The Haunting of Ashburn House

by Darcy Coates

  She could visualise it, pouring thick and black out of the chimney and billowing high into the sky. From a distance, it would look as if the house was on fire.

  That will bring people. And not just a single car that Edith might be able to attack and drive off the road, either; there’ll be fire trucks, the police, and possibly even Jayne or a few curious spectators. With enough people, I’ll have protection, witnesses, and a way to escape.

  Even with the guard, heavy black smoke was pouring into the lounge room. Adrienne gagged and tightened the towel around her face. She’d underestimated how strong it would be; there was no way she could stay in the room. She scooped up Wolfgang, snagged the cat case with her spare hand, and carried them into the cleaner, stylish sitting room at the house’s corner.

  The smell followed them, but the air was clear enough for Adrienne to take her mask off. She placed her irritable cat onto one of the fancy rose-patterned couches and crossed to the window.

  Even with her cheek pressed to the glass and her head angled up, she couldn’t see the smoke. She prayed it would be thick enough to draw attention.

  It’s a twenty-minute drive from town. We’ll have a bit to wait.

  Wolf was nosing about the new room. He’d need to be inside his carry case before the trucks arrived, but he hated confinement, so Adrienne wanted to let him roam until the last possible moment.

  She turned and began pacing. The plan was solid, but there was no accounting for dumb luck. There was the chance that none of the townspeople would look in Ashburn’s direction while the rubber was burning. Or that the smoke wouldn’t be thick enough. Or that no one would think to call the fire department.

  Adrienne quickened her pace and began chewing on the corner of her thumbnail. The wait was excruciating. And there would be no way to be sure that she’d done enough until she heard the sirens.

  I need find something to do. She stopped at the window again and peered up, trying to catch a glimpse of smoke billowing across the sky, but the wind was travelling in the wrong direction. I could pack my bags. It would be difficult to carry both Wolf and a suitcase with my leg like this, but I might be able to manage it. And it can’t hurt to be prepared.

  Having a purpose helped reduce some of the nervous tension in Adrienne’s stomach. She slipped through the doorway, being careful not to let Wolfgang escape, then crossed to the stairs.

  Even though she’d shut the lounge room’s door, dark soot leaked through the gaps and made her gag. If the smoke outside is anywhere near as black as this, it’ll be impossible to miss.

  The climb was difficult without a crutch, but Adrienne leaned on the railing, trying to ignore the way it creaked, as she made her way to the second floor. She hadn’t brought the lamp, and the gloom of the lightless hallway felt suffocating. She tried to keep her eyes focussed ahead as she shuffled towards the door at the other end of the house, but her attention was pulled towards the paintings coating the walls.

  They didn’t look like this before.

  The subjects had lost their air of placid, haughty indifference. Instead, a sharp terror filled their expressions.

  “What the…?” Adrienne limped close to a painting of Mr Ashburn. His pose was the same, but his eyes had widened and his lips tightened. His skin had lost its rosy blush and—a detail so expertly executed that Adrienne felt as though her fingers would get wet if she touched it—perspiration ran over his forehead.

  Adrienne squeezed her lips together and stepped away from the picture. She didn’t want to see any more but couldn’t stop her eyes from skipping to the next portrait.

  Mrs Ashburn’s expression held none of her husband’s restraint. Her mouth was open, and a delicate line of saliva connected a front tooth to the lower lip. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and one hand had come up to clutch at her neckline. Veins bulged in her feminine hand.

  No more. I don’t want to see any more.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from turning towards the next painting. Edith.

  There was no terror in the child’s face, only a flat, cold focus. She stared directly ahead, intense attention squared on the observer, the muscles in her face tight but not from fear.

  You’re not upset. Of course you’re not. Because you murdered them, didn’t you, Edith? You were a heartless psychopath even as a girl.

  The painted eyes blinked.

