by Amy Cross
“I'll do that fence right this time,” he whispers as his eyes slip shut. “Should've done it years ago.”
“I'm gonna go check something, okay?” I tell him, slipping my hand away from his. “I'll be back real soon, but I'm gonna go take a look at one little thing, so wait right here.” I turn to leave the room, before leaning back down and kissing him on the forehead. “I love you, Daddy.”
Once I'm out of the room, I lean back against the wall and try to pull myself together. Sitting with Daddy can be tough sometimes, especially when he thinks he's young again. He rambles on and on, and I get the impression that his mind is constantly flitting between today and the past, between sanity and the delirium caused by his body shutting down. Still, I should be used to it by now, so I sniff back the tears and tell myself to get a grip. Finally I pull my cardigan closed and button it so that I won't be too cold, and then I make my way through to the kitchen. Sure enough, Katie is still hard at work, loading the dishwasher again now that she's managed to get it empty.
“This thing'd better have a good warranty,” she mutters, “with all the use we're getting out of it.”
“He was talking about Wetherley House again,” I tell her.
She turns to me.
“He wants us to burn it,” I continue.
“He does, huh?” She pauses, before grabbing a box of dishwasher tablets from the counter. “Seems drastic.”
“He's very insistent,” I continue. “I don't know what's wrong, but he was rambling on and on about all the stories. You know the ones.”
“Evil Mary? Evil Mary, something like that?”
I nod.
“He's losing his mind, Hannah,” she points out, leaning down and setting the dishwasher on. “I know you don't want to admit it, but it's true. He's drifting through his own mind, remembering things and imagining things and losing touch with reality.”
“But when he talks about Wetherley House,” I continue, “those are the moments when he seems most lucid.”
“And you're an expert, are you?”
“You've never been to that place, have you?” I ask, heading to the window and looking out across London. From high up here on the fifteenth floor of the tower block, I can see the city's lights sparkling all around, and I watch for a moment as a train snakes its way toward Southfields station.
Suddenly Katie reaches past me and sets something on the windowsill. Looking down, I see an old, slightly rusty key.
“What's that?” I ask.
“What do you think? It's the key to the front door of Wetherley House.”
I turn to her.
“I think it's the only one, too.”
“Where did you get it from?”
She smiles. “Dad's boxes.”
“He always guarded this so carefully,” I point out, picking the key up and turning it over in my hands. “You know, I looked the house up in some library books once, and I found a few mentions of Wetherley House. There are plenty of stories about the place.”
“What's her name again? The woman who's supposed to haunt the place? Mary Carmichael?”
“She was real.”
“Sure, but the story will have been completely exaggerated.”
“I hope so.”
“We can always go and take a look,” she replies. “After -”
She pauses, and I know what she was about to say.
“You know what I mean,” she continues. “I'm just saying, if -”
Before she can finish, the alarm on the counter starts screeching, indicating that Daddy's monitors have detected a problem. Katie and I exchange a worried glance before both running through to the hallway and through to his room. In the process, I drop the key, but I don't go back to pick it up.
“Daddy?” I call out, tripping and almost falling as I follow Katie into the bedroom. “Are you okay?”
“He's not breathing!” Katie yells as soon as she reaches the bed.
“Call the doctor!” I scream, racing over and seeing that Daddy is completely still. His eyes are wide open, staring up at the ceiling, and his mouth is hanging loose, but I check the side of his neck and there's no pulse. Looking over at the monitors, I see that the main screen is showing a flat-line.
“Jesus Christ,” Katie mutters as she runs around to the other side of the bed, “don't do this to me now, old man. Do not do this!”
“Daddy, stay with us!” I shout, leaning toward him and kissing his cheek as tears roll down my face. The alarm is still sounding, filling the room with such a loud screeching noise that I feel as if my bones are shaking. “Daddy, do you hear me? Daddy, you have to stay with us!”
Hannah
“You do it.”
“No, you do it.”
She sighs. “Hannah -”
“I'm not the one who wanted to come here in the first place!”
“You're the one holding the key.”
I hold the key out to her.
“What are you so afraid of?” she asks. “It's just a house.”
“Then you open the door,” I reply, “and -”
Suddenly I turn and look back toward the dark country lane that runs past the house.
“I swear I saw someone out there when we arrived,” I continue.
“Another ghost?”
“No, I think it was a man, standing in the shadows. I think he was smoking a cigarette.”
“This is the countryside,” she replies. “People are weird in the countryside. I'm sure he wasn't a ghost. He was probably just some passing perv.”
“Just standing around like that?”
She sighs again, before taking the key and sliding it into the lock. She has to jiggle it about a little, but finally she manages to get it turned, and then she pushes the door open. Immediately, we both step back as we smell a strong, fusty stench coming from the hallway.
“Is that what ghosts smell like?” Katie asks, waving the smell away. “This place stinks!”
