The House Wants Seconds

How it begins

There were seven chairs at breakfast.

There had been six at dinner.

Irene counted them twice, then checked the photograph she had taken for the house-sitting agency. Six chairs. Walnut table. Silver bowl. No visible reason to request danger pay.

She called the owner.

No answer.

The instructions on the kitchen counter were written in a neat, rounded hand.

Water the fern.

Keep the west windows closed.

Set the table for one.

She had followed all three.

At dinner she had eaten soup from a blue bowl while rain scratched the glass. The house had creaked around her with the ordinary discomfort of an old building in bad weather.

Now the seventh chair stood at the head of the table.

Smaller than the others.

Painted yellow.

Irene knew that chair.

Her father had painted it for her sixth birthday. There had been a drip beneath the seat shaped like a comma. She used to run her finger over it while adults talked above her.

She crouched.

The drip was there.

Her phone rang.

A local locksmith, returning yesterday's call about the stiff front-door lock.

"Can you come now?"

"Has it jammed?"

"No."

"Then what's happened?"

She looked at the little chair.

For a moment she could not remember being six.

She could remember five. A seaside holiday. Seven. A new school.

Six was a blank space with a yellow outline.

"I think the house has something of mine."

The locksmith said nothing.

Then she heard him put down his keys.

"Have you eaten there?"

"One meal."

"Don't eat another."

In the silver bowl at the center of the table, an apple rolled slowly toward her.

The dining-room door opened by itself.

Beyond it, the kitchen smelled of the pancakes her father used to make before she remembered learning the word divorce.

A place had been set.

The napkin was folded into a small yellow crown.