by Michael Bray
She was in the spider room, boxes of her belongings scattered haphazardly. The nails had been pulled out of the window frame and the room aired out for the last few days. Even so, the damp smell was still there. She also knew that somewhere, the spider that had crawled across her hand had set up a new home which she had yet to discover, which was probably best for the spider in question. She had every intention to squish him the first chance she got. Even though her things were in the room and it was starting to take shape - they had repainted and brushed the floors, but as yet had no carpet- she still didn’t feel comfortable. If not for the sun room, she was sure she would have accepted it without question. Now though, knowing what she was missing, made her want it all the more. She lay on the bed, hands propped behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. The distant sound of the radio filtered up from downstairs as her parents unpacked, still barely speaking to each other and failing to hide it very well when they were all together. Vanessa thought about her father, how things might have been different. On the one hand, she knew he did his best to act as the peacemaker in the house, often letting his wife win the argument even when everyone knew she was wrong. Vanessa wondered if his lack of a backbone was at least partly responsible for them having to uproot everything and move. There was an argument for it, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to blame him, especially as her mother insisted on whining about the move every chance she got as if it wasn’t her fault, which only added to the tension.
As Vanessa lay there, pondering all the possible outcomes and repercussions of the situation, something caught her eye. “Not you again,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow.
She watched as the spider skittered across the floorboards, skirting around one of the boxes and underneath the drawers on the opposite wall.
She scrambled out of bed, looking for something to use as a weapon and settling for a shoe. She walked across the room, mumbling to herself as she did. “You’ve overstayed your welcome for long enough, mister,” she said as she slid the drawers away from the wall. She saw the spider wriggle into a gap between two of the floorboards. She swung the show at it anyway, the sole impacting wood but missing the spider. “Damn it,” she muttered. “I’ll get you next time.”
She was about to slide the drawers back into place, when she noticed something poking out between two of the floorboards. She leaned closer, curiosity taking over. It was a piece of paper, a single corner poking up through the wood. She pinched it between her fingers and pulled it out. The single sheet of paper was folded into four, and yellowed with age and dust. Escaped spider forgotten, she turned the paper over in her hands but didn’t unfold it. It was cold and clammy, and reminded her of the first time she had visited the room. Her eyes involuntarily flicked to the window, even though she knew she couldn’t see the clearing out there in the forest, she knew it was there. She didn’t like the feel of the paper in her hands, and set it on the dresser, which was still angled away from the wall. She stared at it, wondering what the feeling was that was making her stomach knot.
She felt dizzy and gripped the edge of the dresser. Sure she was going to be sick and not wanting to deal with the hassle from her mother, she ran to the bathroom, hoping she could make it in time. She dropped to her knees in front of the toilet bowl, mouth watering as she wretched, inhaling the pine scented water. Nothing came up, even though she retched as if something wanted to. She clutched the bowl, cold porcelain raising goose bumps on her arms until, as quickly as it had come, the feeling subsided. She sat for a few more minutes anyway, waiting to see if it would come back. When she was certain she was safe, she stood and flushed, watching the water swirl and churn. She went back to her room, bored, tired and confused.
The note was on her bed.
She stood at the entrance to the room, staring at it, heart drumming hard. She looked at the dresser, which was still pulled away from the wall, then back to her bed. The note was unfolded. She could see black handwriting scrawled across it. She tried to process, her eyes moving from point to point in the room.
Dresser.
Bed.
Dresser.
Bed.
Window.
She didn’t know why she had looked there. It had nothing to do with it. She supposed a draft as she had left the room in such a hurry could have blown the note then, in a bizarre one in a million chance, caused it to unfold and land on the bed, but that was insane and she knew it. Irrational at best. She wasn’t a stupid child, and despite living in a family unit that was close to fracture, she still did well in school. She looked back at the bed and the note, and wondered why she was so afraid to enter. She clung to the doorframe, fingers white from the pressure, and then once again looked to the window. Gnarled branches swayed in the wind, a million fingers on countless arms beckoning her into the room. Wind howled against the glass, and for a split second, she thought she heard something. A bark of laughter, a single human like sound which was immediately cut off. There had been a full about turn. Her throat was dry, her tongue dead and useless. One thing that had returned was the knotting in her stomach and the anxious feeling that came with it.
This is stupid. It’s just a note.
The voice in her head, the Vanessa who was safe and sound in the deepest reaches of the brain was one she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe right now. It wasn’t just a note. It was a hidden note, one that she had found and had appeared unfolded on her bed by some kind of act of god, if such a thing existed.
Just one step. Start with that.
