Slade House

Arriving at Westwood Road, Detective Inspector Gordon Edmonds reminisces about the last time he came through the area with his ex-wife Julie to go house-hunting. Within five years, Julie sued for divorce after Gordon physically assaulted her, a proceeding that Gordon still resents.

Gordon has been assigned to investigate Slade Alley after a man named Famous Fred Pink reported a lead on a criminal case there. No one is able to direct him to the alley, and he is about to give up on his search when he comes across two builders harassing a traffic warden who is trying to serve them a parking ticket. Gordon scares off the builders with threats of criminal charges. The traffic warden thanks Gordon, who tells him about his search for Slade Alley. The traffic warden points out the alley at once.

Gordon cautiously navigates the alley, hoping to find nothing of note so that he can put the lead to rest. Instead, he finds a black iron door, which he goes to inspect. The door opens at his touch, revealing a long garden and a beautiful mansion behind. Gordon is annoyed that the house owner has left their garden door unlocked for potential burglars to enter, so he proceeds toward the house to lecture the owner about personal security.

Just before he knocks at the door, he is met by a beautiful woman in gardening clothes named Chloe Chetwynd. Gordon shares his security advice with Chloe. Chloe explains that her husband, Stuart, meant to secure their garden gate, but he unexpectedly died of pancreatic cancer before he could do so. Chloe lives alone now, and Gordon offers to call a contractor to install a triple mortice lock on the gate.

Gordon thinks he hears children running toward them, but they do not appear. Chloe explains them away as her neighbor’s children. Gordon shares his condolences with Chloe, relating the loss of his own mother years earlier. As she walks Gordon back to the gate, Chloe explains that she used to have a gardener, but he left after Stuart died and took her lawnmower. Gordon regrets that he wasn’t around to resolve the lawnmower theft.

Chloe asks what business Gordon had in Slade Alley, but Gordon dismisses her concern. He explains that it would only make sense to her if she knew the names Norah Grayer, Rita Bishop, or Nathan Bishop. Chloe claims not to, and she invites Gordon to explain the case to her.

Gordon indulges Chloe’s request, beginning with the Bishops’ disappearance in 1979. The case went cold on the assumption that Rita Bishop left town to escape overwhelming debt. Nine years later, Fred Pink, a former window cleaner, woke up from a coma. Reading the newspaper, he came across a report on the Bishops’ disappearance and claimed to recognize them, having spoken to Rita when she asked him for directions in Slade Alley back in 1979. Shortly after the interaction, he was blindsided by the taxi that caused his coma.

Chloe is fascinated by the story but admits that it doesn’t make any sense. Norah Grayer would have likely lived in Slade House, but the family whom Chloe and Stuart bought Slade House from was named Pitt, and they had been living there since before World War II. Gordon decides that the Bishops likely absconded to Canada to live with Rita’s relatives. Gordon and Chloe flirt as they part ways. He suggests that she should get a cat.

A week later, Gordon fears that his career is at stake after the results of an official inquiry in which he is implicated are leaked to the public. To exacerbate matters, he is also facing the threat of mounting debt. Chloe calls him to say that she was thinking of him, so Gordon decides to visit her again at Slade House. He cleans up, buys flowers and condoms, and finds the iron door in the alley. When he pushes it, it does not open, which pleases him. He is about to look for the Cranbury Avenue entrance when Chloe emerges from the iron door with a cat named Bergerac.

Gordon and Chloe prepare some spiced beef to eat, using Chloe’s mother’s recipe, and drink wine. Later, while they are having tiramisu and coffee, Gordon is shocked by a disembodied girl’s voice calling out for Jonah. Chloe explains that the girl, Norah, and her brother Jonah are the ghosts of Slade House. She adds that they were the footsteps Gordon heard on his last visit. She suspects that they are twins.

She first heard them back when Stuart was undergoing chemotherapy and, for a long time, believed she was the only person who could hear them. She was relieved to learn that Gordon could hear them, too, because it made her feel less alone. Gordon observes that Norah has the same name as Lady Grayer, but he does not say this to Chloe.

