I had hoped this would be a one-night story, but it got away from me. So I present to you the first part of “Remodeling”. Remember to say thanks to your house ghost!
The ancient doorbell gave a pathetic warble like the last gasp of a dying exotic bird.
A loud knock came from the door, as if whoever was on the other side was afraid the dying-bird doorbell wasn’t enough.
“Coming!” David directed at the door. He unlocked the deadbolt – leftover habit from living in San Francisco – and opened the door to a dark-haired wiry man in a suede brown leather jacket that showed an obnoxious amount of chest hair adorned with gold chains.
David raised an eyebrow at the man, then asked, “Vladimir?”
The man smiled broadly. “Yes, I am Vladimir!”
“Good to meet you, Vladimir. I’m David” he extended his hand and Vladimir shook it vigorously. “Daniel said you might come by! Come in, come in! I have the album in here,” He ushered the man in and closed the door behind him.
“Thank you, call me Vlad,” he said with more than a little trace of a Russian accent.
“Please have a seat! Can I get you something to drink?”
Vlad screwed up his face in thought for a moment and then said, “Many thanks, but no. I have to get back still. It is okay.”
David hurried to a small cardboard box on the counter pass through that separated the family room from the kitchen. As he carried the box back to Vlad, David noticed the man staring around the wood paneled walls wistfully.
“You know, my family… we spent a lot of good times here,” he smiled. “My baba… this was her pride and joy. That patio,” he turned and nodded past the closed front door, “That was the hub. All the families around here… Russian. From San Francisco. This was their getaway, and they all gathered here.”
“That’s so great,” David smiled outwardly. Though inwardly he felt a pang knowing he had just that day arranged for the demolition of the decrepit patio cover and concrete. “Do you remember it?”
“Da… Yes,” he said. “As little boy, my baba held court,” his accent thickening with the reminiscing. “She cooked such feasts in this tiny little kitchen. My Deda, he kept that fire going all afternoon grilling shashlik. So much food, you could feed an army! And this was their idea of vacation!” he let out a laugh that belied his slight frame. He nodded silently remembering.
David let an appropriate amount of silence pass then set the box on the edge of the leather couch and opened it to reveal a weathered book. “Let me give you this…” he said drawing the book out. When Daniel came across this in the crawl space, I just knew I had to get this back to you. Is this album your grandmoth– your baba’s?”
Vlad took the album gingerly and opened the dust-caked cover. Inside a faded sepia photograph of an ornately dressed baby sat on the knee of a woman wearing a gown. Vlad’s smile beamed and he let out a little gasp. “That,” he said pointing to the baby, “that is my baba back in Odessa! And her mother,” he pointed to the woman. He gingerly closed the album. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Oh,” David said, helping Vlad set the book back in the box, “like I said, I just knew we had to get this back to your family. I know you had a lot of history here.”
“We did. We did,” Vlad said, picking up the box. “And I am sure you will have wonderful times here, too,” he turned towards the door. “I must go.”
“Certainly, Vlad,” David said, hurrying past him to open the door. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can get for you? You’ll be alright? You’re not going all the way back to the City, are you?”
“Da, it is okay. I am fine, thank you.” He started out the door and stopped remembering something. “Oh, David?”
“Yes?”
“On the way in, it looked like the garden in front of the bedroom is torn up?”
“Oh, that. Yes,” David smiled sheepishly. “We’re remodeling a bit. We’re going to bump the bedroom out and make a second bathroom, bring the laundry room inside…” he trailed off as he noticed the color drain out of Vlad’s face. “What? What’s wrong? Are you okay, Vlad?”
“That… that is… big change. The domovoi will not be pleased…”
“Domo-what?”
“Domovoi. Umm…. It is…. In Russia we have domovoi, everyone has domovoi. It is… house ghost. House spirit?”
“Oh, okay…” David nodded confused. “That’s nice….”
“Yes, domovoi… takes care of the house, make sure nothing bad happens, keeps pests out… is good.”
“Sure!” David tried a plastic smile.
“But if you upset the domovoi – make too much noise, or especially break up the house like this…” he waved towards the site of David’s future double vanity, “the domovoi will make a fuss.” Vlad’s head jerked towards the open door and his eyes got wide. “I… I have to go. Thank you again,” he said hurrying down the stairs towards his BMW X5 in front of the gate. “Goodbye!” he said as the SUV chirped an unlock
David stared after the quickly retreating man, not even able to manage a wave before the black BMW roared to life and kicked up gravel from the unpaved road as Vlad floored the accelerator and sped around the corner.
