Beatrix released me and went back to the last bites of her meal.
“Now, tell me. Do you know what you’ll be wearing? You should wear red. It’s a great color for your complexion.”
Chapter 4
“There.”
I took a step back and observed the open door of the closet where I had placed the wire hanger. The dress dangled limp, black, devoid of any personality, and in the end, utterly lifeless. Claire would have hated it.
“Which suits the situation just fine,” I said out loud to the decaying bedroom where I was standing. I had taken out of my suitcase the black dress I was going to wear for the funeral, and that was all the unpacking I needed to do.
I sat on the bed with my hands on my lap. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else to do at that point but wait. Wait for the funeral the next morning and then wait for the moment when I could run far away again. Whether I wanted it or not, Claire’s suicide also signified the end of this chapter in my life. Perhaps a chapter that had remained open for far too long, mostly due to my own cowardice.
I looked around me. I had been assigned to one of the guest rooms, of course. It had a regal canopy bed with an old cover that, back in the day, had been red. I knew it well. Although this one was ragged and discolored, I recognize it immediately from all the sleepovers with Claire. It seemed all the beds in the manor had them.
Other than that, the room had two night-tables, each with a lamp on it and lampshades as spoiled as the bedding. A large multi-paned window was opposite the door, letting some gray light languish about the place. The same curtains I had appreciated downstairs were also up here. This time, they had an added bonus of some cobwebs at the top. In front of the bed there was a large closet, the one with the open door where my dress hung.
A few minutes before, when I had climbed up to the room, the floorboards reminded me that they never stopped whining as you walked on them, except for the times you encountered carpet. In that case, a tiny cloud of dust was raised out of every brush against the rug. Although the furniture was made with sturdy oak wood, everything had deteriorated due to lack of care.
I lifted my gaze to the high ceilings. Chipped paint and a few specks of mold clung to the ceiling above me. Judging by the entire appearance of the manor, it was evident the financial state of the Appleton family was far worse than I had initially thought. The house had never looked so run-down before. I mean, it had its moments, when the estate looked like it needed some repairs and maybe a new coat of paint or polishing the floors. I remembered more than a few occasions when Claire explained to me we couldn’t go to her home after school because they were doing some renovations. And those were noticeable too when I was invited back in. The place looked brand-new, like we had stepped back into the times of splendor of the hill.
The stagnant air in the room was getting to me. I felt I had been breathing in the rotten dust piling up in there for far too long. I walked up to the window and opened it. I inhaled deeply, trying to capture as much freshness as possible.
I shuffled back to the bed and fished my cell phone out of my bag. I had not been able to get good reception since I arrived at the hill, and I needed to stay in touch with my team. Disappearing two weeks into pre-production was not a good idea.
Yet my luck was no better in the bedroom. I could not catch a hint of a mobile signal if my life depended on it. I even held the phone out of the window while the sticky fog wrapped itself around my arm.
Maybe I can use the landline later, I considered. Mrs. Appleton said she was going to make some phone calls to finish up the details on Claire’s funeral, so there must be some form of communication with the outer world in this house. I am not trapped here. I need to stop being so dramatic.
In a strange way, I did feel isolated, as if I had been cast away to the tower.
“I need to get out of here,” I told myself.
With Mrs. Appleton occupied with her daughter’s funeral, I was left to my own devices, so an idea crossed my mind. During the last year of high school, when I managed to snatch a half-tuition scholarship for NYU and decided to drown myself in student loans to be able to afford the other half―rather than drowning myself in Ashwell―Claire and I created a plan to get out of this excruciating small town.
She always had a deep love for fashion and an innate ability to make something out of nothing when it came to clothes. Where I saw an old jacket, she saw a vintage piece of clothing that would allow her to show her personality. Neither of us had a lot of money so vintage sounded better than old.
It had been decided. We crafted a secret plan. I had my savings from working at the movie theater, and she had some money her father left her without Beatrix Appleton knowing it. There was nothing else to say. As soon as we could get our diplomas, we would go to New York and latch on to the first job we could find. I would go to school and Claire would focus on becoming a fashion designer.
“Or wardrobe designer. Maybe both,” I quoted my friend’s words with a dry smile on my face.
Retracing the endless conversations we had night after night, dreaming our future away, made me realize how fresh the breadcrumbs still were. It was so unexpected and heartbreaking to get to the day when I tossed all my belongings in the back of my rackety car and drove away from my home to the hill… When Claire opened the door, she said she would not be coming with me. Her face was paler than ever and, most importantly, there were no suitcases next to her.
“I can’t go with you, Althea. I’m sorry. Have a nice trip,” Claire said without even being able to look me in the eye. What could have happened that made her feel sad and ashamed at the same time?
After I questioned her non-stop on why she wasn’t coming with me, she finally blurted it all out.
“My mother has been diagnosed with the same condition my father had. It’s quickly taking a toll on her; she’s in a wheelchair now. I’m staying. I have to stay.”
