by Nic Sheff
I can’t stop.
The tears are hot down my face.
I cry into my dad’s sweatshirt.
I smell the smell of him.
The driver keeps on screaming behind us.
In my mind I see my mother lying there in front of me, her face blue and swollen—her eyes wide and red and bulging.
“It’s all right,” my dad says.
But I know that’s a lie.
It’s not all right.
It never will be again.
“I hate you,” I tell him.
And when he asks me, “What?” I tell him, “Never mind.”
It’s late afternoon by the time we reach the house.
The sun is low on the distant horizon and it is still very cold.
My dad gets out of the car and unlocks the big padlock on the wrought iron gates with keys the owner must’ve given him.
We drive, not saying anything, up the uneven gravel driveway. There is a canopy of live oaks hanging with Spanish moss. The wood is thick in all directions and green and shadowy. A shiver runs through me. The car skids and rattles. I see my dad’s hands, veined and tight on the steering wheel. A mass of black crows or ravens are perched on the branches overhead. I dig my nails into the palms of my hands.
The house appears in a clearing beyond a line of bare white beech trees.
It is huge and dark and looming. The windows are black. And I am chilled.
“People actually pay to stay here?” I ask my dad, breaking the silence so my own voice sounds strange to me.
He smiles.
“It’s not so bad.”
The driveway curves around the house in a circle so we drive around to the back door and park. My dad shuts the car off and we both just sit there for a minute staring out.
“It’s not for forever,” he tells me.
We get out of the car.
“I’ll show you around,” my dad says.
“I gotta call Steph,” I tell him. “They do have a phone here, don’t they?”
“Of course.”
I follow him up the crooked back stairs. He unlocks the door and steps inside. I grab hold of the screen and start in after him. But when my foot touches the threshold, something in my stomach turns cold and I stop. I look up at the uneven corners and mismatched, maniacal crossbeams and window frames and overhanging rooftops with dark wood shingles. There is no color anywhere. The whole house looks as if the life has been drained out of it.
And I don’t want to go in.
“Dad,” I say, faltering.
He turns and frowns.
“What?”
I search frantically in my mind for the right words.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I tell him.
He breathes out slowly.
“We’ve been over this. It’s just for a little while. I know you didn’t want to leave Johnstown.”
“No, it’s not that.”
He steps back over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s been a rough day,” he says. “I understand. Come on in and call your friend. I’ll show you around later.”
I glance up at the enormous house looking down on me. It seems to be . . . watching. But that’s just in my mind. And there’s no reason not to come inside.
I close my eyes and walk through the open door.
The walls seem to rush in around me. As if I’d stayed still and it was the house that had moved to bring me inside.
But I am inside.
And I am okay.
Behind me the door slams shut and I jump a little.
He laughs.
“There’s a phone in the kitchen. You’ll feel better once you talk to Stephanie.”
He pauses for a second before adding, “And, by the way, her mom said they might drive up for Thanksgiving. That’s just a few weeks away.”
I can see in his face how hard he’s trying and I almost want to give in—to feel sorry for him. But I tell myself again that this is all his fault. He has—I have—no one else to blame. Cocksucker.
He reaches out to give me a hug, but I just walk on by.
The phone is in the kitchen, mounted on the bright-colored wall. It’s actually a bright cheerful kitchen in general—which surprises me. There are hexagonal-shaped glasses in the cupboards. I drink water from the sink and fill a kettle with water and put it on to boil. There are boxes of tea next to the coffeemaker and plastic stirrers and sugar packets—I guess leftovers from the last guests who stayed here. I haven’t checked the refrigerator yet, but I’m sure there’s nothing much in it. My dad bangs in and out through the back door, unloading luggage and rearranging things.
I pick up the phone and dial.
It’s Steph’s mom, Lydia, who answers and I have to talk to her for a minute. I tell her about our trip—but leave out the dead guy underneath the pickup truck—before she finally puts Steph on.
Her voice is gentle sounding and familiar and I feel the pain of missing her in my chest—my heart beating faster.
“Is it terrible?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
I tell her about the house and the drive and the man getting hit and then I start to cry again.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’ll get better. It has to. And Mom says we’re gonna come for Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, I know. My dad just told me. That’ll be great.”
“I’m excited to see the house,” she says. “It sounds . . . creepy.”
“It is.”
I breathe in and out and tap my fingers on the counter and ask her, hesitating, “So . . . how’s Todd?”
“You mean Turd?”
“Yeah. Him.”
She hesitates, too, before speaking.
“He’s still in the hospital.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
Then she laughs and says, “The rumor around town is that you pushed him down those stairs.”
I laugh, too.
“I wish I had. Asshole had it coming.”
“You sure you didn’t?”
I laugh more.
“You know Sunday mornings Dad does his weird church thing at our house. That’s my alibi and I’m sticking to it.”
