Our House

The envelope arrived on a Tuesday. Thin. Soft at the edges, like it had been opened once already and decided to come back. It lay on the doormat like a living thing, waiting for me to notice it—or maybe daring me not to.

No return address. Just my name, written carefully, each letter separated, as if the writer feared running out of space—or courage.

I picked it up, ran my fingers over the paper. It was faintly warm. I tore it open.

Inside was a drawing.

Crayon. Heavy lines. A house tilted slightly to the left, narrow porch, three steps leading up to a door darker than the rest of the page. A single tree stood beside it, bent at the trunk, branches stretching toward the roof like skeletal fingers.

At the bottom, in uneven handwriting:

Our house

I sank to the floor. My legs gave out before my mind could register anything.

I had seen that house before. Every night for years. Not clearly—not like a photograph—but in fragments. Shadows of the porch, the bend in the tree, the cracked second step. Dreams never give you mercy. They only show you what you cannot hold.

The drawing had the crack.

I turned it over. Nothing else.

---

The rest of the day felt wrong-sized. Sounds arrived late. Faces lingered after people turned away. I caught the house in reflections—dark screens, windows, the backs of my eyelids.

I tried to convince myself it was coincidence, but coincidence doesn’t leave traces in your dreams. Coincidence doesn’t make you wake up tasting iron.

At night, I saw the house again. It was closer now. I could see the wood grain in the porch, the peeling paint, the exact crack in the second step. I could hear the wind in the branches, and something else—a low, rhythmic tapping from inside. A heartbeat? My own? The house’s?

In the dream, I reached for the door. My hand went through it. Through the wood. Through the frame. And I fell, the floor giving way, but I didn’t land. I hovered, looking down at a staircase that stretched forever into darkness. A small figure stood at the bottom, waving. The face was blurred, but I recognized the curve of a cheek, the tilt of a head, the familiarity that shouldn’t exist.

I woke gasping. Sweat soaked my pillow. The smell of damp wood lingered. The taste of iron clung to my tongue.

---

Two days later, another envelope arrived.

Another drawing.

Same house. Same angle. This time, a small figure stood in the upstairs window.

At the bottom:

You’re late.

I stopped sleeping.

I stopped eating properly. I ignored messages, calls. The world outside became unreal, pressing against the edges of my perception. I felt like a ghost passing through the living, already halfway in the house from my dreams.

I tried to rationalize it. Maybe it was a prank, someone with access to old addresses and a taste for cruelty. But pranks don’t know the cracks in your dreams. Pranks don’t whisper. Postal errors don’t make your stomach tighten before you even open the envelope.

I had to find it. I had to know if the house was real.

---

The towns I passed were strange. Empty streets. Shops shuttered with plywood. Signs faded, some in languages I didn’t recognize, others partially erased by rain and wind. Shadows stretched too long, bending around corners. A low wind followed me, though the sky was still. Windows stared at me like eyes. Every streetlight flickered when I passed.

I started to doubt my own memory. I asked myself if I had imagined the dreams, the envelopes, the small figure in the window. But then I saw the bend in a fence post that matched the drawing. The crack in a step that should not have existed anywhere outside my mind.

The further I drove, the more I realized it was not I who was searching for the house. The house was searching for me.

---

I found it three hours outside the city, at the edge of a town that smelled like wet leaves and old apologies.

It wasn’t abandoned.

It was unfinished.

Fresh wood framed the porch. Plastic sheeting flapped against the siding. A sign out front read:

'COMING SOON'

I don’t remember walking up the steps.

I do remember stopping at the second one.

The crack was there.

---

Inside, the house was empty in the way something waiting is empty.

No furniture. No dust. Just rooms shaped like decisions I hadn’t made yet.

The air smelled of sawdust, wet plaster, and faint iron, like dried blood. My fingers brushed the walls instinctively, tracing lines I had only ever seen in dreams. Every corner echoed. Every floorboard creaked, though the wind was still.

I climbed the stairs slowly, each step groaning beneath my weight. Upstairs, the smallest bedroom faced the road.

Sunlight lay across the floor in a pattern I recognized too well. I had stood in that light before—in dreams, always just before waking.

A drawing was taped to the wall.

The house. Finished now. Paint intact. The tree grown thick and heavy. In the window, two figures.

One tall. One small.

I stepped back.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

“I told you you’d find it,” a child said.

They stood in the doorway, hands behind their back, smiling like this was the end of a long explanation.

My mouth went dry. “Who are you?”

They frowned—not hurt. Disappointed. “You said you’d remember faster.”

The room felt narrower. The air warmer. My lungs ached. My heart thumped like it was trying to escape.

“I don’t have a child,” I said.

They nodded. “Not anymore.”

Something pressed against my ribs from the inside. A memory without images. Heat. Panic. A choice framed as mercy.

“You said this house would fix it,” the child went on. “That if you stayed long enough, it would stop hurting.”

“I left,” I whispered.

“Yes,” they said gently. “That’s why I’m here instead of you.”

---

I moved toward the door, desperate for air, for something solid, anything real.

On the bed lay the final drawing.

It showed the house exactly as it was now—unfinished, exposed, waiting. Only one figure stood inside it.

Small. Alone.

At the bottom, written more carefully than all the others:

Your turn.

I froze.

The child didn’t stop me.

“That’s okay,” they said, as I reached the landing. “You can go again.”

I paused. My hands shook. Behind me, the house creaked—not settling, but listening. Watching. Judging.

“How long?” I asked.

The child tilted their head. “Until it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

I swallowed.

Outside, the road was gone.

The windows were dark.

And the door closed with the sound of something finally decided.

---

I woke later. Gray light filtered through the windows. The house was silent.

But the smell—wet plaster, sawdust, iron—lingered.

The child was gone. The drawings had disappeared. The upstairs room was empty.

I tried to leave. The front door didn’t open. Not with my hands, not with my shoulder. The house didn’t respond. It waited.

I called out. No answer.

A soft giggle came from the stairs.

I didn’t look.

From the smallest bedroom, a light flickered.

And then I understood.

The house doesn’t wait for anyone.

It keeps them.

It doesn’t matter how late you are. How fast you run. How hard you scream.

It will wait.

And when it is ready, it will decide.

And now, I am part of it. Waiting for the next envelope. Waiting for the next dream. Waiting for the child who knows me better than I know myself.