“Look,” her father said, unclipping his seat belt. “It might not be perfect or look as nice as it did in the pictures, but we have to remember it’s ours to make it what we want it to be, right? Now, why don’t we go take a look around, wait for the furniture to arrive then, if we have time, we can take a drive into town and find somewhere to get some food? I’m sure there’s a restaurant or something.”
“What about school? We still haven’t found me a new school.”
“We’ll get to that. All in good time. Besides, it’s the summer holidays. You don’t have school for another month.”
“I don’t have a school at all. Or friends.”
“Come on, Vanessa, we need to make the best of it, okay? Positive thinking and all.”
Despite his positive rally, there was little enthusiasm as the trio got out of the car. The day was wet and chilly, the barren branches of the trees appearing foreboding.
Bill joined Vanessa at the side of the car. “Just imagine how beautiful this place will look when the trees grow back through.”
Vanessa nodded. She didn’t think the place looked beautiful. She thought it looked….uninviting. She said nothing, instead putting her hands into the pocket of her winter coat and looking again at the house.
“Besides,” Bill went on, determined to sell the place as best he could. “Did you know a river runs through the back of the house? Not only that, there are woods there. Think about exploring it, the wildlife you will see. We’ll be happy here.”
Vanessa glanced at her father, then felt her eyes pulled back towards the house. Her stomach tightened. “It looks dirty,” she said.
“It is, but we can clean it. You have to remember that all these dead leaves on the ground make it look worse than it is. Downside of living surrounded by so many trees.” He kicked the brown tangle of brittle leaves at his feet for emphasis.
“Come on, I’ve had enough of standing out here in the cold. Let’s see just how much those property people have ripped you off,” Pam said as she stalked towards the door, heavy brass key clutched in her right hand, a cigarette in the other.
Bill glanced at his daughter, raised his eyebrows, and then followed her towards the house. Vanessa stood for a moment, a mixture of emotions surging through her. She felt light and restless. She was disappointed at her father’s lack of backbone when it came to her mother and her forceful way of belittling everyone. She was already missing her friends, who seemed so far away now that they had arrived at their new home. Then there was the house itself. She stared at it, dirty curtains, grubby walls, moss covered roof tiles and all. She wasn’t sure why or if it even meant anything, but she felt safer staying by the car. Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, she reluctantly followed her parents into Hope House.
Inside, the house was as dull and shadowy as she had expected. The wallpaper was yellowish and looked slick and slimy. She looked around the room, taking it all in: the staircase, its wood so dark it almost appeared black, the sitting room, a good sized space, the semi-circular window giving a decent view of the trees beyond the car they had arrived in. The window frames themselves, though, were flaking and damp. Even without touching them she knew they would break away with ease at the slightest bit of pressure. The room itself was a good size. She could hear her mother and father bickering in the kitchen about the state of the pipe work and, as was the norm recently, tuned them out to a dull hum as she further explored her surroundings. She walked to the fireplace, running her fingers across the cold brick. Her father, she guessed, didn’t realise quite how much work the house would need. It was filthy. She went next to the window, glass wet with condensation and hard to see through. She looked at the car, and how out of place it looked surrounded by so many dead leaves. The skeletons of the trees shook, waiting patiently for new life to flower on them. She hoped it would be soon. To her, they looked like long, bony fingers. Briefly, she tuned her parents back in. The bickering was on the verge of becoming a full blown argument, and so she turned down their volume again and continued her exploration. She went upstairs next, the wood soft underfoot and creaking with each step she ascended. Upstairs was dark and stuffy, the windows closed for too long, letting the mildew take over. There was a bathroom, then two other rooms off the hallway and another one at the end of the hall. She was hoping to choose a bedroom and hoped the options she had were at least nice smelling. She poked her head into the first room; it was too small and on the wrong side of the house to get much sun. She could imagine her mother claiming it as a studio for the ghastly paintings she did in the process of trying to convince people that she was some kind of artist. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm didn’t match the skill level. She had no grasp of balance or perspective, resulting in ugly, badly rendered images of sunflower fields or families enjoying picnics with weird proportions. She closed the door and moved on. The second of the rooms was the one her parents would likely claim. It was a good size, the floorboards bare and dusty. Tiny mouse shaped footprints lined the skirting on the perimeter of the room, and she made a mental note to tell her father they might need some traps. She entered the room, imagining it with their belongings inside, and couldn’t quite connect the dots. Like the rest, the windows were misty with condensation and the smell was just as bad.
