7. Dollie—present day
Dollie—present day
I t’s a shame Gothic architecture does nothing for me. Well, that isn’t true. It gives me the chills for dozens of the wrong reasons. Maybe that’s why I’m trembling as we near the cave below the manor I grew up in. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
Home.
This place doesn’t feel like home as my eyes linger on the dark tunnel nearby and the memories that try to drag me inside. I don’t fight it, avoiding the view of the rotting manor above.
My younger voice says in my head, “Higher, Ambrose, higher!”
The rattle of chains follows my voice into the air as Ambrose pushes me higher on a swing set. The playground down there is long gone now, destroyed by local parents who didn’t want their children to suffer the same fate we did.
Who would have ever thought that wrong turn was so close to home, and if we’d just kept walking, we’d have been here, and those terrible months in that basement would never have happened.
Still lost in memories, Ambrose replies, but his voice is no more than a caressing whisper against better-forgotten thoughts.
I can’t hear him.
I hear Shane, and my shoulders slump.
“This is gonna fuck my wheels, you think?” He sits on his leather seat, in the driver’s position, and waits for an answer.
The eyebrow I’d asked to pluck this morning rises up to his combover.
I swallow my nerves, letting my eyes wander from him to the house on the hill, all peeling black paint and turrets. It looks like something from a horror movie trailer. The trailers always show the creepy parts that make my skin crawl.
I shouldn’t be here.
My breath stalls, eyes on a flickering light as it flashes on, off, and on with a yellow glow in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
“Wow, I’m not sure if that’s bad wiring or great bulbs. What do you say?” Shane asks, following my gaze. “Has anyone been here since that night?”
“Maybe the police or vandals.” Shane doesn’t notice the cold sweat I feel glossing my skin.
“Do you think we can get up this hill in this car without wrecking it?”
Choosing to remain silent on this. I don’t want to be blamed if his alloys get scuffed.
With my eyes down, I turn the ring on my finger that promises forever before fidgeting with the lace glove beneath it. It’s not my usual glove. This one is itchy and rubs uncomfortably against the scars below, but somehow, the material still brings me comfort.
As if finally sensing my disquiet, Shane’s hand covers my cold thigh, lifting my dress and painfully brushing against the goosebumps lining my skin. “You’ll be fine, Lancie.”
Shane doesn’t get it, the anxiety that comes with being here.
I swallow it down, and it’s a painful gulp that also takes my hatred for the nickname Lancie.
Shane’s hand leaves me, and he turns the wheel to avoid the craters in the dirt road.
When did he start biting his nails again , I wonder, as he shifts the car into gear.
His brown eyes squint at the reminiscent tire tracks as he follows them up to the house.
The town’s signature bad weather causes us to skid, and it’s hard to know the worst fate: going over the ledge sideways or entering my childhood house.
I’d choose the ledge over the house.
Shane grapples for control of the gray Mercedes, all the while moaning about the mud splashing the side skirts.
“This fucking road is a joke. We’ll need to get it fixed if we expect to sell this shithole.” He rolls to a stop, finally on flat ground, and doesn’t wait for me as he hops out to inspect the dirt on his wheels, whining like it’s the worst thing in the world.
Turning my ring once more, I stare at the yellow-gold band and glittering diamond.
It doesn’t look right with the rosy-gold nail polish I’m wearing on my other hand, it doesn’t look right with my glove, and it doesn’t fit properly.
It’s at least two sizes too big, but it’s not something I complain about. In the grand scheme, it isn’t worth it.
I step out of the car, and the door clicks shut behind me. Party noise can be heard from three hundred yards away, and it feels just like my first ever day here when little Dahlia Dixon was having her party.
I’d wanted so bad to go to that damn party.
This one looks fun, too, until a guy at the party shouts something vulgar. I turn away from them, the party people that I can just about see splashing about in a jacuzzi under a giant yellow parasol.
One step takes me under the shadows of the overhanging trees that make the evening appear darker than it is.
The old curtains in an upstairs room twitch, reminding me again how haunted I feel just by being here.
“Ready to go inside?” I nod, pulling the jingling keys from my pocket. Fumbling with the lock, it takes three attempts before the key wiggles in.
I can almost feel Ambrose close. Almost see his smile over his lucky number opening the door.
