The House Child (Screenplay)

By Jason Paul Scalfano


EXT. VILLAGE STREET - SOMETIME IN THE 1500'S - DAY

The rain pours down upon a tired looking inn in a line of shops on a deserted street. A wagon full of rough hewn stone statues sinks half way down into the mud of the flooded thoroughfare. FEBA (53) stands in the doorframe of the inn, staring with an empty expression. Her hands are worn, her clothes are plain, and her eyes are red from tears.

INT. INN BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER - DAY

Feba fetches a bowl from the window frame left to collect water and walks it around the bed. KASIMIR (61) lies on his back. He is a large man with a bushy graying beard, the intimidation factor of which is betrayed by his sad puppy dog eyes. His breathing is labored. Feba lifts the bowl to his lips for him to drink, and then washes him with a cloth from the same bowl.

KASIMIR

“I had a dream, Feba.”

FEBA

“Oh? What did you dream?”

Feba washes under his arms.

KASIMIR

“I... was in my mother's house. But there was a staircase...”

She pulls off the covers to wash his lower body.

KASIMIR

“I climbed the stairs, but when I got high enough to see the room above, my grandmother would peek out at me. This happened several times.”

Feba washes his feet. She pauses, they are discolored and filthy. She grimaces.

KASIMIR

“When she would look at me... I would be frozen. Terrified. There was something amiss, something wrong with her... something I cannot place. And I would run back down the stairs.”

Feba pulls his covers back up. Kasimir stares up at the ceiling.

FEBA

“I was frightened of her too, none should live so long.”

Kasimir's dire expression breaks for a moment as he chuckles softly. Feba smiles as she wrings out the cloth. Kasimir's expression fades, and he closes his eyes.

KASIMIR

“She told me once a story... About Domus, the house child. A protector and provider, a spirit of the family... children who live in fireplaces and stoves.”

Feba stares out the window at the statues in the sinking wagon. Their faces are unsettling.

KASIMIR

“ ‘An innkeeper must always please the Domus, and feed him milk and ash, for this is his favorite.’ she would say.”

Feba scoffs lightly, turning away from the window.

FEBA

“Yes, yes. Everyone knows those fairytales. I think your grandmother just wanted you to share your milk.”

Kasimir smiles again for a beat, before a pensive look washes back over him.

KASIMIR

“Perhaps. Perhaps... Perhaps that iswhat I did wrong. Perhaps that is whywe are cursed. Why the rain won't stop. Why I am afflicted so and my wife starves...”

Kasimir's eyes are glassy with tears. Feba sits on the bed, defeated.

FEBA

“We are not cursed... And at least... at least we are together.”

Kasimir weeps softly, ashamed. He is breaking.

KASIMIR

“I'm sorry I could never give you a child.”

Feba takes Kasimir into her arms, tucking his head under her chin. A few tears fall from her eyes but she steels herself.

FEBA

“Hush now, old fool. Come, how could I take care of two children at once? You're quite enough for me.”

Her joke comforts him, she rocks him in her arms.

KASIMIR

“...Should you come across milk, put some out for the Domus, would you?”

Feba feigns annoyance and sighs.

FEBA

“Hush, go to sleep now. I need to prepare dinner.”

She stares out the window at a neighboring farm.

EXT. VILLAGE STREET - LATER - DAY

Feba trudges through the mud and rain with a basket.

EXT. FARM - DAY

Feba creeps along a fence. She peers from between the fence posts as a farmer enters the farmhouse. Her vision now focuses on the barn and the nearby coop. The sun is fading.

FEBA

(whispering to herself)

“I am sorry for what I am about to do. I will make amends.”

Feba snatches a chicken from the coop, deftly breaking its neck with a swift flick of her wrist. As she is creeping back to fence she locks eyes with a goat inside the barn. Feba stuffs the limp chicken in her basket, and retrieves a lidded jar. She checks to see the farmer is still inside the farmhouse, and then opens the barn door.

EXT. VILLAGE STREET - NIGHT

Feba is covered in mud as she makes her way back to the inn. She stops at the door to let the rain rinse her off, and to take a swig of milk from the jar.

