As soon as I turned around, I heard the sucking sound. Exactly like the noise when you open a can of tuna fish. I seemed to be glued to something... and my agitation was now turning into panic.
“Help! Someone? Help! Mrs. Appleton! Help me!”
My cries of desperation bounced off the walls and returned to deafen me with my own anguish. It was evident that I was alone in this.
“Let me go! Let me go, now!”
I tossed and turned, sensing that I was regaining control over my body. I twisted my torso to the right as much as I could, hearing once again the disgusting sound of my left scapula pulling free. I did the same thing in the other direction, not without feeling the pain of a scab being ripped off when the wound is still tender.
The pain was increasing. It was the price to pay for freedom.
But now I finally had some leverage to remove myself from the scarecrow position I found myself trapped in. I placed my hands against what I now understood was one of the walls of the room, managing to bend my knees and press my feet against the wall.
I pushed. I pushed away hard.
With a howl of pain that seemed to emerge from my loins rather than from my lungs, I landed on my hands and knees. The sound my body made when it reached the floor was that of a bag of bones hitting a hard surface. I wasn’t sure nothing was broken. But the adrenaline was still running high through my veins, so I crawled away from the wall where I had been hanging. I reacted like a spider someone tried to squash but had only managed to rip off one of its legs. I moved with desperation, aiming at the farthest corner from that wall. I only stopped my nonsensical escape when I hit the closet.
Still in terror, I watched the place where I had been―even though I wanted to stay away from it. I couldn’t force myself to do anything else.
Two red lines.
Two vertical and parallel red lines, about seven inches long, marked the place where I had been in suspension.
My body was still trembling, but I managed to take my T-shirt off, the one I had slept in. Despite the insanity of what I was experiencing, I understood instinctively what those two red lines meant. I held out the T-shirt in front of me and turned it around to scan the back. There they were―two red lines matching the ones staring back at me from the wall. From the burning sensation setting my back on fire, I knew exactly what I would find if I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
“That’s my blood.”
I scrambled to reach my suitcase, spilling almost all its contents to the floor to find a towel. Claire’s radio fell to the ground, surprising me with its presence. I had forgotten about it. I was paralyzed and half-naked on the floor when the female nasal voice invaded my bedroom. She was once again singing and insulting me at the same time. When I managed to find a towel to wrap myself in, I rushed to the entrance door.
It was unlocked. Which only meant that the sound I heard in my dreams had been real.
“I have to get out of here. Get out… Get out of here…”
A shiver ran through my body. My vision suddenly became blurry along with my line of thought. My mind was telling me I had to leave the hill immediately. But I knew I couldn’t. I began scratching my scalp frantically, feeling an itchiness that spread from the center of my head and went downwards. It was maddening.
I couldn’t stop clawing at different parts of my body, and in doing so, part of the towel fell to the ground. I had to get to the bathroom. Whatever was crawling over my skin, only a shower could wash it away. With watery eyes, I took a step towards what I believed was the door and tripped.
I know my head hit the floor, but after that, all was darkness.
The ringing in my ears was the only music I could hear now. It was a blessing. When I opened my eyes, although I found myself on the floor, the first thing I focused on was my blood on the wall. Like a magnet, the red lines were my polar opposite and we needed each other to be complete.
“We are one now,” I told them.
Something inside of me wanted this place, and this place wanted me. I knew it. This was not unrequited love. It was an engagement sealed in blood. The itching was gone. My vision became clear again. I kept tracing the lines, extending them with my vision. When I reached the ceiling, I turned to lie on my back and found the mold had grown. The spot that had been as wide as the bed was larger now, extending itself to reach every corner of the ceiling. Once again, it was raining on me, painting me with the same colors covering the manor.
“I have to defend Appleton Hill.”
The word crazy came blasting out of Claire’s radio, bursting the bubble the buzzing in my ears had created. The music sounded louder than ever. I felt myself tilting at the edge of madness, but I couldn’t stop what I was feeling.
“What do you want, Claire? Lower the volume; I already heard you!”
My friend was screaming at me using someone else’s voice yet again. The song was in full swing. Claire was looking to make a point I did not care for.
“No, you’re wrong! You’re wrong! I am not alone. I have never felt less lonely in my life. We have each other now. Shut up!”
At that point, Claire’s spirit had turned into an annoyance. I didn’t want to hear her. She was making it hard to maintain my focus with the music still blasting through the speakers. I had to fight for Appleton Hill. I had to defend us from Tom. I couldn’t let him take me away from the hill.
I don’t know how he managed to do this, but I know it was him.
I got to my feet and picked the towel up from the floor. Once I’d wrapped myself in it, I grabbed the radio and buried it under a mountain of pillows on the bed to muffle the sound.
“I’m not crazy, Claire!” I screamed at the amorphous pile of pillows. “I just need to figure out a way to get rid of him. And if you love this house as much as I do, you’ll tell me what to do to fix this.”
