The House No One Sees: List 4

by Adina King
This novel, told in both poetry and prose and alternating between the past and the present, follows teenager Penelope Ross as she confronts childhood memories of her past with her neglectful, struggling mother.

This list vocabulary from "Memory: You"–"Disappearing."

Here are links to our lists for the book:

List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4.
15 words 1 learner

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. recliner
    an armchair whose back can be lowered
    I remembered sitting in the living room, legs curled under me, my side pressed safely into Grandpa’s recliner, watching you at the kitchen table, your fingers touching an untouched glass of milk.
  2. gurney
    a metal stretcher with wheels
    I was a gurney weighed down by earthworms
  3. conjure
    summon into action or bring into existence
    "This is the spell to conjure that spoon, but to cast it you must drag the past into the present..."
  4. chaotic
    completely unordered and unpredictable and confusing
    I picture small bones scattered around me like a chaotic maze, and the more I think about it the more I think the house was right.
  5. lacrosse
    a two-team game played with long-handled rackets
    Spring I played lacrosse and realized I was a badass.
  6. vulnerable
    capable of being wounded or hurt
    I hated you for letting me down, except you didn’t really let me down — you let me bleed out, gory and abraded on a kitchen floor, a warrior grieving on a linoleum battlefield, my bones bending, fetal and vulnerable inside an empty memory of us.
  7. threadbare
    thin and tattered with age
    Maybe some lonely earthworms, a threadbare couch.
  8. foundation
    lowest support of a structure
    Fear looks like memories leaking from the foundation of a house no one sees.
  9. tarp
    a sheet of waterproofed canvas
    Grandpa watched me watch the red light turn green, but there was a house on the corner and I could see its skin and muscle, old siding under green paint peeling onto a summer tundra yard, its roof a shredded tarp of blue nylon hair.
  10. clique
    an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose
    They were all shapes and sizes and colors, all varying textures of clique.
  11. instinct
    inborn pattern of behavior often responsive to stimuli
    Instinct told me to check behind you, to look for your shadow, but it was just you—a person disguised as my mother.
  12. inferno
    a very intense and uncontrolled fire
    I wanted to tell him yes, but he was closer and the fire had become an inferno burning up my lungs because his lips were night air moving softly, the temperature just right as he paused to rest his forehead against mine.
  13. artifact
    a man-made object
    He placed it on the table, then opened it like a time capsule, pulling out artifacts, telling the story of a girl who once escaped the impossible.
  14. transcript
    a written record of dictated or recorded speech
    TRANSCRIPT OF 911 CALL FOR SERVICE
  15. antiseptic
    a substance that destroys harmful microorganisms
    The sting of the antiseptic feels good.
Created on Wed Mar 04 08:45:30 EST 2026 (updated Tue Apr 07 14:12:38 EDT 2026)

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