The Unwelcome Bride
1098 Words
A house that screams is not a house you stay in.
After the violent slam against the oak door, I did the only sane thing a person could do: I ran. Not out of the house—I wasn’t that brave—but back to my wing of the suite, where I locked the door and spent the rest of the night with a heavy art book clutched to my chest like a shield.
By morning, the terror had subsided into a cold, simmering dread. I couldn’t stay locked in my room forever. More importantly, I couldn’t stay locked in this house. I needed air that wasn’t thick with secrets. I needed to see a human being who didn’t look at me like I was a line item in a contract.
Dressed in the most normal jeans and t-shirt I could find in the suspiciously well-stocked wardrobe, I walked out the front door. I didn't ask for permission.
The neighborhood was as perfect and intimidating as the house. Manicured lawns, pristine white fences, and houses so large they probably had their own postcodes. It was the kind of wealthy, quiet Jakarta suburb where the silence was an expensive, carefully maintained commodity. No children playing, no music, just the distant hum of a lawnmower and the judgmental stare of a pedigree cat sitting on a windowsill.
I walked for ten minutes, feeling more like an intruder with every step. I was just about to turn back when a voice, sweet as honeyed tea, called out.
“Oh, hello there! You must be new.”
I turned. A woman with impeccably coiffed silver hair and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes was trimming her prize-winning roses. She wore a pristine gardening apron over a silk dress. Mrs. Tirtayasa, according to the brass plaque on her gate.
“I am,” I said, managing a polite smile. “Lyanna. I just moved in… over there.” I gestured vaguely in the direction of Kaelith’s stone fortress.
Her eyes, sharp and intelligent, widened in feigned surprise. “Oh! You’re with Mr. D’Arven! We were all so surprised to hear… well, we’re just delighted he’s finally settled down. I’m Rina.”
‘We were all so surprised.’ Translation: the neighborhood gossip hotline has been ringing off the hook.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” I said, my politeness a thin veneer over my unease.
“And you, dear.” She snipped a perfect white rose and held it out to me. “A welcome gift. It must be so… quiet, rattling around in that big house all by yourself.”
Her tone was casual, but the question was a scalpel.
“Kaelith—my husband—is a very private person,” I said, accepting the rose. Its thorns pricked my finger.
“Oh, we know,” she said with a knowing little laugh. “He’s always been the neighborhood mystery. Such a handsome man, but so… cold. Keeps to himself. We hardly ever see him. You’re the first real sign of life we’ve seen from that place in years.”
Her gaze swept over me, taking in my simple clothes, my tired eyes. I felt like an exhibit. The Newest Addition to the Kaelith D’Arven Collection.
“Well, I hope to bring a little life to it,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and failing.
Rina’s smile tightened. She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, the kind that masquerades as concern but is really just a delivery system for poison.
“I do hope so, dear. For your sake.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “It’s just… that house has a bit of a reputation. He’s had… guests before. Young, pretty things like you.”
The air grew still. The scent of the roses was suddenly cloying, suffocating.
“Guests?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“They come, they stay for a few months…” she said, her eyes glinting. She made a little shooing motion with her gardening shears. “And then they’re gone. Just like that. In the middle of the night. It’s the strangest thing.”
A cold fist closed around my heart. He’s had guests before. Was I just another temporary visitor? Another line in his budget that would eventually be zeroed out?
“I’m his wife,” I said, the words feeling like a lie in my mouth. “This is different.”
Rina gave me a pitying look, the kind one gives a naive child about to learn a harsh lesson.
“Of course, dear. I’m sure it is.” She patted my arm, her touch cool and dry. She leaned in one last time, her voice dropping so low it was almost a hiss. “But you be careful. The whispers in this neighborhood… they say no woman lasts in that house.”
She straightened up, her bright, false smile back in place. “Well, I must get back to my roses! So lovely to finally meet you, Lyanna. Do let me know if you need anything at all. A cup of sugar, a shoulder to cry on…”
She turned her back, leaving me standing on the perfect pavement, the white rose bleeding a single drop of red onto my finger.
I walked back to the house in a daze, her words echoing in my head. No woman lasts in that house. And then they’re gone. Just like that.
The stone monolith I now called home seemed darker, more menacing than before. The windows looked like vacant eyes, watching me. I thought of the locked doors. The scratches on the oak. The violent, desperate slam from within.
What happened to the other women?
I let myself in, the heavy front door closing behind me with a final, booming click that sounded like a cell door locking. The house was silent. Empty.
Or was it?
I stood in the vast, cold entryway, my gaze drawn up the sweeping staircase toward the second floor. Toward the older wing. Toward that iron-banded door.
The women who came before me. Did they hear the sounds from behind that door? Did they ask Kaelith what was inside? Is that why they disappeared?
My agreement with Kaelith was for protection. He had offered me a safe harbor from my past. But as the silence of the house pressed in on me, a terrifying new question began to form, sharp and cold as ice.
Was the danger I ran from any less terrifying than the one I had just married?
- Writer
