FSE

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I had just walked out of work when I got a call from an area code I didn’t recognize. I took note of the date, specifically the year, before I answered.

“Good afternoon, is this Mr. Ferry?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Speaking.”

“I’m calling about the Grierson house,” they said.

I cringed at the name, though I’m unsurprised of topic. People have been reaching out to me about her home for years, ever since what happened. This was probably the eighth time. It was also the longest silence I heard about the place. The last call was four, no, five years ago. The realtor must not be showing it like she used to. She tried to convince me not to talk with anyone about it, complaining it was scaring away buyers. I still shared it though. Partially out of spite to her, but also to make sure Rose’s story is heard.

“Hello?” the voice asked. I forgot that a nod wouldn’t be enough on the phone.

“Yes, I can talk about it,” I responded. I started walking, in the opposite direction of my home, “I assume you’re in town?”

“I am.”

“Meet me at The Kitty Cafe. It’s close to the intersection of Stetson and Lewis.”

“The intersection with that hospital?” they asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I say, glaring at a dog I had to dodge as I walked. They glared back, but the two of us carried on.

“Okay,” he said, “and what do you look like?”

“I’m a green fox. Talk to you soon,” I hang up on him. The rush hour had arrived. I needed to focus on navigating the sudden crowd, and not on giving details that were unnecessary. With the way the rumor mill worked, the fact that the voice knew how to call me meant that it also knew enough to find the place on its own. I’ve annoyed some of the previous callers with my bluntness, but they were coming to me. They needed to deal with it. The voice’s immediate understanding of this was something like a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t pleasant per se, but if I was going to tell this story again after so many years, I would prefer tell it to someone who wouldn't be pissy with how I tell it.

I weaved through the crowd, heading towards the suburb with the old cafe. I did everything I could to avoid bumping into other people going about their day. It had nothing to do with politeness or avoiding a fight. I just couldn’t handle coming in contact with another person. Touching someone’s skin, fur, or clothes felt so wrong. Just the thought of it sent shivers down my spine. There were some close calls. I had to sidestep a rabbit paying more attention to her phone than in front of her and a horse trying to push through the crowd. Both times, I tensed up. Even with the close calls, I managed to make it to the quieter part of town that’s immune from the rush hour. From there, I went to the suburbs that the cafe was in.

Shortly after I reached the neighborhood, I was in front of the red-bricked hospital. As old as it was, it didn’t look creepy or run down. It just seemed quiet, like it should have been empty. It wasn’t though, as could be seen by the few dozen cars parked next to the building. Some of the windows had light coming through them, and the grates over the higher windows cast straight, even lines down to the well-maintained grass in front of me. I don’t know which window to look at, so I have to be satisfied with just looking at the building as a whole. After a minute or two, I carried on, the cafe now within view.

The cafe’s neighbors had changed a few times throughout the years, but the cafe stayed the same. It had a pastel look with light blue walls and a pink sign with bubble letters. The owner really liked cutesy stuff. I thought it was overdone, but I didn’t want to share Rose’s story without Penny. She’s sometimes able to fill in details that I missed, even though she wasn’t there for the worst part. Thank God it was me that had to deal with that.

Penny was chatting with one of her customers when I walked in. From just seeing the side of her spotted head, I could tell she was beaming. This cafe was her dream, and that’s been as unchanged as the cafe itself. I was proud of her for keeping it going after what happened. It must be hard to work in this building. It was basically the last thing Rose gave to her.

Penny turned to look to see who came in and saw me. Her face fell. The light in her cat eyes dimmed with a new emotion. It was a melancholy. A bittersweetness. She knows I’m here because it’s time to retell the story and that hurts her. That didn’t change the fact that she was still happy to see me, the implications be damned. We talked, sometimes. I’d still say that she was my best friend, even though we hadn’t talked in a year and hadn’t seen each other for four or five.

She managed a slight smile, “Hey Kai.”

“Hey Penny,” I said back.

She walked up to me and gave me a quick hug. I feel the fur on her arms standing up and the tension in her muscles. I ignore my shivers to return her hug.

“I’m sorry Penny,” I tell her.

“You could at least visit me sometimes,” she lamented, ending the hug. I nod at that. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she shouted at me, but she’s always been so understanding. She knew what I saw of Rose. She knew how bad I felt because of those last hours.

She walked behind the counter; her tail low. I moved to the back of the cafe to the usual table. I passed the elderly bird that Penny was talking to when I came in. They looked at me with a quizzical look in their eye, but I barely acknowledged them. The only thing I could really say about them was that I didn’t recognize them.

