Family Matters

There is very little I knew about my family. It wasn’t that long ago and I knew I had a family, but all I’d ever known was care home after care home, always the same excuse when a couple dropped me back off again.

“It’s not you, it’s us, we’re not ready yet.”

My entire life it was just me. I didn’t know where I came from or why I had been passed around like a sack of potatoes. I was sixteen when they finally gave up. By that point I was too old to be adopted and it was obvious to me that I would have to be my own family.

They set me up in my own little apartment. It was on the sixth floor, everywhere was shabby, and that is where I resided.

In my late twenties, it occurred to me, out of the blue that I must have had a family once. Perhaps they were all dead, but I had time to spare. I spent the next few weeks searching the internet. I would scroll through newspaper clippings in libraries, and documents hidden from the public. They saw me once, my nose pressed down searching the censors. They gave me the idea, a DNA test.

Following the instructions to the letter, I sent my sample to some science lab for testing.

It was unexpected when that morning I woke to find the results posted through. There they were, as plain as day, family, my family, relatives I knew nothing about. The further I read, the more I researched the surname Hawthorne. I came to realise they were wealthy, extremely wealthily.

Perhaps I was a child born out of wedlock, a child un-fit for this luxurious life.

With further research of The Hawthorne family, I came to find some odd things and then something big happened. The best news for me, perhaps not for them.

A few decades ago, around the time I was five, the entire family were killed during a house fire in their manor in the forest. Part of the house had completely burnt down, leaving an entire wing abandoned.

The moment I read about it, I choked. I was their sole heir; I would be in possession of what little was left of the manor. I had to make a trip, two hours away, to investigate for myself.

The house itself was a beauty to behold. Despite part of the manor catching on fire, it didn’t really matter. The wing was bigger than my whole apartment block combined, and I felt a buzz come over me, I need to explore.

I didn’t need a key, not to investigate the fire damaged part of the house anyway. I stomped my way through the shack, all burnt to a crisp. All furniture, flooring and wallpaper had melted away.

I didn’t feel it at first, not until my boot heel got caught inside the wood. I forced my boot out from the gap and pulled part of the wooden slots with it. Underneath, some kind of vault was hidden from prying eyes.

It was dangerous, I knew this well but I hoisted myself downwards into the dingy room below. The room itself was built from titanium; a thick metal wall that lay untouched. The crank I used to unlock the room was stiff. This hadn’t been opened for at least a decade or more. My wrist cracked as I turned the wheel. It spun in a circular motion then creaked open.

There was nothing but darkness. Luckily, I used my phone’s light as a torch to shine into the room. They leapt into my arms. It wasn’t a bat or a rat or any kind of animal, it wasn’t even dust let loose from all those years ago. This was the echoes, the spirit of someone left to rot inside, tasting air for the first time.

My phone’s torch was bright enough to light up this small cupboard room. Broken shelves lined the walls. Apart from the occasional debris left from years ago, this place hadn’t been touched, especially from fire damage.

I fell backwards the moment I caught a glimpse of it. In the corner, resting its head upon a dusty pink pillow, was a skeleton, a tiny, child skeleton, barely even ten years old.

I had sensed it the moment the metal doors were opened. A presence, a spirit drifting out and pushing past me. Whoever had been locked in here was now free.

There is very little I know about my family, it wasn’t that long ago I knew I had a family and the truth is, I’m glad I didn’t. They seemed like monsters, monsters who were too entitled and less concerned about rules to care, so much so, they eventually paid the ultimate price.