It seemed simple, especially coming from the disembodied inner psyche version of herself who had no reason to be afraid. The real world Vanessa wasn’t quite as willing to dismiss it. She scanned the room again.
Dresser
Bed
Dresser
Bed.
Window.
Why the window?
Then bed, then down at her own feet, which were planted firmly on the threshold of the room and showing no sign of moving. Someone was coming upstairs. She could hear the floorboards creaking. In the way most family members were able, she knew by the walking style who it was before they appeared. It was her mother. She couldn’t still be standing here when she arrived. There would be questions that she wouldn’t want to answer, then her father would get involved and another argument would start. She didn’t want to be responsible for that. She stepped into the room and closed the door just seconds before her mother appeared. Once the commitment was made, it was much easier. She walked to the bed and looked at the note. She didn’t want to touch it, and didn’t have to. She could read it perfectly well from where she was. The penmanship was ugly, the writing tall and spiky. She studied it, the simplicity and wording raising another rash of goosebumps.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
She recognised the quote. It was Shakespeare. They had studied it in school. She searched for the source, from the work it came from and it arrived without warning. The Tempest. Ariel to Prospero.
She looked at the note again.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
She glanced out of the window, unsure why she would even do that. The gnarled branches were still waving their gnarled fingers. She didn’t like that and so looked at the note again. Somebody had gone to the trouble of not only writing it, but hiding it between the floorboards. She had no idea why anyone would do such a thing or what it meant. It was too much to take in.
“This is stupid,” she muttered to herself, then crumpled up the note and tossed it in the waste basket by the door. She hoped that would make her feel better, or at least less uncomfortable, but nothing changed. She still felt that lingering sense of dread and discomfort. She looked down at the note crumpled up in the waste basket, the words implanted into her brain, then she opened the door and went downstairs, reasoning that even the toxic atmosphere down there was preferable to staying there any longer.
FOUR
There was a man. He had bl
ood in his mouth but she knew it wasn’t his. He flashed a crimson smile and showed his dagger teeth. He held the severed head of Vanessa’s mother in his fist, holding it up for her to see by the hair. Her eyes had rolled back to the whites, her mouth agape, her cheek ravaged where the man had taken a bite, blood dripping down in a symphony of beats to the ground.
This was how it went when he came, this man, he was always bloody, always looking at her and smiling his claret smile. He spoke, but she didn’t understand the language. Just one word which he repeated every time she dreamed of him.
Gogoku.
She didn’t know what it was or what it meant. He said it again as blood dripped from his chin onto his chest.
Gogoku.
There was a shift, a change of scenery, the entire dream melting from what it was into something new. Now she was in her bedroom looking out of the window to the gnarled trees below. Brown leaves skittered in the wind, swirling in violent circles around their car. The man was there, looking up at her. She couldn’t hear him but she could see his mouth moving and knew he was saying that word.
Gogoku.
As they stared at each other, he reared back and threw her mother’s severed head. She flinched as it hit the window, the impact sound drowned out by her screams.
The window exploded, wind howling around the room and sending the papers and posters she had yet to put up on her walls swirling around the room. Somehow he was on her, strong hands on her upper arms, shaking her.
This is no dream.
She repeated it to herself, unable to comprehend that this was actually happening to her. It was too real. She could feel the sting of wind on her cheeks, the uncomfortable bump in her lower back from her mattress that she had asked to be replaced but there was still no money for yet. She opened her eyes and could see his hulking form as he shook her. She screamed louder, not knowing what else to do as her bladder let go, staining the mattress.
The mattress that shouldn’t be there. She had been standing by the window, there was no reason she should be in bed. She opened her eyes, bridging the gap between dream and reality. It wasn’t the man from her dream shaking her. It was her mother, her makeup free face ghastly and covered in old acne scars.
“Wake up, stop screaming the house down,” her mother shouted at her, stale cigarette breath making her feel sick.
Vanessa was confused. She was awake, she knew that, but the wind was still tearing around her room. It was only when her mother turned on the light that she realised what the source of her confusion was. The window was open and slid all the way to the top of its frame, letting the elements in. Vanessa’s father hurried across the room, pulling his robe around him as he slid it back down into place.
With the wind shut out, she became calm, looking from parent to parent as she sat on the bed in her own mess.
“I’ll grab some fresh sheets for you,” her mother said, getting off the bed and leaving the room, her feet echoing down the narrow hall.
Vanessa looked at her father. “I’m sorry dad, I just…. I don’t know what happened.”
“Window catch is loose. Probably why it blew open,” he said, flicking the catch back and forth in its housing. “I guess that’s why they nailed it shut.”
