Sara noticed the slender woman with narrow features, glance back at her as she waited at the door, while the man, Sara presumed was her husband, attempted to unlock it. Sara was about to hail, but the woman abruptly turned again when the front door opened. She didn’t have a pleasant face, but Sara wasn’t immediately put off by it. She stood for a few minutes and observed as one by one, pieces of furniture were being lifted into the house by the guys in overalls.
“New neighbors?” Rosie asked, behind her.
Sara jumped, as she hadn’t heard her granddaughter approach. “Yes!” Her hand flew to her chest.
“Sorry, I startled you, Nana,” Rosie said.
“No worries. I was nosying around a bit, you might say. Guess it serves me right.”
Wearing a pair of black slacks and a purple shirt, Rosie folded her arms and watched the scene across the road. The girl returned outside and hurried to the jeep where she retrieved a medium-sized package. She and Rosie made eye contact and the newcomer hailed. Rosie and Sara hailed back, before she went into the house again.
“She seems nice,” Rosie remarked.
“Yes, she does. Not so sure about the woman though,” Sara replied. “But it won’t stop me from being neighborly. I’ll just wait until they’re settled in before I go over and introduce myself. Wanna come?”
“Sure. I’m going to catch up on some homework. Call me when you’re ready.” She turned to leave.
“Homework, this early? You haven’t even had your breakfast yet!”
“I’m not hungry right now. Figured I’d get a head start so the rest of my day will be just for me.”
Sara smiled as Rosie disappeared into the house.
The woman exited the house again and looked straight across the street at Sara. Sara immediately raised her hand, and with a menacing stare, the woman shook her head slowly. It was clear to Sara that she didn’t want to be bothered by anyone and Sara was left to consider whether or not she was about to respect her wishes.
2
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Three hours after the new neighbors arrived, the doorbell rang.
Forty-five-year-old Cindy Morrison, wife and matriarch of the Morrison family opened the door. Standing on her porch was the woman she’d seen across the street and a young girl next to her boasting a cheerful smile.
“May I help you?” Cindy asked, bluntly.
“We didn’t mean to disturb you,” Sara started, “but we thought it only right to introduce ourselves and welcome you and your family to the neighborhood, since we live right across the street there. Folks around here are not intrusive; we kind of mind our own business, but I thought it would be nice to say hello.”
Quietly, the woman stared.
“My name is Sara Cullen and this is my granddaughter, Rosie. My daughter, Mira, lives with us as well, but she’s away for a few days, so you’ll get to meet her a little later on.”
“The name’s Morrison. I’m Cindy.” She sighed. “Look, Miss Cullen...I appreciate your efforts to be neighborly and all, but I’m really a private person and I’d prefer for my family and I to just be left alone. I hope you don’t mind, but this is the way we choose to live our lives.”
The smile melted from Rosie’s face. She couldn’t believe her ears.
“Well, um. I must say I’m pretty shocked to hear that,” Sara replied, “but in any event, we’ll be sure to respect your wishes. Just wanted to introduce ourselves and to let you know if you ever need anything, we’re right over there. Don’t hesitate to come by. The offer’s still open.” Sara was clearly taken aback by the woman’s brutal assertion. “Um...this is for you all.” She handed Cindy a basket of coconut tarts. “Made them just this morning. Hope you enjoy them.”
“Thank you,” Cindy responded, reluctant to accept the gift.
“Okay, then. Take care,” Sara said. She and Rosie quickly walked down the walkway. They couldn’t get home quickly enough.
“What a scrooge!” Rosie exclaimed as she slumped onto the sofa and reached for the TV remote.
“I’d say!” Sara sat next to her, “I must admit that I haven’t met anyone quite like her around here before. All of our neighbors are pretty sociable–at least to some degree, and that’s so important in this day and time because with so much foolishness going on, you never know when you’re gonna need each other. But Mrs. Morrison has made it clear that they don’t want to be bothered, so we must respect her wishes.”
“I’m all for respecting her wishes,” Rosie replied. “Who wants to be friendly with someone like her anyway? Reminds me of the Grinch.”
“Stop it!” Sara tapped Rosie’s knee. “That’s not a nice thing to say.”
“Who cares about being nice? Mrs. Morrison doesn’t. Why should I?”
Sara rolled her eyes. Rosie was getting feistier than ever, but she knew she couldn’t rightly blame the teenager because Mira was the exact same way at her age.
* * *
“Who was it at the door?” John Morrison asked his wife, after his shower. A white towel was wrapped around his waist, the edge of which was tucked at the side. John Morrison was six feet tall and carried about fifteen pounds of extra flab around his midsection. Despite that, he was strikingly handsome with dark features and brown eyes.
“Our neighbors across the street,” Cindy told him, staring out the front window; her arms folded.