I was determined to sort this out, but first, I needed to take a shower. Not so much for the shower itself, but because I couldn’t think straight with Claire’s radio blasting that song non-stop. I approached the bedroom door, holding my towel tightly around my body, to the point where my nails were digging into the palms of my hands through the thick fabric. The song was still singing its muffled words when I yanked the doorknob to get out of there.
I threw one last angry glance over my shoulder, before a rustling sound made me look into the corridor. A piece of paper flew past, performing loopy pirouettes and lazy twirls, propelled by an unfelt breeze. It danced down to my feet, tumbling over the new line of salt in front of my door. The paper’s movements scattered the salt, creating a white frame around the rectangular sheet.
I leaned over and grabbed it. When I flipped it around, I realized it was the photograph of Claire and me at the shelter. I had completely forgotten about my search the day before. A rush of confusion ran through me, pulling me in opposite directions. How could this help me?
Tom had told me the shed no longer existed. It was evident Claire did not agree with him. I straightened and stared at the pillows on top of the radio that kept singing against my will.
“Is this what you want me to do?” I waved the old photograph in front of me. “You want me to find the shelter?” The singing voice died off. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Fine, I’ll do it.”
I left the room and headed towards the bathroom. I was infuriated with Claire; messing with my mind like that was not good. I needed to stay on my A game. On my way to the shower, I stepped inside Claire’s bedroom. Helping me protect the hill was one thing, but she was crossing the line into bullying me. The state of decay of her room was getting worse with each passing day. A clear message from the house to Claire. Appleton Hill did not want her anymore.
“Maybe this will be the next room to crumble away,” I wished out loud as I tossed the photograph onto the bed. “Stay here.”
I was leaving the room when my eyes fell on the outfit I had left outside Claire’s closet days before―the turtleneck dress and the leggings. S
urprisingly, it no longer had that foul smell I sensed the day I found it. I grabbed the hanger and studied the clothing. It looked different.
“I’ll wear this today.”
With my new outfit in hand, I stormed out of the room, making a mental list of the things I had to get done to set things straight in the manor.
“It’s okay, Althea. Calm down,” I instructed myself as I assessed the gray bags under my eyes in the bathroom mirror. “You’ve got this.” I combed my mold-covered hair with my fingers to smooth it a little, feeling how it came off easily, forming a clump in my hand. “Finding the shelter will allow you to love Appleton Hill even more.”
Chapter 23
I stepped out to the gardens. Exactly as every single one of the previous days, the fog greeted me. The hill was high enough to put us, both the manor and me, a little above it. It was thicker than the day before, to the point where I could no longer compare it to the clouds. Now the fog was an endless skirt rolling from the waistline of the hill down to Ashwell, hiding everything and everyone underneath it. If I was honest, the petticoat was quite stunning.
“It’s a rather regal property. There is no shame in feeling pride for being here, above all Ashwell.” I grinned. “Anyone should be so lucky.”
After a much-deserved shower and a breakfast heated up in the microwave, I put my coat on over my dress and headed out. Without a hair dryer or fireplace in the house―and my staying longer than anticipated―I had made an extra effort to dry my hair with a towel. After all, Mrs. Appleton was right. Keeping any kind of flame on the hill was pure insanity. Besides, the house didn’t need it. I never felt the necessity for additional heating to warm up my bedroom, regardless of how big it was. I leaned to the side and touched one of the walls of Appleton Manor. It was warm.
There must be a heater somewhere, probably in a basement or something, I thought while considering I needed to take a new tour through the house. After a few days of roaming through its corridors, I had discovered a renewed love for the manor. I was sure I would find new things to admire if I looked for them. Perhaps I could even sleep in a different bedroom to experience the house from a new angle. With Mrs. Appleton’s approval, of course. But it would be nice to get away from Claire.
Regardless, I had resigned myself to smoosh all my wet hair under a beanie if I wanted to find the damn shelter. I needed to keep Claire quiet; I was growing sick and tired of her calling me crazy.
“You’ll see, Claire. Once I get rid of Tom using whatever it is in that shack, you’ll have to keep your radio-mouth shut.”
I adjusted my beanie and my coat’s belt. Moving my arms reminded me my torso was still sore. Back in the bathroom, I had been able to identify two red lines running along the sides of my spine matching the ones on the wall. Now, with a little perspective, I thought about the way my morning had started. Although the entire situation could pass as strange, what I remembered the most was my attitude towards it. The desperation. The tears. The screaming.
“I overreacted, I have to admit it. After all, a little blood won’t kill anyone.”
The gardens in front of me had grown out of proportion overnight in a monstrous way. I pulled the map I had drawn the day before and studied it. I had taken a left. I now needed to take a right and explore that side of the hill. The memories from my teenage years of going into that shelter were fuzzier than the previous day. Pretty soon, all of this would be over, and I wouldn’t need to remember those days anymore.
“Okay. I’m ready to get to work,” I proclaimed out loud, and I descended the steps leading to the path encircling the manor.
In the beginning, the process pretty much mirrored what I had done the day before. I looked for traces of any gravel trail that would lead me away from the central path.