INT. INN KITCHEN - NIGHT

Drenched, Feba slings the dead chicken onto the butcher block near the cast iron wood-burning stove. She disrobes down to her linen chemise, pours a cup of milk into the first mug she can find and trudges upstairs.

INT. INN BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT

Feba brings the mug of milk to Kasimir's lips. He is looking more pale and clammy than before.

KASIMIR

(weakly)

“What... where did you-“

Feba lifts the mug, practically forcing Kasimir to drink the milk, he doesn't protest and gulps down the mug as Feba runs her hands through his hair.

INT. INN KITCHEN - NIGHT

Feba returns to find the chicken missing. She follows the trail of sooty footprints to the stove, when she opens the heavy oven door, white feathers spill out on the floor. A few slowly fall from the chimney pipe.

Feba is bewildered. She looks from the black stove to the direction of the bedroom upstairs, and back. She walks slowly to her basket and takes out the jar of milk. After a beat holding the jar, she pours some into a mug. She takes a smoking pipe from the kitchen table and empties the pipe ash into the mug, stirring it with the pipe. The milk turns gray, and she places the concoction inside the oven, and creeps to the stairs.

Feba stares intensely from between the banisters. A small sooty black hand extends from the chimney pipe inside the stove and grasps the pipe mouthpiece shakily. The arm pulls a pipe bowl full of ashen milk into the darkness and slurps, stutteringly. Feba holds her hand over her mouth.

She stares for some time waiting for more, but before long she falls asleep on the stairs.

INT. INN KITCHEN - DAY

Feba wakes with a start. She quickly checks the mug, which is now empty. She smiles.

INT. INN BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER - DAY

Kasimir is still in bed, but his skin has more color. Feba smiles, and he smiles back.

BEGIN MONTAGE

-Feba leaves the inn.

-Feba enters the barn, goat bleats.

-Feba mixes more ash milk and places inside the stove.

-She snuggles in bed with Kasimir, who can now sit up in bed, they eat soup.

This repeats and Kasimir gets better and better.

END MONTAGE

EXT. FARM - DAY

Feba is again sneaking onto the farm to steal food and milk.

As she approaches the barn, a hatchet is thrown and hits the broadside of the barn. The farmer shouts unintelligibly and runs after Feba. She scrambles away, falls, shatters the glass jar of milk in her hand. She tears her smock on the fence, and falls in the mud as she bolts through the rain back home.

INT. INN KITCHEN - DAY

Feba stumbles inside, leaves the door open, takes off her soaked and torn smock. She clutches her hand over a bucket of water, pulls glass shards out, she cries softly.

Behind her, the hand extends from the oven, it bangs the smoking pipe against the oven door several times. Feba turns around slowly. The hand shakes the pipe like a beggars cup.

FEBA

“I haven't any damned milk!”

The hand strikes the oven door again, shakes the pipe insistently. Feba's face drops. She steps closer. After a long beat, she squeezes her hand over the pipe, she lets blood pour down into the pipe bowl. She cries while the creature in the stove slurps. Feba faints.

INT. INN KITCHEN - THE NEXT DAY - DAY

Feba wakes on the floor of the kitchen, dried blood coats her. She stumbles upstairs.

INT. INN BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER - DAY

Kasimir is pale and clammy again, his breathing once again labored. There is a small red spot on the bed. Feba peels back the covers to reveal black sooty hand prints and Kasimir's feet are purple, bloodied and missing a toe. Feba covers her mouth, horrified and teary eyed. Enraged, she steels herself.

INT. INN KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER - DAY

Feba walks slowly to the stove with a look of pure hatred.

She opens her wound and lets blood drip outside the oven door. The hand extends to catch the dripping blood. She swiftly grabs the arm and yanks the creature out. THE DOMUS, a small, naked, emaciated, old man with a long beard encrusted with blood and ash screams bloody murder as Feba swings the creature down on the butcher block repeatedly, breaking its bones until the screaming stops.

Feba collapses on the floor. Kasimir limps down the stairs weakly. He has a bit more color in his face.

KASIMIR

“Feba! What has happened?!”

Feba doesn't respond, she stares out the open door from the floor. 

The rain has stopped.

SUPER - THE HOUSE CHILD BY JASON PAUL SCALFANO

BLACK SCREEN