4. Tuesday, September 5, 2023 #4
She pushes her plate to the side, leaving the lasagna practically untouched.
At least the salad and garlic bread were edible.
What’s wrong with this family? she thinks.
Does no one want to take the time to cook a proper meal?
When Alice was young, Beverley painted full-time and still made sure a healthy, home-cooked meal was on the table every weeknight at 6 p.m. Did she always want to do it?
No, but she did. That’s just the way things were done back then.
Maybe if people spent less time on their phones and computers and tablets, they’d have time for the important things—like making a proper dinner.
“So, am I to understand that the whole family now knows about the previous, murderous occupant of the house?” Beverley asks.
Quinn has just finished telling the table about his horrific first day of school.
Kids pointing and whispering. Somebody using a Sharpie to draw a knife dripping blood on his locker.
How, when he got on the bus at the end of the day, no kid would make room for him on any of the seats, so he ended up storming off and walking home.
It took him almost two hours because his phone died halfway, and he got lost.
“Yes, Mother,” Alice snaps. “The whole family is aware of the history of the house.” She gets up and starts to clear plates away.
“But as Polly said earlier, the longer we live here the less people will associate the house with the previous owners and the more they’ll think of us.
We just have to get out there in the community, make ourselves known. Make friends.”
“Shall we throw a party?” Beverley suggests. “Everyone loves a good party.” She’s surprised to see Alice pause for a second and actually consider the idea. Her daughter usually shoots down her suggestions.
“You know,” Geoff says, “that’s not a bad idea.
We’ll get to know the neighbors a bit better.
They can see that a house is just a house, and not the things that happened in it.
” He balls up his napkin and tosses it onto his plate.
“I quite enjoyed the people we met at the barbecue on the weekend.” Beverley catches Quinn and Polly exchange a look that clearly says they felt otherwise.
“Any artists in the crowd?”
“Highly unlikely,” Quinn answers. “I’m thinking it’s mostly finance guys, doctors, or lawyers, and wives who go golfing or to the spa.”
“Sounds abhorrent,” Beverley says.
“You stayed for all of ten minutes, Quinn,” Alice says.
“That’s all it took to know I didn’t want to be there, and I certainly don’t want any of them here.” Quinn shoves his chair back so hard it squeaks across the hardwood, grabs his plate from the table, and chucks it in the sink before leaving the room.
“He’ll come round,” Geoff says.
“So, we’re actually going to do this, then?” Alice asks. “Host a party for strangers in an effort to dispel the murder-house reputation?”
Polly gets up from the table and collects her dishes. “I don’t care either way, but I can’t promise I won’t punch Max in the face for saying I’d fuck him if he was friends with Quinn.” She dumps her dishes in the sink and heads out of the kitchen.
Beverley looks to Alice, hoping she’ll call both children back, scold them for their language, and demand that they clean up the dinner dishes. Instead, she sighs and pulls on a pair of rubber gloves to rinse the dishes herself.
“I don’t know what all that nonsense is about. But what I do know is that I’d be washing that girl’s mouth out with a bar of Ivory, and I’d be hauling them both back in the kitchen by their hair to clean up.”
Alice aggressively shoves dirty dishes into the dishwasher and ignores her mother.
“It’s not the fifties, Beverley,” Geoff says smugly.
“Thank you, Geoff, for clearing that up for me.” She brings her own plate to the sink and leaves it for Alice to take care of. “I’d do the party sooner rather than later, for Quinn’s sake,” she says, heading for the door. “And I’m happy to help. I can man the martini station.”
“Of course you can,” Alice says with a little laugh. The kind that she thinks sounds innocent, but Beverley knows the underlying meaning: My mother is a hopeless lush.
“Or I can just stay out of your way completely,” Beverley says, holding up both hands in surrender.
“Why don’t we hash out the details later, Beverley,” Geoff says. “It’s been a long day.”
“A long day for Alice, who actually has a job. Thank you both for a lovely dinner.” She lets the back door slam behind her.
She’s certain that her daughter and Geoff are sharing an eye-roll about her at that very moment.
She knows because she and her husband used to do the same whenever her mother-in-law left the room.