  Adrienne stumbled backwards. She made a choked yelping noise as her injured ankle twisted, and she clutched at a side table to halt her fall. Her back slammed the wall, sending portraits swaying, their subjects an exhibition of silent dread, as though the likenesses had been captured as they experienced their last moments on earth.

  Something moved in the mirror Adrienne had hung in the hallway’s midpoint. She had a fleeting glimpse of bulging, bleached-white eyes, then one of the portraits she’d bumped fell off its hook and clattered to the ground.

  The twisted fascination broke, and Adrienne hopped as quickly as she could towards the door at the end of the hall. She kept her eyes fixed on the dirty, scuffed carpet the entire way and only looked up when she’d turned the handle and tumbled into her room.

  She rested her back against the cool door. Her heart was jumping, and her chest felt tight. It had been easier to live with Edith’s presence while she was locked outside and their domains were neatly designated by the house’s walls. But the spirit’s influence seemed to be seeping inside. It sickened her.

  I won’t have to endure it for much longer. Soon, I’ll hear the sirens as help races up the driveway, then I’ll never have to lay eyes on Ashburn again.

  She wrenched the wardrobe door open and pulled her travel case out of where she’d tucked it into the corner. She laid it on the bed, flipped the lid open, and began throwing her possessions inside.

  It’s quiet.

  The thought came out of nowhere. Adrienne froze, a pair of jeans half folded, as she listened. It went beyond simple quiet. The room was muffled, and noises such as her own breath and heartbeat were dampened.

  A faint, thin hum cut through the still. It was almost imperceptible but had a jangled, unnatural strain that made it impossible to not hear. Adrienne raised her eyes towards the sound and found herself facing the mirror she’d propped on top of the bureau.

  The glass was large enough to capture most of the room. Adrienne could see herself, poised beside the bed, slightly bent as she prepared to put the jeans into the travel case. Her hair was tangled, and her skin had a dirty pallor—testament to the days of stress and fear.

  And standing behind her, straight as a ramrod and hands neatly folded over her skirts, was Edith.

  Adrienne inhaled and swivelled to face the intruder, hands raised in defence. The space behind her was vacant.

  She stared at the empty air, too frightened to even blink, then turned back to the mirror.

  The second figure was gone. Now all that remained was Adrienne, ashen and shaking, the crumpled jeans clutched in her fist.

  It was tempting to think that she’d been mistaken—that the image had been a result of her imagination or light playing across the glass—but Adrienne knew what she’d seen. The mirror’s phantom had been worlds away from the contorted, naked creature outside. The reflection had been tall, proud, and dressed in one of the elegant black silk dresses from Edith’s room. The grey hair had been fastened into a sleek bun at the back of her head. Her nails were short and clean, her expression flat and steady, her posture impeccable.

  But despite all of the differences, a handful of similarities still ran through: the crepe-like wrinkled skin that bunched up around her eyes, the steel shade of her hair, the sharp bone structure. And her hands, held neatly ahead of herself, stood out sharply against the midnight skirts. The long, bony fingers were impossible to forget.

  Two versions of Edith. One was undoubtedly the woman who walked into town every day and terrified the children. The other clings to her old home despite losing her humanity.

  Adrienne fel
t sick. She turned back and forward, checking both the mirror and the room multiple times. The faint ringing had faded, but the muffled sensation persisted. It grew and pressed against her, its weight making her pulse throb and her mouth dry.

  She turned back to the suitcase and flinched as her eyes landed on the window. The world outside had disappeared.

  35

  Falling

  Mouth open and her outstretched fingers shaking, Adrienne stepped up to the window. She touched the glass, felt how icy-cold it was, and pulled her hand back against her chest.

  The trees, the weedy yard, the sky—everything had disappeared as though they’d been erased. All that remained was grey.

  It was a dark shade, not quite slate but deeper than a midtone. A hint of light still came through it, but it was dim enough that she felt as though she were submerged in twilight.

  Then part of the grey swirled, and Adrienne found she was able to breathe again. It’s smoke, that’s all.

