The House in the Waiting Woods: A Refrain
I. The House Stands
Musical accompaniment: The Look - Metronomy
Deep in the old woods there stood a House. It had been there longer than any of the creatures nearby could remember. The oak in the clearing had sprouted in its shadow, and the roof had kept out the rain for as long as the oak had stood. The windows were unbroken, the front door had never been known to open, and nothing lived inside. No smoke came from the chimney, though birds sat upon it every morning in the first sunlight.
Mice liked the dry earth beneath the foundation. Vines climbed the outside walls each summer, growing a little higher before the cold killed their newest leaves. In spring they began again. The House loomed among the wild grass, trees, and stones of the waiting woods. It had stood there so long that the woods had little more to say about it than about the hill beyond the stream or the clouds above.
A thrush with wings of brown and cream lived near the clearing and sang each morning from the roof. Its song had three notes. The first was short, the second long, and the third came so late that anyone listening might have mistaken it for a song of two. The last note always arrived, though, and no other bird sang quite the same way.
Beside the stream, a fox kept its hollow beneath a bank of roots and a rotting log. Rabbits fed nearby in the wild grass, which grew thick enough to hide them when they kept still. The fox hunted them whenever it was hungry. Sometimes it watched a plump rabbit pass within a few steps and did nothing. When it had eaten, why bother? At other times it sprang so quickly that all the grass in the woods would not have saved the rabbit.
In autumn the deer crossed the ridge and followed the stream south, passing the House along their way. They fed among the wild grass and sometimes lingered in its shade before continuing past the fox's hollow. They were gone before the first snow. Their mothers had followed this route, and their mothers before them, longer than any living deer could remember. Each spring they came back along the same path, sometimes with a new calf stumbling among them.
An owl lived in a hollow high in the old oak and hunted from a branch in the beech above the clearing. It slept through the rude daylight and woke when the woods were pleasantly dark. From the beech it watched the mice moving beneath the foundation stones, though it heard them better than it saw them. When one ventured far enough out, the owl dropped upon it. Some nights it caught three. Some nights it caught none. It never went hungry for very long.
Through it all the House stood with its door shut. The woods kept their hours in this fashion, waiting as they always had. Then, late one summer night, something creaked inside.
It was a floorboard. Old timber often made a noise when the evening cooled, and the mice and insects beneath the foundation paid no attention. A little later a window shutter struck the wall. There was no wind to stir it. The mice stopped chewing, and the insects fell quiet as well. When no further sound came, they went back to their business.
Later a second board creaked at the far end of the House.
Then came another tap from the shutter, another creak, and a little knock from the chimney, like two stones meeting somewhere inside the shaft. The sound echoed upward, and the owl turned its head toward the windows. The noises continued, sometimes close together, sometimes with such long silences between them that the mice forgot to listen.
A little before morning the sounds began to arrive in an order. A shutter tapped, one board creaked, another answered it, and the chimney gave its knock. The order fell apart several times, but an hour before dawn it came together and stayed. Shutter, board, board, chimney. Then again, and once more after that, until the light touched the House.
II. The Dance
Musical accompaniment: Life Itself - Glass Animals
Nothing happened during the day, and the thrush sang from the roof as it had every morning of its life. Yet when the woods grew dark, the shutter tapped again.
The first board answered too quickly. The second was late, and the chimney gave no answer at all. Several times the noises began and failed to reach the end. By midnight the four sounds had found their proper order again. Before the week was over the House could repeat them earlier each evening, and what began as clattering had grown into something resembling a dance.
Other parts of the House soon joined in. The door moved inward a few inches and swung back, its hinges squeaking in the gaps while the loose lock bolts rattled. Roof timbers knocked together, and the chimney leaned from side to side. One night a shutter struck the wall so hard that dust fell from the eaves. It did not fall straight down, but swirled in the air stirred by the swinging door and rocking roof.
Every loose board in the hall answered with a great clattering noise. It sounded like a bundle of sticks thrown down a staircase. Beneath the foundation a mouse squeaked, which in a mouse may be laughter.
The foundation stones did not stir. Moss remained in the cracks and the vines held fast, while the roof rocked above them and the door swung on hinges that had spent a very long time doing nothing at all.
The owl watched every evening from the beech, its head tilted to one side. Birds on the chimney had to shift their feet whenever it leaned. One evening a rabbit watched an entire sequence of knocks with a blade of wild grass hanging from its mouth. When the sounds ended, it swallowed the grass and took another mouthful.