This side of the hill seemed more suffocated by bushes and trees with branches sticking out, ready to decapitate you if you were not paying attention. The overgrown wild grass found ways to protrude here and there through endless miles of entangled vines that formed a net of incredible proportions. One that was ready to catch me and devour me without mercy if I didn’t watch my step. There were no flowers anywhere, just green leaves on top of even more green leaves, all of them protected by the eternal mist lingering over Ashwell.
That’s probably why everything is so green and alive in the middle of winter.
I immersed myself in this deformed monstrosity Mother Nature had created around the manor, breaking branches, crushing grass and other foliage with every step I took. I could feel the sap seeping out of the leaves and vines as I squashed them. I was creating a swamp of slime simply by walking.
“This is what you get for growing where you shouldn’t. For meddling in private property. So disgusting.”
Just like I had seen the day before on the other side of the hill, the fog wasn’t able to penetrate through the foliage when the latter became denser. It only managed to squeeze itself through the cracks of the first layers of trees. Eventually, the mist lost the battle and was forced to abandon its efforts halfway.
The remains of the gravel trail I had spotted were now lost under a carpet of wild nature, one that was growing thicker and thicker under my feet. I wished I had Tom’s ax with me to chop away all that insane greenery around me. I pushed forward, despite having no path to follow. Everything inside me wanted to turn around and run back to the house. I could almost taste the threat taking me over the farther I went. I felt watched. The vegetation observed me in nervous expectation, waiting to squeeze me to death.
“Much like what Tom wants to do,” I mused out loud, trying to scare away the feeling. “But you won’t win! You hear me? You don’t own this hill!” I shouted to my green surroundings.
It was an open space, yet I was being crowded out.
I stopped to catch my breath. It felt like I had been fighting against this creature of endless arms for hours. I opened my coat and bent over, placing my hands on my knees. I was dizzy. A grumble was audible, like a never-ending mumbling the wilderness kept whispering around me. But it was a language I could not speak. Leaves were creeping around me, and branches were possessed by occasional tremors despite the fact there was not an ounce of wind. The fear of not being able to find my way out of that infernal maze was turning more palpable.
I straightened and looked over my shoulder. Retracing the path I had created to get to where I was standing was impossible. I could not go back on my last ten or fifteen steps. The woods were closing in on me. Going forward was the only option available other than giving up and letting the ivy wrap itself around me and turn me into a mummy.
I pushed forward for another twenty feet, then decided to make a left. I had to find a way to reduce the distance as I was getting farther and farther away from the house. The idea behind this detour was that, at some point, I would bump against the steps, allowing me to climb my way back to the manor.
The movement of the vegetation became clear to me now. The faster I forced my way through it by breaking and stepping on it, the faster it grew to patch itself up where I had made holes. The growling gave me shivers despite the fact that I was sweating. The wilderness constantly knitting itself around me was singing a song of life and death.
It was life.
I was death.
I hastened my steps. My breathing became heavier. I looked up and, with desperation, realized there was no sky. Nothing but branches infested with leaves and needles so green that no one would believe it was the dead of winter. There was an unbreakable dome above me.
I tripped and fell to my hands and knees. Touching that mushy ground made me nauseated. I felt as if I had stuck my hands in a sink filled with slugs. I was in contact with a spineless being that was nothing but an amorphous body of slime.
A strand of grass quickly started to wrap itself around my left pinky. I yanked my hand away immediately. I got up, trying not to slip again, and started running. Absolute desperation was the only thing propelling me forward. I was losing the hope
of finding my way out of that ever-growing prison when I caught a hint that indicated an exit. The end to this nightmare was floating around me.
“The fo-fog… I’m almost out,” I stammered, out of breath. I pushed my legs harder. The ticking clock of nature was counting down on me.
Suddenly, the downhill became steeper, and I stumbled all the way until landing on London Street. I wasn’t more than ten feet away from the steps leading back to the manor, so my calculations had not been wrong. I felt a strange sense of satisfaction crawling under my skin when I realized I knew the hill that well.
After a few failed attempts, I got to my feet and focused on catching my breath. I looked at my clothes. My leggings and boots were covered in sap and mud. I bent over to try to wipe them off, and my hair fell over my face. That’s when I realized my beanie had fallen off. I glanced back at the place from where I had forcefully emerged and spotted it lying on the ground.
The constant growing and stretching of the foliage was still visible from where I was standing as the vines healed the place I had broken through. I caught sight of a branch quietly piercing the beanie. I don’t know what type of rage came over me, but it gave me enough strength that with one leap, I reached the beanie and tore it away from nature’s grasp.
“Back off!” I warned it, and I could have sworn it understood me.
I didn’t want to stay in that place any longer, so I forced myself to move towards the steps. I knew many of them were covered by the same plants that had tried to suffocate me, so I braced for another battle. I was exhausted, but at the same time, I had the urge to run all the way to the top. Up to the manor. Up to safety.
The Haunting of Appleton Hill Page 13