'RELOCATION'

The House sang. Not the whisper of wind through eaves, nor the murmur of 150-year-old stone and weatherboard easing inexorably earthward. The two-storey edifice sang a dirge: a lament for the loss she had witnessed; for the emptiness she felt. The House longed to be occupied once more. Her deepest desire was to be a home. 

     An embossed copper plaque hung from a determined screw beside the aged entrance. The word ‘Grayce’ was barely visible beneath the nameplate’s blue-green patina.

     Grayce was a work of unique architectural style, whose value was immeasurable. She had been home to five generations of one family. She also contained a secret that led to their demise.

     In a single night, their voices were silenced by one man. Grayce’s family clung to her and cried out for help; but her ability to respond was undeveloped. Every day thereafter, Grayce relived the horror. Time and solitude stained her façade with tracks of grief and guilt.

 

~

​

Grayce woke from her haunted reverie as a bloated black vehicle skidded to a stop between her front door and the fishpond. An enormous figure – to Grayce, at least half the size of the car – lumbered up her front steps and crossed her verandah. She groaned at the contact.

     The man pressed his fleshy nose to a downstairs window, then whispered into a mobile phone. ‘I’m here, Captain. Spooky joint.’

     ‘Get on with it, Chet. I’m not paying you for opinions.’ 

     Grayce felt Chet’s annoyance and uncertainty as he forced his way into her foyer. He prodded walls and floor in a perfunctory manner, shrinking from shadows, cringing at creaking boards. He hurried to his vehicle and croaked, ‘Captain? Nothing. Zippo. Maybe—’

     ‘Bring the whole place, then. The way I told you.’

     Over the next week, swarms of people in bright vests and hard hats invaded Grayce’s space. Heavy vehicles tormented the earth and besieged Grayce’s boundaries. The pond lay in ruins, its finned residents scattered and crushed.

     When Chet announced, ‘We move tomorrow,’ a torrent of workers began tearing, digging, and thrusting through the night. Filthy fingers pawed at Grayce’s foundations. Muddied boots soiled her carpets. By daybreak, Grayce lay upon dozens of hydraulic jacks, her most intimate parts exposed. She tasted the sour air that circulated beneath her. She cringed at Chet's bitter words. She felt the world twist and tumble as she slid onto the tray of a massive vehicle Chet referred to as ‘Momma’.

     Behind Grayce, a deep wound steamed in the ground. Within her, an even more profound one was festering. Grayce’s 150-year connection with the world had been severed. She was leaving. She had no idea of her destination, nor the nature of her journey.

​

~

​

     By mid-afternoon, Grayce’s joists and bearers sagged over Momma’s sides. Amidst her aching humiliation, Grayce caught snippets of conversation between Chet and an agitated inspector about the Officially Preferred Route: ‘Top of driveway ... turn right ... away from bridge ... no bends.’

     Momma sputtered and growled. Beneath Grayce, the monstrous truck throbbed, heaved, and hissed. Black smoke fouled the air. Gears gnashed and squealed. The vehicle’s engine howled. Grayce’s boards quivered; her windows rattled; her chandeliers shivered. 

     Momma’s massive wheels ground deep tracks into the gravel. Chet leaned out the driver-side window, slapped his door, and whooped, ‘Yeah, baaaby!’ as Grayce swayed and crept forward. 

     At the top of the driveway, in a broad arc, Momma swung left, hauling Grayce onto a road labelled Narrow Bridge Ahead.

 

~

 

Momma adopted a constant speed, like the brisk walking pace Grayce had observed when members of her family roamed her grounds. Grayce adjusted to the motion, but felt as if a long cord stretched behind her, its near end attached to her core, its far end tethered to the land and life she had loved for more than a century. Should this taut connection snap, it would tear a hole in her heart that would never heal.

     Without slowing, Momma dragged Grayce through a grim archway of trees and vines. Fingers of wood, irritated by the passage of such a mammoth form, clawed at her shingles and scratched her time-worn timbers. 

     Grayce trembled as the vehicle struggled to a halt. Chet leapt from his cabin – to Grayce, a surprisingly agile movement, given the man’s girth – and examined a structure barely as wide as Grayce’s conveyance. He measured and muttered; he paced; he punched fragile parapets, before returning to Momma.

     The truck growled and wheezed, then rumbled forward. Grayce felt the bridge moan and buckle as its beleaguered beams fractured and tumbled into the river. 

     Momma roared. Its wheels spun, raising plumes of grit and smoking rubber, before biting into the bitumen and carrying their cargo onto a new road. Grayce flinched as the bridge crumbled behind her. 

​

~

​

Dense clouds gathered in towering packs as Grayce’s odyssey continued around narrow bends that descended at an alarming angle. Momma shrieked. Chet cursed as he attempted to retard their headlong progress. Despite her shackles, Grayce skidded across Momma’s tray as they rounded hairpin corners and hurtled towards the coast.