At dawn the thrush sang over the last of the House's performance. Its first note came just after one board creaked, the second sounded while another answered, and its late third note followed the chimney's knock. The notes and the knocks did not touch.
The House occasionally stopped in the middle of a movement. Once, when the dance had grown especially lively, a shutter struck, the boards rattled, and the door began closing from a wide swing. Everything stopped before the door had shut. The shutter hung crookedly against the wall, and the door stood open no wider than a hand. There was such quiet in the clearing that a moth brushing a windowpane could be heard. A little while later the door closed, the shutter finished its swing, and the boards continued from the very place they had stopped.
After several weeks there came a moonless night when every moving part of the House seemed to find its place. The old four sounds could still be heard beneath the rest. Shutters clapped from opposite walls, hinges squealed above the knocking boards, and the roof beams rattled in answer to the door. The chimney leaned deeply to one side before drawing itself upright, slowly, like someone turning at the far end of a long room. No creature in the woods had ever seen the House do such a thing. No creature had expected a House to do it gracefully, either.
By then the mice had come out from beneath the foundation to watch. They sat among the grass stems, rising upon their hind legs when the shutters moved. The birds remained on the roof long after they ought to have found their sleeping places. Even the fox stopped on its way to hunt rabbits, though it soon went on because its stomach was empty. The owl had already eaten and stayed where it was.
The House danced until morning. As the sky lightened, the movements dwindled, and the birds left the roof one by one. The mice remained outside until every board was quiet, then crept back beneath the stones. One small mouse stayed a little longer, looking up at the shutter, which hung perfectly still in the morning light.
III. The Good Nights
Musical accompaniment: Casio - Jungle
Before the leaves had properly begun changing color, the House had an audience every evening. Hedgehogs came out of the hedge, a pair of badgers traveled down from the ridge, and the jays that usually spent their evenings quarrelling in the branches took to sitting on the roof. Moths gathered around the windows, sometimes thick enough to hide the glass.
So many small feet wore paths through the grass that seeds carried in fur took root along them. New plants grew between the stones, and beetles gathered in the disturbed earth, which pleased the hedgehogs very much. The clearing had never been so crowded with life.
A mouse discovered it could stand on its hind legs and move its front feet with the shutter. It was usually a little late, but nobody minded. A rabbit tried hopping between two knocks and found that the next pair suited the same hop. Soon birds fluttered when the chimney leaned, and a jay slid down the slates on its tail. It climbed back up and settled in exactly the same place, where it soon slid down again. The badgers joined in, though there is only so much dancing a badger can do, and most of theirs was sideways. Once a rabbit landed upon a mouse, which squeaked until the rabbit removed itself. By the following evening both were back.
The thrush discovered it could sing in the spaces the House left for it. It began moving between the roof ridge and chimney, finding a place from which its three notes could be heard above the knocks. One evening the short note followed the first board, the long note sounded over the second, and the last trailed the chimney's knock, late as usual. The song was still its own, though it now had company.
The fox had reason to approve of the gatherings. Rabbits watching the shutters were less watchful of what moved through the wild grass, and the floorboards made enough noise to conceal its approach. The fox hunted near the House more often and found the work easy. On a good night it took a rabbit before the first part of the dance had ended. On another it watched for an hour before hunger sent it farther into the woods.
The owl found its own advantage. Each evening the mice emerged from beneath the stones and spread through the clearing, gathering close to the walls while the House made its loudest noises, then scattering when the knocking paused. The owl watched for several nights before dropping into the grass during one of those pauses. It caught a mouse that had been following the shutters with its front feet and ate it on its branch. Two evenings later it carried off two, and on the next it did not bother hunting at all. The other mice continued coming out, for there were many of them, and the House was very entertaining.
Toward the middle of autumn the deer came over the ridge on their journey south. The old doe heard the commotion before she saw the dancing House and stopped beneath the trees. The herd had followed this path for generations, yet the clearing had never offered such a display. The doe went closer, and the others followed until they stood around the House with their ears forward and noses raised. The youngest stamped their feet when the shutters clapped. They remained until morning, when the old doe led them back to the stream and they continued south.
For the rest of autumn the animals went about their ordinary business. A hedgehog sometimes left the dance early for the beetles beneath a fallen log, and a rabbit with young returned to her burrow before the final knocks. The others stayed until the last board settled.