My skin prickles, but I shake it off.
I step inside, quickly turn on some lights, and move through the foyer.
“It is odd the lights work, isn’t it? Like, still, after all this time.” I feel relieved about it, but I’m shocked.
“I guess,” Shane agrees. “Hopefully, you won’t get an electricity bill for that.”
Keeping my eyes away from the second floor, I check every lingering shadow around me.
Everything is as it should be, aside from the spray paint on the walls and doors.
It sounds like Mom’s home as I click-clack into the reading room, taking another glance around. The sound of the wooden floor beneath my heels brings tears to my eyes.
Her ornaments still sit on the shelves. Those flying horses are probably worth quite a pretty penny now.
Each one stands proudly on the built-in bookcase that has no books.
They look a little different from how I remember, a little more worn, and my favorite horse is missing, probably taken by whoever wrote the slurs of hatred on the walls.
But at least the majority are here, untouched.
All hate on the walls is directed at Ambrose. Slander over his feelings toward me. Insinuations of the horrible things he’d done to me.
None of it is true.
The one with questionable feelings back then…was me.
But that was then.
A sigh escapes because god, when Shane sees this shit, he isn’t ever going to look at me the same.
Footprints break through the dust as I take another step and pull myself from my thoughts. I stop at the bookcase, its dark wood still sturdy.
My fingers skate along the wings of a white horse with golden wings. Its beauty is enchanting as it twinkles the same shade as my nails. It pulls a fleeting smile to my lips. I take a step back, leaving the Pegasus behind.
A stab of pain echoes in my chest when the click-clacking of my heels greets my ears again.
I can’t take it.
I kick off my boots, opting to dirty my perfect white socks rather than hear that sound again, and I step back into the foyer.
“Finally, got the door to close.” Shane’s pulled-down brows say he’s as happy to be here as I am.
“It always got stuck. My parents changed the locks twice. Nothing ever worked. If you push into the handle, it closes more easily, but it’s still fussy.”
I open the front door and show him what I mean, but he doesn’t look, ignoring me while moving deeper into the foyer to inspect the place. He should have looked, saving us both the misery when he moans about his struggles again tomorrow.
“Is this the den?” His hand rests on the doorknob to our music room.
“No, that’s at the back of the house.”
He freezes. Normally, he’d be the type to investigate, but driving for hours has taken its toll.
“And how on earth do I get to the back of the house?” His eyes fix on the mass of bookshelves between the two staircases blocking the entry.
“There’s a door under the left staircase, or you can go through the reading room into the dining room, which also leads to the kitchen. The living room is just off that.”
I show him with a finger pointing to the left. And then I cringe because of the writing all over the walls in that direction.
“Reading room, huh? Plus, these massive shelves. Parents were bookworms, too?” He kisses my head. The affection gets lost in my messy topknot.
“They actually hated books. All these were here when we got here, and they never got around to throwing them out. I read a few of the classics in my teens and really fell in love.”
Keeping the secret that I’ll die with, I don’t mention that my first love was the boy I’d read them to.
“Great, another thing for us to toss away.” He pulls out a random book, blowing the dust from the cover.
“And if they weren’t moldy then, they are now.
” He shoves it back into its spot before I see the title and realize it’s my favorite story.
“I swear, looking at this dump now, renovating this place is gonna cost more than selling it.” He gives me a squeeze and a smile.
“But it doesn’t cost more than every cent I’ve ever earned. We’ll have the wedding of our dreams.”
Shane pulls out his phone and disappears into the reading room before I can answer him. His fast-moving fingers gliding across his phone screen tell me he’s already searching the web for local takeout deliveries.
Slipping out of my coat, I hang it on the hook that’s always been mine. The fourth from the left. I check that the door is locked and head back into the reading room, following Shane’s voice as he says, lost in wonder, “It’s like a fucking maze in here.”
He’s already in the kitchen and got there too quickly to have read the lies on the walls—all the sordid words of how my stepbrother hurt me with his body parts.
Those words are all I can see. The spray paint still wet and sticky on my fingers as I touch the wall.
Ambrose La’Darragh raped his little sister and then killed their parents in this house.
My fingers linger on his name a little too long. Long enough for black to stain my fingertips. My eyes move to the next message until, eventually, tears blur it from my view.