Her smile was tight. “Well, as long as you keep yourself safe. You’ll be back in a couple of days, right?”
“Two days. Promise.”
* * *
The turnoff to Rookward House was easier to find since the vegetation leading into it had been crushed. Guy didn’t feel safe driving over the gate while his pickup truck was weighed down with supplies, but he’d come prepared. He hopped out of the vehicle, grabbed the rope and hook from the passenger seat, and rounded the truck.
One end of the rope went through the gates, then Guy tied it around the rusted chain that linked them together. When the other end was securely fastened to his bumper, he put the truck in reverse and eased it back. The gates had been tangled by weeds, but they came loose when he applied pressure to the accelerator. He drove ten feet down the lane, the gates creating a horrific noise as they clanged against each other, then got out of the truck to untie them.
He struggled to drag the gates into the brush, where they wouldn’t trip up any other cars. If no one cleared them away, they would be enveloped by plants within a few months. Guy knew it was technically littering, but he liked the idea of leaving a monument from the house; the gates would have once been a feature of the street, admired by anyone who passed and teasing the style of house that had been hidden from the public’s sight. Now they would be allowed to sleep by the road, never again opening, no longer acting as sentry. They would simply rest.
It’s not like me to wax lyrical about a lump of metal. Guy climbed back into his pickup truck and turned it into the now-clear driveway. Maybe this place is getting to me. All of this untouched greenery is something an eighteenth-century poet would go crazy over.
The path was smoother since it had been forded once. Even with the back of the pickup truck packed high with supplies and tugging the balance off-centre, Guy kept up a quick pace. It only took ten minutes for the trees to thin, then Guy emerged into the clearing.
Rookward House commanded his attention like a king holding court. Except this king had fallen startlingly in his fifty-year exile. The few uncovered second-floor windows seemed to glare down at Guy, judging him, but most had been blinded by cataracts made of vines.
“Don’t look so hostile. I’m here to salvage you.” Guy was struck by how stupid his words sounded as soon as they left his mouth. Grateful that no one was around to have heard him, he eased the truck around the house, to the back door, where he thought he would have easier access to the building. The vines were lighter there, and he wouldn’t have to cut his way through the tangled front porch.
He reversed so that the truck’s tarpaulin-covered truck bed faced the back door, then he leapt out and stretched. He unhooked the tarp in one corner, where he’d collected key tools in a bucket. Buying the supplies and equipment to repair Rookward House had taken the lion’s share of his savings, and there was still more to get. He’d only packed what he knew he would definitely need. He was saving the rest of his money to cover whatever surprises the building had in store for him.
Guy put on a thick pair of work gloves then retrieved a hammer and a crowbar. As he approached the boarded-over back door, he had to fight to remove the last of the vines from the structure. Using the back of the hammer, he wiggled out as many nails as he could reach.
The boards were spongy with slow rot but stubborn. He had to alternate between worming nails out with the hammer and applying brute force with the crowbar to unfasten their hold on the frame. Several fractured and split, leaving half of themselves behind, but by the time Guy stepped back, sweaty and panting, he’d cleared a path to the door.
After all that, it had better not be locked. Residue from generations of vines had crusted the handle. Guy twisted it and grinned as it turned. The latch grated against the strike plate, sending up a mournful wail. Guy forced it open with his shoulder. A rush of stale air washed over him. It smelt like old paper, mould, and decay and held the sticky tang of rotting vegetation.
Inside was unexpectedly dark. The vines were effective at strangling out nearly every trace of sun, and Guy squinted to see into the room. A large, old-fashioned fridge opposite told him he was in the kitchen. Guy nudged the door open as far as it would go and stepped farther into the space to let the light in.
A chopping board and knife sat on the bench beside the sink. A dark, raised stain in the centre of the board made Guy think some kind of food had been left to rot on it. The knife still appeared sharp.