As I was sitting down, Penny had started warming up my usual. Penny took that time to walk up to the old bird. I didn’t hear what she said, but the bird nodded and finished their drink. They stood up, handed her a tip, and left. Penny returned to the counter, where the machine was beeping. After pulling out the food and pouring two cups of coffee, she came over and placed down the cups and plates. I had a lemon Danish and she had a chocolate croissant. She sat down next to me, the two of us watching the door.

During the wait, our talk was limited to her asking me to pass her some sugar for the coffee. As I passed it to her, I thought about how she was always a fan of the sweeter things. Everything about her would make you think that she was made of sugar. The cutesy design of her restaurant wasn’t just for branding; it was her if she was a building. Meanwhile, I sipped on my black coffee.

The tinging of Penny stirring the white stuff into her coffee was still ringing when the cafe door open. A bat that walked through the door, and his eyes immediately locked onto me. As he approached, my heart sank. I realized that I didn’t want to tell the story again. I didn’t want to revisit what happened to Rose. She deserved people knowing why she did what she did. But as the bat grew closer, I felt my resolve waver. The images of Rose that last evening and morning flash through my head. It was a familiar slideshow. I had started shaking when the bat reached the table and reached out his hand.

“Mr. Ferry?” He asked, but I couldn't focus on anything but his outstretched hand. I stared at it. I took in every detail: his color of his fur, the way it’s matted, where bits of it didn’t grow back from old scars.

A spotted paw takes it instead of my green one. I glance to my right and see Penny had stood and took his hand instead. She says something, but I can’t quite hear it. It sounds like she’s saying it from years in the future. The bat looks at me and responds. I still can’t make it out completely, but I manage to grasp that he’s okay with waiting for me. He sits down, and Penny stands. I don’t see where she went, but I don’t think much of it. The bat and I sat there, staring at each other. He looked at me with concern. I imagined I was looking at him with a blank stare.

I heard a cup being set down on the table and Penny returning to her seat. I saw her paw reach over with a fork and use it to cut a piece of the Danish in front of me. She lifted it up and let it hover under my nose. The smell of the bread and citrus climbed into my nose and reminded me where we were. It was a nostalgic smell. I remembered how much Rose loved Penny’s Danishes. I wished that she could have had one more, but there was no point in wishing. Even so, she would be heartbroken if I didn’t taste it. I felt my paw lift up and take the fork from Penny. I gave her a sad smile before putting the tart into my mouth. I bit down into the crispy bread and creamy curd. Penny was an excellent baker. There was so many good things about Penny. It was no surprise Rose fell in love with her.

“Thank you, Penny,” I managed. She responded with her own quiet, soft smile. There was something about it that was so comforting. Maybe it was how genuine it was. Even throughout everything, seeing someone still able smile might mean we be able to hope for something better. I looked towards the bat, now more able to focus on him. He was wearing a polo and glasses. He seemed a bit classier than the other people I shared the story with in the past. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, not bothering to go into an explanation.

“That’s quite alright, Mr. Ferry.”

“Kai, please,” I said.

“Well, Kai, I’ve been looking into the Grierson house,” he started.

“We actually prefer it be called the doll house,” Penny interjected, “Rose never lived there. It’s just the place where she... was during her last few days.” The hesitance was apparent. It was hard to find ways to describe it that didn’t paint Rose as just a hysterical woman.

The bat nodded his head, “I understand. Well, I’ve been looking into the ‘doll house’, but no one has been able to tell me anything about it. They all say that you, Kai, are the one who would be the best person to speak to about it.” That much was true. The last people that talked to Rose before she retreated into that house was Penny and myself, and I was the one who found her.

“Well, Mr.,” I paused, “I’m sorry, I guess I missed your name earlier.”

“Mr. Sartoris.”

“Mr. Sartoris, I’m happy to tell you about it, but I want to share the whole story. I can’t just tell you about what I saw. Rose doesn’t deserve the picture that just the last part would paint.”

Mr. Sartoris nodded. He didn’t seem anything like the other people who spoke with me about the doll house before. All they wanted were the macabre details, not the story that led to Rose doing what she did. All of them were better described as thrill-seekers than home buyers, hoping to own the house that someone lost their mind in. Mr. Sartoris was the first who didn’t push back when I explained he would get all the details. It made me wonder why he wanted the house.

Regardless of his reasons, he wanted the full story, so I began to recount it for him.