Ah, the unfounded confidence of the young.
The sun is just starting to set as Beverley makes her way back to her cabin.
Everything on the lawn is bathed in warm light, contrasting sharply with the shadows of the surrounding woods.
She pauses at the door to the cabin to enjoy a few more minutes of the golden hour, wishing she could capture it in a painting, when, across the lawn, movement in the woods catches her eye.
“Hello,” she calls out, but gets only silence and stillness in response.
Turning to go in, she finds Soot, her black cat, sitting on the ledge of the partially-open window, staring with unwavering intensity at exactly the spot in the woods where Beverley thought she saw something move.
Soot’s ears flatten to his head and he lets out a low growl, making the hair on the back of Beverley’s neck stand up.
She glances back out into the woods and wonders, Have all the pets gone crazy or are they trying to tell us something?
She has the unmistakable feeling of being watched.
She’s had it ever since they got here, but she’s never lived so close to a forest before, and she thinks maybe that’s just how it feels.
Polly
She waits until it’s dark before slipping out of her window.
She realized on the first day in the new house that she could pop the screen off and step sideways through the tall, narrow opening without anyone realizing.
Her room is on the far side of the house, so it’s unlikely she’ll be spotted out there.
There’s also only about six feet of lawn and then the woods start, so she can find cover if she needs to.
She’s pretty sure everybody’s in bed, so there’s no need to hide amongst the trees.
She sits down on a tree stump that she rolled up against the house a few days ago.
Cupping one hand over the other, she lights the joint and inhales deeply.
She’s been waiting for this moment since that horrible family dinner.
Hearing about Quinn’s first day made her feel like she messed everything up for him.
Then her nana goes and suggests having a party, which is the worst idea ever.
Nobody’s going to come to a party at the murder house except to indulge their morbid fascination.
People can be so stupid. It’s her sister’s voice in her head again. She used to say that all the time when people mixed them up.
“They sure can,” Polly replies. She’s taken to responding out loud when no one’s around. Other than feeling slightly crazy, she enjoys the sensation that she’s actually having a conversation with her sister.
“You know, talking to yourself is one of the first signs of insanity.” Polly looks up at the sound of the voice and sees a dark figure at the edge of the woods lean forward and wave.
Polly shoots up off the tree stump. “What the fuck? Quinn?”
“Who’s Quinn?” The figure steps out of the trees and into the light coming from Polly’s bedroom.
It’s a boy who looks to be around her age—tall, slim, with a swoop of dark hair that’s so big it accentuates the angles of his thin face.
He’s wearing a black hoodie and has his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black jeans, which bunch at the top of his black Converse.
“I’m sorry,” he says, bowing his head slightly.
“I stood here for a while trying to figure out how to approach you without seeming like a serial killer, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
” He pulls a hand free from his pocket and holds it up like he’s swearing on a Bible.
Polly takes in the size of it, and the length of his fingers, and realizes he could easily palm her entire scalp. “I’m from around here.”
Polly’s heart is still racing. Half of her wants to tell him to fuck off, and the other half is intrigued. “That’s great and all that you’re from ‘around here.’ ” She air quotes his words. “But it doesn’t explain why you’re hanging out in the woods on my property. Right outside my bedroom window.”
He laughs self-consciously and, despite herself, Polly likes his smile. “This is where I sneak off to smoke.” He puts a hand in his back pocket and pulls out a perfectly rolled joint. “Or at least I did, until your family moved in, which I’m only learning about right now. I’ve been away.”
“Didn’t you get the neighborhood bulletin? ‘New Family Moves into the Murder House.’ ”
“No, I did not get the memo.” He shakes his head and laughs again. “The murder house? My God, people can be so stupid.”
“That’s exactly what my—” Polly stops. She doesn’t want to talk about her twin right now or explain that her dead sister told her that exact thing right before he got there. “Anyway, you’re not scared, then, to come to the murder house?”
He pulls a lighter from his pocket, sparks up his joint, then brings it to his lips. Lifting his chin, he exhales up into the night sky. Graceful is the word that comes to Polly’s mind as she watches him.