A Mansion House

“A Mansion House” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Kheettasree Suppaya, Sultan Badlishah Secondary School, Kulim, Malaysia.

A Mansion House

An ancient pregnant Chinese mother and a daughter lived in a house happily. Then moves to the present where a happy couple Jack and Amy, bringing in their memories of the times they met and how their love blossomed. They suddenly noticed that a new family is moving into the next house. Jack is a neurosurgeon who specialized in deep brain stimulation. He is close to another doctor, Dr. Alex, who is a psychiatrist.

The two families get along well, with Jennifer, who is the eldest daughter having a crush on Jack. Everything goes well when suddenly during a party, Jack saw Jennifer jumping into nearby well. He informed the family, then he jumped into the well and saved her. That night, Jennifer is attacked with seizures and once again, Jack helped her in time. During another dinner at Jack's house, Jennifer is paniced by seeing a strange figure and her parents forcefully take her home. The next morning, Jennifer, without being self-aware, went towards a cliff to jump, Sarah who is Jennifer’s youngest sister followed her, slipped towards another cliff, but is saved by Jack.

When Jennifer’s father Paul went towards to stop her, she herself returned home without saying anything, while still in a zombie state and passes out in the house. Her father takes her to psychiatrist and she revealed two specific things that she thought was abnormal: a voice speaking to her in Chinese and another terrifying incident in the toilet. The psychiatrist felt that something is wrong and visited her room with the permission of her father. He tried to decipher her mental state by reading the condition of her room, while finding recent internet searches about ghosts in her tablet, and a book about exorcism lying in her drawer. By seeing all this, he concluded that Jennifer must've made up an image in her mind that she's possessed by a spirit. So, Alex, Jack, and Paul planned to administer fake exorcism with the help of a church pastor, Father Joshua in order to bind the spirit. All hell broke loose in doing so, revealing that she was really possessed by a powerful spirit of the Chinese mother, resulting in Father Joshua getting injured and admitted to the hospital.

One night, the servant in the house prepares a voodoo doll to chase the bad spirit, but is scolded by Paul not to do occult in house. The same night, she’s hit by the ghost in the same way as the voodoo doll, while being wrapped by her own shawl, impaled on the head by a nail. Next morning, when Paul looked around her room, he found the Voodoo doll under the bed and what appears to be fingernail marks on the below the bed frame. Paul tells his father to call a psychic. The psychic talks to the spirit, who signals to him that there are not two, but three spirits in the house, the third one being revealed to actually be a malevolent force which would not let them leave the house.

Amy fell off a ladder, while seeing a scary figure on the water tank, who was actually attempting to cause her a miscarriage, but the child survives. Dr. Alex and Jack, started researching about a single eye witness who knew what happened to the Chinese family. Simultaneously, the psychic too, using the comb which belonged to the Chinese daughter, begins to place the pieces of the mystery. The witness in a village tells a flashback when she was eight years old. It was revealed that the house belonged to a rich Chinese silk merchant who lived with his wife and daughter. He wished that his pregnant wife should bear a male child. As he was a Satan worshiper, he had to sacrifice a girl child during the time of the solar eclipse to get a male child.

To achieve this purpose, he sacrificed his own daughter. He hit his wife, until she became unconscious. Luring his child slowly, he hit her head by using a sacrificial sword. His wife, regaining her senses, couldn't bear the sight of her dead daughter on the floor. Cursing her husband, she took a knife, pierced herself in the abdomen, killing herself, and the unborn child telling him that she doesn’t need a male child by sacrificing a girl child. The husband realizing his loss takes away his life by drowning himself in the nearby well.

Coming back to present, Paul ordered his family to pack up and leave the house. Amy is being chased in the hospital by the two spirits only to guide her to Father Joshua’s room. Being the day of the solar eclipse, the old woman speculates that the Chinese merchant would return to complete his ritual. Amy called Jack and told him that she is discharged and is headed to see Jennifer. Jack came back from village at the request of Amy to stay with Jennifer. Amy then tricked Jack and locked him in Jennifer's room for impeding him till the eclipse ends. She then reveals what Father Joshua had seen on the day of exorcism. Though Jennifer was set free, some other force tried to stop the prayers of Father Joshua in the room. The force was from none other than Jack. When Jack had jumped into the well the other night to save Jennifer, the Chinese merchant’s spirit possessed him.

It was from Jack that the spirits of the Chinese mother and daughter were trying to protect the family by frightening them to leave the house. As the eclipse begins, the spirit of the Chinese merchant takes full control of Jack and he begins searching for his target, which is revealed to be Sarah to sacrifice and complete the ritual. Though he lured and tried to kill her, the family members and the spirits of the Chinese mother and daughter fight with Jack by trying to distract him, until the eclipse ends and they finally succeed in removing the spirit from his body. In the end, Jack and Amy are shown to be settled in London.