I open my mouth to reply, but suddenly I feel a shudder pass through my chest. I really, really don't want to set foot inside Wetherley House, and I'm thinking more and more that this whole trip was a huge mistake. I only came because Katie kept saying I was scared and I wanted to prove her wrong, but now that I'm here on the doorstep, I have to admit that I am scared.
“I saw her once,” Daddy's voice says, echoing in my thoughts. “I went to the gate, shortly after I inherited the place. I was going to go into the house, but then I saw her at one of the windows and I didn't dare. I stared at her, and she stared back at me, and I walked away.”
Looking back at the gate, I realize he must have meant one of the windows at the front of the house. I look at each of the windows in turn, but there's definitely no sign of any creepy, spectral figures. Daddy was a no-nonsense kind of guy, and it's hard to believe that even in his worst moments he could have imagined such a terrible thing, but I guess I have to stay focused and remember that there's no such thing as ghosts.
The legend of Mary Carmichael simply can't be true. And Wetherley House is just an empty house. Nothing more.
***
“It's like shabby chic,” Katie mutters as she runs a hand across the kitchen counter, “without the chic.”
“Don't you think there's a weird atmosphere here?” I ask.
“I'm pretty sure that's mold.”
“No, I mean...”
Sighing, I realize I can't put it into words. Still, as I turn and look around the kitchen, I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched. Or rather, not watched exactly, more that something here is aware of our presence. I guess I just built myself up into a lather on the way here, and when I turn back to Katie I see that she's grinning at me.
“What?” I ask.
Laughing, she shakes her head.
“What?”
“You actually look pale,” she replies. “Do you realize that? It's like the color has actually drained from your face. Let me guess, you've read the ghost stories about this place a hundr
ed times, maybe even more.”
“I have not!”
“Then what's this?”
Reaching into her pocket, she takes out the grubby, tattered copy of J.R. Gayle's 100 Haunted British Houses that I thought I'd lost.
“That was just for fun,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah?” She starts flicking through, before stopping near the middle. “Wetherley House in Somerset -”
“You don't have to read it out,” I say with a sigh.
“Because you know it off-by-heart?”
“Because you obviously can't take the idea seriously.”
“This Mary woman sounds really crazy,” she continues, turning to the next page. “According to Mr. Gayle, people have heard her screaming inside the house. Like, people have been passing on the road outside, and they've heard actual screams coming from the place. A couple of times the cops were even called out, but they never found any trace that anyone had broken in. Apparently Mary Carmichael didn't take too kindly to being left all alone here. They say she was completely insane by the time she died.”
She turns to another page.
“I've got to admit, it's a slightly more convincing ghost story that some of the others in here. A young woman is tortured and brutalized by her mother, and then dies after attacking a police officer. The mother hangs, and the young woman's ghost haunts the house forevermore, roaming from room to room and never -”
Suddenly a loud, heavy bump rings out from upstairs, followed almost immediately by a second. I look straight at the ceiling and then over to Katie, and I immediately see a grin on her lips.
“Right on cue,” she points out, setting the book down.
“Can we stay somewhere else tonight?” I ask. “I think there's a pub in town, they probably have rooms.”
“Aren't you going to go and look?”
“We could get pub food. You like pub food.”
“It was probably just a mouse or something.”
“I bet they have steaks.”
“Or the ghost of Mary Carmichael.”
Grinning, she steps closer. I know she's trying to wind me up, but I also know that it'll probably work.
“Think how long she's been waiting for fresh victims,” she continues, stopping right in front of me. “All those years, just drifting from room to room, looking out the windows and waiting for someone to open that squeaky garden gate. Do you think ghosts get bored when they're haunting empty houses? Or do you think they're kept busy by thoughts of revenge? Maybe Mary never lost faith, maybe she always knew that eventually some fool would enter the house again. She was insane when she died, remember. Out of her mind, slathering, almost an animal. So I guess her ghost is insane too. She's been so patient. It'd be a shame if she didn't get her reward.”
I wait for her to continue, but now she's simply staring into my eyes, and her smile has faded.
“Oh, look at you!” she laughs suddenly, tapping the side of my face with the book, which she then thrusts into my hands. “Go up and take a look around. See for yourself that there's nothing here.”
***
I start making my way up the stairs, and I feel my chest tighten a tad with each step. I feel the cold air, too, and I make a mental note to turn the radiators up later. The stairs creak a little beneath my feet, and the railing wobbles slightly as I hold tight to steady myself, but I force myself to keep going until eventually I reach the top. Looking along the landing, I see the wallpaper pattern fading into the dark distance, and I can just about make out one perfectly square window at the far end. Darkness has begun to fall outside, and there's a very faint pattern of tree branches casting their dancing shadow against the window's glass. Other than that, however, the scene is entirely quiet and still.
I can hear something, though.
A kind of scratching, rustling noise.
My first instinct is to call Katie and get her to come up with me, but I know I'd just end up being mocked. Better to show her that I'm not a complete mouse, I suppose.
Stepping forward, I reach down and touch the nearest radiator, finding it to be completely cold. I try to turn the valve, only to find that it's already on maximum, which I suppose means there must be something wrong with the radiator itself.
