Rabbit asked. Sterling fixed him with a frown. “Never mind. I’ll be by in the morning with your breakfast. See you later, Mr Tremblay.”

“Wait.” Sterling caught his arm, almost sliding on the icy step until Rabbit steadied him. He cupped the spirit out of his pocket, handing it over despite the small creature’s protests. Rabbit held the creature in hands big enough to cover it entirely, though more gentle hands Sterling had almost never known.

“This one’s for you. It doesn’t have a purpose that I know of yet, so you’ll need to figure that out,” said Sterling, retreating to his doorway. “But it’s curious. Make sure you keep that curiosity alive. It’s important. And goodnight.”

He closed the door. The hallway was cold and quiet. The house beyond it too.

He walked slowly to his armchair. The fire was out.

He didn’t sleep.

N o new house spirits had arrived in the coal chute overnight. Sterling leaned hard on his cane as though peering closer would change that. But the blankets were empty.

“Hmph,” he said, which echoed. Perhaps it was time to close the basement door too.

There came a familiar whistle from the kitchen above, Sterling going upstairs with undignified haste. “Ajappatuq—” he began as he came from the basement into the kitchen, where he stopped.

“Morning, Sterl,” said the fisherman, standing shaggy and shamefaced in the mud room, hat in hands. “Been a while.”

“Hullo, Mr Tremblay,” said the lumberjack, peering round the doorway behind the fisherman. His son gave a nervous little wave, but his hand quickly fell back to the shoulder of the fetching spirit sitting beside him with a pinecone in its mouth.

The farmer, in the window, didn’t speak, only nodded. The good dreams spirit preened itself on his shoulder. And Rabbit, who was right there in the kitchen, straightened after checking the cold stove with a frown, the mink-cat’s head peeking out from his coat collar.

They were all, to a man, to a creature, looking at Sterling.

“You told them,” Sterling snapped, but the vet was already shaking his head. “Then how’d they know, Ajappatuq?”

“It’s still Rabbit, Mr Tremblay. And they heard you were alone and came to help.”

“Papatsi always used to talk about your house critters down at the bar,” said the farmer. “Where else could they have come from?” He glanced about the room, eyes lingering on the armchair. “Should have come calling before now, since he’s been gone. Shouldn’t have left you sitting up here in this big house.” He pointed to the armchair. “Doesn’t that make it hard to move around?”

Sterling bristled, but the lumberjack said, “Cold, isn’t it? Boiler not working?”

“It’s not worked for years.”

The lumberjack coughed. “I can fix that.”

“I don’t need it fixed, because…” He trailed off without finishing on the heating spirit will help. Sterling wilted in the face of so many well-meaning expressions. “Well, sure, you can look.”

But by the time he was done showing the lumberjack to the boiler, the others had wandered from the kitchen where he left them. Alarmed, Sterling scampered from the empty kitchen to find Rabbit sitting on the stairs, petting the mink-cat – and the two of them surrounded by opened doors.

“!” said Sterling. He scampered past Rabbit, slippers flapping, through the closest doorway, to the library. The farmer stood in there, looking at Sterling’s wedding photo propped on the mantel. Bookshelf spirits – some for sorting, some for unsorting – peeked shyly out from between books, unused to human company. They’d escaped the giving away by dint of being where Sterling wouldn’t go.

“The wife isn’t much for books,” said the farmer. “Me, I like them. But no space. Used to haunt your library, when I had time. Papatsi told me he was having to read to you, back when your eyes starting going. Thought that was sweet. Something my wife wouldn’t do, bless her.”

“Bless her,” creaked the good dreams spirit.

Only now did the farmer look at Sterling. “This one’s a pretty good mimic. ’Spose I read to it, could it remember all that? Or is that too many words?”

Sterling unstuck his tongue. “I shouldn’t imagine it would have a problem with any number of words. Rabbit thinks they get better with practice.”

The farmer nodded. “Might I borrow a book, then?” he asked. “I’ve got time to spare, and I could send it back with a borrow of this fellow to give you what I’ve read to it. Not like Papatsi would have, of course, but if you’d like… and maybe you could put your chair back in here, while you listen. More space for your legs.”

He wrung at his hat.

Sterling croaked, “That would be lovely, thank you.”

He staggered out, casting a glance at Rabbit on his way. The man looked as innocent as the mink-cat spirit on his shoulder, who’d mysteriously obtained someone’s coat button.

The lumberjack was in the workshop where Papatsi had once crafted so many beautiful things, he and his son looking around with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said the lumberjack, tugging at his son when he saw Sterling in the doorway. “Mark was chasing the spirit, who came in here – we didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Dad told me you were a vet,” said the boy. “I didn’t know vets did wood things.”

“My—” began Sterling, shakily. The smells in here – too much. Too many. Everywhere looked like him.

“Could you teach me?” asked the boy.

“Mark,” hissed his father.

Sterling looked at the boy, who fidgeted. The fetching spirit sidled up and released a small block of wood into the boy’s hands. He petted it with fingers notched all over in an old familiar way, from amateur attempts at carving.

“It was my husband who worked wood,” Sterling said. And then added, “Papatsi.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to learn woodcraft,” said the lumberjack, looking at his son’s hands and seeming to notice the little nicks and cuts with surprise.

“You don’t have time,” mumbled the boy. “And you don’t have all these tools.”

“Mr Tremblay doesn’t—”

“Your father can teach you,” said Sterling in a halting, shocked way. “He can use anything in here, of course, anytime. Might as well. No one else is using it.”

“That’s very generous, Mr Tremblay…”

But Sterling had already made a hasty retreat – right into the chest of the fisherman, who said, “Well, your boiler’s bust. Say, you need anything, Sterl? Noticed the cupboards are pretty bare and Rabbit says he brings meals. That’s all well and good, but I don’t mind a bit of cooking, when it’s not just me. Could do a proper roast in an oven like yours.”

Sterling looked about wildly at the house, all its open doors spilling sunlight. It seemed bigger than yesterday. Louder, too, despite the lack of spirits. His heart raced in such a way he worried he was ill, until he considered that it might instead be the start of something like curiosity: what would tomorrow bring, if he kept these doors open?

Then Rabbit was beside him, his hand steady on Sterling’s shoulder, just as Sterling’s had been on his when he’d been a boy. Just as Papatsi’s had been too. They’d raised that boy together, in all the ways they knew, and this was the man they’d made of him. Sterling might have wept in wonder.

“Here,” Rabbit said, passing the mink-cat into Sterling’s trembling hands. “Think she’s yours.”

“For what purpose?” Sterling stammered as, purring, she slipped warmly back into his breast pocket, where her heart beat just like his.

“Bit of company, of course,” Rabbit said. “Just as the vet ordered.”

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