Outdated cups, cutlery, and saucers lay in a pile in the sink. They were all stained with muted brown and grey patches, and two of the plates were broken. Guy wondered if the plates had smashed when they were thrown into the sink or whether time had cracked them. One of the teacups held a smudge of red at its top. He leaned closer and recognised a lipstick smear.
A man’s coat in the family room, lipstick on the cup, and a swing in the front yard. A couple lived here, then. How many children did they have? And why did they leave so suddenly?
Guy tried to think back to whether there had been any war threats or natural disasters in the area during the sixties, but he couldn’t recall any. He supposed anything might have happened to force them out—a sudden illness, a forest fire, or a fatal car accident. It was a shame they hadn’t come back; it meant more work to clear out the old furniture.
Still—it’s a free house. Not like I can complain.
Guy put his hammer and crowbar on the bench and, tucking the gloves in his pocket, moved to the closest doorway. It opened into a dining room; a family-sized table took up much of the space. Six chairs surrounded it, with one of the chairs pulled out as though its owner had only just left the room. They were barely visible in the refracted light from the kitchen, but the wood shone, even with four decades of dust over it. The furniture was a good quality, though, and a bit of restorative work would make it sellable. Guy circled the table, opened the door at its end, and found a familiar tableau.
He’d stepped into the family room. The tattered coat swirled away from him as the door opened, and little dust eddies skittered over the floor in the light from the broken window. The vines had not only come through the opening, but also twisted over most of the wall. The floorboards bulged where water had warped them, and the mould was thicker and more widespread than Guy had first estimated. He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve then stepped back and shut the door again.
That’ll be a nightmare to fix up. Hopefully, there aren’t any other rooms like it.
The dining room’s second door led into a foyer. When he squinted, Guy thought he could see the front entry at its end. Low light came down the stairs that had been built into the hallway’s side, and multiple other doorways led deeper into the house. Guy paced along the crumbling runner towards the front door then stopped and turned towards the stairs. A low, grating creak came from the second floor as one of its doors drifted open.
Chapter Five
“Hello?”
As soon as Guy spoke, he felt foolish. Of course there wasn’t anyone in the house; a door must have been left open.
A tiny thorn of unease niggled at him. It’s a stubborn set of hinges to still be working after all of this time.
He shifted to face the staircase directly. Even though the upper floor held more light, he couldn’t see much from his angle.
I need to have a look around the second floor, anyway. He swallowed and trusted the first step with his weight. It flexed but held. Why not now?
The creak echoed through the house again, slower and seeming thoughtful. Guy rested his fingertips on the bannister. The dust was thick and tacky. The pictures hung on the wall, but they were impossible to make out through the gloom.
An upstairs window must have been left open to create a breeze. I can only hope it hasn’t let water in like in the family room.
Guy took another careful step. The sound around him was magnified, as though he were in an echo chamber. Each breath rang in his ears, and his pumping heart was like a drum.
Light and shadows played across the second floor’s white plaster ceiling. One of the shadows was moving, almost like…
Like a pacing figure. Guy stopped halfway up the stairs. Just a few more steps would let him see down the hall and find what was causing the shifting shadow, but the thorny anxiety told him he would be safer if he backed away.
You’re being ridiculous. The second floor was deathly silent. His leg felt like lead as he lifted it. You’re alone here. You’ve got to be. Right?
Another step, then another, and finally, he had a clear view of the hall. The space held only crumbling wallpaper and open doors. Guy released his tension in a laugh. The foolish feeling intensified.
The door creaked for a third time. The sound came from beyond where the hallway turned a corner, leading to the back of the house. Guy licked dry lips and flexed his shoulders before stepping forward.
The air was cleaner on the second floor, though the tang of organic decay still filled Guy’s nose and coated his tongue. The wallpaper was crumpling away in thick strips as moisture loosened its glue. Guy felt some of the wooden boards that lurked behind; they were rough to the touch, which meant they would need sanding, but had been made from a good wood. He thought it might be a feature of the home once the ugly off-white paper with brown stripes was removed.
