by Eve Evans
Chapter 2
Emily
With every step up the stairs the wood had let out an audible creaking noise. Emily ran her hand along the railing feeling the surface of the wood that had been worn smooth from age. As she climbed higher, the walls closed in around her the amplifying the noise making it appear louder than before.
After a few more steps up, a hallway came into view. It was darker up here and she could only see a solitary door on either side of the passage. The upper floor was silent, Emily couldn't even hear Joy moving around the level below her. Behind her one of the stairs let out a creak as if someone had put their weight on it. She turned around to glance down the stairs only to see them vacant. Just the house settling. It's old and we're bound to hear a noise or two during the time we're here.
The air up here was heavier and carried with it the scent of aged wood almost like she was standing in the loft of an ancient barn. There hadn’t been a lot of open floor on the landing making the space feel cramped even with just her standing there. So far everything about this house seemed to be designed for a person to be uncomfortable.
With only ambient light to see by, Emily strained to see through the dense shadows that enveloped the rest of the hall. With this in mind she decided to begin with the door closest to her. She moved up to the door on the right side of the hall and tried its handle. Like the front door, it moved without resistance and the door slid open.
Emily tentatively eased into the dark space edging towards the dim outline of light that seeped around the edges of the window. She probed the area in front of her with a hand swinging it back and forth as she cautiously moved further into the bedroom. As she reached the window Emily took hold of the curtains and drew them open. The windows were coated with dust, but enough light was let in to reveal the contents of the room. The room was small and except for an old wooden bedframe that appeared to be only large enough for a child the room is empty. Her gaze scanned the room and she noticed even the walls bared no adornments. There wasn’t even a dresser or a closet to store clothes. It is more like a wooden cell than a bedroom, Emily thought to herself with a slight shudder.
Leaving, Emily left the shades drawn and the door open to bring allow her to see better. Across the hall she found a similar room lacking any personal touches and even the most basic of furniture.
From down the hall she heard the sound of the stairs squeaking and something smacking into one of the walls followed by a loud thud on the floor of the landing. Curious as to what it was, she glanced around the door frame hesitantly only to see two suitcases on the ground and the back of James' head descending the stairs.
Emily cupped her hand to her mouth to call after him. "Thank you!"
She watched him raise his hand in acknowledgement before bobbing out of view. Well, now I've just got to find a place to put them.
Undeterred by the two rooms Emily began going door to door looking for a suitable place to call her own for the foreseeable future. With every failure her optimism waned a little further. She'd already checked eight rooms and none of them had anything but the bedframe in them. With only four more rooms to go it appeared like she would have to just make the best of one of the spartan rooms she'd already seen.
She opened the next door expecting to see much of the same. The room itself contained the same small bedframe as every other room but her attention was immediately deterred by something else, an aged desk sitting against the next to the window. This was what she had been looking for, truly it was the whole reason she'd come here in the first place. She’d needed a place to write and this home was to be her inspiration, a way to break through the dam that had been constructed in her mind, a way to silence the doubters.
When Emily first understood that she wanted to be a writer the seed of an idea was something that she barely had to nurture. Even the smallest ideas would take on a life of their own and flourish. It had been like a bottomless well that she could dip into any time she wanted. There had been so many ideas it would have been impossible for her to write them all.
This led to her publishing her first book Without Sleep. Only months after that her follow up book If You Tell hit shelves and within months became a New York Times Best Seller. She was considered one of the up-and-coming horror writers. Critics and fans alike praised her works and were anxious to see what she would come up with next.
For the past three years her mind had been a breeding ground for cobwebs and dead-end ideas. It wasn't as if the well had gone dry, it was worse than that. Emily seemed to have lost the well entirely. That part of her mind seemed shut off to her now and the pressure of a new release were mounting.
Sure, the Insta-followers with their constant questions of "When's the next one coming out?" or "Are you going to write another one?" seemed to build in quantity and frequency on a daily basis. Emily had found it somewhat simple to ignore the mounting questions as well as the weekly calls from her publisher as well. Those had all become easy to ignore. However, the comments that referred to her as a “passing fancy” or a “two-hit wonder” those she took personally. These criticisms shook her to her core, scolding her talent like smoldering blades. Emily wanted to prove to herself that she hadn't just gotten lucky with her first two books, that she could actually do this as a career.
She'd tried everything she could think of, even going to a shrink but nothing seemed to help. Emily was about to give up when her friend Joy had suggested that she try getting away, somewhere that she could just focus on the written word. Emily hadn't been completely convinced this would work, after all Joy, a fellow author and best friend, wrote about historic locations. Joy could go pretty much anywhere and find a story, whereas Emily relied on her imagination.
Without any better ideas though, Emily had agreed and had jumped in with both feet. Sure, this place was abandoned, run down, and more than a little creepy but that is the exact type of place that Emily wrote about. She needed this opportunity for inspiration almost as much as she needed air to breathe. It was an opportunity to immerse herself in a building right out of the pages of the story she wanted to write. So, she was determined to make the best of the prospect because if not she didn't know what she would do after this. Writing had always been Plan A, B and C. Not writing would be like losing her hands, she'd be incomplete.
Almost like she was in a trance Emily walked across the floor to the desk. It was a dark red, if the light hadn't been on it the color would have looked black. The surface although smooth was not a perfect rectangle. The front and back edges waved like someone had left the natural shape of the tree. The legs were simple and without ornamentation, but they didn't detract from the overall beauty of the desk. It was an extraordinary example of craftsmanship.
