Be Careful What You Wish For
The most difficult part of trying to access Hill House has been a constant, if understandable, inconvenience in my life.
Business hours. The second most difficult part has been the general disinterest that every single person in this town seems to have in regard to everything about it.
Which is frankly completely incomprehensible.
The haunted train station is the pride of Drayring Valley; the idea of being near it past sunset is enough to make the hair on locals’ arms stand on end.
The eerie feeling in the woods and the way the wind howls menacingly through the trees is a tourist attraction.
This valley has built a reputation on oddities and unexplained spooks, yet Hill House isn’t feared; it isn’t even considered. It is simply avoided.
Arguably, the phenomenon of Hill House should be one of the primary tourist attractions in the valley. I thought perhaps the importance of its strange absence of daylight was underappreciated.
I still feel queasy when I remember breathlessly explaining the rare species of moon flower and nocturnal orchids I saw through the sturdy gates, only to be met with a lukewarm reception at best.
The interaction with Sarah and Rowan, the day before, comes to mind. It’s not normal the way people act about this place.
“Fancy seeing you here, Miss Kent.”
I don’t have to look up to tell who it is. It should be comforting that the crime rate is so low in Drayring that local law enforcement has nothing better to do than come talk to me every night. Except for the fact that I don’t find the company comforting.
“Good evening, Elias.” The local sheriff is a handsome enough white man in his mid-thirties with a go-to moustache.
I suspect he’d be less severe if his blonde hair weren’t always slicked back with sharp precision, and if his pale blue eyes weren’t so cold, though I suspect that’s my doing.
I know he’d prefer I call him Sheriff Carston, which is probably why it always happens to slip my mind.
“There are many better places for a young woman to be than sitting out here after sunset, Auburn.”
It’s the same song, the same dance. He leans against the stone pillar across from my perch, projecting authority and unearned annoyance at the perceived lack of respect he’s done nothing to gain from me.
It’s almost funny, watching him pretend he isn’t exactly my age.
Perhaps he’s just built that way. He’s all ancestral roots in this dirt, while I’m just a transplant that might not take.
I suppose our contrast is striking. His uniform is pressed and ironed every day, and I’ll admit that level of detail suits him.
In comparison, my thrown-together outfit of leggings and a thin hoodie that I definitely rescued from being abandoned on the back of my couch is emblematic of the lack of precision by which I live my life.
I’ve only been in the valley a year, yet the sheriff treats me with the weary patience of a man who’s been watching me disappoint the standard of normalcy for a lifetime.
“I’d have to agree, I’d much prefer to be on the grounds, but your records-”
He cuts me off before I bring up the confusing, and frankly incomplete, public record trail on the stone house tucked up the long, overgrown driveway.
“I’m not getting into this again. You’re a civilian, and you’re not entitled to any of that information.”
I study him as he resets his jaw after delivering the line I’ve heard more than a few times now. It does make him seem older.
“Well, don’t worry. You’ll have your evenings back soon enough.” I let my voice soften. It’s hardly worth getting into an argument with the smarmy sheriff at the best of times. I’d rather my last few moments outside of Hill House be peaceful.
“Finally picking up a hobby?” His shoulders relax.
Whether due to the lack of a fight or relief that he can stop imposing his presence here, like clockwork, I’m not sure.
I do have to wonder if he thinks his nightly visits have been the deciding factor to keep me a law-abiding citizen and not my own professional integrity.
“I’m leaving for Norway in two days.”
I’m not prepared for the shock that crosses his features. I certainly wasn’t expecting my absence to be of any consequence to the self-assured man, but his frown says more than I think he’d care to be giving away.
“You’re moving?”
I could clarify it’s temporary, and reassure him like I did Sarah.
“I am.”
But I don’t.
His expression flickers for a moment, a glimpse of something I can’t quite catch.
“What’s in Norway?”
It’s a benign question, but the tension that passes between us feels significant.
“Night. An abundance of it.” I don’t bother elaborating for a beat.
He should know that I’m a chronobiologist. It hasn’t been a secret.
For some reason though, I decide to continue.
“I study nocturnal botany. Drayring has some of the best in the world, but so does Svalbard.” It feels big to say.
I’ve never felt the need to provide the details of exactly where my interest lies. It felt too much like justification.
“Like, flowers?”
I prickle at the oversimplification, not that I’m unused to it. “Partly.”
He hums to himself for a moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes yet again.
“So, you’ve never wanted in the house?”
I’m almost startled by his words. I can’t place exactly why. Maybe the tone, maybe the frankness. Maybe something else.
“Not particularly, no,” I answer evenly.
It’s mostly the truth. I had no interest in the building. Not for the sake of my research, anyway. Now, purely out of spite, yeah, sure a little bit.
I turn my gaze back through the bars of the iron gate.
I used to bring a notebook. I’d write down everything I could see and the suspicions I had for what might be growing further than the view from here can confirm.
After a year, there’s nothing new to notice.
Now I just try to appreciate it, and shove down the frustrated injustice that bubbles in my stomach at the fact I’m forbidden from knowing more.
“So you just want to see some flowers?”
Elias jars me out of my thoughts. Usually, he’d have moved on by now. It takes me almost a full ten seconds to realize that he’s said something that requires a response.
“Yes, and the moss, the general foliage.”
The tall man moves toward the gate and pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket. Before he even slides the key into the rusted lock, a sound of disbelief slips past my lips. There is no way it could have been this simple.
“Ground rules.” The way his gaze hits me is intense and uncomfortable. The phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ taunts the edge of my subconscious, urging me to run.
But I can’t.
“Five minutes. Not a second more. You don’t get near the house. You stay within arm’s reach of me.”
I’m too stunned to articulate even one of the hundreds of very valid questions and thoughts buzzing around my mind, so I land on the easiest.
“Why?”
The smile that tugs his lips up at the corners makes my stomach turn with non-specific dread.
“Because it’s what you want more than anything. And I can.”
I nod.
I know those words fit conveniently between the lines of his actual intent, but even so, everything I’ve wanted is too close to let it slip through my fingers, especially to something as silly as self-preservation. Sarah and Rowan will be furious. That’s almost enough to give me pause.
But Elias doesn’t wait, and any motion I might have of letting caution try and slide into the driver’s seat vanishes with the click of the lock. He swings the gate open and steps across the threshold, gesturing for me to follow.
I have more than enough reasons to cut my losses.
The ticket to Svalbard mocking me from my inbox.
The fact that owing Elias Carston a favour is a dangerous notion.
Even the logistics, is it breaking and entering, even with a key?
Why does he have one? Is a five-minute glimpse worth it?
Maybe pining for something I could never have is better than being so close, allowed to sate a simple molecule of curiosity while the rest lies just out of reach.
All of those reasons and more fly through my mind as my feet move of their own accord toward the now open gate.
What makes my steps falter isn’t my own logic or good sense, but the flash of a towering figure in the darkness beyond the edge of the driveway. Within the span of a blink, it’s gone.
Must have been my imagination.