Great.
Cold and gloomy. Welcome to Wetherley House. I'm starting to understand why Daddy left the place empty all these years.
Reaching out, I press the switch on the wall, and the main light flickers to life above me. Now the landing feels less threatening, and I'm already a little relieved. In fact, the knot in my chest has begun to ease and I'm starting to think Katie will be somewhat justified when I get back downstairs and she mocks me for being so easily freaked out. I should go down right now and get it over with, but instead I linger on the landing for a moment longer, looking at the various closed doors and still hearing a very faint scratching sound that's so low, it almost isn't there at all.
But it is there.
I think.
I mean, I'm sure.
I think I am.
Whatever it is, though, it's quieter than the sound of my own breath.
Making my way over to the nearest door, I immediately realize that this is not the source of the noise. I head to the next door, but the sound seems not to be coming from there either. Checking more doors one by one, I have no better luck, until finally I reach the door at the farthest end of the landing. Turning slightly, I place my ear almost against the wood, and now I can tell with absolute certainty that something is indeed scratching on the other side.
Directly on the other side, in fact.
It's as if, as I listen, fingers are just inches away inside the room, scratching on the door as if somebody is trying to get out.
I lean closer, until my ear is pressed against the wood.
The scratching sound continues, and now I can tell that it definitely sounds like several small fingers trying to dig through the wood.
“Go on, pussycat,” I hear Katie's voice saying. “Run.”
I want to turn back, but I refuse to give my sister that satisfaction.
Keeping my ear against the door, I reach down and touch the door handle, holding it for a moment before slowly starting to turn it so that I can push it open.
As soon as the handle lets out a faint click, the scratching sound stops.
A moment later, I realize I've inadvertently begun to hold my breath, so I turn the handle all the way and then slowly push the door open a crack until I can see through to the gloomy room, where an old bed stands stripped and bare. I don't dare open the door all the way, not yet, but I already feel the icy air from the other side, and I take a moment to listen to the silence and reassure myself that the scratching has stopped. I suppose we might well have termites in the house, or the pressure in the room might have been disturbed in some way I don't really understand, or -
Suddenly the handle is snatched from my grasp and the door swings open with such force that it lets out a loud bump as it hits the wall. Startled, I stare straight ahead into the room, but I see nothing and no-one ahead of me.
Just the room.
The room with the bay windows.
This must be the master bedroom. Or at least it was, back when the house was in use. Stepping into the room, I pick up an old, dirty glass from the nightstand and hold it to the light so that I can see the smudged fingerprints and lip marks. Whoever used this glass and left it behind, they must have lived here eight decades ago, and it's hard to believe that any traces could still remain. Making my cautiously across the room, I can't help looking more closely at the glass, squinting as I try to make out the smudged marks. One of them is definitely a fingerprint, or part of a fingerprint, and I suppose -
Suddenly, I see a pair of eyes staring at me from the other side of the glass.
Startled, I take a step back and lower the glass, but now I see only the gloomy room and the open doorway that leads onto the lit landing. I look around, finding myself quite alone, but I know that I s
aw two eyes a moment ago, and I know they were real because I saw them blink. They were old eyes, and I think they belonged to a woman.
I hold the glass up again, but this time I see nothing untoward and a moment later I lower the glass and place it back on the bedside table. Heading over to the window, I open the curtains and look out at the lawn. I don't really want to turn my back on the room, but I tell myself that I need to prove to myself that there's nothing here. Besides, the view from up here is quite beautiful, and I definitely want to go and take a long walk in the garden tomorrow, and maybe explore the forest at the far end. As I watch the evening light catching the tops of the trees, I tell myself that this house isn't really so bad, and finally I turn and look back across the room.
Of course there's no sign of anyone.
Swallowing hard, I tell myself that once again I'm letting my fears get the better of me.
I'm not an idiot and, despite what Katie might say from time to time, I'm not some timid little mouse either. In fact, I'm sick of being painted as the weak one in the family, and I'm starting to realize that it's time for me to show some strength of character. Heading back across the room, I step out onto the landing and reach back to pull the door shut, before deciding at the last moment that perhaps it should be left open slightly. After all, a house needs its air to circulate, doesn't it? Otherwise even the dust remains still. Pulling the door half shut, I step back and look through the crack, seeing the empty bed again. There's nothing in there and I don't need to be scared, and I'm not going to let this house get to me.
Taking a deep breath, I head along the landing, pushing each of the doors open along the way. When I get to the top of the stairs I reach out to switch the light off, before deciding to leave it on instead.
“That was a whole lot of nothing,” I call out to Katie as I head down to find her. “I've left the door to the rooms open, just to air them out a little. We need to get someone to look at the radiators tomorrow, 'cause they don't seem to be doing anything at all.”
Reaching the door to the front room, I smile as I see that she's sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, but then my smile fades as I realize that she's staring this way with a horrified, shocked expression.
