A Thousand Monstrous Forms Ch 1

The women in the courtyard have no faces.

It’s impossible to tell if their features were scrubbed bare by the elements, the years, or if they were simply designed that way, bereft of expression, their stone petticoats and carved hair indicating the version of femininity their sculptor hoped to capture. There are indents in their faces where eyes might have been, slight rises in the stone to denote where a nose would perch. One of the statues has little clamshell ears visible behind strands of hair chiseled into its head. The five statues gathered together in the center of the courtyard may have no faces, but they do have hair—long locks carved into their heavy skulls, cascading down their granite shoulders. Their hands are clasped together, bodies forming a circle. Their feet kick; their hands are frozen in a swing of gaiety. One statue’s hair is tossed back, faceless head tilted toward the iron sky. A cobweb stretches across the space where its mouth would be.

The statues stand under a wrought iron gazebo, intricate and useless as a shelter, framed in the center of the odd U-shape of the imperially black manor looming around them.

Lichen and dirt cling to the corners and crevasses of the five statues. Beetles march up and down their shins; cracks trickle down their granite petticoats, spidering out from the buttons meticulously sculpted on their blouses.

Nothing stirs in the courtyard when the chug of an engine reaches the front of the manor and a car door slams, echoing from the front of the house, but the statues seem to stiffen, as if they have jolted from an uneasy dream.

A few moments later, another growling engine coughs its way up the hill toward the manor, growing louder and louder as it approaches, cutting through the stillness.

The statues, linked together by their tiny clasped hands, hold their breath as they sense the house perk up, shake itself to attention, peering down into the driveway. Whatever the house can see from the latticework windows on the second floor must please it; the statues feel a purr murmur through the soil they dance upon.

The engine splutters to a stop, and another slamming door heralds the day the statues have been waiting for. Perhaps dreading. There are voices now, floating over and down from the front yard like dust motes in sunlight. Deeper tones, questioning, accompanied by the scrape of a truck door opening, and higher, giddy pitches, chirping in delight and confidence.

The statues are still, sunk into their pedestal, inextricably attached to each other, but they shudder. They know these noises. They are familiar with them. And they are familiar with the pulsing energy beating from the house as it breathes above them. There is an eagerness there that is almost obscene.

A spider slinks along the web spun across a statue’s face, fruitlessly searching the strands of silk, plucking them as if she missed a meal. But the web is empty.

Voices jingle in front of the house, excited footsteps slap on the marbled front steps. Their owners are probably breathlessly taking in the two stories crouching underneath the steep roof pitches. Admiring the black stone facades, the arched windows, the chunky horseshoe layout of the building. The double doors of the manor’s entrance creak tremendously every time they’re opened—the sound is unmistakable when it cuts through the dying quiet.

The statues tense. The house sighs.

So. It begins again.