Rose, Penny, and I had all moved back to these suburbs after college, like we had promised. All three of us had opportunities waiting for us. My dad was able to get me a small position in the local chamber of commerce, and Penny’s mom worked to help her get a manager position at a restaurant. Rose’s family, though, didn’t do anything to help her get her start. They weren’t as accepting of her “lifestyle” as Penny’s and my family were. After she came out to them, Penny by her side like how she sat by mine, there was a fight.

“I had plates thrown at me,” Penny added, “They called me a ‘corruptor’ of their daughter. If I didn’t have my ancestors’ reflexes or attitude, I would have been hurt...” Penny crossed her arms, thinking back to that time. “I shouldn’t have run away without her...” I reached over and squeezed her shoulder, comforting her for a moment. I didn’t have to say it wasn’t her fault, she’s heard it from me a thousand times. The best I could do was remind her I was still there.

After the family ran Penny out of the house, Rose couldn’t be found for a month. Her family didn’t tell anyone our age anything, but Penny and I had our guesses about what happened to her. Those guesses were confirmed when she had returned wearing more conservative clothing. She didn’t wear the shorts or skirts that she usually liked to wear. She mostly stopped wearing make-up, only putting on a little bit of blush or lipstick for special occasions. She stopped dying her fur and painting her nails.

“So, you thought she went to a conversion camp,” Mr. Sartoris stated. He didn’t need to ask what we thought happened, like so many of the thrill-seekers from before.

“We did think that. She later told us about what happened in that place. You see,” I started.

Mr. Sartoris raised his hand to stop me. “I know quite a bit about them. I feel like all of us would benefit from just acknowledging she was at one for now.” His bluntness came from a place of genuine concern, like he knew how talking about them would hurt us.

He was right. I prefered not go into detail. I continued the story.

The biggest difference was her new hobby, knitting. At the time, we didn’t know that learning to do “gender-appropriate” chores was a part of her camp’s required learning, but it was clear she enjoyed it. She wouldn’t go anywhere without her sewing kit and yarn bag.

Though she didn’t talk to us anymore, there were still times both Penny and I caught her looking at us. When we did, she would quickly look down at her new hobby. Still, behind her eyes, there was a sense of longing. She wanted to talk with us again, hang out with us again. We wanted to hang out with her again too, but we avoided talking with her for fear of her safety. It was clear that she had already been messed up from her month-long conversion. If her parents found out she was talking with us, who knows what they would have done.

She still found ways to let us know that she was still thinking of us. Both Penny and I would occasionally find a doll or a scarf in our lockers. Once, I had ripped my favorite shirt. I was lucky enough to have another in my locker. I still complained about it to Penny though. Rose must have heard about it, because it was fixed when I picked it up from my locker later that day.

That was our last three years of high school.

“Two years,” Penny corrected.

I considered that for a moment, “Are you sure? I definitely picked you up on a bike after the fight.”

Penny kindly stood her ground, “We talked about this last time. I confessed to Rose when you were in the hospital because of the car accident.” Penny cringes slightly at mentioning the hospital. “You picked me up on your bike because you were still waiting to get the car fixed.

“The hospital down the street?” Mr. Sartoris asked.

“That’s right,” Penny affirmed. It was weird to think about how the hospital she died in was the same one that she and Penny started their relationship in.

After high school, we all went off to college. I studied business administration. Penny went to a culinary arts school. Rose did real estate. She explained later that it was to appease her family. They tried to stop her from going to college. They rattled on about losing all of her progress. She still managed to get them to let her go though, by explaining that being a realtor would be the perfect job for someone maintaining a home and that the school had a few groups that were in line with the life that they wanted for her.

Once she was away from her family though, she did everything she could to cut ties with them. She worked, saved money, limited her vacations home, and called them less and less. By the time we had all made it home, she was back to her old self. Not without a lot unlearning, she explained to Penny and me when we met again for the first time.

She did keep knitting though. It wasn’t about it being “gender-appropriate” as she was taught. It was something that she genuinely liked doing. She would frequently make Rose and I little gifts. It was almost like her love language.

For the first few years that we were all back, life was good. Penny had managed to save enough to open her cafe and move into an apartment with Rose.

“This cafe?” Mr. Sartoris said, clearly surprised.

Penny smiled, “this very one. It’s easier when your girlfriend knows what buildings are about to go up for sale.” As she finished the thought, Penny crossed her arms again and lowered her gaze to the table. “Of course, that was shortly before Stephanie did whatever she did.”

Stephanie was a co-worker of Rose. She started a year before Rose, and the work relationship began without a problem. Rose would even occasionally invite Steph to our outings in the bigger city. But at the same time, there was always a rivalry between Rose and Steph. Sometimes, when Penny, Rose, and I got together on the weekend, Rose would talk endlessly on how Steph acted like a total bitch to her to win brownie points with the boss. That was actually how she got 27 Sycamore.

