by Неизвестный
I smile and look away. The sun on the horizon has been replaced by a sparkling city of crystal, a blinding white vista that beckons to me, insistent, and obediently, I bob through the air towards the vision. The confusion of human life is fading, leaving me only with satisfaction. Worries are now gone, guilt is forgotten. I wonder why I’d bothered to drive so fast.
My chest expands and pain fills me. I stare at my front and frown, not understanding. Raising my head, I seek out the crystal city and its variegated silver beauty, but it’s gone, replaced by dirt and blood and confusion, noise and shouting that insists I stay.
With a gasp, I return to my injured body, and watch the unwelcome and harsh reality of life as it rushes about me. It’s too much, the translucent beauty of the vision I had cries for me, and as the paramedics force my breath back into me so I tear at the methods. Saline solutions go flying and I choke and gag pulling out the tube they forced down my throat. The compress on my leg takes more work. Two men are trying to stop me now, but I rip at the bandages with the last of my strength and blood pours freely. Behind me, a machine screams in a solid tone and the paramedic starts pumping at my chest again.
I wonder if later, they’ll say I died with a smile.
But as my body fails, shadows congregate around me. Terrifying inky shapes creep out of the bushes. They’re waiting for their chance, malicious intent oozing out in panic inducing waves. Desperately, I try to levitate into the sky, and back to the crystal city.
Now the creatures are slithering under the vehicles that encircle me, like inky spills on the tarmac. I don’t want to be sure of their purpose. I want them to dissipate in the air, turn into a choking smog, and drift away. Instead, like individual mercury balls, they join until they’re almost blocking out my light. The demented surround me and whisper in my ear. They babble incoherent suggestions of how wretched existence is about to become.
Through the small tunnel they’ve left, I see in a distorted fisheye vision. One of the paramedics looks at his watch as the other reluctantly stops working.
The black creatures allow me this last precious glimpse of life before coalescing around and under me. They melt the tarmac I’m lying on, their heat painful to my back. Slowly, I dip within the earth.
I’m in a coffin of black shapes.
The world dims in painful slow motion, until all light has been exhaustively cancelled. No more gasping, no more chances, no more crystal worlds awaiting my presence. I am stolen, mute yet screaming.
The House of My Childhood
by Nolene-Patricia Dougan
I stood there. just looking at it. I had not seen it in twenty years, and it still frightened me. I must have been mad to come back here.
Moments ago, I drove through the darkness of the now overgrown lane. Branches and years of unswept, decaying autumn leaves were crushed beneath the wheels of my car. I approached the gates and got out to open them. An unfamiliar light flooded the darkness of the unkempt, tree-lined lane. I drove my car up to the front of the house. I got out, hesitated before I approached the door, standing beside my car surveying the abandoned property.
It did not look the way I remembered it. This is not a house that was filled with happy memories; it didn’t deserve to be cared for. The glass in the windows was shattered, weeds had pushed through the cracks in the granite porch, ivy covered the outside completely, and slates on the roof had fallen to the ground below. But, you could still see it had once been a magnificent house.
“Regan,” said my fiance, reminding me that I was not alone. “You said it was a house. This is not a house; it’s a mansion. You didn’t tell me you had money. I would have proposed a lot sooner had I known that.” He was trying to be funny, trying to lift my mood, but nothing could lift it, not today. I had intended to tell him the story. Of course, I felt I had to. After he had proposed, I sat him down and tried to tell him the tragic story that was associated with my family, but he told me he already knew. He had been told the first night he had introduced himself to me.
“The guy that I asked who you were told me.” he began. “He told me to stay away from you. I asked him why, and he said, ’Well you know what they say about women turning into their mothers.’ He then went on to tell me that your mother had stabbed your father twenty times with a rusty kitchen knife.” JD loved joking, and he was joking now, making an ironic, creepy gesture as these last words left his lips. It was at that moment I realised I was definitely going to marry this man. He was so casual about the story I had been dreading to tell him for months, and he had completely put my mind at ease.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.
“You didn’t want to talk about it, so neither did I,” he replied.
“You’re not frightened?”
“I am marrying you, not your mother... you aren’t responsible for your family. no one is.”
So, my future husband knew my story, the story that until today, I had been running away from. Even now, I could hardly bring myself to think about it. It was a memory that was locked away in my mind, and I never wanted to release it.
It had happened twenty years ago, a few days after my tenth birthday. I was put to bed early that evening. I knew I would be when I saw my mother put only two candles out on the table. It was a sure sign that I would be encouraged to go to bed early. Despite this, I went straight to sleep, because my mother had the foresight to get me up early that morning to ensure that she and my father would not be disturbed.
