Chapter Text
For the longest time, my family genuinely believed that they were cursed. Literally. Like some magical entity or vengeful spirit was haunting my bloodline. Now the only thing that’s really haunting me is The King.
It started with my great great grandfather’s drowning when he, his son and my grandfather Sven, his wife Emilia, and their daughter Emily were immigrating to the U.S. via boat. It capsized during a severe storm.
My great grandparents survived. Got washed up on the shore and made this place their home. Grandpa Sven thought that that would be the end of the bad luck. That maybe the wheel of karma would turn in their favor now that the worse of it was over. They paid their debt; their suffering. But it clearly wasn’t over. Instead, it was a downward spiral from there.
Sorry about the hassle of traversing this house, don’t worry the trouble ends with my great great grandfather’s room.
This place really is just an amalgamation of several different personalities stitched together. My great grandpa really did want to do every single member of his family justice. So he kept building. Building on top of an already heavy house weighed down by whispers of grief and undisclosed trauma.
As a side note, what is with older generations and being unable to process their own feelings? I get that mental health was unheard of back then, but what did they expect? They didn’t pop out of the womb a robot or a different species of animal.
They’re human. One of the few species on this earth that is aware of their own thoughts but still needs to be taught how to understand those very feelings.
I guess it is frustrating. My grandpa wasn’t told what to do or where he could go for help. All those emotions were just stuck there. Jammed up inside of his chest. Can’t imagine how he felt, because it really did only get worse for him.
The key I gave you is special. It opens up all of the individual shrines dedicated to each person in my family. The only one, as you probably noticed, that it doesn’t work for is my great-great grandfather Jack’s room.
I learned now that the reason why its been locked up was because Grandpa Sven was selfish, in a way. But I get it, he lost his father in one of the worst ways, in the chaos of the sea. He didn’t even get to bury his father’s real body.
I guess that room was Grandpa Sven’s way of owning up to his old man. For losing his body. Which, now that I write this, is a really unfair expectation to have. What was Grandpa Sven supposed to do? Drag his old man’s corpse onto the shore instead of his wife and child? He couldn’t carry both.
I just Back into a living room area—the air still filled with particles of kicked up dust—there is a choice of several stairways. Each one spiraling and leading to different rooms. Climbing the one in the middle, the walls begin to fade from a pale green to a dirty dark pink, striped with faded lighter hues of the same color.
But instead of leading up to a traditional door, at the end of the stairway lies a small white square door, oddly similar in essence to the doggy door at one of the entrances of the house. A rusty golden lock built into it right underneath the knob.
Placing the key within and turn it with a click, the door noticeably opens, as if relaxing with great relief after years of being kept in a taught position.
Pushing open the door reveals a tunnel lit with ethereal christmas lights perpetually stuck in their red light mode. Wonder and amazement swirls throughout the wide circular chamber.
At the end of the tunnel is another of those small doors, this one without a lock. With a good shove, it opens with a squeal.
Behind this door was a room filled to the brim with pink decor. It is quite literally girlhood come to life as a room. Pink stripped walls, red lights hanging from the ceiling. Heart and star shaped stickers clung to the wooden legs of a bed, which was also heavily decorated with bunny plushies and tiaras.
Even as someone who wasn’t into this kind of stuff, when I took peaks into Charlie’s room, I adored it. Especially her stuffed animals, which I really wished I could take.
But like I said, each room is a shrine. And I don’t think I could stomach the idea of taking something from a dead person’s grave. Let alone a child’s grave.
Charlie Hutchins was the fiestiest princess you would’ve ever met. Feisty, but not stupid. She was a cunning little girl who would always find a way to work around a ‘no’ for an answer.
Oh and she loved adventures. Which is why the way to her room is built the way it is. Even when she was exhausted, it was never a chore to go up to her little castle in the sky.
But Charlie wasn’t a bratty kid. If you’ve ever watched “The Princess and the Frog,” you’d know who Charlotte La Bouff is. Charlie was a mini Charlotte; spoiled? Absolutely. But rotten and mean? Not even close. Great grandma Emilia loved that little girl so so much.
Go to her journal placed right below her mural. She really was a tiny animated princess; golden curls and the brightest smile ever. In her journal she would write about her vivid dreams of traveling the world beyond her home. She dreamed of hot sandy beaches with salty cool water and ancient temples with silver thrones.
I know for a fact that Charlie would have been an incredible writer. Typing away as she experienced the world. In fact, that is what her very room seems to be screaming for, a change in scenery, a change in color, something new.
