Arthur froze. He looked at his hands. They were smooth. The liver spots, the wrinkles, the arthritis that had plagued him for ten years—they were gone. He touched his face. The skin was tight.
Arthur opened the car door, but he didn't get in immediately. He looked back at the house one last time.
He sprinted down the hallway that snapped back to its normal length just as he reached it. He took the stairs two at a time, his lungs burning with a vitality that felt stolen. The front door loomed ahead. arabella rose stay
"I promised to stay as long as the house was mine," Arthur said, his voice trembling. "And I have. I stayed when the pipes burst. I stayed when the roof leaked. I stayed when everyone else left. But I’m an old man, Arabella. I can't climb these stairs forever."
He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. The skin was smooth. No wrinkles. No age spots. Arthur froze
The word boomed through the hall, shaking the chandelier above him. The front door slammed shut. The locks clicked, one by one, turning themselves.
The wood splintered. The afternoon sun hit his face. The liver spots, the wrinkles, the arthritis that
The moment the metal touched his skin, the cold seared his palm. The room shrieked—a sound like glass breaking and a woman sobbing. The shadows recoiled.
"If you leave," the voice said, turning cold, the sweetness curdling into something ancient and needy, "you will age. You will wither. You will die in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers who don't care about poetry. If you stay here... we have eternity. The house is time, Arthur. And I am the house."