Gordon asks why Chloe chooses to stay in Slade House when she knows it is haunted. Chloe explains that she feels safe there, despite the presence of the twins and another ghost she calls Eeyore, who always tells her to get away from the “liars.” Chloe adds her theory that Norah and Jonah aren’t ghosts at all, but a temporal phenomenon that carries over from whatever time the twins are living in to the present moment. Gordon offers to call up an archivist to look up the history of Slade House and see if twins named Norah and Jonah lived there. They continue to flirt until they end up having sex. Gordon doesn’t expect to fall asleep, but he does.

Gordon wakes up early in the morning and has trouble remembering how many times he’s visited Chloe. He tells himself he’s only met Chloe twice but manages to recall visiting her across five different Saturdays. Chloe is nowhere in sight. He wonders if he can say he loves her yet but feels more excited by the prospect of her financial security. Chloe calls him upstairs to help her in the bathroom. He puts on a dressing gown.

As he ascends the stairs, Gordon looks at each of the portraits before stopping at one of Nathan Bishop. Gordon is shocked by how much the portrait resembles Fred Pink’s description of him. He tries to dismiss the idea and hurry up the stairs, but a boy’s voice tells him not to trust Chloe or else she’ll kill him. The voice also advises Gordon to “find a weapon in the cracks… they throw the scraps down” (70). Gordon intuits that the voice belongs to Nathan, who tells him that he’s almost used up, and Gordon needs to save whoever is next.

To Gordon’s horror, the next portrait is one of himself. He reasons that if Chloe painted the portrait of Nathan, then she might have been involved in his murder. He convinces himself, however, that someone else might have painted the other portraits. He resolves to ask Chloe about Nathan’s portrait.

When Gordon opens the door, he finds not a bathroom but a dark attic. He turns on a weak light and sees a prison cell with a few pieces of furniture and plumbing. An elderly woman stirs in a bed inside the cell and asks Gordon if he is real. She explains that if he is, then he would know who she is. The woman thinks the Monster has sent Gordon to convince her that she’s being rescued.

Gordon tells the woman that he is a police officer and asks her to explain who she is. The woman says she is Rita Bishop, and she has been the Monster’s prisoner for years. Rita doesn’t know if Nathan is still alive. Gordon cannot make sense of Norah Grayer and Chloe being the same person, but he resolves to call in backup to rescue Rita and investigate. He convinces Rita to help him locate the cell’s key. He opens the cell door and is about to lead her out, but then she takes out a lighter and flicks it on.

The lighter turns into a candle. Gordon sees a mirror image of himself, as well as Chloe and her male twin. A moth flies near the flame. Gordon cannot move. Chloe is amused with herself for seducing Gordon into a trap, just as her brother Jonah had done years earlier with a hairdresser. Jonah says he is amused by his sister’s performances as Chloe and Rita Bishop. He calls her Norah.

Norah complains that their traps—the operandi—are too dependent on luck to succeed, but Jonah points out that they have succeeded with every one. Norah elaborates, revealing that their bodies remain frozen in a lacuna outside of time. They require the soul of an Engifted to recharge the lacuna every nine years. To ensure this outcome, they must rely on many unpredictable factors, including getting the Engifted to come to the lacuna. She worries about the day that an Engifted might fail to fulfill even a single step of their plan. Jonah balks at the idea of changing their methods, especially since they have chosen to work in isolation from their enemies.

With his death imminent, Gordon starts praying. Jonah challenges him, promising to let him go if he can finish the entire “Our Father” prayer. He taunts Gordon as he works through each phrase of the prayer, and though Gordon skips a section, he eventually reaches the end. Jonah assures him he will die anyway, explaining to Norah that he only did this to sweeten the taste of Gordon’s soul with last-minute despair.

The twins start tracing symbols in the air, causing a mass to form over the candle. The mass reaches into Gordon and pulls his soul out. Gordon wonders at how beautiful his soul is. Jonah and Norah suck it in and then collapse in bliss. Gordon sees that his mirror image has vanished. He also sees the burnt moth on the floor.