  She stepped back from the window, still squinting at the heavy grey fog, as her eyebrows contracted. She shouldn’t be able to see the smoke, and certainly not as densely as it appeared then. Ashburn stood on top of a hill. No matter how gentle the breeze, the smoke should still be blowing away.

  Adrienne dropped the jeans she’d been holding and hurried to the door. She was loath to return to the hallway of contorted paintings, but she needed to see outside, and the attic had the best view of the house.

  The stairs to the third floor were difficult to climb. They were enclosed, and the walls had no fixtures or rails, which left Adrienne with nothing to hold onto. After the first few steps, she turned, sat, and clambered the rest of the way on her backside. It was undignified and streaked dust across her clothes but was faster and easier than trying to walk.

  The words cut into the tall black door at the top of the stairs demanded her attention. She reread the familiar phrase as she righted and dusted herself.

  LIGHT THE CANDLE

  YOUR FAMILY

  IS STILL

  DEAD

  The words were cryptic—possibly put there during a bout of madness—but the reference to Edith’s family felt significant. Initially, Adrienne had assumed they were mentioned out of grief. Now, guilt seemed a likelier motivator. Your family is still dead. Maybe Edith regretted what she’d done. Did she try to revive her parents in the same way she managed to resurrect herself? Adrienne couldn’t parse the mystery, so she nudged the door open and stepped through.

  The attic, large and airy and filled with crates holding thousands of candles, sent prickles skittering over Adrienne’s skin. The wax-coated candle spike and carefully framed photo had taken on an occult subtext, so she gave them a wide berth as she crossed to the uncovered window.

  At last she had something to see besides grey. The sky, a dusky blue with thick clouds rolling in from the north, seemed to stretch forever. Below it, Adrienne could see the town, full of tiny houses and tiny people, nestled in the valley.

  The woods, thick and tangled, divided her from the town, and between the woods and the house was a heavy blanket of grey.

  Adrienne unlocked the glass windowpane and pushed it open. She leaned forward, stretching over the windowsill to see above the roof. There was no plume of black smoke reaching for the heavens; instead, it fell, tumbling over the roof and spilling into the yard like a spectral waterfall.

  That makes no sense. Hot air rises; eventually it would cool and the soot would come back down but not this quickly!

  Something was moving in the smoke. Adrienne strained to see through the swirling grey, but it was too thick for her to make out any details.

  Frustration made her squeeze her lips together, and Adrienne hopped across the attic to reach a window facing the backyard. She pulled the curtain aside and was faced with a nearly identical sight. The dark grey smoke hung heavily between the forest edge and the house, creating an imitation floor that looked almost solid enough to walk on.

  Wait, is it dropping lower?

  She squinted at the wood’s edge and tried to mark how high the mist rose against the bark of the nearest trees. She’d guessed right; the layer of grey was very slowly, very steadily dropping, like water being absorbed into the ground.

  Adrienne hopped back to the first window. The shape that had been stirring the fog grew visible, and Adrienne felt the smart of cold anger as she saw the glint of Edith’s bleached eyes.

  The woman stood amongst the soot, her withered arms raised and fingers splayed. She was slowly lowering her hands, and the fog obeyed her, sinking closer and closer to the ground and condensing from grey into an angry, dirty black.

  I keep underestimating her. She looks like a crazed animal, but she’s smart.

  The angry, miserable tears wouldn’t stay in her eyes this time. Adrienne rubbed them off her cheeks, frustrated with herself for crying, and slammed the window closed.

  No fire department. No police. No help. Back to stage one.

  She spared the photograph a final glance before turning towards the door. Edith looked so innocently mischievous in the picture, as though she’d been caught playing make-believe in the garden. The contrast with the creature she’d become was striking.

  Adrienne refused to let herself sigh as she left the attic, but the defeat was crushing. She’d thrown everything into the plan—including the last of her firewood—and the result was that she would remain trapped in Ashburn for at least one more night. In addition, her comforts were being methodically stripped away. No lights. No hot shower. Now I also don’t have a fire, and the rubber smell in the lounge room will make it impossible to sleep there.

