litlinks 2025

Vorago

by Demi Yu, Canberra Girls Grammar School

The house at the end of Weedon Close was different to all the others, and that was the problem; Weedon Close wasn’t the kind of street where anything more interesting than an escaped dog ever happened. But the fact stood that this kitchen had one less window than the neighbours’, the roof creaked like a sobbing child, and it didn’t sleep the way a house should. It hummed to itself at night.

It wasn’t abandoned though; that would’ve made it too easy to name. Half-lived in would be a better description. Curtains shifted slightly sometimes and Pat from across the street insisted the attic lights had a habit of turning themselves on in the dead of night, where the silhouette of a girl seemed to stare directly at her the way cats do when they haven’t decided whether you’re prey. No one believed any of this nonsense because Pat was the certified neighbourhood freak who drank too much chai for her own good and based meals on Saturn’s alignment with Mars; but funnily enough, they still gave the house a wide berth after that.

Then came a girl with eyes the color of held breath and salt-crusted shoes that left behind a trail of wet crescent moons. Told the landlord she didn’t care about the broken aircon or the dark stain on the corner of the bedside table, only wanted a place to play her music late; he liked that. Quiet ones always made the best tenants. He handed over the keys without stepping inside.

It didn’t take long for her to notice the door in the bedroom floor, dead centre where carpet peeled back like old skin. Too narrow for a basement, too obvious for a trapdoor; just a rusted ring handle with the kind of silence around it that felt intentional. Opening it was like pulling a stubborn child back from the playground, and it didn’t hold the stairs she had been expecting; rather, something black and vast, an eye perhaps, looking up at her from the deep. It smelt like someone’s mouth in the morning.

After that, she started sleeping on the couch.

***

She couldn’t remember when she started playing the violin. Some were full pieces that ached and bled in ways humans couldn’t; others were just lonely notes, pulled through the air like a tide. They filled the hollow and settled something in it. Occasionally, she heard sounds after she was done, low sighs, or a breath drawn in — the house liked Mozart best, all false brightness and empty joy neither of them had.

There were nightmares, too, where the door in the floor opened itself. In one, something wet crawled out. In another, something flaking around the edges, paper curling in fire.

Reading bored her, writing ever more, and milk soured unnoticed in the fridge for two weeks until the smell finally became too much for even her to ignore. But she did begin to understand the hum of the house, how it calmed when she played, warmed when she cried. It wanted something. It wasn’t cruel exactly, but it was lonely.

***

Someone came over once, a boy with the kind of eyes they wrote into songs and a quiet laugh that made her think of beaches at sunset. She tried to gesture around the door. “It’s not a place,” she explained, watching his gaze skim over as if it repelled attention. “More like a well… or a mouth, maybe. It wants.” He kissed her mid-sentence and she forgot what she was about to say.

In the morning, the hatch stood open. The sheets beside her were cold.

She didn’t call anyone.

After, the house no longer hummed at night and the lights grew warmer. Its roof kept creaking except now it sounded more like chewing instead of sobs. The bed felt wrong so she went back to sleeping on the couch. Strangely enough though, sitting next to the open door became a habit now, hand under her chin and violin in her lap. Once, something was whispered into the dark; a name, maybe, from a long time ago. The air turned cold around her but she smiled.

Weeks passed before the doorbell rang: the same boy. His laughter caught like broken glass and he blinked in morse. Gripped her hand as if it held all his secrets and asked strange questions like “Have you been playing lately?” and “Do you feel fed?” She closed the door gently in his face.

She started people-watching more. The porcelain-wristed girl working the cafe morning shifts whose smile seemed surgically attached. The bookstore owner with nails bitten down to the beds that watched her too closely for comfort when she pulled Frankenstein out of a shelf, even though she clearly wasn’t intending to steal it. They all made the list; names scribbled down, just in case.

The house liked them even better than the boy. It was hungrier than before.

But it loved her.

***

One Thursday when the rain fell harder than tears, a neighbour stopped by to drop off a basket of baked goods. He was elderly, soft-spoken. Asked how she was settling in and told her he was friends with the people who lived there long before her.

“A lovely family, they had a daughter about your age who played the violin. Such a tragic accident.”

The girl paused. “Accident?”

“Oh,” the man touched his temple like he couldn’t quite remember. “Fell and hit her head on the bedside table when her parents were away. Wasn’t found for days, poor thing, or they might’ve saved her.”

He peered over her shoulder, oblivious to the rain that was dripping from his coat and rapidly pooling on the doormat.

“And then you moved in, of course.” The frown lifted into a kind smile. “Funny how she used to play the same pieces you do. Classics, are they?”

The girl didn’t reply. She thanked the neighbour for his muffins and took care to lock the door; then crossed her legs in front of the gaping hatch.

A word had slipped out of the library’s Latin dictionary once: vorago.

Chasm. Abyss. Devourer.

“You remember,” she whispered. Fingers brushed over a place above her ear where the bone never quite healed right.

And the house purred.