She Built Her House for the Next Five Decades - Maya

She walked into the new room and breathed in deeply. Ah, the good smell of freshly cut wood.

- Yes - she thought - I like this. It has a good feeling. Now I can stop. This will satisfy the demand.

She ordered furniture, chose a deep blue for the paint, and decided which of the new Oriental rugs would look best on the hardwood floor. This was something she could do. She liked being busy.

But at night, when the workmen were gone and the servants had all gone to sleep, she was left with her solitude. And that unsettled feeling began creeping back in.

Lying in her big canopy bed, alone, in the bedroom more than large enough to accomodate two, she was keenly aware of the vacancy on the other side of the mattress. Even on summer nights she often felt chilled in her clean sheets. And in the quiet she heard it call to her - it cried,it whispered in her brain. The house. It wanted more. It wanted to grow. If only her daughter had lived.... maybe a child would have satisfied it - a bright, happy, living thing filling all the empty space. But there was no child, and the house grew restless, bitter.

Every time she got fooled. She would truly believe that if she just gave it one more room or added one more wing it would retreat into silent contentment, it would snuggle down onto its foundations with an almost audible sigh of relief. Every time. But no sooner had she given in to its demands when it started again.

"Stop torturing me," she whispered. "You must be satisfied, Enough is enough."

- Never enough - she heard the reply. - Never. I must grow. Grow! Grow! -

She turned over and pulled the pillow over her head. It didn't help. She knew it wouldn't. This was not new and would not be any different from the other times. How could she be so naive as to think it would let her go. She would never be free.

Tears leaked out of her eyes, soaking into the bedding. If only she could sell the house, move away. To a cottage by the ocean or in the mountains - where the clean wind would scour her troubled mind clear of its burdens. But she couldn't. It was the house where she'd borne her child, that her husband had built for her, just for her. She couldn't abandon it.

So she did what she always did. Gave up and gave in. Sent for the contractor. Planned another addition. So the house could grow, like a living thing. Like the real,lving thing it wanted to be, drove her to make it be.

prompt from 1/19/08 (exact wording of prompt not recorded, but about Sarah Winchester)