Emily sat down in the chair and rubbed the top surface. The surface was impossibly smooth almost as if it were made of glass rather than wood. There was history here. She could feel it, memories had been infused into the very materials that surrounded her. What dreams did the people have when they stared through this very window out into the world beyond it? Emily closed her eyes and tried to see back into to the past.
An idea stirred in the back of her mind; it was barely a whisper, but it was there. It took her so much by surprise she let out a little gasp. It felt like seeing an old friend after a long absence. I need my paper and pen. I have to get started before it's gone.
Emily got up and half-jogged down the hallway to where James had left her suitcases. Grabbing the handles, she rolled them back to the bedroom bouncing along the floor in her haste. The larger of the two bags held her clothes, it was the smaller one of the two that she cared about at this very moment. She heaved it up on the bedframe and fumbled at the zipper, adrenaline making her hands clumsy.
Finally, she was able to grab hold of the tab and jerked it sideways. The zipper snagged on a piece of fabric as it tried to turn the corner bringing it to an abrupt halt. Emily yanked the piece of metal attempting to force it past the obstruction, but it s
eemed to only make it worse.
"Come on you piece of junk!" she yelled losing her patience, slapping at the bag in nearly resigned frustration.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth trying to calm herself. A little steadier now she backed the zipper up allowing it to move freely once more. Slowly this time she undid the top flap on the suitcase revealing several journals in which she wrote all of her stories and a worn silver pen, the same pen she had written her first two novels with. It was her good luck charm, even if it had failed her recently.
To her surprise the slight hiccup with opening the suitcase hadn't allowed the idea to dissipate in her mind. In fact, it has grown more solid, expanded even in plot and characters. Emily lifted out one of the identical books from the stack but held her hand in place in a moment of hesitation before taking her pen. Fear and doubt bubbled up from her belly and burnt into her chest. She softly shuddered as if shedding the layer of self-doubt, I can do this. I know it.
Emily drew the pen from the sleeve that held it in place feeling the familiar weight of it. She knew it was time to find out if she was a writer or an author. To her a writer simply put ink on paper, an author had an intimate relationship with the words she used. The pen wasn't the tool authors used to create with, the words were the instrument. When used correctly they could paint pictures no human eye had ever seen before. They created worlds that people would beg and plead to get lost in.
Emily sat at the desk pen in hand ready to begin. Against the dark wood of the desk the paper looked impossibly white, almost as if it were glowing. The prospect of filling a single page seemed daunting yet alone hundreds of them.
As soon as the pen touched the paper Emily was startled by James' voice. "Hey Emily!" She scrawled a jagged line down the center of the first page before the pen clatters to the floor between her feet. "Just wanted you to know that all our stuff is inside. Joy and I are going to get our rooms set up."
When Emily turned and seared a look at him, James held up both hands in defense and took a couple steps back. "Uh, sorry about that. I just wanted to..."
Emily stood and walked to him a tight smile upon her face. Reaching up she placed her finger on his forehead pushing him out the door. "Out." The word came out like a breath.
Closing the door, she returned to the desk and looked at the zigzagging line across the first page. She scowled in annoyance, not a good way to start a book.
Emily bent down to find her pen that had dropped when James had snuck up on her. She ran her eyes across the surface of the floor searching for the misplaced writing instrument but could not find it anywhere. "Where did you go?" As if talking to the inanimate object would make it somehow appear.
Emily crawled under the desk thinking she must have kicked it when she stood up. Emily froze in place as a metallic clink came from right above her head. Cautiously, she scootched back and rose up on her knees so she could see atop the desk. Sitting next to the open journal sat her missing pen.
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From the time I was first published to current, (2021) I’ve learned so much about life and my journey into the paranormal.
I started this journey a few years ago after living in multiple haunted houses. However, it was one house in particular that chewed me up and spit me out you could say.
After residing in that house I wanted answers… needed them. So I began my journey of interviewing multiple people who too have been haunted. Any occuptaion, you name it, I’ve interviewed them.
What did I learn from my journey so far? I’m honestly not sure if I will ever get the answers I truly desire in this lifetime. However, I am determined not to stop anytime soon. I will keep plugging along, interviewing and ghost hunting. I am determined to find as many answers as I can in this lifetime before it too is my turn to be nothing but a ghost.
I have several books coming out this year and I am very well known for my “real ghost story anthologies”, however, these will be mostly fictional haunted house books as I wanted to give myself a new challenge.
If you’d like to read one of my anthologies my reccomedation to start would be: True Ghost Stories of First Responders. In this book I interview police, firemen, 911 dispatchers and more. They share with me some of their creepiest calls that could possibly even be deemed “ghostly.”
Also this year I am hoping to get my paranormal memoir out. I want to share my story and journey with everyone. Until then, just know that if you are terrified in your home or thinking you are going crazy with unexplained occurances, you ARE NOT alone. I thought I was going crazy too. But I wasn’t.
If you’d like someone to talk to about what is going on in your home but don’t know who to turn to, feel free to message me on Instagram or on Facebook.
Forever Haunted Podcast
The Ghosts That Haunt Me with Eve Evans Podcast
A Truly Haunted Podcast
Follow Eve S. Evans on instagram @eves.evansauthor