“Do you want me to open up some windows up here?” she shouted, pausing to listen for a response which didn’t come. They were still arguing and had resorted to getting one up on each other for a variety of reasons. She tuned them out again and decided she would do it anyway, just in the hope that it might rid the room of the awful smell. The latch on the window was broken, which saved her a job having to pry the rusty mechanism open. The windows were the type that slid vertically within their frames. She grabbed the edges, grimacing at the slick feel of the old, chipped paint on her fingertips. At first, she thought the wood might be swollen, then she noticed the nails. She peered closer, making sure she was seeing correctly. It looked as if some previous occupant of the house had decided to nail the window closed. Vanessa couldn’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. She ran her fingers across the unevenly spaced nails, curiosity sparking a thousand questions in her head. She looked out of the window, wiping away a small hole of condensation so she could see outside. The view was of the side of the house, the trees hanging over and reaching towards the property as if wanting to reclaim it. She could see a little of the river her father had mentioned curving across her field of vision, and beyond it, more trees which sloped uphill as far as she could see. Something there caught her eye. She leaned closer, supporting her weight on the sill and pressing her nose to the glass to better see it. There was some kind of clearing where the trees had been cut away in a rough circle. If they had arrived later in the year, she didn’t think she would have spotted it. Only because the trees were without leaves, was she able to notice it. She glanced down at the nails hammered into the window frame and tried to make some kind of connection, but nothing sensible came to mind. All she knew was that she felt like she had done something wrong as if she were never meant to see it. The glass was cold against her face and the sill slick with moisture. She glanced at her hands, feeling an overwhelming desire to wash them. As she stared; a spider, plump bodied and long legged scuttled out from under the sill and across the back of her hand. She gasped and lurched back, flinging the spider across the room. She stared at it, heard drumming as it scurried across the floor in search of a dark recess in which to hide. It was an old house, and she should have expected such things to happen, but even so, there was one thing she was certain of. As she wiped her wet palms on the legs of her jeans, she was glad this wasn’t going to be her room. She didn’t like it, not one bit. She crossed the room and closed the door, relieved to be away.
She stood in the shadow draped hall, breathing the dusty air, and re-tuned the world in. Her parents, it seemed, had moved on to the silent treatment portion of the argument. She could see it all in her head. Her mother standing and smoking, defiant
and sure she was right. Her father, arms folded, glaring into space. That was the way it always happened. All that varied was the length of time before they would speak again and make peace until the next inevitable argument. With no desire to join them and soak in the inevitably awful atmosphere, she walked to the last room, the one at the end of the hall and what would inevitably be her bedroom, an idea that appealed to her more now as long as she didn’t have to take what she now referred to as the spider room. She hoped this room would at least be half decent. She pushed open the door and had to shield her eyes. It was as if the room was on fire. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat and she let it out.
The room was large and directly above the curved portion of the sitting room below. Large windows looked over the forest at the front of the house, and let in glorious sunlight which formed a grid on the floorboards. Unlike the other rooms, there was no musty smell, no damp or rot. Vanessa walked into the middle of the room, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face. She could have stayed there forever.
“Nice room, isn’t it?”
Vanessa spun around, still jittery and on edge. Her father stood at the threshold to the room, his massive frame filling the door. “It is,” she said, turning to look out of the window. “It’s the best room in the house.”
He came into the room and stood beside her, father and daughter enjoying the sun. Absently, Vanessa wondered where her mother was, then reasoned that if they weren’t together, then they weren’t arguing. She thought rooms like this should be spared the bickering of couples who were falling out of love.
“It will be fine, really. I wouldn’t have brought us out here if I didn’t think it was for the best.”
She opened her eyes and looked her father. Behind the frustration and stress, she could see the kindness, a glimmer of the man he always hoped to be but never quite managed. “I know dad, it’s just…. Everything is just so new, that’s all.”
“It’s the same for all of us, even your mother and me. We’ll soon settle in, you’ll see.”
“Can I have this room?” she asked, looking up at her father.
He grinned and scratched his beard. “I don’t think your mother would be too pleased about that.”
“Dad, come on. I don’t like that other room. It smells funny. This one makes the fact that we moved easier to deal with.”
He smiled at her, and walked to the window, looking out over the trees. “That sounds a lot like a bribe.”
“It might be, but you love me so it shouldn’t matter.”
He grinned and leaned on the wall by the window, putting his hands into his jacket pockets. “I don’t care where I sleep, but your mother….”
She didn’t push him to say more. Both of them knew well enough about the third person in the household. “Yeah, I get it,” she said, not wanting to cause even more tension.
He crossed the room, boots echoing on the wood floors. “Leave it with me, I’ll talk to her and see what I can do. This is the best room in the house. My daughter deserves the best. Makes sense.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He kissed her on the head and disappeared down the hall. Vanessa watched him go, then turned back to look at the room. She was already planning where to put her things.
THREE
She didn’t get the sun room. The request had resulted in an argument the likes of which she had never experienced before as her parents tore into each other. She had kept out of the way, guilty for putting her father in such a position and resentful of her mother for being so stubborn and set in her ways. Her reasoning for demanding they kept the sun room was that she never wanted to move there in the first place, and that, as the adult, she shouldn’t have to compromise just because her daughter didn’t like the other bedroom. Until that point, she had always been hazy on the details about why they had to move in the first place. Her parents had always given her vague reasons when she had asked. During the argument, she found out as she listened from the top of the stairs, knees pulled up to her chin and crying as her mother and father screamed at each other in the kitchen. There had been debts, huge in number run up by Vanessa’s mother in order to feed her addiction to bingo. She had used mortgage money first, then when that was gone started on the savings. There was talk of savings for Vanessa when she was eighteen to start her off in life, but those too were gone with the rest. With the imminent loss of the house, the move was one that was unavoidable. It had been a week since that particular argument, and Vanessa now had a newfound sympathy for her father.
