Shaking my head, I busied myself packing my shoulder bag. I already had everything I needed but the process of unpacking and packing was not only cathartic but it did wonders to settle my nerves. A few minutes later I was leaving the house, after sending a quick text to Adele to tell her I was on my way, and locking the door behind me.
The evening air was cool and crisp and as I pulled my coat tighter around my frame, wishing I’d had the foresight to wear something a little warmer, I breathed it all in. Just over a month ago I never would have been able to appreciate the beauty of a twilight like this. The lamps were just beginning to flick on, illuminating the terraced houses as I walked past. I peered into gardens and saw benches and gnomes, flowers and even the occasional bird table. Some were littered with rubbish or overgrown and though it was in juxtaposition with the neat trimmed lawns, it was life. I realised something in that moment: life was never easy. There was always stuff to clutter and threaten to take over everything you knew and understood, the way alcohol had overtaken mine. But it could always be reclaimed. With a little love and tenderness, the beauty would always shine right through.
Smiling, I walked on and suddenly the world was a little bit brighter despite the falling dusk.
Adele’s house wasn’t far away and though I had never been before, I was confident I could find it. Having lived in the small town my whole life, I got to see much of it. A lot of it was through a drunken haze but somehow my mind still remembered. My feet marched the pavement, the soft thud of my trainers the only sound around me. I kept on walking until I reached the little house at the end of the street. It was pretty and dainty. Adele had kept her garden nice with a rose tree blossoming in the centre of the lawn.
For a moment, I paused at the bottom of the driveway, staring at the two-storey house. When I was under the influence, my life a constant party, I never thought about where I was going or who I was with, now it was the first thing that came to mind. I had to re-learn to trust my instincts and for some reason, every part of me was practically insisting I turn around and head home now. I bit my lip and took a breath, shaking it off. It was stupid to feel like that. Adele was my friend and I was going in there for tea.
Urging my feet onwards, I passed the gate and strode right up to the front door, giving three quick knocks with my knuckles before I even let myself look up, scared I might back out.
I heard Adele shouting at her kids then the thump of feet on floor. She was on her way to the door. I sucked in a deep breath pushing it all the way to my stomach. I needed to calm down. It had been a long time since I felt this anxious.
A shadow moved behind the blurred glass pane and then the door was opened and Adele stood there in joggers and slippers, her hair was pushed back behind her ears and a harassed look on her face. “Come on in,” she ushered me in, shutting and locking the door behind her. “I apologise but dinner is almost ready. Do you want to come to the kitchen?”
“Sure.” I nodded, pushing on a smile as I followed her through to the back of the house. Everything about this place felt wrong. Every part of the house called out to me, in dark whispered words of vengeance and death. I shuddered as I stopped in the kitchen, leaning heavily against the kitchen table.
“Are you okay?” Adele asked, giving me a brief glance.
I nodded hurriedly and pushed on that fake smile again but everything was not okay. There was something dark in this house. I had planned to wait until after dinner to tell her everything but it might have come quicker if I couldn’t control the overwhelming pressure on me, pushing me down by the shoulders, a heavy weight threatening to crush me.
“I made lasagne, I hope that’s okay,” she told me as she pulled on her oven gloves. “It’s the boys’ favourite.”
“I love lasagne, thanks.” I nodded, taking a gulp of the garlic-flavoured air. I had to focus on her, on anything but the darkness.
“Boys!” she yelled, her voice carrying through the house.
Upstairs, I heard thumping and then two sets of feet rushing down the stairs like there was no tomorrow.
“They are like a heard of elephants,” Adele carried on talking to herself, rolling her eyes and dishing the food up.
Two boys came racing into the kitchen, almost bumping into me and then skirting out of the way just in time. They came to a stop halfway up the kitchen, eyeing their mum and then looking at me. I was struck with the realisation that perhaps Adele had forgotten to tell her sons I was coming for dinner.
“Hey, I’m Peyton,” I introduced myself.
The two boys looked at me with wide eyes and pale faces, rabbits caught in a headlight.
“Boys. Be nice!” Adele scolded. “You invited her, remember? Peyton this is Peter and John.” I glanced from one to the other and in that moment I felt like I was having double vision. They looked exactly alike.
“Hi, Peyton,” they mumbled together. Then they both turned away, lunged for their plates on the bench and grabbed them, running through the kitchen.
“You will eat at this table!” Adele shouted after the pounding of feet on the stairs. Then rolling her eyes, turned to me. “It’s like they have an automatic rebel button.”
I laughed. “Repel more like. Not sure they’ve taken to me.”
Adele waved her hand as she plated up the last of the pasta. “Don’t let that phase you. They did ask for me to bring you home. I talk about you quite a lot you know.” She smiled. “They’re quite shy to begin with. That’s the nice time. When they get to know you, be prepared.”
I grinned. “How do you tell the difference between them? They look so alike.”
“I don’t,” she told me as she set the plates on the table, gesturing for me to take a seat. “That’s why I call them both at once.”
Laughing, I sat down. “You’re wicked.”
“I know.” She wiggled her eyebrows and took a seat beside me.