     Outside and inside, Grayce was in disarray. Her hallways and staircases were distorted and disoriented. Her roof had been damaged, exposing her plundered attic. Most of the downstairs windows were bereft of glass. 

     Grayce’s empty rooms echoed with her deep sobs.

     Grayce shut down. She no longer cared about her surroundings or her pain; she no longer contemplated a future.

     Momma gasped, rattled, and stopped. Grayce scarcely detected the stillness, until a ponderous new presence violated her withdrawal. Accompanied by piercing whistles, a prodigious arm of woven steel engulfed Grayce and Momma in shadow. Shimmering cables, each the width of Grayce’s front door, chattered and clanged as they cleaved the salty air and groped at Grayce’s panels.

     Grayce felt light-headed and lightweight. Her stone and weatherboard stretched and parted slightly, providing Grayce with a sense of relief she had not experienced since the early days of her existence. She soared above a fissured wharf, its supports bristling with barnacles. Far below, Momma looked like one of the toy trucks beloved by generations of Grayce’s family. 

     Grayce was a bird! She could fly to far locations! She could return to her birthplace!

     She could fall and end her suffering ...

     Her visions vanished as the harbour crane eased her into place with a thud. 

     Grayce sat on a broad deck littered with blocks and chains. Beyond lay an endless pond: a vast version of the one Grayce had forsaken, along with its finned souls. 

     Grayce winced as an enormous figure slapped her buttress and muttered words of appreciation. Chet flicked through a fat wad of notes, chuckled, and departed. 

     Following two long, resonant blasts, Grayce felt the vessel heave towards the huge pond. 

     That taut connection snapped. 

 

~

 

Grayce rose and fell with the ship, secured by a mesh of frayed ropes. 

     A rowdy group of men slouched on Grayce’s verandah, drinking from bottles containing a dark liquid. Grayce recognised the cloying aroma. It was present the night her family perished. 

     A commanding form strode up Grayce’s steps. His grey beard framed a face corrupted by sun, sea, and obsession. The revellers, swaying out of time with the ship, attempted sloppy salutes and slurred, ‘Captain.’ He encouraged his men to celebrate their ‘successful acquisition’, reassuring them he would remain sober and control the ship. Clutching a large flashlight, the formidable figure pried the battens from Grayce’s front door and stormed into her foyer. 

     Grayce watched Captain as he stripped her baseboards with a clawed hammer. Grayce listened to his hoarse breathing. She smelled his derangement of stale tobacco, diesel, and greed. She knew what he was searching for. She knew who he was. She knew what he had done.

     Grayce knew what she must do.

     Rain lashed the deck and gushed from Grayce’s battered downpipes. Flashes of lightning revealed mountain-sized waves and yawning troughs. Most of the crew staggered to safer quarters. One tottered into Grayce’s parlour and gestured at his superior. Captain shoved him down Grayce’s front steps. 

     As his ship crested the swell, Captain lurched into Grayce’s barren library and resumed his hunt. He drove his hammer through lath and plaster walls. He dismembered dado rails and intricate mouldings. He wrenched cupboard doors from their hinges.

     Grayce cared nothing for the desecration. She waited. She felt Captain’s rage and frustration; his fervour and panic; his craving and malice ... and she revelled in it.

     After more than a century of learning and decades of yearning, Grayce summoned her collected memories, emotions, and sensations.

     She slammed and locked the library door. Captain clung to the skeleton of mahogany bookshelves as the room pitched and tossed. Grayce released a portion of ceiling. Its compact chandelier shattered beside an object embedded in the parquetry.

     Captain swung his flashlight towards the statue-and-plinth. His breathing coarser and more rapid, he crawled across the rolling floor, using the claw of his hammer to steady himself. 

     Panting and dishevelled, he gripped the pedestal, pulled himself upright, and smashed the chalky bust with one blow. He retrieved a ragged notebook and flipped through its pages with an expression of wild elation. 

     Grayce opened the library door as the ship slid into a trough. Captain grabbed the plinth. Notebook and flashlight tumbled from the room. Grayce sealed the space once more, plunging Captain into darkness.

     Outside, three intoxicated crew members attempted to reinforce the worn ropes holding Grayce in position. As the ship rode another massive wall of water, Grayce broke her bow-side restraints. As the vessel slammed through the foam and commenced its uncontrolled descent into a roiling valley, Grayce tugged on her stern-side bonds.

     Grayce sighed. She released her hold on the past; on the sickness that infected and infested her. Deep within her – in a dark and damp library – she turned her ghosts and traumas upon the agent of her strife.

     Once more, Grayce felt light-headed and lightweight. Her stone and weatherboard stretched and parted slightly as she sank beneath the waves.

 

~

 

The House sang: a melody of water through coral-covered eaves; a harmony of finned families as they swam through 160-year-old rooms. 

     An embossed copper plaque hung from a determined screw beside the life-encrusted entrance. The word ‘Grayce’ was clearly visible. 

     She was occupied once more. 

     She was a home.