“The doll house,” Mr. Sartoris noted.

It wasn’t the worst house to work with, but it was extremely old. It was built in the 1800s, and the previous owner had had it since the forties. Practically everything in it had to be replaced if it were to pass inspection and look presentable. Rose handled it as best as she could, but everyday brought new complaints.

“She did all that work and still found time to help me with my dream,” Penny mused. “No matter what she was going through, she did her best to be a wonderful partner.” Tears started welling up in Penny’s eyes, the hurt building.

Mr. Sartoris silently handed her a handkerchief. The calico accepted and used it to dab her eyes. She handed it back, and we all sat in silence for a moment. Our memories of what happened before had been set in place.

“So, what exactly did Steph do?” the bat asked.

“Well, we don’t know that exactly,” I responded. Like the conversion camp, we only had so much information about what happened. Unlike the conversion camp, we didn’t even have Rose’s story.

“Rose stopped talking to us about work a few days after we closed the cafe sale. If we ever tried to bring it up, she would change the topic,” Penny added.

“Then, how do you know this Steph had anything to do with this incident?” Mr. Sartoris pondered.

There were two reasons we believed Steph was the cause. Rose had begun acting strangely, almost like she did back in high school. She didn’t talk as much about anything. She had begun knitting on a more regular basis. And it wasn’t like she did when it was her pasttime, it was like it was programmed into her.

“Somedays, she would come home and just make dolls until she went to bed. I tried to talk to her. But she just wouldn’t respond.” Penny said quietly.

But the strangest part was how she reacted whenever Stephanie was brought up. She would suddenly get a headache or stomachache and need to step away. We had once planned to go to a Pride parade, but Rose suddenly felt the need to cancel after Steph had called her on her day off.

“That would have been enough reason for me,” Mr. Sartoris affirmed.

“Well, the week after Rose had... passed. Stephanie called me,” Penny recounted. “She was extremely drunk, so it was hard to understand what she was saying. I was only able to understand one thing, and it was her calling Rose a dyke.”

The bat’s eyes widened.

“That’s exactly how I felt. I called her the next day to see what she was talking about, but she either didn’t remember or pretended not to. I asked her if she had anything to do with what Rose did and that made her mad. She hung up on me.”

I managed to speak with Rose’s and Steph’s boss. He mentioned that Rose had asked if there was any way to not have to interact with Steph shortly after she closed the deal for Penny’s shop. With those details, Penny and I guessed that there was something in the application details that revealed that she and Rose were a couple.

“I still don’t know what it could have been. There were so many forms to fill out.”

After she found out, she might have started to harass Rose more. Their boss didn’t mention that Rose complained about any issues, but he was also out of the office a lot. There was the call before the Pride parade, but Penny and I assumed that it was a work thing that stressed her out. I tried to speak with Steph about what happened during that time, but she always shut me out. I’d call her once a week with the same questions and would stop her if I saw her. The closest to any real information I got from her was when I visited her in her office, the same one that she worked with Rose in.

I had approached her desk. She only looked at me annoyed. She just carried on like I wasn’t there. I dug into her, demanding that she tell me what she did to Rose. I would be the first to admit I had lost my cool. I screamed at her that she should feel terrible if Rose did what she did because of her. That must have struck a nerve, because Stephanie stood up, looked me in the eyes and told me that it was Rose’s fault. That if she wasn’t comfortable with the office, she shouldn’t have tried to keep working there. Maybe she didn’t say anything new, but her venomous tone told me everything I needed to hear. She might as well have called her a dyke again. I left, leaving her standing there.

Honestly, we don’t know what happened in the two weeks Rose closed the cafe and the day I found her. But it had to have been because of Stephanie.

“You were the one that found her?” Mr. Sartoris asked.

I paused again. I almost spaced out again. We had finally come up to the last few days of Rose’s life. There was no way around it. It would have been nice to leave the story there, but it was just as important to Rose’s story as the beginning and the middle. If we left out the end, then there would have been no point in the rest.

She had begun to get angry. Rose never got angry. She might get upset or frustrated, but anger was just something she didn’t seem capable of doing.

“I tried to speak gently with her when she started yelling, but that seemed to only upset her more,” Penny said. “It all came to a head when she called me a corruptor. That hurt me a lot, that she used the same word against me that her family used. I couldn’t respond. I just went to our room and locked the door. I didn’t see her the next morning.”