At three o’clock in the morning, I awoke with a start. I was not a nervous child, but this was to change very quickly. I put my head back on the pillow with the intention of falling asleep again, but whatever awakened me continued to keep me alert. I soon realised, because I heard it again, that the noise that awakened me was a scream coming from the living room below. I heard it again. This time, I broke out into a cold sweat, because this was not noise from the television; this was my mother screaming. I crept slowly down the stairs, and as my mother’s screams continued, my steps grew slower. I was terrified of what I would find when I entered the room. Despite my indolent steps, I reached the door to the room sooner than I would have liked and opened it cautiously.
My mother was yelling and shrilly pleading. Tears were streaming down her face. She was holding a knife in her hand, and every few seconds, she plunged the knife downward into something that was obscured from my vision. I crept toward my mother, fearing what would be lying on the floor beside the sofa. My mother continued plunging the knife downward, again and again. I crept further forward to see what it was, and to my horror, lying on the floor behind the sofa was my father. His white shirt was now crimson with blood, and above him was the stooped, awful image of my mother still plunging the knife into him, even though it was quite obvious that he was dead. I looked up at my mother’s face and asked innocently, “Mummy, what are you doing?”
My mother looked at me and made one final plunge with her knife before dropping it by her side.
“Oh, my God... cover your eyes, sweetie,” her voice broken by sobs. “Cover your eyes,” she said again. She crawled over to me and put her hand over my eyes. But, it was already too late. My childhood had already been robbed. She lifted me up and carried me out of the room.
My mother was whispering things in my ear. “It’s going to be all right.... Don’t worry.... Everything is going to be fine.” But, how could it ever be fine again?
The next time I saw my mother, she was in prison, serving a life sentence for murdering my father. She had begged my aunt to bring me to see her just once, and then she would never ask again.
“Can I have a few minutes alone with my daughter?” she asked my aunt. My aunt shook her head, visually denying her request. “For God’s sake, I am not going to do anything to my own daughter.” My aunt relented slightly.
“If you get the guard to put handcuffs on you, I will let you speak to the child alone, but the guard will have to stay in the room.”
“Fi
ne,” my mother answered. The guard put handcuffs on my mother and stood in the corner of the room. My aunt left reluctantly, but she watched every move my mother made through the perspex prison window. My mother looked at me and smiled. Tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“I know what you think I did,” she began. “You have to know and always remember I loved your father. I always did and I always will.”
“Then why did you hurt him?” I asked.
“Oh, sweetie, I know it is useless to tell you this, and that no one believes me, but I was trying to help him. There was someone else in the room.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“I know, but you have to believe me. Oh, Regan, I am telling you the truth.” My mother was in such an anguished state that I couldn’t help but believe her.
“I do believe you Mummy, I do... I do.” I jumped off the chair and ran around to her. I placed my arms around her and didn’t want to let her go. But my aunt ran in and tore me out of my mother’s embrace. I cried for two days, and my aunt could not comfort me. We soon got news that my mother had killed herself. When my aunt told me this, I stopped crying and haven’t been able to cry since.
When JD proposed to me, I was so happy, but yet again, I was so sad. I was pregnant and wanted my child to have a decent life. I knew I had to come back here and get the house ready to sell. We both had decent jobs. I had moved to America as soon as I was eighteen. I wanted a whole ocean between me and this place, and in many ways, I still do. But this was my child’s future I was looking at. I wasn’t that ten-year-old girl anymore. I knew my mother had killed my father for some reason I would never understand. There had been no evidence of anyone else there.
When I was sixteen, I was still convinced my mother told me the truth, and I begged my aunt to let me see the news coverage of the crime. She had refused, telling me not to bring up the past, because it would only hurt me. But, of course, at sixteen, I did not listen to her, and searched for all the information myself. My aunt was right. I should never have started looking. My mother hadn’t been telling me the truth. She had killed my father. There was no evidence that there had been anyone else in the room. The only mystery surrounding the case was that they never found the knife.
My memories of my mother were completely shattered. She had killed my father for no known reason. And, I would never know why she had done that.
I foolishly spent what was left of my inheritance on my education in America. This house was the only thing left. I swore I would never come back. But I was with my husband-to-be, and this is what we needed to do to ensure a good start to our life together.
“Shouldn’t we go in?” Or do you want to stay out here and look some more,” JD uttered sarcastically.
“Sarcasm is not attractive.”
“Honey, when I use it, it’s attractive.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, God, I have no idea why I am marrying you,” he twisted up his nose.
“Yeah, you do.” JD pulled my arm and dragged me over to the door, put the key in my hand and bid me to use it. I placed the key in the lock and pushed on the door. It hadn’t been opened in twenty years and was not willing to let me back in. Both JD and I pushed with our full weight against the door, and it opened with ease. We landed on the floor of the hall with a thud. The pair of us laughed as we hit the ground. JD jumped to his feet and helped me to mine. I was only a few weeks pregnant, but JD fussed over me as if I were about to give birth.