She breathes out then, as if in relief—as if she actually considered that I could’ve pushed my ex-boyfriend down the stairs, breaking both his goddamn legs in the process.
“Well, good,” she says.
“But if the town wants to believe I did it, that’s fine with me.”
“Speaking of people you’d like to push down the stairs,” she says, “how’s your dad doing?”
“The same,” I say.
And then the teakettle starts screaming loudly on the gas stove.
I go over and turn the kettle off and make a cup of black tea with sugar.
“Have you seen the town yet?” Steph asks.
“We drove through it. I’m gonna walk in later. Looks pretty Podunk. And it’s all shut down for the winter. Place is like a fuckin’ ghost town.”
“Alone with your dad in that big hotel all winter, huh?”
“Until you come visit.”
“He starts writing, ‘All work and no play makes Anselm a dull boy,’ on a typewriter over and over? You get the hell out of there.”
“It’s gonna be me writing that,” I say.
I sip the tea and burn my mouth.
“Ow, shit,” I say.
From out in the hall I hear my dad call out, “I heard that.”
I put my hand over the mouthpiece and yell back, “Sorry.”
Steph laughs.
“All right, well . . . on that note. Call me after you check out the town, okay?”
“Yeah, I will.”
And then I say, “You better come visit me soon.”
I hang up and sit drinking tea for a minute before my dad comes in.
“How is she?” he asks.
I get up and stretch and crack my neck.
“She’s fi
ne.”
“Good,” he says. “You ready to see your room, then? I picked it out special.”
“Yeah, all right, let me get my bag.”
“I already brought it up there.”
So I get up from the table and we walk together through the dark, complicated halls and passages. There seems to be no practical layout to the house at all. Bathrooms, parlors, living rooms, bedrooms—they are scattered haphazardly and lead strangely into one another. Some of the rooms have no windows at all. And some of the rooms have windows that only open out onto the main hallway. I guess that’s what happens when they try turning some landmark house into a maximum-occupancy, superexpensive boutique hotel.
We climb the thick, mahogany staircase with the dark wooden banister. The walls seem to be leaning in on one another, like the whole place is some kind of sinking ship.
“I think a crazy person built this house,” I say.
My dad smiles.
“That’s part of its charm. The owners decided to keep it like this so the guests could experience what it was like to live in a real old Gothic-style mansion.”
I look up at the triangular ceiling, which disappears into the shadows overhead.
“Were all Gothic mansions like this, then?” I ask.
“No, not necessarily. This house has a long and interesting history. I don’t think anyone knows all of it.”
We reach the third floor and turn down a long carpeted hallway with flowery wallpaper hung on either side. There are also some framed portraits—some of which, my dad says, actually belonged to the original family that built this place.
“Hey, that one looks like you,” my dad says.
It’s an oil painting of a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, with straight black hair, blue eyes, and pale, white skin. But she looks sickly somehow—like at the backs of her eyes—like there’s something inside her trying to get out.
She’s wearing a frilly white dress tight at the wrists. Her throat is tied with a bright red ribbon.
“I hope that’s not what I look like,” I say.
He laughs. “I’m just joking.”
To get to the room my dad’s decided is mine, we have to cut through a large, musty-smelling library, stacked high with leather-bound books.
“I’m gonna have to leave a trail of bread crumbs,” I say, “if I ever want to find my way back.”
He tells me I’ll get used to it.
Though I pray to God I never do.
He opens the door and I almost have to squint, the room is so bright and pink. There’s flowery wallpaper and a pink canopy bed hung with pink silk and pink curtains. The dresser is dark mahogany and so is the old-fashioned vanity.
“Well, what do you think?” my dad asks. “I figured it’d be perfect for my little girl.”
My first instinct is to burst into tears, but I fight that back and instead just start to laugh. It’s ridiculous, really—as if I were a little girl—as if I’ve ever worn anything pink or girly in my entire life.
My dad so clearly doesn’t know me at all—or won’t let himself know me. He only sees what he wants to see. It’s the same goddamn thing he did with my mom.
There’s no point fighting with him about it, so I go over to my suitcase on the bed and start to unpack, throwing shirts and jeans and sweaters into the dresser drawers.
“It’s great,” I tell him, with no conviction at all.
He opens the window wide and I feel the cold air coming in and smell the salt from the ocean.
“How close are we to the beach?” I ask.
He walks up behind me, taking my clothes out from the dresser and folding them neatly in a little pile.
“Just about half a mile. There’s a path behind the house. We should take a walk down there later.”
“Actually,” I tell him, watching his knotted hands touching my clothes, “I wanted to walk into the town and check it out myself.”
“Well, okay,” he says, after thinking for a minute. “But this isn’t a holiday, Jen. It’s gonna take a lot of work maintaining this house through the winter. I’ve written out a list of chores I need you to do every day. And I’m going to be teaching your lessons every morning.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I’m going to work. And I’m going to study. But I have to have some fun. Anyway, I can pick up groceries for us. There’s nothing in the house.”
