Angels in the Architecture: Part I, Ch. 1

May, Angela, and Margot, are not the likeliest of housemates. When paranormal things begin happening in their apartment and the neighboring mansion, it's up to them to stop the terror from spreading.

Part I

 

1. Angela

 

The doorbell rang through the apartment so noisily that Angela jumped where she stood at the sink. Its piercing buzz was so rarely heard in the apartment she forgot how loud it was.

Who could it be at the front door? Neither she nor her other two housemates were expecting any packages or visitors as far as she was aware. Perhaps it was just a mistake: someone who meant to ring for apartment 1A, the landlord’s apartment. That had happened once before. Angela took a calming breath and resumed scrubbing last night’s dinner skillet.

The bell rang again, but it didn’t seem as startling the second time. Someone must really want to get the attention of one of the three women in apartment 2. 

Angela bit her lip in thought; someone in the apartment should go downstairs to see who it was buzzing for them. From her spot at the sink, she could see down the hall into her youngest housemate’s room. Margot, lounging on her bed and watching a movie on her TV (another horror movie, no doubt) With her wireless headphones on, was probably so engrossed in the suspense on screen she did not even hear the doorbell. Useless, Angela thought as she rolled her eyes.

In the distance, Angela could also hear her other housemate, May, in the shower further back in the apartment. She would likely be in there for a while, since she was getting ready to leave for work.

Two rings meant this was likely important. So with a sigh, Angela dried her hands off with a dishtowel, slipped into her sandals, and headed for the door.

 

The landing outside the door to their apartment was dark; the overhead light that was motion sensitive had been burned out months ago, and it was too high for one of them to replace on their own. The only light came from a small, dingy window on the front door to the house at the bottom of the stairs. There was just enough light that Angela could make out where the edge of the stairs began, but little else. She reached out and felt for the bannister in the shadows to steady her descent, and counted the steps every time her foot made contact with the coarse wood. One, two… twelve in all.

When she opened the front door to the bright September morning, Angela expected to see someone on the porch waiting for her, but there was no person in sight. Had she kept them waiting too long and they had left? If she ran down the hill to the street, would she see them and catch the visitor before they got too far away?

Then her eyes caught sight of an envelope lying on the doormat. She picked it up, and saw written on its back in a fine hand was her name, but no information about the sender. She looked around again; there was no one around, not even anyone who might have seen who delivered this mysterious message.

Angela decided she would open the note upstairs in her apartment. She shut the front door and once again was overwhelmed by darkness. Her mind began to wander. 

The only mail she ever received was bills and ads, and she kept no correspondence through letters or postcards. Who could be sending her special notes delivered by hand so early in the morning? It was clearly someone she knew, and someone who lived relatively close by. Who else would go through the trouble of dropping off a letter rather than mailing it?

The weight of the paper beneath her finger tips told her it was written on expensive stationary. That didn’t clear up the mystery at all. 

Lost in her thoughts, Angela wasn’t concentrating on trying to see in the dim foyer, and without a relative sense of where she was in space, she was startled by her foot catching on the bottom stair. This sent her flying forward towards the stairs, smashing her shins into the sharp edges of the steps. Her face was spared the impact by her hands, which she flung forward instinctively.

When she regained her senses, her heard raced and her wrists stung with pain-- they borne the weight of her falling body--but nothing seemed sprained or broken. Even the envelope, its white paper glowing like a faint star in the darkness, did not seem too badly damaged by her clutching grip. She would probably only have some nasty bruises on her legs and that would be the extent of her injury. Thankfully, no one was there to witness her clumsiness, so even her pride was spared.

To her left came the click of a lock and the creak of a door opening. A shaft of pale light through the opening suddenly illuminated her like a spotlight. It also backlit the figure of a young man standing in the doorway. Though she couldn’t see his face, she knew it was Dan, their illusive downstairs neighbor who lived in apartment 1B. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked in a low voice. These were the first words he had spoken to her in months, and they shocked her to her core. She never knew him to be so concerned, though she quickly realized it was only because she had made a terrible din as she caught her fall.