To this day I could not understand how that happened. Yes, Claire had told me her father died of some strange, debilitating disease. Something related to his blood. Perhaps some form of leukemia? Although I never met her father, it felt peculiar to me how quickly this condition had developed in Mrs. Appleton. And if both parents had it, shouldn’t Claire get tested for it? She was their only child.
After all these years, finding out that Beatrix Appleton had survived her daughter set off those alarms again. I had come all the way to Appleton Hill to get closure. And to find the answers I never received. I got to my feet and pocketed my cell phone. I knew Claire’s bedroom was on the west wing of the manor, which was where I was staying, so it couldn’t be that far away from me.
I traveled the corridors in a haze of memories that transformed my mind into a pendulum, swinging from happiness to sadness without anticipation. The antique wall lamps created a suffocating environment for my improvised trip, as the majority did not work. The ones that did produced more shadows than light.
The electrical installation must be a mess. I remembered my studio gaffer and his endless love affair with wires. Mark would be thrilled to give it a look.
I stretched out my arm to the left and ran my fingers along the wall, caressing it. There was a weak warmth coming out.
“Some impressive heating system,” I said out loud, almost talking to the house. “The bills on this place must be monstrous.” I wiped my hand on my jeans. “As is the stickiness of the dirt on these walls.”
It took me more than a few wrong turns and opening some doors that led to rooms I had never seen before, to reach Claire’s bedroom. Or at least the one I remembered as such. I hoped it wouldn’t be locked.
The doorknob, fortunately, turned. I stretched my hand into the darkness, searching for the light switch, and flipped it. The light was so dim and yellowy, it gave the room the appearance of being sick.
“Oh… what is that?” I covered my nose.
Something reeked in there. I remembered the large window across the room hiding behind heavy cu
rtains. With large steps, I reached it and moved the curtains aside with difficulty while infuriating some moths and creating a cascade of dust to fall upon me. Despite this, I was able to open the window. Unlike in my bedroom, this one gave way to a balcony, so I opened both glass doors, allowing the gray and dampened light of the day to come in and mix with the yellow shadows inside. Some fresh air was desperately needed as well.
I turned on my heels and studied the room. If I had thought that my bedroom looked neglected, then this one was multiplied by the power of three. I had already noticed when I crossed the room that this floor was noisier than mine. But now that more light allowed me to appreciate the details, my mouth fell open. The Persian rug where we had played, dreamed, talked about school, boys, and life as grown-ups was nothing but a discolored mess with dark stains on it. The bed―also a canopy style―appeared to be not only unpolished, but the wood was oddly dark at the top of the bedposts. I approached one of them and touched it to confirm my thoughts.
“It’s burned. Someone burned this. Or at least, tried to.” I leaned closer and smelled it. “No, this is not the source of that awful smell.”
I looked down only to find that the bedding was―once again―in worse shape than my own. The cover was not only tarnished, but there were holes in it as well, and the mattress had sunk in the middle as if it had been used way too much. Maybe Claire had been sleeping somewhere else. It was impossible for someone to use that bedroom as it was at that moment.
I tried to convince myself that Claire had moved her bedroom downstairs to stay closer to her mother. After all, it made sense. I grabbed the blanket and lifted it to check if the bed had any sheets, when two moths flew from underneath the covers to freedom. The sheets had a yellow coloring and, of course, where you have moths...
“You have holes,” I concluded, observing the layer of Gruyere cheese this bed had for bedsheets.
The stench persisted. It was not the bedding. It seemed impregnated in the place. This was not old house smell. This was more like inhaling the breath from a sick dog’s mouth.
I looked around me, trying to understand the state of the place, and realized I hadn’t paid attention to the walls. The plaster was not only cracked, but it had also fallen away in some places, even to the point of exposing brick. I kept studying this room, and the more I did, the less I could believe my eyes. The only good thing about it was the lack of mold.
And that’s when I saw it, or at least the edge of its frame. The corkboard Claire hung behind the door, where we created the vision of what our new lives would be once we were out of high school.
I closed the door to take a better look at it. It was strange, but I remembered selecting and cutting each one of those images from different magazines. There was a photograph of the Empire State Building, a Hollywood sign, and the photo of a woman in an elegant ballgown holding the coveted golden statue while she gave an acceptance speech. I had cut out my face from a photograph and pasted it awkwardly over the woman’s face. There were many drawings with designs for the clothing line Claire had been dreaming about, some cutouts of fancy cars and beautiful apartments… And a couple of checks we had written to ourselves for $10 million, because we had heard that’s what a famous actor did before becoming successful.
A photograph of Claire and me smiling while holding those checks was in the center of this collage, keeping all these dreams and hopes glued together. It was covered in dust and the corners had curled up. I unpinned it to take a closer look. I had not forgotten my friend’s face, but this was a good opportunity to refresh my memories of her.
“Why? Why did you have to do it? Why wouldn’t you let me help you?” I asked Claire’s smiling face.
I remembered all the times that, once in New York, I called Appleton Hill. If she eventually bought a cell phone, that was a number I never got ahold of. Tears ran down my face as I recalled the first three times I placed a call. Mrs. Appleton would answer and always gave me some lame excuse―Claire was taking a shower, sleeping, or grocery shopping. The last four times I tried to contact her, when Claire answered the phone she hung up on me, never uttering a word.