“Thank you for this,” I told her. “It was nice coming around. I’ve had a bad day.”
“Cravings?”
I nodded. “Real bad. I don’t think my house has ever shone so much.”
“See. Withdrawal does have its benefits.” She smiled. “But seriously. You’ve done well. A month in and I probably would have caved.”
“But you’ve gone a year now.”
“With rehab. You’re doing this on your own.”
“With your support.” I pointed towards her with my fork. There was no way I was letting her off lightly with that one. I sunk deep into the chair and into the gorgeous food she had so lovingly prepared. I could tell Adele would be on the straight and narrow for the rest of her life now. She had her boys to worry about and being the proud mum was a huge part of it. She had no reason to go back to the drink whereas the voices that spoke to me were still there and I was always a moment—a whispered darkness—away from taking a sip.
We finished our meals in companionable silence and I enjoyed every last morsel on the plate. I had to give it to her, the woman could cook. When I set my cutlery down on the plate and sat back, arm cradling my stomach, Adele grinned.
“I take it you enjoyed your dinner?”
I nodded enthusiastically, feeling my hair waft around the back of my neck. “Best damn lasagne I’ve ever tasted.”
Adele laughed and moved to pick up the plates. Holding my hand out and motioning for her to stop, I shook my head. “No. You did the cooking, I’ll do the washing.”
I was elbow deep in suds at her sink staring into the perfectly manicured lawn at the back of the house when the twins came back. They were quiet as they handed me their plates but I sensed something passing between them. Whether it was twin telepathy—if that even existed—I’d never know. “Thanks, guys,” I told them.
One of the twins opened his mouth and mumbled something before darting away. The other followed suit and soon both their feet were thudding up the stairs. I had no idea how Adele actually knew which was which!
Adele shook her head. “I have no idea what’s g
otten into them.”
I shrugged. “Can’t say I know either.” I washed the last dish and set it on the draining rack, pulling the gloves off.
“Though they are at that age.”
I frowned. “What age?”
“Come on, Peyton. You’re a catch.”
“Please!” I threw my hand up.
“I’m just saying. Take it as a compliment that you’re so good looking that they’re scared to speak to you. Would you like a coffee?” Adele asked, coming to her feet and stepping towards the bench.
“I thought you’d never ask.” I grinned.
It wasn’t long before we were nestled in her front room. Everything was different shades of white from the pearly leather couch to the alabaster walls and cream carpet. In my house this would have stuck out like a sore thumb but in hers, it made perfect sense. She caught me looking and smiled. “It’s very white, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is, but it’s nice.” I nodded.
“When I was in the madness, I don’t think I cleaned this room for over a year. It was so dark and dingy. I had horrible brown sofas and a dreadful mahogany coffee table that was so stained with cider over the years that it was irreparable.”
I glanced at the middle of the room as if the table was still there. I tried to imagine the place as dark as she described it. Mentally, I pulled the drapes and watched as the colours transformed into dark and murky browns and blacks. The ceiling was complete with yellow smoke rings and there was a hole on the wall beside the door. I sucked in a deep breath. When she was in the madness her house had looked like mine. It was hard to see it now because she was so put together but once upon a time, Adele had fought with the same demons I had.
As the darkness of my mental rendering of her front room closed over my eyes, the same darkness I had felt before settled hard on my chest. It pushed into every recess and made it hard to breathe. Suddenly I was struggling for breath and panic was beginning to well. I thrust myself forward, straightening my shoulders and heaving a deep breath into my lungs. The darkness was so overwhelming it cast a black shadow on my mind, one that threatened to consume my very being, taking me deep into the depths of hell.
“Peyton?” Adele’s voice roused me from the murky shadows and I blinked, shaking my head and forced my eyes to open. I was sitting in the white room on a white couch with her frown filling my vision. “Are you okay?”
I sighed and caught the beads of perspiration on my forehead with the back of my hand. Suddenly I was cold beyond belief but my body was reacting like I was in tropical conditions. I felt my face was flushed and spreading rapidly onto my chest.
“Peyton?” Adele tried again, this time leaning forward in her chair. I looked up to see her frown had deepened and her hands gripped her knees like life supports.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m okay. Sorry. I just…”
“What is it?”
“This is what I came to tell you, the real reason I started drinking.” I met her eyes. Gone was the frown, the lines on her brow now smooth. “What I’m going to tell you isn’t easy to hear but it sure as hell isn’t easy to bear.”
“Okay.” She clasped her hands together, eyes never leaving me. She continued to lean forward as if now knowing that I was about to tell her something profound, she couldn’t settle.
“I see ghosts.”
I watched as her expression morphed from confusion to questioning to unsure. She just stared at me, her mouth twisting as she bit her lip from the inside and stared me out like I was going to say I was joking. I wish I could.
“I know how that sounds,” I went on. “But this is why I couldn’t tell the truth in that meeting. Nobody would believe me and baring myself like this leaves me way beyond vulnerable.”
She nodded, her hair bobbing slowly.
“So,” I took a deep breath. “Now you know. And there’s something I want to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“What happened in this house?”