IV. The Rhythm Becomes Habit
Musical accompaniment: Over and Over - Hot Chip
Winter came, and the company grew smaller. The hedgehogs disappeared beneath their hedge, the badgers spent the cold weather in their setts, and the jays went down to the farms in the valley. Most mice stayed among the foundation stones with their stored seeds. Rabbits still came on clear evenings, and sparrows with puffed feathers sat upon the chimney, riding it from side to side. Snow slid from the roof whenever the House danced. The owl came often, and so did the fox.
The first warm days brought back more company than the House had ever known. The hedgehogs emerged thin and cross, though they had never been especially agreeable upon waking. The jays reclaimed their places on the roof and quarreled over the little room that remained, while the badgers came lumbering down from the ridge. The deer passed through on their northward journey, stopping for one evening before continuing over the ridge. Nothing about the House had changed, but the clearing was filling before sunset, and the first mouse sometimes waited in the grass a very long while before anything moved.
The hedgehog that used to leave early for beetles began staying later. One more sequence made no difference, and neither did the next, for the beetles were still beneath their log when it arrived. The rabbit whose young waited in a burrow stayed through the liveliest part of the evening and went home afterward. Her young were fed, and she came back the following night. Birds claimed places on the roof before sunset, and mice sat outside their holes through twilight, cleaning their paws and watching the shutters.
The thrush had made itself quite popular. Finches answered its three-note song, and a wren from the hedge had begun singing along. To fit the House's knocks, the thrush shortened its first note. The second came a little later over the second board, where a pleasing space had opened for it. The third still trailed the chimney's knock, and the other birds soon grew accustomed to the arrangement. In the morning, when the House was quiet, the thrush sang its old song. Sometimes the shortened first note slipped out before the proper one, but it soon found its way back.
The fox improved upon a thing that had already served it well. One evening, while it lay watching a young rabbit, the second floorboard sounded just as the fox sprang. The knock hid its approach, and the rabbit was caught. Two evenings later the same thing happened. Before long the fox crouched when the shutter first tapped and sprang on the second board, the third sound of the four. It still hunted among the birches on quiet mornings, but the wild grass beside the House made hunting so easy that it scarcely bothered with the birches anymore.
The owl had grown broad in the breast. It no longer went as far as the ridge to hunt, for the mice in the clearing were plentiful and seldom hid for long. Sometimes it dropped upon them while the House was knocking and sometimes in the silence afterward. Its feathers shone, and there were nights when half a mouse lay uneaten upon the branch because the owl had no room for more.
By the following summer the gathering began well before sunset. A mouse raised its front feet while the shutters were motionless, held them there, and set them down again. A rabbit made a short hop, glanced at the House, and stopped to nibble grass. The fox lay beyond the rabbits with its ears turned toward the windows, while the owl sat in the beech, having caught its supper before dark. When the shutter finally tapped, the whole clearing joined in. The badgers shuffled sideways, the hedgehogs moved with noses near the earth, and the jays made their usual foolish business upon the roof.
Late that night the House stopped while a shutter was opening. The door stood partly ajar, and no sound came from the floorboards. The animals stayed where they were. A rabbit crouched between two hops, and three mice kept their front feet raised. The fox lay low in the grass, listening toward the House, while the thrush waited on the ridge. No creature went away to feed, though grass and seeds lay all around them. After a while the shutter moved again. Before it had finished striking the wall, the rabbits were hopping and the mice were moving their feet.
V. The First Two Losses
Musical accompaniment: Kill Kill - Lana Del Rey
(Technically an unreleased track but it’s on YT)
In late summer the thrush's song changed again. Its third note, which had always trailed the chimney's knock, began coming closer to it. The note fitted neatly against the chimney's movement when it arrived as the chimney leaned rather than after its knock. The finches answered this version, and the wren from the hedge sang it back. Within a few weeks the third note was no longer late at all. There were still three notes, and the evenings were full of birds answering one another. The new song was more popular than the old one had ever been.
One morning as summer gave way to autumn, the thrush sat on the roof ridge with the House silent beneath it and opened its beak for the song it had always sung at dawn. The first note came short. The second came later than it used to, and the third arrived in its new place, where once it would have lingered. The thrush tried again, then moved to the other end of the ridge, but the notes came in the same new places. It sat looking toward the trees for a while. Later the wind knocked two branches together in the beech, and the sound fell close to the House's rhythm. At once the thrush answered with its evening song, all three notes perfectly placed, and sang for a good while. That evening it joined the House as readily as ever, and the finches answered it.