  She reached the base of the stairs and hesitated. The open suitcase waited in her room, but there was no longer any reason to pack it. On her other side stretched the hallway of distorted portraits. Adrienne looked towards them and felt her heart catch. They’d changed again.

  She stepped near the closest portrait, and nausea welled inside her. It was an image of Mrs Ashburn. The lady’s perfect pose has been disturbed; her head twisted to one side, her eyes pointed away from the viewer, and her delicate brown hair was flung out across the wooden floor.

  Her lower jaw had been torn off.

  The gore had been rendered fantastically. Even as Adrienne’s mind screamed against the image, she felt a small sense of wonder at how perfectly the upper teeth shone amongst the red, how she could see into the lady’s throat, and how the withered end of an artery poked free and coiled in the blood like a fat worm.

  She turned, but there was no relief from the images. Mr Ashburn’s right eye was wide and staring, frozen in shock, but the other eye was missing along with that half of his head. A drop of red blood glistened in his moustache, and more had spread across the floor below him.

  The other Mrs Ashburn—Charles’s wife and Edith’s aunt—had fallen face down. Her hand was extended, palm up, as though she were beckoning to someone, but it had been torn from her body at its wrist. A clump of her impeccably styled hair poked free from her head. It had been cut by the hatchet embedded in her skull.

  Adrienne clamped her hands over her mouth. She couldn’t avert her eyes from the paintings no matter how much they sickened her. Each image showed the three family members in the same poses but had been painted from different angles to highlight new aspects of the butchery: torn limbs, pools of blood, and a cavity in Mr Ashburn’s chest where his heart had been extracted.

  Amongst them were scattered portraits of Edith. She alone remained alive. Each painting depicted her in the same position: looking towards the viewer, her face frozen in that calm expression, her eyes hard and unfeeling. A spray of blood had been drawn across her chin and cheeks.

  Adrienne reached the stairs. Shock had set in, and she barely felt the prickles of pain as she put weight on her bad ankle. A manic, urgent panic urged her to escape the house and flee to town, where there was comfort and sanity and company. She stumbled towards the front door without realising what she
was doing. Turned the handle. Pulled it open. And stopped on the porch.

  The smoke rolled across the lawn in thick billows and swirls. It was no longer dark grey but an ethereal, glassy white.

  Adrienne stepped back as the mist spilt around her legs and washed into the house. She looked down at where she’d been standing and saw, through the heavy fog, her footprint amongst a layer of black soot that coated the porch.

  The bizarre sight shook Adrienne out of her daze. She lifted her eyes towards the forest, where the pale, contorted figure crouched between two trees, and she slammed the door closed.

  “Okay.” Adrienne squeezed her eyes closed and rested her forehead on the door as she turned the lock. “Okay. Okay. It’s going to be okay. You’ve just got to try harder, Addy. You can get out of here.”

  She turned back to the hallway and wrapped her arms around her chest. Shadows draped the entry like ghostly cobwebs. Sometime between enacting her plan and discovering its ruin, day had begun to dip into night.

  36

  The Last Evening

  Adrienne pressed her thumbs into the corners of her eyes. Think, Addy. Logic it out. What do you need to do? What do you need to survive tonight?

  The answer came quickly: light. With a woodless fire and no electricity, Adrienne would be blind when the sun set unless she found an alternative. The little plastic torch in her pocket would be ideal, but its battery had been drained the night before. That meant finding new batteries had to be her first priority.

  She hopped into the kitchen and began rifling through drawers. They held a wide assortment of implements but no batteries. Adrienne chewed at the inside of her lip as she moved through the other downstairs rooms.

  It was hard to imagine Edith living in Ashburn without any batteries. Adrienne had a horrible suspicion that they might be in the upstairs office, hidden inside the desk’s drawer or in the cabinet, but she was loath to pass the portraits again; the images had made her regret ever being curious about the Ashburn deaths.