Rose had gone missing. Penny immediately called me when she didn’t return that evening. We began to call everyone she knew to try and find out where she was. We called Stephanie. That was when we found out that Rose hadn’t been at work for the past few days. When calling everyone didn’t help, we drove around town looking for her car. It was by a stroke of luck that we had gone down Sycamore Road. There was her car in the driveway of that old building. When I saw that, I had an eerie feeling. We parked in front of the building and I told Penny to stay.

The front door of the building wasn’t locked, so I walked in. The first thing I noticed was the dolls. They were everywhere. They weren’t the labors of love nor the meticulous craftsmanship that she usually made. There were dolls half-finished. There were dolls with extra limbs, and falling apart. I looked around for a sign of her. I called out her name, but she didn’t respond. I walked through the building, trying to avoid stepping on any of the dolls that Rose had left out. I paused at each closed door before slowly opening them. The floorboards creaked and the hinges squealed. The house was almost in pain at my presence.

I came to the last door and paused like I did at every door before. When I opened it, she was sitting in a chair in the opposite corner. Her hand moving in a circling motion over her arm. I called her name again. She looked at me, half her face was yarn, matching the color of her fur that used to be there. Wherever there wasn’t yarn, there was skin instead. She had shaved off all her fur to prep herself to become a doll. All she said to me was that she was unraveling, but she would stitch herself together. After she said that, she inserted the needle into her skin, another one of thousands that I didn’t see.

I wanted to reach out and pull her toward me, but I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to touch the skin. I didn’t want to touch the yarn. As we stood there, watching each other, I pulled out my phone and called an ambulance.

“She died in the hospital the next morning,” Penny said.

We didn’t leave her side. We didn’t question her. We told her we loved her over and over again. But there was one moment...

“Kai, do you need to share that?” Penny asked through quiet tears, trying to spare me from the memory. I carried on without acknowledging what she said.

Rose reached her paw out to me and placed it on my arm. It was the paw that she had managed to change before I found her, and it felt chilling. The amalgamation of flesh and yarn, of organic and inorganic, was a sensation that I remembered every time someone touched me. It felt wrong. Not weird like scratchy clothes, but... just wrong. I flinched once I felt it. I immediately felt guilty for flinching and felt more so when I saw the hurt in her eyes.

We always cried thinking about those last hours. Rose didn’t say anything to us. It was just like high school again. The person we loved was there, and maybe she wanted to say something, but she just didn’t feel like she could. It would corrupt her, like her parents said. She didn’t say anything about how she loved us during her last hours. We could only hope that she still did. We could only hope that she didn’t feel lonely, not being able to tell us what happened.

The bat sat there with us. He didn’t do or say anything while we cried. What was there to do or say?

After we had cried ourselves out, Mr. Sartoris spoke up.

“I really am sorry for your loss.”

Penny and I both nodded. We had heard it a hundred times before.

“So, I’m really sorry that I have to go right into business. The story is extremely impactful, and that’s why I’m here. I assume you want to know why I wanted to hear the story,” Mr. Sartoris said.

“Aren’t you another home buyer?” I asked, confused by the question.

“Well, maybe in some ways I am. I work for an organization that shelters kids who face homelessness due to their sexuality or gender,” Mr. Sartoris explains.

Penny and I look at each other in a bit of shock.

“Usually, we’re able get kids relocated to another family member that has the means to take custody, but that isn’t always the case. So, the organization recently received a grant to buy a building that might be more appropriate for long-term shelter. They requested we get a building with a little bit of history to it, and 27 Sycamore fits that description.”

Mr. Sartoris pulled out some documents and handed them to us. Most of them were information about his organization and the ongoing plan. Two were blank forms.

“I know it might be a difficult thing to ask of you, but my understanding is that you Kai, and now Ms. Penny as it turns out, are the best people to ask for approval to do so.”

“But, neither of us own the building,” Penny responded.

“It’s still your story. The grant-gifters require we use a building with history, and we don’t share the history without the people best fit to tell it. So, we need your permission,” Mr. Sartoris looked at us expectantly.

I read over the documents again, “I’m not sure what to tell you, Mr. Sartoris.”

“It’s not about what to tell me. It’s about telling Rose’s story to the people who need to hear it.”

I look at Penny. There was still shock in her eyes. Maybe this was fitting, forms were what led to Rose doing what she did, the house was the place where she spent her last hours of life. Now, the forms might help kids on a similar path, the house a place where they spent their first hours of life.

Penny and I knew that this could be something good. It was like we were making another end for Rose. “Do you have a pen?” Penny asked.