:)

"I wanna stay," Ross said. He felt weird but really good. Suddenly Mrs. Hill was talking. Where did she come from?

"Hello, Ross. I see you've been given our little cocktail."

Little cocktail? Oh, the ****. "Yeah."

"Good. I'm going to tell you some things, Ross, and I need you to just sit and listen. The **** will help with that."

He nodded. Of course it would. She continued.

"You must understand that I have endured more than most. Earlier you asked the golem with my daughter's personality why I'm doing these things."

"I did?" he asked earnestly. He didn't remember that.

"I said to sit and just listen." She was frowning. That wasn't good. "The reason may not surprise you. You see, Ross, I'm insane."

He nodded. That didn't surprise him. He didn't think anything could surprise him right now.

"When my daughter died, I nearly fell apart. The only thing holding me together was my husband, Douglas. Without him I would have lost my mind entirely. I know this because when he passed, I did. Madness is an affliction, but it can also be a refuge. A world where Madison and Douglas died and I lived was as uninhabitable to me as the surface of the moon, so my psyche left this world. I was mad, Ross. Gibbering, irrational, unable to think or speak."

"Wow," Madison said mildly. "I don't remember that."

"Quiet," Mrs. Hill said sharply. "Now, Douglas was a wonderful man. He was sweet and funny and thoughtful and sexy... but more than anything, he was a planner. He didn't just make golems; he architected them. He always thought of every contingency, and he knew what would happen if he passed before me. In those days this was a very different place but we still had golem servants and they had instructions."

Ross nodded. It was so nice of her to share all of this with him.

"Remember when I told you that your room was haunted with positive emotions? How a haunting can be an emotion or a thought or a sensation? Of course you don't. The point is, he arranged to haunt this house with rationality. With sanity, Ross. This place is haunted with sanity.

"I was insane for exactly two months. That's how long the golems were told to give me to recover. They cared for me in that state for two months before they broke the seal and allowed the grounds to be permanently drenched in transcendent sanity. This is my perdition, Ross. I escaped it when my mind fled from the light of reason but they dragged me back. I am **** every day to live in a house full of animated dirt without the only two people that ever mattered to me."

That was really sad. Ross felt really bad for her. "Why don't you leave?" he asked.

"I intend to," she answered. "But there are... other factors at play. Ones that I don't care to explain. You'll find that I've tweaked your girlfriend's script to allow her to speak openly about them. Suffice it to say that you, Ross, are my escape hatch. Thanks to you I can finally leave this place and finally have some form of peace. For that, I thank you."

"You're welcome," he said pleasantly. He hardly understood what she was talking about but it was nice to be thanked.

"I just need you to answer a few questions for me. I want you to be completely honest, which is another reason you've been ****. Ross, will you care for this golem as long as you live?"

"Yeah," he said immediately. Madison cooed sweetly.

"Will you establish a successor so that it will continue to be maintained in the event of your passing?"

"Yeah."

She stood. She was so tall! Ross giggled.

"That's all I needed to know. Goodbye, Ross. May we never meet again."

"Okay!" he said agreeably as she exited the room. The door closed behind her and Ross looked at it with a smile. He felt really good.