In the quiet autumn air he could hear the SUV roar away taking another corner hard. David pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons before raising it to his ear. “Daniel?”
“Hey hon,” Daniel’s voice came. “I should be out of here in about ten. Everything okay? Need me to pick anything up at the Safeway?”
“No… no, we’re good. But… That guy, Vladimir?”
“The former owner’s son? Did he stop by?”
“Yeah,” David trailed off.
“Daniel? Everything okay?”
“It was weird,” David said, walking inside and deliberately locking the door, the deadbolt and setting the chain lock. “Have you heard of a domo…domo… domovoid?”
“Domo—no, no I haven’t. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” David said. I’m going to look it up. It didn’t sound good.”
“What about it?”
“Oh, Vladimir said it would get mad because of the renovation.”
“Heh,” Daniel scoffed, “Must be some old-world Russian bullshit.”
“Heh,” David half heartedly returned the laugh, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. It was just… I don’t know… a little unnerving.”
“Don’t worry about it, David. I’ll be home in a bit. I’ll grab a bottle of Sirah at the store.”
“Okay, be safe,” David said, reaching for his laptop.
“Will do. Love you!”
…
By the time Daniel got home, David felt pretty well acquainted with the folklore of a domovoi. He had read a Wikipedia entry, two wiki folklore pages, watched a YouTube video of a Russian woman try to explain the domovoi in broken English, and looked quizzically at the carvings and representations of the domovoi that looked to David’s eyes like a squat troll doll.
Secure in his newly gleaned knowledge, when Daniel asked about it over dinner, David just brushed it away. “It’s like you said, some old-world bullshit.”
To himself, though, he remained vigilant. He lay awake that night and started at an audible creak in the house that interrupted the mechanical rhythm of Daniel’s CPAP machine. But the creak really did sound like… well, a normal creak of an old house. And an old house that was raised above historic flood level. He listened again, but no sound came again and eventually the CPAP’s drone lulled him to sleep.
In the back of his mind, he felt his vigilance wane after the next day and night didn’t bring any unexplained phenomena. Then a week passed without incident and David felt pretty comfortable that, yes, maybe it truly was some “old-world bullshit”.
The crew showed up to demolish the patio just as David was finishing with the contractor about the new bathroom/laundry room. The enormous ivy vines that wrapped around the rotting patio structure offered the biggest resistance, but by mid-afternoon the last of the structure had been piled into the construction dumpster and sun poured down and warmed the concrete that had seen only dappled light for generations.
David slept well that night. At least until Daniel’s CPAP machine silenced abruptly. “Daniel?” he asked quietly. When no answer came, he awkwardly pulled the CPAP mask off Daniel. Daniel’s breath came in gasps.
“Can’t….breathe….” he croaked out. “Can’t… move… Get… it…off…me…”
In the dim moonlight coming through the window David could see the night shirt Daniel wore pressed flat against his chest, as if something actively pressed down on him. David flipped on the night stand lamp. As soon as the room flooded with light it was as if a spell broke, and Daniel let out a heaving breath and clutched at his chest as he struggled to sit up. “Daniel, are you okay?”
Daniel panted. He nodded and looked at David. “I couldn’t breathe,” he said finally. “It was like… It was like something was sitting on my chest. I, I…” he breathed heavily, “I couldn’t move…”
“How do you feel now? Can you breathe okay? Do we need to go to the hospital?”
“No… no, I think I’m good, David… Maybe some water?”
“Absolutely,” David said hurrying out of the room to the kitchen. He took a glass from the cabinet and filled it from the Britta in the fridge. “How are you doing –” he started to say as he approached the bright bedroom but the bedroom door violently swung closed, smashing into his hand with the glass as it slammed into the door jam with a blast that shook the house and drowned out the crash of the water glass onto the floor.
“David?! Are you okay?” Daniel called from the other side of the door. A moment later, Daniel yanked the door open to reveal a pale David standing wide eyed in the doorway, cradling his bruised hand.
“I think we pissed off the domovoi,” was all he could say.
To be continued…