“If I did something to hurt you,” I said to the sweet seventeen-year-old in the photo, “I am sorry, Claire. But you should’ve told me.” I lowered my head and dried my tears, trying to ease my sobbing. “You should’ve told me. Whatever was really happening… I would’ve understood.”
When I was able to look at the photograph again, I considered taking it with me. But even holding it was painful, like trying to squeeze a piece of hot coal. I pinned it back on the board. Sighing, I thought about the day we took this photo. It was right on Appleton Hill, in some place lost among the trees where Claire had a hideout, like a shelter she built with her father when she was a kid.
The oxygen inside the room seemed to be decreasing rapidly, while the foul smell turned worse, to the point of triggering my gag reflex. I ran towards the balcony. Holding on to the banister, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Hey! Hey, get away from there. Get the hell out of there!”
Startled, I opened my eyes and looked down, trying to find out who was reprimanding me.
Tom.
Judging by his appearance, he had been working in the garden. Tom was still wearing the same overalls he’d had on when we met, but now he wore a pair of work gloves and carried gardening tools.
“Get out of there now!” he shouted, waving a pair of garden scissors in my direction.
Tom had not been particularly charming when he picked me up at the airport, but now he had a truly menacing appearance. The rage in his voice was palpable, even at a distance. And the sight of him holding anything with sharp blades that could easily turn into a weapon did nothing but agitate my imagination. I staggered back inside. The reek and the decay seemed now far less dangerous in comparison with the severe scolding I had just received. Why wouldn’t he want me to be on the balcony? Had Claire jumped off it? I cursed myself for being such a coward that I had never asked Mrs. Appleton exactly how her daughter had ended her life. Maybe, with the house in such a poor condition, the balconies were not safe. Lack of structural maintenance could be dangerous.
I was once again among the rotten items of Claire’s bedroom. Now that I was observing it from a different angle, I spotted a pile of fashion magazines next to the bed. Even though it was coated with dust, I approached it, imagining that I would find some old magazines from our high school years. I carefully picked up the top magazine with my thumb and index finger and tossed it aside, discarding the one that had the worst appearance. The second magazine on the pile was a Christmas edition. However, the cover didn’t look as old as I had imagined.
Hasn’t this actress become famous in the past few years?
I leaned forward to find the date on the magazine. I had to read it a few times to convince myself I was not hallucinating. That magazine was a month old.
I stepped back and turned slowly on my heels, seeing the bedroom in a new light. A hunch assaulted me and, despite the weakness I still felt in my body, I rushed towards the closet and yanked its doors open. My intuition was confirmed, although my brain could not make sense of what was going on.
The closet was still filled with clothes. When I started to take a closer look at each piece, moving the hangers around to figure out if these were Claire’s clothes from our teenage years, I realized the stench emanated from them. Yes, those were female outfits, but they looked neither like they would fit the body of a teenager nor the fashion style Claire had favored when we were growing up.
I took out a hanger that held a knee-length turtleneck dress with long sleeves. It was loose, the kind you would wear with a pair of leggings. And sure enough, I looked and found said leggings hanging underneath. Despite the stink coming from the outfit, I pulled it closer to my body to assess it better.
Those clothes could fit me at that very moment.
There was not a hint of color in that closet—everything was
black or gray—and the designs were rather genetic. It was evident they were newer clothes, not something from fifteen years ago. But they lacked the personal touch Claire always gave to her outfits. Still in shock, I hung the dress from one of the closet’s open doors, mimicking my actions in my own room.
“This wasn’t Claire’s bedroom from years ago. This is Claire’s bedroom. She was still sleeping here until a month ago… at least.”
Chapter 5
“Althea?” Beatrix’s voice stopped me while I was about to exit the front door of Appleton Manor. “Where are you going?”
I turned and faced her, trying not to look guilty for the lie I was about to say. Beatrix had her reading glasses on, and there were a notepad and a pen resting on her lap.
“I was just about, uh, I-I wanted to step out for a moment and visit the gardens.”
“The mist won’t let you see a thing. I don’t think it’s safe for you to step out; you might get lost on the hill.”
“I know but―all of this, it’s a lot to take in. I need some fresh air.” I appealed to the sad side of the situation. “I’ll stay close to the house. Is there anything I can help you with before I step out?”
“No, no.” Mrs. Appleton shook her head and turned back to the living area, where she had been when she saw me reaching for the entrance door. “I understand what you mean. I’m going over Claire’s eulogy and it’s been...” She stopped, still showing her back to me, and lowered her head. “It’s been difficult coming to terms with the precariousness of my situation.”
I swear I heard my heart hit the floor, like a rock being dropped in the ocean. I strode up to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She was thinner than I anticipated, which made all this much harder.
“Go on, go visit the garden,” she said, patting my hand.
I closed the heavy door behind me and stood on the front steps for a minute, taking in the view of the hill and matching it to my memories. The dampened atmosphere had gained presence, manifesting itself as a polite mess.
The Haunting of Appleton Hill Page 3