2 - Enjoy Your Stay

Unfortunately, Oliver the cheerful attorney has a home with central heating and hot water to get back to, and the moment his business with us is concluded, he leaves us alone to settle in.

I don't blame him, to be honest. I'd quite like to leave, as well.

The rumble of his car's engine slowly fades into obscurity and, for a while, all is quiet except the insistent tap of raindrops on the windows. Mum and I are sat at the breakfast table, paperwork strewn between us. The house creaks and moans, as though the place takes deep, laboured breaths.

A particularly jarring wail catches my attention; a scream, almost.

"House-settling noises," mum dismisses when I send her a lightly horrified glance. She gathers the files into a neat pile.

I blow out a deep breath and cross my arms, gazing out at the unruly garden and wondering how in all hell this is going to work. "Welcome home."

"Alright," she says suddenly, rubbing her hands together and surveying the kitchen. The light of determination sparks behind her eyes. "Plan of action for the old, creepy house. Give me some phases, Theo."

"Phase one," I begin, looking out at the car longingly, thinking of all the thick jumpers I've got packed away. "Bring our stuff in."

"Phase two— check out all the rooms."

That'll be for my benefit, mostly, given I was five the last time I was here and my memory is severely lacking. Even still, we'll have to check if the place is watertight, decide which rooms are liveable and which are the sort we close the door on and ignore until some money falls into our laps.

"Phase three— find something to eat," I decide.

On cue, my stomach growls its complaint at being forgotten about all day— though I highly doubt we'll find anything even remotely edible here.

I try anyway. I get up and wander over to the fridge. Empty, of course. Oliver told us all of my gran's possessions had been left alone, and the furniture covered with sheets to dissuade any potential burglars, but they must've cleared out the perishable food, too. I throw an exasperated glance over my shoulder at my mum.

"I'll find a shop," she tells me. "We're going to need some cleaning supplies, anyway. And if we tackle one room at a time, we'll be just fine."

Ever the pragmatist, my mum.

She very pointedly neglects to mention the rather important fact that, starting tomorrow morning, she'll be busy finding herself a job at the local hospital just one town over. Or at the doctor's office or pharmacy or whatever place in this forsaken town that'll accept her references and degree and offer her a job helping the sick.

It will be me who tackles the rooms, the cleaning, and the general upkeep whilst she gets back on her feet.

Not that I'll be completely free of time— being eighteen, and at the start of an impromptu gap year, I need to sort out some money and job references before starting university once we're more settled. I think of the library we passed on the way up to the house. I have to admit, it's as good a place to start as any for employment.

Besides, any place with hoards of books I can lose myself in can't be all that bad. It'll keep me entertained, anyhow.

Despite being inside and out of the rain, the house has a chilly bite to it. The heating hasn't been on in a while, and it seems the house has forgotten how to stay warm.

"Phase four— figure out how the heating works," I say with a frown. "Hey, should that be phase two? Can we move the phases round?"

"That defeats the purpose of the phases." She stands and stretches. After the long drive, we're both a little stiff. My mum offers me a bright, assuring smile and says, "Come on, then. The sooner we get everything done, the sooner we can go to bed."

That is a very tempting offer, I have to admit, and it has me following her out into the rain with minimal complaints. We make quite a good team, with me unravelling the tightly-wound puzzle of the backseat and with mum piling everything up in the hallway for later sorting.

It's going well, which is of course when things start to go wrong. Rules of the universe.

Just as I manage to untangle a rucksack, I turn towards the house, holding it high like a medal after a particularly stubborn battle to free it.

My mum is still inside. I see her through the open front door, piling up our things. Pulled by nostalgia or distraction, she's digging through a bag. Aimlessly searching.

Unbidden, my gaze lifts to study the house. It looms over me like a disconcerting shadow.

And there's a face in an upstairs window staring down at me.

Thoroughly startled, I recoil and drop the bag on the sodden ground. "Shit," I hiss, bending to pick it up.

On cue, because life would be too easy if everything goes according to plan, the puzzle of the backseat chooses that moment to become an explosion, and a cascade of suitcases and bags and loose shoes comes tumbling out of the car, knocking me aside.

By the time the chaos subsides, and by the time I've recovered as mum strides over to help, the face is gone, and I think I'm losing my mind.

"Is anyone else here?" I ask, checking the windows for anything amiss. Another attorney lurking, perhaps. They tend to do that a lot here, if Oliver is any indication.

"Of course not," mum dismisses, slinging a rucksack over her shoulder and lifting a case. "Help me out before they get all muddy."

As she races back for the house, bags in hand, I shove aside the rising panic and follow suit. Never mind the fact that the bags are already muddy, and we cannot in fact reverse time itself to make them less so.

I put the face — though, now, looking back, I reason it could've just as easily been one of those white sheets covering the furniture, or a smudge on the window catching the light just so — down to exhaustion. It's been a long day. My life has turned on its head, and my thoughts are all jumbled.