“What did they want?”
“They came over to welcome us to the neighborhood and brought this.” She handed him the basket.
“Why didn’t you call us? I would’ve loved to meet them.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?” He grimaced.
“Have you forgotten why we moved here, John?” she asked. “It was for peace and solitude, and a new start.”
“Would us meeting our neighbors interfere with our new start, Cindy?”
“You know how I feel about our privacy.”
“That’s you, Cindy. Not me and not Ashley. You have to stop trying to control our lives. You’d be better off getting a grip on your own.”
As he turned to leave, their daughter was quickly making her way downstairs.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Your mother just chased off our new neighbors.” John was visibly annoyed.
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. They left a treat though. Smells delicious too. Taking it in the kitchen.”
Ashley hurried behind him.
Cindy turned again toward the window and stared directly across the street at the Cullen residence. Although she didn’t care for the strangers, she couldn’t help but admire their lawn and how well-kept it was. She was always a lover of beautiful landscapes and had seen many of them firsthand on her job as a realtor. Moving to Mizpah was a great opportunity for her to explore the market there and to hopefully sell even a fraction of the properties she did in Colonsboro, with all things considered. Mizpah was not as large as her hometown, but she’d done adequate research before they left and the real estate market was pretty healthy there as well. Setting up her own online real estate company in the city seemed like a smart move, and she was strapped with impressive credentials.
Cindy made her way over to the Fazioli piano in the corner of the large living room and sat on the cushioned seat. She remembered the day it was delivered to their former residence six years earlier. It was indeed the prettiest sight she’d ever seen. Playing the piano, even as a child, tended to relax her like nothing else could and as an adult, many times, it was her only reprieve from the stressors of life. As she gently pressed the keys and soothing music oozed out, a stream of thoughts flowed through Cindy’s mind. Some were of good times, then those of times she wished she could forget. But she knew if she played the melodies long enough and consistently enough through challenging times, she could eventually block out everything that proved itself mentally and emotionally venomous. And this new start in a new city was exactly what she needed–what they
all needed. Leaving life as they knew it was not an easy thing for any of them. John had requested a transfer from the Accounting firm he’d worked at for twelve years to their branch in Mizpah, and Ashley was uprooted from her school with only one more year left before graduation. Not to mention she now had to start from scratch to make new friends in an entirely new city. None of them really wanted the change, but deep inside Cindy knew they needed it.
Ashley looked at her father after biting into one of the tarts. “She’s stressed out again,” she said.
John didn’t immediately make eye contact, but sighed. “When isn’t she? I’m going upstairs to take a nap. It’s been a rough few days.”
Ashley cracked a smile.
“See you later.”
“Okay, dad.”
As John went upstairs, Ashley returned to the living room. She stood quietly out of her mother’s view, watching her play the piano. Cindy was clearly now entranced by the music as if each note had been painstakingly produced. It was evident in the way she swayed her head rather wildly from side to side. Ashley likened those movements of hers to a case of possession–completely consumed by something in the chords she could not see and had no desire in the slightest to.
3
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Leaving her mother to her passion, Ashley proceeded up the stairs to her bedroom. She sat on the bed near the window facing north, and looked down at the Cullens’ single storey house. She hoped the people there weren’t too put off by her mother as their last neighbors had been. She vaguely remembered ever playing for any reasonable length of time with any of the neighbor’s kids while growing up because her mother strictly forbade her “keeping company with strange people”. Ashley gave herself a proverbial pat on the back for the times she was able to sneak away and rebel against her mother’s wishes whenever she wasn’t at home. Those were the good days. It turned out she made some pretty decent friends because of it, whom she now freely communicated with and who she knew she could rely on—despite the fact that they were miles apart.
Her L-shaped computer desk had been pushed against the wall under the window, on the exterior of which stood a tall Paper Birch tree. She imagined the way she was now situated in that house would have been an ideal setting when she was growing up in Colonsboro. She thought of how easy it would’ve been for her to crawl out of her window, make a few steps across the roof and carefully climb down that tree and escape for a few hours with her friends to get in some secret party time. She got up off the bed and sat in front of her computer, then pulled out the top drawer to her right and retrieved a CD. She intended to download a few more songs to it from the internet since she didn’t get to complete the process. She’d been in the middle of transferring some music back in Colonsboro when her mother urged her to finalize her packing for the move. The journey to Mizpah was going to be a long drive.