Upon closing her little book, solemn paints the room. All of this ‘would’ve’ and ‘could’ve’. Because Charlie Hutchins didn’t live past ten years old. She suffered the exact same fate as her grandfather Jack did.
There is a way to kill someone with love. Great grandma Emilia refused to let her favorite child near any body of water after what they experienced. Kept her close to keep her safe. Of course, I understand why she did this. But as a result, Charlie never learned how to swim.
I know what happened to her. I can practically feel the information of what occurred that day being seared into my brain like a forced memory. One winter afternoon, she tried to skate on the frozen lake nearby. She fell. The ice broke I like to imagine her last moments were full of laughter and dancing.
And well, after loosing her, great grandma Emilia couldn’t leave her alone. She died a few days later in her own bed.
I didn’t think a broken heart was a literal thing. I didn’t think you could die from one either. It sounds like something straight out of a Grimm Brothers story. But she did.
“Her emotions swelled up her heart. Then it just couldn’t beat the same way.” That’s what Grandpa Sven told me in a hushed voice. In reality, she died of an acute heart attack. But I still believe in what Grandpa Sven said.
Emilia’s room is located right next to Charlie’s. You can find it if you head out the other door. It leads to a hallway where it sits not even a few inches away.
Great grandma Emilia is a conflicting person for me. On one hand, I can’t even fathom the pain she went through, as I’ve never been a parent nor have I come close to loosing my life and entire family in a massive sea storm.
But other than not allowing Charlie to explore and learn for herself (something my own parents struggled with), Emilia was also a mother of three children. Not one. Not just Charlie.
She greatly, and if not completely, neglected her other children, Ben and Emily. Maybe it was because Charlie was the youngest (I know you don’t have siblings Avery, but I know that you know that the youngest usually gets the most attention). Either way, I may not be a parent, but there is no reason to justify forgetting your other kids.
It all came at a price, a punishment.
In the same browning hallway are two more rooms located on the other side from where Charlie and Emilia’s rooms are. Using the key once more unlocks a room that heals the eyes from blindingly bright pink colors and rhinestones.
The room is painted with shades of dark blue, accented with yellow stars traced together to create constellations. Complementing the theme, there are white and silver astronaut helmets, posters of planets and sci-fi movies, and a miniature telescope facing a large semi-circle window. A perfect view of the sky.
Light rain gently hits the glass. Dripping down and connecting like the stars and constellations on the walls.
Ben’s room is my favorite. I loved how calming it was with the dark blue hues and themes of night and space. It sometimes hurts me the most because if he were alive, I would’ve loved to talk to him for hours about the stars. Again, more ‘would’ve’s and ‘loved to’s
Ben’s death is so, I don’t even know how to put it. It’s ironic and stupid and so so avoidable, but in a way it was sort of nice? Because he got to do what he always wanted, to fly.
He fell to his death. That’s just the truth (The handwriting is more messy here, Derek must’ve been upset). But it hurts he was eleven years old and the one time he got to fly was in death.
He was on the swing, imagining that he was about to lift off into space. That swing was too close to the cliff. I think you can figure out what happened next.
In my dreams of the house, it almost always featured Ben’s room. And just like his room—rather than the unending dark void aspect of space, his world focused on the serenity of the black sea of stars—my dreams were calming and quiet.
I really wish I got to see him. I can only remember him by his mural circled by planets, like he was the sun. His smile is warm, hair tucked underneath the astronaut helm.
Next door is Emily’s room, the oldest of the three. I think you might like her room, Avery.
…
True to Derek’s written words, Avery did like Emily’s room as soon as the door was pushed open.
Emily was a nature person. From yellow sunflowers to lush green rainforest plants, they spread lavishly across the walls. When he stepped closer, he was in awe at the details. Each plant had little labels applied to them, giving their scientific and common name. The handwriting is scribbled but slowly works its way to becoming more sophisticated.
Her mural sits nearly camouflaged by the overgrowth of painted flora. Olive brown skin complimenting a dazzling blouse; Emily looked like a jungle flower, forever smiling.
But her older eyes and sharp features made it clear to Avery that she was the only child who lived long enough to have children.
His throat went tight at the thought of watching your family fall apart at the hands of death and grief. He inhaled sharply to relieve the pain. But when it refused to budge, Avery just kept observing. Letting the pain stick around and burn his eyes with tears while holding Derek’s journal close.
There was an oddly comforting sensation of being in someone else’s room who has long passed. It welcomed him in with the same warm arms of an elderly parent (“Oh deary, when’s the last time you ate? You look so skinny! Here, eat!”). Even a particular faint smell wafted through the bedroom. One of floral fragrance and dried rose petals.