Now her jaw dropped and her eyes widened as she stared at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I can feel darkness pressing in on me. I know there’s something here. Tell me why.”
“You… you can see ghosts here?” she stuttered, her eyes glossed over, full of unshed tears.
“Not exactly, which is weird. I can feel something. It’s heavy and it doesn’t want me here.”
“I… when I was in the madness, I had a party here one night. There were so many people I can’t even remember. We had a Ouija board and—”
“Tell me you didn’t.” I shook my head. She bit her lip and I dropped my head into my hands. That would explain everything. The darkness invading the house had come from the Ouija board. I had never used one and never intended to. There were so many myths, so many urban legends surrounding the game, most of which wasn’t real. I don’t know if it was because of my gift but I trusted the instinct that told me the darkness had come from there. This was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It didn’t want me there because I knew of its presence. That left me in a very vulnerable position, not for the first time that night.
“It’s just a stupid game.” She shrugged but I could see the fear raging through her system as her face paled. “We played and then put it away. That’s it. I never used it again and I never saw anything weird. Nothing even happened.”
“That’s never it.” I shook my head and stood up. Suddenly the thought of staying there any longer than I had to was beyond my limits. Me being there had woken something that had lain dormant and the tendrils of darkness began to curl around my mind, trying to grip any sense of rational thought I had left. If I wanted to stay sober—more importantly, if I wanted to stay sane—I had to leave. “I have to go. See you later.”
I left the house, stepping out into the dusk and striding away from the house as fast as I could without breaking into a run. There was no way I ever wanted to be back in that house again as long as I lived.
I ignored the fact that my phone rang three times on my way home and when I got in, I deleted the calls. I locked the door. It was a simple action but somehow locking out the night, the darkness, the fear that I felt, somehow made me feel a tiny bit of relief. Setting my phone down in the kitchen, I left it there, put the TV on in the front room and slumped onto the sofa. My head dropped into my hands and my eyes began to sting with raw emotion. I had tried so hard and done so well and now the want of a drink was almost overpowering. I could taste it on my tongue the way I had that morning only this time there was no distraction and my mind was racing a million miles an hour.
Adele’s house had been used as a party house when she was in the middle of the chaos. That didn’t bother me. What did was the fact that she had been stupid enough to open a Ouija board game when she was drunk with her friends. A Ouijia board! What was she thinking? I took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair to be angry at her now for something that was done over a year ago. Plus, nobody ever took the Ouija seriously.
The darkness that was inside that house had been there for a year, eating everything, sucking the life and draining the energy out of the place and the people in it. I didn’t get how they couldn’t feel that bearing down on them. There was no way I could go back there. I wasn’t an expert by any means but when the dead talked to me, I listened and they wanted me out. I sucked in a deep breath as the tears spilled over my eyes.
In the kitchen I heard my phone vibrating on the counter but I shook my head. I wasn’t going to answer it. Not now, not tomorrow. Bringing my legs up, I wrapped my arms around them and sunk my head into the hollow between my knees. I just wanted to go to sleep, to forget everything that had happened. It was impossible. There was no way I could forget about that, not unless I drank myself into oblivion. My mind was racing. The shop was only five minutes away and I had enough in my purse to get a bottle of cider. One should do it since I had been abstinent. It would help everything. My stomach churned and my chest heaved. I wanted it so badly but every part of
me was screaming that it was a bad idea. I knew that I would need to learn to cope without it. Life wasn’t always nice and fluffy, I had to take the bad with the good like anyone else but without my crutch to lean on, I had no idea how I was going to get through.
A knock on the door startled me from my stupor and I lifted my head as if I’d be able to see whoever was outside. I had my guesses and Adele knew where I lived. I wasn’t answering to her, not tonight. I couldn’t face it. Not only would she be second-guessing my real story but she’d be wondering why I cut and run. She thought it was nothing more than a stupid game but I knew that it was so much more.
Another knock, this time louder. More like a thump with a fist. Burying my head between my knees, I pulled into myself. I wouldn’t answer—couldn’t.
The third time the bray was on the window. It rattled and I jumped, cursing and I turned to look. The curtains were still open and Olivia’s face, cupped by her hands, peered through. I shook my head but she pointed at the door, a snarl on her face. I debated whether it was worth opening the door and what barrage I might be hit with but she was my best friend. Plus, if I refused to let her in I know she’s just nip back home and collect her key, I guess I was just glad it wasn’t Adele.
Standing up, I made my way to the front door. Olivia stepped in without invite, stopped just inches from my face and shook her head. “You look like shit.” She pushed past me into the living room and I couldn’t help but laugh. She always put it straight and usually she was right. This time was no exception I noted as I closed the door and passed the mirror hanging in the tiny passageway. I did look like shit. My eyes were red and my cheeks pale. I looked like I hadn’t slept for days while the weight of the world weighed down on my shoulders.
Following her through the house, I found she was already in the kitchen with the kettle on and two cups set out. She grabbed my phone and highlighted the screen. “I rang, you know.”
The Darkness Within Page 5