As the blue bar slowly stretched across the screen while the first song she selected downloaded, Ashley heard an indistinct shuffle behind her and quickly turned around. Her bedroom was fourteen feet long by thirteen wide with white walls. Pink curtains were tucked neatly to each side of the windows by thin rope-straps. The tiny closet was on the opposite side of where she sat and its bifold door pushed outward, offering adequate view of the interior of the space. As Ashley heard the “ting” that indicated the completion of her download, her attention was shifted back toward the computer—until she could have sworn on her beloved Grandma Ellen’s grave she heard a subtle whisper of her name right on the nape of her neck. Ashley turned abruptly, then eased up from her chair. She could feel the hairs on her arm rise to attention as she stood there for a full ten seconds scanning the room. Again, by witness of the naked eye, she was utterly alone. Logic and reasoning prompted her that in light of that, she should not have heard the distinct whisper in her ear. The initial shuffling could possibly be explained by the activity of a large cockroach or rodent—maybe! But not the voice.
With her mother’s music still permeating the entire house, she exited the bedroom and headed down the narrow hallway to her parents’ room. A few boxes, filled with mostly her parents’ things, lined the side of the hallway as Cindy refused to bring them into their bedroom until she’d sorted out the two boxes that were already in there. Perfectly organized from stem to stern, clutter aggravated her to no end. In fact, the movers were not permitted to leave the house until they’d put each piece of furniture in its rightful place. Ashley and her father were amazed at how quickly they did so too, considering who was bossing them around. But then, that might make sense as the sooner they’d completed the job, the sooner they’d be able to get the hell out of there. The place had been cleaned from top to bottom by a professional cleaning company before the Morrisons made the trip down there. Cindy had ensured the job was properly overseen by the Manager of Andy’s Cleaning and Janitorial Services, whose cousin had purchased a prime piece of real estate in Colonsboro for a steal—all thanks to Cindy and her savvy maneuvering. Cindy won big, nevertheless, as the agreement set her up for an unusually high percentage of the sale. She told her client she could get the property at a lower price than was advertised and…so said, so done. She’d persuaded her colleague on the other end to convince the seller that facing foreclosure instead of taking less than what the land was worth would’ve been foolhardy. It took a while for them to see the light, but they eventually did, much to Cindy and her client’s satisfaction.
Approaching her parents’ room, Ashley gently pushed the door in and discovered her father stretched across the bed on his belly, fast asleep. In spite of the music playing, he was clearly undisturbed. In fact, usually after resting his sleepy head on his pillow, there was nothing that could keep him awake. Deep sleep often swept right over him like a tidal wave.
Ashley quietly pulled the room door shut again and turned to leave. She stood there for a moment, wondering if she’d somehow imagined the faint whisper she’d just minutes before could’ve sworn she’d heard and the breath of someone she’d even felt on her neck.
Maybe I’m just tired, she thought. Maybe I should be doing precisely what Dad’s doing right now. It must be the stress of the move and having had to leave everything that was familiar.
She stopped at the bathroom to wash her face before returning to her bedroom. In the back of her mind, she wondered how long her mother would be sitting there at the piano this time. Sometimes, it literally went on for hours, and no one was man or woman enough to disturb her loud solitude.
Ashley looked around the room again and this time walked over to the closet. She’d already hung all of her casual and church outfits there and had at least a dozen pairs of sneakers neatly lined across the closet floor. She had most colors she could think of—purple ones, yellow, black, white, red, blue, gray, pink. Her plan was to continue to replenish them every eighteen months and give away the old ones to a children’s home. A few slippers and closed-in shoes were seated in a row behind the sneakers. She didn’t care very much for those, although she did wear them from time to time. Ashley loved the sporty look. It sort of became her trademark ever since she was in seventh grade and became athletic. She was on the volleyball, basketball and track teams and had brought home numerous trophies, which had been stacked in a large box for the journey to Mizpah. That box was handled extra carefully as Cindy made sure of it. Ashley used to wonder why Cindy paid such close attention to detail even when it came to decorating their house. It wasn’t like they often had anyone come over even for a visit. She soon realized that nothing Cindy did was for anyone outside of her family. If she did anything which seemed even remotely charitable, there was a hidden benefit somewhere in that for Cindy.
Somewhat satisfied that she’d probably imagined the whole eerie thing several minutes earlier, Ashley returned to her computer desk again and proceeded to download the next song.
4
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The first night…
By 10:00 p.m., the Morrison house
was in complete darkness. Cool breeze sailed past Ashley’s curtains into her spacious bedroom; moments later, filling the room with a coldness which penetrated her deep sleep.
Instinctively, she turned from her side to her back, pulling the covers up to her neck, yet exhaustion kept her eyes shut and her mind still at rest. It wasn’t until she heard the whisper of her name again in her ear that her eyes suddenly popped open into blackness above and around her. It couldn’t be—not again! Could she be hearing things? Then she heard the voice again—a soft, feminine voice she did not recognize. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the closet. Immediately, she reached over to the nightstand and switched on the lamp. Sitting up in bed, she felt a chill blanketing her skin even more.
The Cornelius Saga Series Box Set 2 Page 20