Patches of the runner’s thread came out of its base as Guy’s boots scuffed over it. Parts appeared to have been consumed by moths. Dust rose with every step he took, and the particles hung in the air for a long time, stinging Guy’s eyes and nose.
He reached the end of the hallway and looked around the bend. The four doors down that section were all closed, and the lack of visibility was striking. A small amount of light struggled through the grime and vines covering the window at the end of the hall, but it wasn’t enough to dispel the heavy shadows. They seemed almost human as they clustered, hunched and resentful, in the corners.
If the doors are all closed, where did the noise come from?
Guy’s throat was painfully tight. He promised himself it was only from the dust’s irritation as he stepped towards the closest door and tried its handle. It was stuck tight, and he had to fight it to get it to open. Inside was a small homey room with walls painted a muted shade of yellow. A sewing machine occupied the only table, and swatches of fabric were pinned to a board nailed to the wall. Part of a gingham dress hung over the back of the chair. Guy picked it up and shook off some of the dust. It was small—a child’s dress.
So they had a daughter. How old was she? He held the dress up to the weak light. Four, maybe? Or five?
He replaced the dress and turned back to the hallway, only to find the door closed. Guy blinked. I didn’t hear it shut.
The bronze handle felt oddly cool as he twisted it. The hinges complained as it opened, and Guy, feeling as though he’d lost his balance, retreated to the hallway.
He left the door ajar and stepped back to watch it. Seconds ticked by. Guy’s palms itched, and he rubbed them against his jeans. The door didn’t even shift a millimetre. Pressure, hot and fierce, built in Guy’s chest, burning his insides.
Move, damn you. Show me you’re the culprit.
A pulse throbbed in his throat. The heat was growing unbearable, consuming him. His mind shut down. His vision fizzled into black.
He smashed his fist into the door. It slammed closed with a crash that reverberated through the building and seemed to hang in the air even after the echoes died away.
Flashes of white burst through the darkness consuming his vision. He bent over, hands clasped on his knees, and waited for the molten lava filling his insides to cool. It didn’t take long.
I thought I was better. Guy opened his eyes. His vision was distorted, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror, but it quickly resolved. He lifted his shaking hands. Damn it, Guy, what’s wrong with you?
He ran his palms over his face. His eyes stung, but he refused to let any tears escape, even as bitter memories tried to claw their way out of storage. Guy deliberately shut down that part of his mind, drew a quick breath into a too-tight chest, and forced himself to open the next door to give his mind a reprieve.
The space had fewer signs of habitation than the others. Depressions in the carpet suggested furniture had once filled the area, but only two closed crates and an open wardrobe remained.
Guy tried to visualise what the space might have been. The four indents in the carpet were too close together for a bed… unless it was a child’s bed. He blinked, and the room’s layout suddenly made sense. It had once belonged to a child—probably the girl whose incomplete dress lay in the sewing room, judging by the faded lavender tint to the curtains.
How come they packed up this room but not the others? Guy approached the wardrobe. A row of rusted coat hangers without clothes hung from the bar. He nudged one of the open doors. It creaked as it shifted. Looks like I found the source of the sounds, at least. Thank goodness not enough rain came through the window to damage the room—
The window was closed. Guy frowned and brushed back the curtains to check around the edges. Two dead flies decorated the sill, but the glass was jammed shut.
Then where did the breeze come from?
Guy chewed his lower lip as he stepped away from the window. He gave the wardrobe a final wary glare then tried to lock its door. The wood clicked home but drifted open again as soon as he removed his hand. Guy checked the latch and discovered its metal had been bent. He scanned the space then grabbed one of the closed crates and dragged it in front of the door.
Just in case.
