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Something Else Came With The House

Ray and Diane had been searching for a fresh start for two years before they found the farmhouse on Grover Road and the price was so far below anything reasonable that Ray signed the papers before Diane had finished walking through the rooms. The realtor smiled too quickly when they asked why the previous owners left and changed the subject twice before giving an answer that explained nothing. The house was fully furnished when they arrived. Not staged furniture left behind to make a sale easier but real lived in furniture with indentations worn into the carpet and dishes still stacked in the cabinets and a childs coat hanging on the hook by the back door. Caleb noticed it first. He said the house felt like someone had just stepped out and was about to come back. Poppy started talking to someone in the hallway the first afternoon before a single box had been unpacked. Ray and Diane told each other it was an imaginary friend the way parents do when they do not want to think too hard about something. That first night Ray woke up at half past two to the sound of a full dinner being prepared in the kitchen below. Pots moving. Chairs scraping against the floor. Low voices he could not make out. He went downstairs and the kitchen was empty and cold but the table was set for six people with plates and glasses and silverware laid out neatly. Ray stood there in the dark for a long time before going back upstairs. The next morning Poppy asked Diane why the other family ate dinner so late. Diane asked her what other family and Poppy looked at her the way children look at adults who are being deliberately slow and said the ones that live here with us. Ray spent the following week telling himself the house was old and old houses made noise and that Poppy had an active imagination. He kept telling himself that right up until the night all four of them woke up standing in the backyard at the treeline with no memory of walking there and no idea how long they had been standing in the dark.