Editor's note: this fictional work contains scenes of completely fictional incest or fictional incest content.
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The Master Bedroom
"It may not be much now, but just imagine getting it back to its glory."
Sonja Anderson was beaming with pride as she showed her daughter Michaela through the long neglected Victorian house. Michaela, eighteen years old and the baby of the family, had, at her mother's insistence, given up one of the few vacation days she had left before going off to college.
Empty nest syndrome had come down hard on Sonja. Not that anyone was surprised, she had been a full time mom to six kids while her executive husband had served the family with paychecks and many, many trips abroad.
While her mother saw only potential, Michaela saw ruin. Peeling walls, moldering rugs, but it was the abandoned furniture that gave her the creeps. Leaving a house to rot is one thing, but certainly the furniture would have been worth taking if only to sell.
"I can't imagine that you could get this place up to code, much less to sell, for more than it's worth."
"You are entirely too pessimistic for someone so young. I've had it inspected, and the foundation and the framing are almost perfectly intact. Thank god the roof held up, there is no water damage aside from a couple of broken windows."
Michaela wanted to be supportive of her mother. Sonja had thrown everything she had into being everything for Michaela and her brothers and sisters. For much of Michaela's life Sonja had never spent effort to take care of herself beyond just getting on day to day. There were pictures of Sonja surrounded by her pack of blonde tykes, and while she never looked unhappy, there was a clear line when she hit fifty that she had just given up on taking care of her fitness. Michaela tried to get her mother to exercise with her, but Sonja's response was always about deserving to age gracefully. Now she was closing on sixty, and all the siblings worried about her next steps.
Perhaps spending father's money on flipping houses would be good for more than just keeping her busy.
Michaela stopped. She didn't know why, but it felt important that she stop. Her heart beat faster, her ears strained but she heard nothing to explain the touch of panic she felt. Enough mid-afternoon light filtered through the dirty windows that there were no shadows out of place, but still her eyes scrutinized the corners.
Sonja was picking her way across the dining room when she saw her daughter's expression. She could read all of her children like books, and Michaela was the beneficiary of her mother having five kids of experience before her. When they first arrived, her daughter's lightly freckled face, framed in strawberry-blonde hair identical to that of Sonja's in her youth, had a "I'm not eating that broccoli" expression. Now her expression had something unidentifiable to it.
"Honey, are you ok?"
Michaela gave herself a shake.
"Yeah, Mom. This place is kind of creepy."
"I suppose all these old houses have that to them, but I've been here a dozen times, and I promise there is not a single ghost here. Come on, let me show you upstairs."
The staircase was impressive, wide, running along the right hand side of the entry with a quarter turn up to the second floor balcony. Sonja kept a running commentary about what parts were original and what parts had been remodeled and when. There had been five bedrooms once upstairs, but one had been remade into two bathrooms, one for the family and the other for the master bedroom.
It was all in one ear and out the other for all that Michaela was paying attention to her mother. She could finally put her finger on what she was feeling now, what she had felt in the dining room. She was being watched. Whichever way she looked it was the wrong way, whatever was watching was always behind her.
"Michaela, sweetie?" her mom called.
Michaela pulled her attention to the here and now to find herself alone in the hallway.
"Mom! Where are you?" she cried, fighting down a flash of panic.
"In the master bedroom, I wanted to show you the en suite bath." Her mother stuck her head out a door and beckoned.
With whatever it was behind her Michaela almost ran to the room. She saw her mother waiting for her outside the bathroom.
"Mom, I really want to..."
The moment she crossed the threshold into the master bedroom she felt a force pull her into the room with enough force to cause her to pitch forward onto her hands and knees. Door slammed and the draperies of the windows slid shut creating far more darkness than the time of day should allow.
Michaela screamed as she felt herself pulled upright and off the ground by what might have been barely substantial snakes wrapping around her arms and legs.
A source less red-tinted light filled the room, bright enough that Sonja could make out the look of terror on her daughter's face, but not enough to dispel the shadows behind her. Michaela was held with her arms slightly above her shoulders and legs spread wide. Most terrifying was Michaela was held with her toes six inches off the ground, held aloft by softly writhing tendrils of shadow.
A piece of the shadow behind Michaela moved, and two eyes appeared, looking over Michaela's shoulder.
"Get away from her!" The sight of her baby girl made so helpless caused what fear Sonja felt to boil away into the purest rage she had ever known. She launched herself at the shadowy form only to feel bindings catch around her ankles and her wrists secured behind her, completely arresting her movement. She landed hard and was pulled up to her knees by an unseen force six feet away from her bound daughter.
A voice slid from behind Michaela with the softness of a shadow passing along a wall.
"I shall have my servant."
With those words Michaela's clothes lost what little color they had under the eerie light and faded away as if they were no longer real. Wisps remained, sliding over her now naked, athletically toned, body, ever so lightly that goosebumps rose unbidden. Michaela drew a shuddering breath, cursing her skin for being tantalized. She refused to feel pleasure from it.