She was in the spider room, boxes of her belongings scattered haphazardly. The nails had been pulled out of the window frame and the room aired out for the last few days. Even so, the damp smell was still there. She also knew that somewhere, the spider that had crawled across her hand had set up a new home which she had yet to discover, which was probably best for the spider in question. She had every intention to squish him the first chance she got. Even though her things were in the room and it was starting to take shape - they had repainted and brushed the floors, but as yet had no carpet- she still didn’t feel comfortable. If not for the sun room, she was sure she would have accepted it without question. Now, though, knowing what she was missing, made her want it all the more. She lay on the bed, hands propped behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. The distant sound of the radio filtered up from downstairs as her parents unpacked, still barely speaking to each other and failing to hide it very well when they were all together. Vanessa thought about her father, how things might have been different. On the one hand, she knew he did his best to act as the peacemaker in the house, often letting his wife win the argument even when everyone knew she was wrong. Vanessa wondered if his lack of a backbone was at least partly responsible for them having to uproot everything and move. There was an argument for it, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to blame him, especially as her mother insisted on whining about the move every chance she got as if it wasn’t her fault, which only added to the tension.
As Vanessa lay there, pondering all the possible outcomes and repercussions of the situation, something caught her eye. “Not you again,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow.
She watched as the spider skittered across the floorboards, skirting around one of the boxes and underneath the drawers on the opposite wall.
She scrambled out of bed, looking for something to use as a weapon and settling for a shoe. She walked across the room, mumbling to herself as she did. “You’ve overstayed your welcome for long enough, mister,” she said as she slid the drawers away from the wall. She saw the spider wriggle into a gap between two of the floorboards. She swung the show at it anyway, the sole impacting wood but missing the spider. “Damn it,” she muttered. “I’ll get you next time.”
She was about to slide the drawers back into place when she noticed something poking out between two of the floorboards. She leaned closer, curiosity taking over. It was a piece of paper, a single corner poking up through the wood. She pinched it between her fingers and pulled it out. The single sheet of paper was folded into four and yellowed with age and dust. Escaped spider forgotten, she turned the paper over in her hands but didn’t unfold it. It was cold and clammy and reminded her of the first time she had visited the room. Her eyes involuntarily flicked to the window, even though she knew she couldn’t see the clearing out there in the forest, she knew it was there. She didn’t like the feel of the paper in her hands and set it on the dresser, which was still angled away from the wall. She stared at it, wondering what the feeling was that was making her stomach knot.
She felt dizzy and gripped the edge of the dresser. Sure she was going to be sick and not wanting to deal with the hassle from her mother, she ran to the bathroom, hoping she could make it in time. She dropped to her knees in front of the toilet bowl, mouth watering as she wretched, inhaling the pine scented water. Nothing came up, even though she retched as if something wanted to. She clutched the bowl, cold porcelain raising goose bumps on her ar
ms until, as quickly as it had come, the feeling subsided. She sat for a few more minutes anyway, waiting to see if it would come back. When she was certain she was safe, she stood and flushed, watching the water swirl and churn. She went back to her room, bored, tired and confused.
The note was on her bed.
She stood at the entrance to the room, staring at it, heart drumming hard. She looked at the dresser, which was still pulled away from the wall, then back to her bed. The note was unfolded. She could see black handwriting scrawled across it. She tried to process, her eyes moving from point to point in the room.
Dresser.
Bed.
Dresser.
Bed.
Window.
She didn’t know why she had looked there. It had nothing to do with it. She supposed a draft as she had left the room in such a hurry could have blown the note then, in a bizarre one in a million chance, caused it to unfold and land on the bed, but that was insane and she knew it. Irrational at best. She wasn’t a stupid child, and despite living in a family unit that was close to fracture, she still did well in school. She looked back at the bed and the note and wondered why she was so afraid to enter. She clung to the doorframe, fingers white from the pressure, and then once again looked to the window. Gnarled branches swayed in the wind, a million fingers on countless arms beckoning her into the room. The wind howled against the glass, and for a split second, she thought she heard something. A bark of laughter, a single human like sound which was immediately cut off. There had been a full about turn. Her throat was dry, her tongue dead and useless. One thing that had returned was the knotting in her stomach and the anxious feeling that came with it.
This is stupid. It’s just a note.
The voice in her head, the Vanessa who was safe and sound in the deepest reaches of the brain was one she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe right now. It wasn’t just a note. It was a hidden note, one that she had found and had appeared unfolded on her bed by some kind of act of God if such a thing existed.
Whisper: The untold stories Page 4