Hell, Avery had an urge to sit down on Emily’s plush bed. Which he immediately kicked himself mentally for so much as thinking. This isn’t your home, dumbass.
But… would Derek let him sit down? Would he let Avery wander the halls along with him? Would his family—had they lived—let him peer into their personal shrines? He felt as though his mere presence was violating some kind of sacred rule.
However, would Avery have ever met Derek if not for how his family existed? All of these catastrophic events, somehow adding up to the moment where his avatar fell through the floor and finally laid eyes upon D3rlord3. If things were different, would’ve Avery never met Derek?
He looked back down at the old key sitting in his palm. The key Derek gave to this house. Of which he gave the address to Avery. In the journal which instructed him to go and visit.
But why not Derek’s home? Why not his apartment or wherever he lived? Why give Avery access to the home that he never considered his true home? A place that left him so conflicted even up to his very death.
Maybe he should leave. Leave and let the other rooms be; undisturbed and alone.
Alone. They’ve been alone for years. Untouched by any human being or animal. The only thing that had laid a hand on this place and its various rooms was time.
Sven Hutchins. Derek’s great grandpa. He would create lovely murals only to seal them away, never to be seen again from the moment the paint dries and the piece is solidified. Logically, that made zero sense. Why create a piece of art if no one will ever see it?
Remember me. Maybe that’s what he wanted.
Avery looked back up at the mural of Emily Hutchins. Her beautiful eyes looking beyond the stranger who stands within her bedroom. Perhaps Derek would want him to explore. To pick apart each room and understand his family.
To understand the generations that have lived before Derek Hutchins. To know something so deeply personal, trusting Avery with such knowledge…
People will do the strangest things to keep someone around long after they’ve passed.
He turned and pressed a hand onto the mossy green bed. Dust bunnies woke up and leapt into the air as he did. He wants me here. He wants me to learn him through them.
Sometimes the price of learning is to disrupt. And this house certainly needed someone alive within its walls. Breathe life into its secrets.
Lifting his hand, he brings back out Derek’s journal from his tucked arm. He pulls back the pages with a delicate hand.
…
Emily Hutchins was the sweetest grandmother to ever exist (no I will not debate). She was like her sister in kindness. But where Charlie was boisterous, Emily was soft.
She was also someone who I wished I could’ve met.
My mother often told me that my eyes were strange. I didn’t have her eyes nor my dad’s. It wasn’t even a mix of both. She said that they “freaked her out” a lot. Weird thing to say to your child but okay
Later, Grandpa Sven would tell me why; my eyes were like Emily’s. Like, uncannily so. Which is why he liked me so much, he saw her in me.
He also told me how she had these soft slim fingers, designed to heal wounds. That was just his dramatic way of saying that my grandmother had “doctor/surgeon hands.” Moreso, she had the attitude of an experienced nurse; someone whose been through the worst but still manages to smile at patients. Funnily enough, that’s what she wanted to be.
Emily never got to become a doctor or nurse, though. She got into a heated argument with Grandpa Sven. Drove off in a fit. Her father had never seen her so upset. Next morning, they pulled her from the car after it went off road and into a tree.
Grandpa Sven never told me what happened. But I know now. Emily wanted to focus on school, her father wanted her to focus on family. She said that she knew what she was doing, told him to stop babying her.
Then the moment she left the house, she died.
I think it was her death that really solidified the whole curse thing for Grandpa Sven. He already had outlines of what it was, but this was what really made it stick.
But I know. He couldn’t face it. Couldn’t take responsibility for the fact that he was partially the reason for his daughter’s death. Couldn’t even begin to understand that it wasn’t some magical hex. And once it started, he couldn’t bare pull himself from this spectacle, this grand fantasy, and see the truth.
He kept this idea in his head until the very day he stopped breathing.
That’s the Hutchins’ curse. It kind of has a ring to it. If only it really did have some fantastical element to it. Honestly, that’s preferable to what it really is; just a whole bunch of unresolved trauma pilled up into a single house.
And if you’re wondering Avery, Grandma Emily would have loved someone like you. It’s so odd how the two of you are practically copy and paste personalities; bubbly and kind to the core. But also stubborn as hell. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing at all.
Sometimes, I see you and her together. Meeting each other in real life. She would give you this one butterfly pea tea. The two of you sitting in her greenhouse talking about miscellaneous topics. You two could talk for hours.
These are probably just hallucinations from lack of sleep. But I like to think that they are real. Somewhere out there, you are meeting her. And maybe I’m there too.