“Yes,” she said, and rose to her feet. 

“I thought I heard a crash.”

“That was me,” Angela confessed, but kept her voice as curt as she spoke. “I wasn’t watching where I was going and I tripped on the stairs.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, and subtly lowered his gaze. Angela waited with bated breath to see what he would do. Maybe he was watching her, too, expecting her to make another move. She couldn’t see his expression with the sun to his back.

“You’re alright, then?” he asked at last.

“Yes, thank you.” She lifted her foot and placed it on the next step, motioning she was going to begin her ascent up to her apartment, and indicating that she was no longer interested in continuing this conversation. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him give a slight nod, and then closed the door to his apartment. 

Once again, Angela was enveloped in darkness, but she had a better sense of her bearings now. Climbing up the twelve steps to the second floor landing was easy. She had no trouble finding the knob to her apartment door when she reached out her hand, though her palm was still slightly numb.

 

When she was back in the sunny kitchen, she found May slipping into her shoes while she waited for the last of the coffee to drip into her thermos. She did not turn to face Angela as she sat down at the kitchen table. Angela was used to this behavior; she and May and Margot lived mostly separate lives, even when they passed each other in the hallway or the kitchen such as this. Angela paid her no mind as she began to open the envelope.

“Oh no,” Angela said aloud when she read the message. She covered her hand to her mouth when she realized she had let her thoughts slip.

“What’s wrong?” May asked, finally facing her housemate.

Angela shook her head, and debated in her mind whether she should actually tell May the contents of the message. In the year and a half that she knew her, May never took much interest in Angela’s personal life, but that may have been because her work schedule kept her away from the apartment most of the day. This didn’t bother Angela, who preferred to keep to herself and thereby out of trouble. But this moment she decided to speak.

“You know the person I was collecting oral histories from for my dissertation? The person I told you about from -- Estate?”

“The one who’s ancient?”

“Yeah. Apparently she just died.”

“Oh no,” May said, clutching the jade disk that hung around her neck absently. She looked down at the floor for a brief moment, then back up at Angela with a softer gaze. “I’m so sorry about that. I know you two were close.”

“As close as interviewer and interviewee with nearly eighty years separation can be,” Angela remarked. “Even though she was really old, she seemed fine when we last spoke a month ago.”

“So this was unexpected?”

“I suppose so.” Angela noticed that despite the composure she felt in her mind, her hands were shaking. She put down the envelope and its contents to mask this form May.

“The funeral is this afternoon,” she stated flatly.

“You’re going?” 

“Yes, just for a little while,” said Angela rising to her feet. “It’s the least I can do.” Suddenly, she felt a surge of passion rise up inside of her like a flame. She clenched her jaw to contain it, and distracted herself by heading over to the pantry. She grabbed a muffin and the coffee can, and began measuring out spoonfuls into the coffee maker. Now more than ever she tried to avoid making eye contact with May, for fear of the emotions breaking free.

“Are you alright?” May asked. Angela blinked in shock, but tried not to let it show. After months of simply cohabitating in the same spaces without much interaction, this inquiry caught her off caught. But just like Dan’s concern, she brushed it off as simply May reacting to a disruption of the norm. 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Angela said, but then she added, “Thank you, though.”

“Do you need anything while I’m out? I can pick up whatever you want from the store or in the city.”

“No, that’s alright.”

“Okay,” said May with a final nod, and slipped her thermos into the side pocket of her backpack. “I’ll see you later, then,” and without another word she stepped out the front door. 

Angela held her breath and stood perfectly still at the counter for just a moment. She closed her eyes, savoring the silence and the stillness of the moment, but it was ruined when a single tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away, and went searching for a mug for her coffee.

 

 

Author's Note

"-- Estate" is an homage to the earlier traditions of preserving anonymity of places.