The angle of the light coming through the windows told him the day was progressing quickly. It was easy to lose track of time in the cloistered, surreal house, and Guy was itching to start on his work. He retreated from the abandoned bedroom and tried the next two doors down the hallway. One led into a bathroom with grimy white-tiled walls and stains painted down the sink, toilet, and shower. The other opened into what might have been an office. It held only a wooden chair and empty table. Guy eyed the clear wooden floor. It might make a good place to sleep tonight.
His original plan had been to spend the night in the pickup truck’s tray, but that would mean being exposed to the weather and morning dew. A space inside the house would be much more comfortable, and the office didn’t have any rotted carpet or fabric furniture to clean out. It would be easy to set up his sleeping bag there.
Guy retraced the path around the bend in the hallway. He hadn’t explored inside any of the doors in the first section but left them for later. The niggling thorn of unease wouldn’t stop digging into him, and he was starving for the clean air of outside. He started down the stairs to the ground floor but stopped at the halfway point and turned. The echoes of a slow, low creak filled his ears. He stared up at the second floor, lips squeezed together, then continued backing down the stairs.
It wasn’t the wardrobe, then. I’ve missed another door somewhere in this house. Or maybe an animal found its way into the ceiling. Either way, I’ll deal with it later.
As he reached the foyer, Guy became acutely aware of how dim the lower rooms were. The house was starved of both light and oxygen. That gave him a purpose, at least: clearing the windows.
Guy wove his way back through the dining room and into the kitchen, where the open door offered freedom. A cool breeze brushed over him as he stepped outside. It felt like shedding a heavy, dusty winter cloak, and Guy was glad he wouldn’t have to return indoors immediately.
He unhooked the other corner of the pickup truck’s tarp and dug through his tools to find shears and a large basin. After tossing them onto the ground beside the kitchen’s window, Guy started the slow, arduous task of tearing the vines off the house.
Grime and dead insects rained over his head as he yanked at the plant. Sap bled out of the torn stems, staining the gloves and sending tiny sprinkles of the sticky syrup over his face and arms. And yet, despite the dirt, Guy found the work gratifying. Once he’d loosened their hold, t
he vines came off the building in large clumps. It was cathartic.
It took ten minutes to fill the tub, creating a cleared patch of wall a metre wide and two metres high. The vines had left a black rotting residue that stained the stones and glass. Guy could wash the windows, but he guessed the colour would never come out of the stones. He crossed his fingers that, once the whole house was cleared, the effect would be artistic rather than repulsive.
He grabbed one of the tub’s handles and began dragging it toward the woods’ edge. The clearing must have been larger at one time, but trees and shrubs had gradually filled in the space. The path became too crowded to manoeuvre the tub after forty feet, so Guy dumped the vines there and returned to the house.
Working along the wall sequentially would have taken days, so Guy focussed on finding windows. They weren’t always visible behind the plants, but it didn’t take too much guesswork to locate them—the vines always formed a little ridge around the sill and indented for the glass.
As he worked around the building, Guy peered through the windows, catching glimpses of rooms he hadn’t yet visited. He discovered a small library, its shelves mostly empty and its overstuffed couches sagging to the ground. Then a laundry with a small window set so high that he had to stretch to reach the top. Finally, near the front of the house, he began working on the vines over a large window, which he could only assume opened into the dining room. The patch covering the lower-left pane came away and revealed an odd grey shape pressed to the other side of the glass. Guy hadn’t taken a close look at the room, but he thought he remembered it being mostly clear of clutter. He kept tugging. A large swath of the vine broke off with a thick crackling noise, raining grime over Guy’s forearm and face. He blinked to clear away the grime. A woman stared at him through the window.
Chapter Six
The splayed fingers pressed to the glass were the only clear part of the stranger. They were greyed and strangely mottled, like a sea creature left in the sun for too long. From the fingers, a bare arm stretched away from the glass, growing less distinct until it faded into a blurry torso and face. Guy had the impression of thin lips, high cheekbones, and long hair, then the figure stepped back from the window, fading into the shadows like a ship in a sea of fog.
The Haunting of Rookward House Page 3