She looked at him then at the window. True enough, the latch was broken, but the wood was old and swollen in its frame and only opened with some effort. There was no way it could have blown open vertically. She considered telling her father this when her mother returned with the sheets.
She tossed them on the bed and stood, hands planted on hips. “Get yourself cleaned up and go back to sleep,” she said, then walked away, feet echoing down the hall followed by the slamming of the bedroom door.
“Are you going to be alright?” her father asked as he too crossed to the door.
“I’ll be fine. Just embarrassed. It was a bad dream, dad.”
He smiled at her. “It’s over now. You get some rest. Do you want me to help you flip the mattress over?”
“No,” she said, looking at the wet patch on the sheet. “I’ll do it. Thanks dad.”
“You get some sleep. It’s late.”
“I will. Night, dad.”
“Night,” he replied, then closed the door. She sat there alone in the silence until she heard the muffled sounds of her parents arguing in the bedroom, then looked at the window and the papers and leaves scattered on her bedroom floor. She thought she knew now why the previous occupants of this room had nailed the windows shut, and the reason wasn’t the wind.
FIVE
Breakfast was eaten in silence. Vanessa pushed soggy cereal around her bowl. Her father was making good progress through his bacon and eggs, and her mother was smoking and drinking cheap coffee. The tension was palpable, the atmosphere heavy and oppressive. Vanessa hated the fact that other than the sun room, everywhere else in the house felt dark and gloomy.
“You can wash those sheets yourself.”
Vanessa looked at her mother, spoon poised over bowl.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she added, blowing smoke out into the air. “You’re too old to be wetting the bed. That’s what babies do.”
“Pam, leave her alone.”
“No, Bill. She screams the house down in the middle of the night, and then wets the bed too. It’s not good enough. She’s thirteen, not some kind of infant.”
“She had a bad dream,” Bill added, setting his cutlery down on the plate of half eaten food.
“Don’t you stand up for her. You always do that. We’re supposed to be the unit, you and me,” Pam said, inhaling on her cigarette and glaring at Vanessa.
“This isn’t about sides, Pam. It’s about what’s right.”
“Like hell. It’s always about sides. You and her, like two peas in a pod. What about me? When does my time start?”
“Its fine, dad. I don’t mind washing my own sheets,” Vanessa said, hoping to avoid another argument.
“Its fine dad, I don’t mind washing my own sheets,” her mother repeated, mocking her daughter. “That’s a good thing, Vanessa, as that’s exactly what you’re doing. I stopped washing your pissy sheets when you were a baby.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, staring into the milky mess in the bowl.
“Just because you don’t like it here and crave attention you expect us to give it to you. Well I don’t like it here either. I didn’t want to move to this old run down place either, but sacrifices had to be made. You don’t see me wetting the bed do you?”
Vanessa didn’t answer. She looked at her father, wondering if he was going to defend her and mention the reasons they had to move away in the first place. Weak as ever, he said nothing. Staring at the food remains on his plate.
Pam looked at them both, smug grin on her face. “Exactly. Nobody has anything to say now, do they? Because they know I’m right. Both of you need to realise that I’m not as stupid as you might think. I know more than either of you realise.”
Vanessa stood, chair legs scraping on the kitchen lino as she pushed it back.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Pam said, exhaling more smoke into the hazy atmosphere.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“For a walk.”
“Good. It’s about time you stopped festering around this place,” Pam said.
Vanessa ignored her. She went into the hall, sitting on the step and putting on her shoes.
“And another thing,” Pam called after her. “Don’t think I’ll be washing those sheets for you because I won’t. If you choose to leave them stinking in your room then that’s up to you. Do you hear me?”
Vanessa heard well enough but chose not to answer. There had already been too many arguments, too much tension and upset. She pulled on her coat and put her hat on.
“Just wait until you have to get a job and have some real responsibilities. Then you’ll see. You’ll see that it’s not all fun and games. Mark my words, Vanessa. Mark my words.”
Vanessa didn’t mark her words. She had already tuned her out, turning her volume down in her mind down in her mind to a distant hum. She walked down the dingy hall and opened the door, stepping out into the bright outside world way from life in the house. It was the best she had felt in weeks.
The act alone of putting distance between herself and the house was enough to make her feel better. The shift in mood was immediate. Inside, the house was dark and tense, always feeling as if it were on the verge of explosion. Her parents were partly to blame. It was clear, even to her, that their relationship was done. It was broken beyond repair and only a matter of time before they realised it too. She expected that they would divorce, and then she would have to go and live with one of them. Probably her father if the choice were up to her. She didn’t think she could handle living with her mother without a go between or peacekeeper.