"This garden will be beautiful in the summer," mum decides, appraising the unkempt grass that reaches as high as our hips in some places and the gnarled bushes armed with thorns that watch us with their glinting, hungry talons. Waiting for us to venture close so they can tear our clothes or our skin or anything they can reach. "I think I'll do a spot of gardening this year."

"You say that every year," I remind her. Besides, my mum can't keep a cactus alive, let alone maintain an entire acre of garden space.

"This year's different," she says, nudging me as she passes.

By the time we've brought all our bags in, the rain has become torrential, and the sky slides towards a murky night.

The house is a maze in the dark, with hallways all branching off one another and connecting rooms in the strangest of ways. We go from room to room, tugging off white sheets, testing the sofas or chairs, deftly ignoring the old fireplaces that look like yawning, gaping mouths of pure horror. My mum has fallen quiet and I know she's thinking about gran, about all the memories she has of this place and all the memories she missed out on because of my dad.

I try to cheer her up as best I can, but I'm running very low on energetic reserves.

We manage to find a little cupboard beneath the stairs with the boiler, broken, the heating system, coughing and spluttering but trying its best, and an assortment of cleaning supplies— a small victory.

"Saves me a trip, I suppose," mum muses, idly messing with the buttons of the heater in an attempt to kick-start it.

She's unsuccessful, and so we head upstairs to find some decent bedrooms. The air is thick with dust, acrid and heady, and all the rooms are the same. Beds made up, dressers covered in white sheets, cobwebs lurking in quiet corners.

Mum picks a room with a little bathroom attached, and together we try and sort the place out.

"This used to be my room, when we visited," she tells me as we shake out the duvet and fluff up the pillows in an attempt to make it as liveable as possible. "I'd stay here and you'd be in the nursery, but you would always sneak in when you got lonely."

"Not so lonely with my nursery friend," I counter with a mock grimace, making her laugh.

The room is the complete opposite of cosy, even despite our efforts. It's freezing, the furniture is old and ornate in a family-heirloom-left-to-rot sort of way, and the insistent rain has me wondering if the roof is definitely secure and watertight.

I dread to think what my room will look like. I can't even pick one with a decent view, either, because every single window looks out at the dishevelled garden and the woods just past the stone walls bordering the place. In other words, every window reminds me that this estate is a glorified prison, and not in any way appealing.

"Just be grateful there's more than one spare bedroom so you don't have to sleep in a room with a cot and a dollhouse," mum taunts lightly, her voice pulling me back to clarity.

I shiver, partly in horror and partly because it's really cold. "If you find any dolls, please just burn them. I am not being haunted by a doll— that's where I draw the line."

"That's a good, healthy boundary to have," she agrees with a nod, swiping a finger along the top of the headboard and wincing when it comes away speckled with dust. "Announce yourself if you come in during the night, please. If I roll over and you're standing by my bed, I can't be held accountable for my actions."

I laugh at the thought, imagining how frightening that would be, and how tempting it would be to grab a pillow and start whacking.

I pick the room a few doors down from my mum's, though we laugh and joke about one of us taking the east wing and the other taking the west, playing into the whole we-own-a-manor thing. It's quite the change from the flat we've come from.

"Should it come with a butler, or something? Should we invest in a butler?" I ask, appraising my room.

It has potential. Grand windows overlooking the driveway, a huge oak bed frame, a substantial dresser — I'm choosing to ignore the mothballs and the cobwebs for my own sanity — and absolutely zero rats, which I take as a win. Another small victory.

My mum snorts, studying the room over my shoulder. "Phase five. Add it to the list."

I pull my bags into the centre of the room, and together we strip the bed and make it as comfortable as possible— in that, we give the duvet a bit of a shake and hope to dislodge any dusty residue.

"Food?" she asks once we've finished, swiping a hand across her forehead as though we've accomplished something particularly strenuous.

"Food," I assent, and together we retreat back to the car to stake out a decent takeaway.

The house watches us go with a cold glare. I stare back through the rear-view mirror.

Impatience overrules decency, and we eat in the car and try not to make a mess, watching the world go by. It's late, by now, and the streets once filled with miserable people are deserted. Though, to be fair, the rain is very off-putting when it comes to night-time strolls.

It's nice to get away from Solus Estate, even for just an hour, but once we finish our grand meal, mum drives us back home.

Yep, that feels weird to say. Home. Ew.

The house is even more terrifying when we drive up to it at night, and it looms grotesquely in the darkness; a blot of something wrong on the horizon.

To avoid the rain as best we can, we race inside. Our efforts are futile— we're both soaked at once, and the house is void of warmth. Together, we head upstairs, calling it a night. It has been a long, tiring day and I'm just about ready to drop.

"Thank you," mum says once we reach the landing, pulling me into a tight, warm hug that I'm all too glad to return. "I know this is hard, but we'll get back on our feet, I promise you."

"I know," I assure her, because it's too soon to admit to hating the place. Besides, this move is important to her, and I can't be difficult.

