Lost

I stood at the edge of the pond. The tips of my toes touched the water. The sun still low on the horizon. I wanted desperately to drift away into her embrace. You would be welcome here. I would provide a home for you. Her still surface soothed me. I wondered if she had welcomed anyone else into her depths.

I gazed at the reflection of a stranger. Something loomed over her shoulder, wrapping her in a cold embrace.

Dark tendrils embracing me.

I turned and ran back to the house. The house had large windows and a draft of cold air that could never fully be exorcised from it. I stoked the fire in the fireplace. My stockpile of wood had run dangerously low. I vaguely wondered if I knew how to gather firewood. And in the second thought wondered why this house had never been updated with a gas furnace. The electrical wires had been installed along with the hot water tank yet my Aunt had neglected to think about the heat.

I desperately wished for warmth. Hugs. Love. To be cherished even for a moment.

How long ago did my life disappear into flames? The weight of my grief and the gloom settled over my shoulders.

Lies. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Laughter cold and harsh in my ear.

I didn’t know if this was to be my home or if this was a waystation. A place to rest and come to terms with the events that unfolded then I would be forced to move on in an instant.

“I made tea if you like” Aunt Mildred placed the year set on the coffee table behind me. “Don’t worry, I’ll have the groundskeeper gather more wood.”

I settled onto the couch. Taking the warm teacup into my hands. “The groundskeeper?”

“Yes, a young man, named Conner. I am not surprised you haven’t noticed him. He is out on the grounds most days tending the plants.”

The bushes here had long overgrown. The grass up over my ankles. “He isn’t very good at his job,” I muttered.

My aunt clicked her tongue, “I want you to feel at home here.”

The warmth of the butter tea sank into my bones. Warming me at the core of my being. A smile crept over my face. My eyes focused on my hand. The one that held the teacup with delicate fingers.

The with the blood-smeared along the pads.

I gasped, placed the teacup down. My fingers trembled. The blood is gone.

What did you do? Does she know? She is scared.

Scared to see the truth.

My mother had died, in our home. The image of her body faded away, the knife falling to the floor…

I hated my mother. I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. Yet still the pain from the bruises she left on my face still lingered. She had sworn I was a demon child. Used to strap me down and leave me in my room alone for hours with only him for company.

“Why don’t you take a look around?” My aunt chattered on. Clearly oblivious to my inner musings. I wondered if she was like my mother. Or if two completely different sisters could come out of the same household.

“My mother,” I paused clearing my voice, “when she was younger was she troubled?”

My aunt stood, turning her back to me, “Your mother…” she glanced over her shoulder at me, her image wavered, lost substance, “Your mother was special.” She finally settled on the words. “Run along now.”

She spoke to me like I was a child meant to scamper along outside and run wild through the grounds. I sighed. Life here in this grimy place was going to be far less than interesting. There should at least be a moaning ghost in the attic or an abandoned family cemetery. However, much to my surprise, besides the draft, the house was surprisingly ordinary. Old but ordinary. I crept down the hallway. My room was first, with the first door on the right, the bed with its white sheets and blanket. My suitcase sitting at the foot of the bed. This room reminded me vaguely of my other one.

I covered the walls with posters and drawings. That room in which I ran a razor blade over my thighs just so I could feel something other than numbness. My mother used to bang on the door and yell at me to turn my music down. I ignored her. She tried to open the door but I had moved my dresser in front of it to keep her outside. She banged on the door harder. I turned the music up louder.

This place doesn’t feel like home. I have the sudden urge to leave this place. Something is creeping up my legs, up my spine. A cold crawled over my skin. Something is there behind me. I run. Once I am outside in the sunshine, the thing is gone. I am safe in the warmth of the sun’s rays. And still, I can feel that something lingering at the back of my mind. What was it? Something twisted inside my body

The ghosts weren’t inside the house, they were crawling under my skin.

“You must be Mildred’s niece.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I swung around. Heart pounding in my chest.

The smile slipped from the man’s face, “sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.” A blush crept over his cheeks.

His words “didn’t mean to frighten you” echoed in the hollows of my mind over and over again. Something niggling in the background.

“You must be Conner,” the words slipped out, his name tasted foul on my tongue.

“Ya, nice to meet you,” he held out his hand.

My vision twisted, tilt, something was wrong. Something was not quite right.

Not right. Not right.

His throat should be slit, his blood all gone from his body. The thing had crept its way back. Anger and disgust rolling through my body. This man, this man. I took a step back. A shadow grew under his skin, barely contained by his flesh. A monster disguised as a man. I ran. I didn’t look back. Where to go…the house isn’t safe. The garden isn’t safe. I found myself at the pond.

The water lay still, sparkling in the sunshine. A serene silence settled heavily over the surface.

At nightfall, I wound my way back to the house. Driven in by hunger and the cold.

The fire was lit in the living room. Mildred sat on the couch. “Supper is on the table. And I lit the fireplace in your room. Should be nice and warm.”

A fire in my room. The lit match fell on to the pieces of paper, the posters all burned in pretty yellow flames. They climbed up the walls. They danced out the door into the hallway.

I was found among the chard remains of the house. Still a house, the remnants there. Unfortunately, the place wasn’t reduced to ash. Then I was brought here.

It’s wrong. It’s wrong. Lies. Something is wrong.

I ate my soup, it tasted warm. Afterwards. I slipped into bed, under the covers of my blanket. The flames from the fireplace cast a soft yellow glow. He came with my dreams. Crawled along my body and licked my cheek. I couldn’t move. One day I will kill you. The shadow laughed.

I woke with the chill of the air creeping along my skin.

The room flickered in the dark. For a moment I was sitting in the burnt out room. In the living room I had watched the bodies burn. The ones I had set up on the couch. The truth.

I found myself out in the moonlight next to the pond. My breath swirling in front of me.

“What are you doing out here?” Connor’s voice cut through my mind.

I shrugged, “Listening to the Silence.”

He came up beside me. “Why did you bother creating an alternate reality?” He wraps his arm around my shoulder. His fingers dug into my flesh. “You don’t feel guilty anyways?”

The pieces of my delusion shattered. Tiny shards that fell to the ground. The face of my mother taking over my Aunt’s. The face of my older brother taking over Conner’s. The crack had formed and all that remained was the reality. I am alone in this cold tomb. Their bodies decomposing on the sofa. The fire had long since gone out. I ran from the truth.

I stood at the edge of the pond. The tips of my toes touched the water. I had spent months playing house alone. I lay back into the chilling embrace of the water. Allowing myself to sink into her arms. The cold hands wrapped around my body pulling me under. I drifted down into the darkness. The moonlight above me fading as I sank further into the depths. My lungs burned, I didn’t struggle. For an instant before my mind disappeared I almost regretted my choice. My body stilled. The weeds wrapped around my wrists and ankles. I left my body there at the bottom of the pond.