He nods, still folding my goddamn clothes.
“Yes, that would be good. I’ll write you a list. This is going to be just what we need. I know it, Jen. This is really going to be perfect.”
He glances down, then, and sees a tank top I’d forgotten I left in my suitcase. His hands reach out and he takes it up quickly.
“What is this?” he asks.
I try to grab the shirt back from him, but he pulls away.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe it’s Stephanie’s.”
His face turns very red and he stuffs the tank top in his jacket pocket.
“Don’t lie to me,” he yells. “Where did you get it?”
“I don’t know. I’m telling you. I’ve never seen it before.”
There are tears in my eyes now and I feel a pressure building inside.
“It’s a sin to lie,” he yells.
I grit my teeth and stare hatefully at him—wishing more than anything that it could’ve been him—that he could’ve died instead of her.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks.
I stare and stare and wish him dead.
“This cannot go on like this,” he shouts. “This cannot go on.”
He grabs my bag from off the bed and dumps the contents out on the floor next to me. He sorts through them quickly, tossing them everywhere.
I stare hating him.
My teeth are clenched so tight my jaw aches.
I feel my heart pounding loud in my ears. There’s a knife cutting in through the muscles in my stomach. I crack my neck and try to breathe but my chest is constricted and I press the palm of my hand into the center of my hot forehead.
“Dad,” I say—trying to stay calm—speaking evenly. “Dad, that’s enough.”
He ignores me, of course. He goes on tearing through my things.
“Dad, stop it!” I yell.
I stomp my foot.
And then my dad cries out in pain. He clutches at his stomach and doubles over.
I turn to him, putting a hand on his back.
“Dad? What happened? Are you all right?”
I feel my hatred fading away.
He straightens, pushing me roughly.
“Hey!” I yell, falling back.
He gnashes his teeth.
“You’re grounded,” he says, spitting as he talks. “You’re not going anywhere!”
He storms out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Asshole!” I say, but not so he can hear.
I gather up my clothes from off the floor, feeling like I might cry. The pain in my head has mostly gone. There’s only the burning behind my eyes.
I go over to the window and look out at the surrounding forest. The sun is nearly set over the distant hills—the wind blowing in strong off the ocean.
For the first time I think that it really is very beautiful here—at least, outside of this goddamn house.
I watch as those same ravens land on the twisted branches of the trees below.
Squirrels chase one another across the grounds.
On the side of the house next to my window there is a white lattice built up almost to the roof, planted with crawling roses and rust-colored ivy. Who knows how long it’s been there or how stable it is?
At this point, I really don’t care.
In my suitcase there’s a side zipper where I hid a photograph of my mom.
She has her hair down and is smiling—holding what must be a three-or four-year-old me in her arms. In this photo, at least, she looks happy. And I do, too. We look happy together. I like to think of my mom like this—smi
ling, holding me, brushing my hair. I remember the smell of her—like floral soaps and laundry detergent. When Dad would go into his rages—or the opposite of rages, when he would brood quietly—my stomach would be twisted up and the pain would cut in and my mom would come and sit with me in my bed. She’d get me to straighten my body out—to straighten my legs and lie flat so my stomach would unclench. She’d tell me to breathe—deeply—in and out. She’d smooth back my hair from my forehead. I’d feel the warmth of her delicate hand.
Then she’d read to me as I fell asleep. She’d read me that book Eloise at the Plaza. For some reason, as a kid, that book would always make me feel better. So my mom would read that to me. And she’d kiss me good night. And she’d try to protect me from my father. Though I guess she was the one who needed protection.
There are tears in my eyes now. I wipe them away and go hide the picture beneath my pillow. I go over to the window, staring out at the lattice structure. But then there is a voice coming from the room behind me—a woman’s voice like my mother’s.
“Good-bye,” it says.
I turn and look.
But I don’t know why.
There can’t be anything there.
I make my way slowly down the side of the house—the wooden structure shaking beneath my weight.
It’s quiet outside except for the steady sound of the birds and crickets and the wind. I climb down into the tall grass and creep silently through the gray evening toward the stone garage.
A small cat appears underneath a tree that has initials carved in it, AMJG.
I crouch down and make a clicking noise and tap the ground with my hand, but the cat won’t come to me.
Instead, a snap of a tree branch makes the cat dart off into the forest. I look up suddenly, and that’s when I realize—someone else is watching.
CHAPTER 2
A figure, shadowed and dark but distinctly human, ducks behind the pitch pines grown close together at the edge of the clearing.
“Who’s there?” I say, like an idiot.
No one answers.
My teeth start to chatter and I pull on my heavy jacket.
From behind the trees I see a flash of red and white, like someone wearing a kind of rugby jersey, maybe—someone tall, well over six feet.
“Hey, wait!” I yell.
There’s the sound of wet leaves and pine needles underfoot and more branches snapping as the figure runs off through the forest.