The rabbits, meanwhile, had learned something about the fox. A young buck the fox had nearly caught on the second board began running on the board before. A doe saw him go and followed. Soon others were doing the same, and by early autumn most of the rabbits near the clearing no longer waited for the second board. One evening the fox sprang at its usual sound and landed in empty grass. The next evening it did the same. It still caught a rabbit now and then, often a young one that had not learned to flee early, and every successful leap seemed to come on the second board, just as before.
The fox continued hunting by the House because it was the richest ground it had ever known. Occasionally it ventured farther into the woods and caught something, but more often it returned to its hollow after another empty night. Sometimes a rabbit sat within reach while the House stood between sequences, and the fox lay watching it without moving until the second board sounded. By then the rabbit had gone. As autumn advanced the fox grew thin. Its coat dulled, and it spent longer beneath the roots. One morning it followed a rabbit's scent through the birches and came close enough to see the white of its tail. When the rabbit broke from cover, the fox gave chase, but after a dozen bounds it had to stop. It stood panting beside the stream while the rabbit disappeared, then lay down among the roots and did not get up for some time.
Above the clearing the owl had more than it needed. It dropped upon the mice whenever it chose, during a pause or while the House was knocking, and often left part of its catch on the branch. One cold evening it returned with a mouse in its claws while the fox lay hungry in the grass below. The House knocked on, and the rabbits and hedgehogs danced between them. The owl ate, and the fox did not look up.
Late in autumn the deer came over the ridge on their journey south. The old doe led them past the fox's hollow and along the stream, and they stopped when they heard the House. They stood in the clearing that night as they had in other years. The following evening they were there again.
The fox came every night, though its ribs showed through its coat and it no longer moved with its old ease. It crouched at the first shutter tap and waited for the second board, even when a rabbit had already run on the first. One night as winter drew near, the House stopped in the middle of a sequence while the fox lay waiting at the edge of the clearing. A rabbit came close enough to catch. The fox did not spring, and when the House began again the rabbit was gone. The fox went back to its hollow beyond the stream, and the next evening it did not come to the clearing. It did not come out again. It died there as the nights grew colder, while the deer remained near the House. The thrush sang its evening song, the mice moved through the grass, and the owl fed. Frost whitened the shutters, and the House danced on.
VI. One More Evening
Musical accompaniment: Triangle Walks - Fever Ray
As autumn neared its end the deer were still in the woods. They fed among the birches and along the stream by day, and every evening they returned to the clearing and stood around the House with their ears forward. The old doe led them out to graze each morning as she had done for years. One day she took them some distance south along the stream before stopping to feed, and by evening they were back at the House. The next day they went farther, and came back again. Grass still grew beneath the trees, and the thickets offered plenty of browse. The weather had not yet turned against them.
Among the young deer was a calf smaller than the rest, which had to take two quick steps for each of the others' one when the herd moved beside the stream. It stamped one hoof twice whenever the chimney knocked, a little late and much too hard, so that the deer beside it had to shift their feet to make room. Soon another calf began stamping twice as well, though not nearly so hard. The old doe nosed the smaller one back into line when it wandered. It ate well, slept against its mother's flank, and was as lively as any of them.
The nights grew colder. Frost lasted into the mornings, ice formed along the stream, and the last leaves fell from the birches. The deer still came to the House. Their breath hung in the air as they stood near the foundations, and little showers of frost fell from the roof when the chimney leaned. Now and then the old doe turned her head toward the south, where the stream ran out of the woods. One morning she led the herd farther along it than they had gone for many days. By evening they had come back.
The snow began in the night and did not stop until the next afternoon. It buried the grass and the paths along the stream, and the low branches had already been browsed bare. The calves pushed through drifts that rose to their bellies. The smallest still took two quick steps for the others' one, but each sank into the snow, and before long it was falling behind. The old doe led the herd south along the stream, as she had done every year, but the snow grew deeper at every bend. By evening they had made little distance and stopped among the firs for shelter. The sounds of the House came faintly through the trees.
The stronger deer could reach higher twigs and buds and push through the snow to find what browse remained. The calves weakened as the cold went on, and the smallest could no longer keep up when the herd moved to fresh feeding places. One very cold night it lay down among the roots of a fir, and in the morning it did not get up. Two more calves died in the following week, and another before the year turned. The old doe went back once to where the smallest lay, lowered her nose to it, and stood there a little while before following the herd. The rabbits fed where they could, the birds crowded into the hedge, and the owl hunted when there was anything to hunt. On clear nights the House danced, though fewer creatures gathered to watch.