She pulls away to smile up at me. I had a growth spurt a few years ago and now I've got a couple of inches on her, but she reaches up to ruffle my hair anyway, like I'm a little kid again.

"Say hello to your nursery friend for me," she taunts.

I laugh humorlessly, eyeing the door with the chipped paint that I've purposefully closed. The nursery. Or, rather, the spare spare room. It's now a glorified storage cupboard but still I find it eerie, knowing what went down when I was five.

Though, to be fair, I could've just been a kid playing with imaginary friends. Making up stories to pass the time in an otherwise boring house with no cable and no internet.

Mum and I part ways and head into our respective rooms, right down the hall from one another. Our footsteps, though light, send the floorboards creaking and wailing.

I flick the light on — it's weak and trying its best, but is very clearly on its way out — and rummage through my bag for something more comfortable to sleep in.

All around, the house has fallen quiet. As though the settling creaks and moans have gone to bed, too, ready for a whole new day of odd noises and cold spots tomorrow.

After our hasty dusting, the air is thick and choking, and I contemplate the idea of opening a window to air the place out. But it's freezing, I can already see my breath curling out in little tendrils of fog before me, and I don't want to put myself through the unnecessary suffering. Thus decided, I change for bed, switch the light off, discard my glasses and phone on the nightstand, and slide beneath the covers.

The headboard, ornate and wooden, looms over me as I gaze up at the ceiling. A ghastly shadow amongst shadows.

If that falls on me, it'll really fucking hurt.

I snort. "Fucking obviously, it'll hurt," I mutter, rolling over and tugging the duvet up to my chin. The mattress squeaks and groans at the movement, and I release a heavy, tortured sigh.

This is my life now. Cold spots and creaking floorboards and noisy mattresses.

After a long day of packing, travelling, and unpacking, I fall asleep quickly. Lulled by the insistent taps of raindrops on the windows.

Despite the bone-deep exhaustion, I startle awake at some point during the night to a shrieking wail. The wind is howling and baying like the cry of a lone wolf. My room is all shadowy and feels larger than it is. Despite the duvet, I'm freezing and shivering almost violently.

Rubbing my eyes, and with a deep sigh of pure fatigued frustration, I get up, trudge over to the pile of clothes I've left beside the dresser, and throw on a thick jumper. Bleary and delusional, I collapse back onto the bed—

—only to startle so badly I almost slip off in my haste to sit up.

I stare at the other side of the bed, heart pounding, ice scuttling down my spine on many tiny legs. For the briefest whisper of a moment, I could have sworn the shadows looked like a person lying beside me.

But no. The bed is empty.

I slide my hand across the duvet and find nothing but reassuring emptiness. The sheets are cool. No one is there.

Conceding and eager for mundane explanations, I figure my exhaustion is playing tricks, and I release a shaky breath and lie back down. The dark messes with your mind, I reason. You don't have your glasses on, you'll probably think the pile of clothes is a creepy person hunched over—

I peek out and decide that, yes, it very much does look like a person—

No. Go the fuck to sleep.

Like a child spooked of the dark, I pull the duvet over my head and will myself to relax. I tune out the howling wind, the ice, the panic still scuttling along my razor-edged nerves, and focus instead on taking deep, even breaths. Between one thought and the next, I slip into sleep.

This time, I wake up to sunlight streaming in through the thin curtains, with a beam landing right on my face. With a groan, I roll over and shudder. The room is cold, still. Perhaps the heating has broken already— or maybe it never worked to begin with. Unsurprising, given the house is older than heating, and the universe itself is trying extra hard to make my life difficult.

Reassured in the knowledge that nothing scary ever happens in the morning, I doze until a sharp knock on the door startles me awake.

"Theo, love, I'm heading out for groceries— want anything?" mum calls, sounding way too cheerful for this early in the morning.

Granted, I don't actually know the time. And I can't summon the energy to roll over and check my phone.

"M'good, thank you," I mumble, burying my face in the pillow, grasping for some semblance of warmth.

"Okay. I think I've worked out the heating. See you later!"

I listen vaguely as she goes downstairs. The floorboards creak and groan and follow her route like a shadow, so I know where she is even before I hear the front door slam shut and the car's engine grumble to life.

It's only when the grumbling eventually fades to silence that I realise I'm in the house by myself, and will be for the next few hours, if my mum's track record with fetching groceries holds true.

It's not a very comforting thought.

And, with the wind falling quiet and the rain at an end, the house is eerily still. It's the sort of silence that carries a weight to it. An expectation, almost, like the whole place is holding its breath.

Before I can delve too deep into that alarming thought process, I accidentally breathe in the musty scent of dust too deeply and sneeze, startled back into the confines of reality.

Overhead, I hear a soft hissing noise that sounds awfully like the words 'bless you'. I hope and pray and beg that it's just the pipes working overtime to get the place heated up, because if the house itself has just blessed my sneeze, I'm going to lose my mind.

Perhaps, I muse, as I look out at my room to find it reassuringly empty in the rose-tinted morning light, I'm losing it already.