The House, by Jieyan Wang

By the Day She Made Herself Into a Cat, by Arthur Rackham (UK) 1920.

       
The House

As a paranormal investigator, Jacob’s job is to dig up all the secrets in the world that science cannot explain. Today, he is investigating the dark, looming house on 6th avenue in Marksonville. The owner of the house is said to be a strange, whiskered circus performer. Legend has that she is a possessed woman who kills whoever dares to enter the house. She creeps up behind them with quiet footsteps and slaughters them mercilessly.

Jacob enters the mahogany double doors and wanders around the house, which had become shed-like with jagged wood edges.

Then, he hears it: thunk, the sound of the woman’s footsteps approaching. Jacob pulls out every trick he knows to scare off evil, possessed souls: shining a flashlight, chanting spells while holding crosses and throwing tiny little metal hearts in the air. Nothing works; the footsteps continue to approach him from behind his back.

Jacob is left with no choice but to turn around to face it. He grits his teeth as he turns, preparing to die.

He does not see a possessed circus performer; instead, a long-whiskered cat sits in in front of him, striped in orange and white.

It opens its mouth; it’s asking Jacob for food.

Jieyan Wang

Jieyan Wang is a short fiction writer from northern Idaho. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Parallax Literary Journal, and Lilun Magazine. She is also a First Reader for Polyphony Literature.