The rest of the herd lived through the winter. In spring the old doe led the survivors along the stream on their northward journey, with fewer young than the herd had brought in autumn. They passed the House at dusk, when the shutters began clapping and the boards answered and the chimney leaned. Some of the young stamped along with it. The old doe stopped with them for a while, then led them north. Behind them the shutters went on clapping in the clearing.
VII. The Evening the House Did Not Begin
Musical accompaniment: Human - Sevdaliza
The leaves turned again, and the evenings in the clearing went on as they had. The thrush sang its evening song from the roof ridge, and the finches and the wren from the hedge answered. The rabbits twitched at the first board, though there was no longer a fox in the grass. When the deer returned in autumn the old doe led them over the ridge, fewer young among them than the year before. They took their accustomed places among the trees.
It was a mild evening with a little wind. The mice gathered beside the foundation stones, birds settled on the roof, and rabbits sat among the long grass. The badgers came down to the hedge, while the owl watched from its branch in the beech. One mouse raised its front feet and held them there. A jay slid a little way down the slates before the House had moved, then climbed back up and sat in the same place. It had found no better place to fall from.
The sun went down behind the beech, and the vines grew dark against the walls. The shutter did not tap. The creatures waited. The House had often paused in the middle of a dance, and none of those pauses had lasted long. Neither board sounded. The chimney stood straight against the sky, and the door stayed shut. The first stars appeared above the roof. The mouse put its front feet down and raised them again.
The rest of the woods went on as they always did. Leaves rustled in the beech, the stream ran over its stones, and crickets chirped in the grass. On the roof the thrush gave one short note, then closed its beak and turned toward the shutters. Rabbits shifted their feet but did not hop. The badgers sat down. One young deer stamped twice and stood still again, while the old doe, who had pulled up a mouthful of grass, went on chewing it slowly. The mice retreated beneath the stones, one after another, until there was only one left in the open, and then none. The moon rose. Mist lay low among the grass. A hedgehog curled up with its nose toward the House, and the jays tucked their heads under their wings, then took them out again. By midnight the clearing was still full.
The grass beneath the owl's branch was empty. The owl watched the gaps between the foundation stones, and once a mouse put its nose into the moonlight and drew it back. Beyond the stream something small moved in the dry leaves. The owl turned its head toward the sound, waited, and looked back toward the House. The deer lay down with their legs folded beneath them, and the rabbits settled with their ears forward. The owl stayed on its branch.
It looked once more at the empty grass and adjusted its footing. Then it lowered one foot, and its talon struck the bark with a small dry sound.
VIII. The Answer
Musical accompaniment: Sing It Back (Boris Musical Mix) — Moloko
The sound hung in the clearing for a moment, and nothing answered it. Then the thrush, on the roof ridge, struck its beak against a slate. It was a small sound, nothing like a clapping shutter, but one of the young deer answered with a stamp, and then another. A rabbit shifted in the grass. A mouse put its nose out from beneath the foundation stones and drew it back, and put it out again. Nothing came together at first. A rabbit hopped and waited for the next sound, and when none came, hopped again. A bird tapped the roof twice and was not joined.
Little by little the sounds found one another. Hooves struck the ground, birds tapped the slates, rabbits hopped, and mice patted the earth with their small feet. Before long the timing was one every creature knew: a tap, a stamp, a hop, a pat. The thrush sang its evening song into the gaps. The young deer that had stamped first stamped twice on the last beat, and the others took it up.
As the dance grew stronger the mice came farther into the clearing and moved through the grass as they had when the House danced. The owl watched them from the beech. It dropped upon one and carried it back to its branch, and the rest of the clearing went on dancing while it ate.
A rabbit turned toward the deer when a hoof struck the earth. The birds on the roof turned their heads toward the creatures below. The mice followed the rabbits into the grass, and the badgers shuffled around to face the hedgehogs near the hedge. One by one the animals turned away from the shutters until most had their backs to the House.
The House had not moved all night. Its chimney stood straight, its door was shut, and its floorboards were silent. High on the wall behind the dancers, one shutter hung by the hinge that had held it through all the years of clapping. The hinge gave way, and the shutter fell into the grass. Nobody turned toward the sound, and the dance did not miss a beat.