As I dusted myself off and looked around the hall, memories started to flood back. Surprisingly, they were good memories. I could see my mother putting a hat and gloves on me, when I went to play in the snow. I saw me as a young child, sliding down the banister and Dad catching me as I came off the end. All I heard was my laughter echoing through this house, not my mother’s screams. I felt comforted by the house. It seemed warm and inviting. These were feelings I was not expecting.
“Are you sure you don’t want to live here?” JD asked. As soon as I heard these words, I knew I was not as determined to sell the house as I had been. JD walked over to the staircase. “This house is amazing. It’s a great place to raise our kids.” I remained silent; I was still unsure. “Who’s the dish?” I looked around and saw my ancestor’s picture still hanging on the wall. Everything else in the house was worn and covered in dust, but the picture still looked as pristine as ever.
“That is my great, great, times-about-a-hundred, grandmother.”
“That is one hot granny.”
“You think? She killed her husband, after stabbing him about twenty times with a rusty kitchen knife,” I said dramatically.
“That’ll get the job done...” his usual jocular manner suddenly becoming very serious. “You are kidding, right?”
“Yes, of course I am kidding. I remember there was some story about her killing her husband or her husband killing her, but I can’t remember the details. And, it is probably something the press made up when my father was killed to prove that I was descended from a long line of sociopaths,” The colour that had so quickly drained out of JD’s face quickly returned. “She seems softer than I remember her, her smile less wicked.”
“I am dying to look around this house. How many bedrooms does this place have?” JD said enthusiastically.
“Oh, about fifty.”
“Oh, come on, Rea, we have to live here. We can convert it into a guesthouse. I know a helluva lot of folks who would love to stay in an English country home.” JD was running around the place like a giddy child. And, as I stood at the top of the stairs, I realised the place did not seem dark at all. I was definitely going to gut out the room my father had died in. But, for the first time, I could actually see myself living here. After all, houses aren’t wicked, are they? It is the people inside them that can be, isn’t it?
***
Five years have passed, and I am still living here. I have one gorgeous daughter, who is the apple of our eyes, and I have to say JD and I love our house. I am going for a walk with my child. It is off-season, and the grounds are covered in snow. It is beautiful here.
***
As I put my daughter’s gloves and coat on, I stood up and started to swing my arms in an attempt to keep my child entertained, while I wait for my husband. My eyes are drawn up to my ancestor’s picture. I never took it down, as it gives the house a sense of history and tourists seem to love it. I stared at it until my husband came into the hall. The portrait looks different; there is something slightly harder about her smile. It seems to have a slightly disdainful quality that I don’t remember it having before.
“Does that picture look different to you?” I asked. JD stared up at the portrait.
“Looks the same to me,” he said.
“No, the smile is definitely harder.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“No, there’s definitely something different about it.”
“Do you know how out-there that sounds?”
“I don’t care; the look on her face is different.”
“Look, if you are that convinced, take a Polaroid of it every year from now on, and then compare the photos.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Rea, I was kidding!” He shouted after me as I ran down the hall looking for the camera. JD looked down at our child and continued. “Take note of this day, honey, this is the first sign that your mother was destined to end up in a funny farm....”
***
Two years have passed, and I am looking at my third picture. I can see the definite beginnings of a scowl. JD does not see it; and I have asked other people and they can’t see it either, but it is definitely there, a hardness around the eyes.
Another three years have passed, and I am convinced the portrait is scowling at me. My aunt is coming to see me today. I am going to ask her about it.
My aunt arrived late, and I immediately dragged her in to look at the picture.
“I can’t see it,” she said.
“Look at these pictures. It is definitely changing.”
“You are scaring me, Regan.”
“I’m sorry, but I feel like I am the only one who’s seeing this.”
“No, that is not what I mean. you are scaring me because you sound like your mother.”
“That’s it.” JD interrupts. “I am taking it down and burning it. After all, it is me you are going to stab twenty times if you turn into your mother.” JD, as usual, was trying to be capricious, but neither my aunt nor I were in the mood for humour. JD jumped onto a chair and took the portrait down. We all immediately left the house and burned the painting on the grounds outside. As soon as I saw it go up in flames, I knew it was the right thing to do. I immediately felt a sense of relief sweep over me. I now believe that if there were some evil in the house, it stemmed from that painting, and that by destroying it, we were exorcising any malevolence remaining.
***
Six months have passed, and that comforting feeling I first had when I came home has returned. I love the house again, and my daughter just celebrated her tenth birthday. I have planned something special for my husband and me this evening, a candlelit dinner.
“You are putting me to bed early,” my daughter says to me.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“I know when you set the table with candles that I am going to bed early.” I smile at the precociousness of my daughter, but then a dark thought enters my mind. I am reminded of that night. An irrational fear overcomes me. I run out into the hall and look up at the unfaded rectangle where the picture had hung. It isn’t there. Of course, it isn’t... I am just being stupid. I continue to cook my dinner, preparing it for the romantic evening I have planned.