Throwing some clothes and a toothbrush into my suitcase, I lock up the lake house and walk over to Edward’s place.
His wife, Jacqueline, is standing on their porch, wrapped in a blanket and staring into the distance. Lost.
“Hey,” I say timidly.
Seeing her standing there makes her a real person who I completely disregarded when I’d played games with Leroy and Edward earlier.
Her tired eyes rimmed with dark circles drop to where I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs from their house.
“Oh, Evi. Hey.” She speaks with a slur, her tone mixed with confusion.
“How are you, Jacqueline?” I know it’s a stupid question. It was one I hated when people asked me constantly after I woke up and didn’t remember anything.
No. I’m not okay.
“Have you seen Daniel?”
She asks but I think she means Leroy and I don’t have the heart to correct her.
“No.”
“I saw you swimming. Daniel is a good swimmer, don’t believe what they tell you Evi,” she states, shaking her head and looking out over the water.
He wasn’t a good swimmer, he was an ok swimmer at best.
“I used to love it up here. Been coming since I was little,” she murmurs, pulling the blanket further around her body.
“How are you? Both those boys are so fond of you. Were.” She frowns.
Another misconception on her part. Leroy wasn’t fond of me. He had a fascination and a deep-seated anger toward me.
The door opens behind her and Edward steps out, his jaw tense, every muscle straining.
“Evi.” He says my name in warning. “What are you doing with a suitcase?” He places an arm around Jacqueline. She doesn’t react. It’s almost like she’s vacant from her body.
“I was going to ask if you would give me a ride into town.”
Dropping his arm from Jacqueline, he walks down the steps.
“Are you leaving?” Concern etches across his features and my stare darts back up to his wife, who isn’t paying us any attention.
He follows my stare and scoffs, taking me by the arm and walking a few more yards away.
“Don’t worry about Jacqueline. She’s on enough medication that anything she hears or sees can be explained as a dream.”
I want to question him on that more; he’s never been so dismissive or cold toward her before, but it’s none of my business and I have enough to think about without adding their issues to the pile.
“I’m just visiting some family for a few days.”
Lies.
“Is this because of what happened?”
Oh God. He’s deluded to think that would cause me to flee.
“No, of course not. Nothing even happened, Edward.” I fold my arms and kick at the dirt.
“I’ll be home in a few days. Can you take me or not?”
He studies me, placing a hand on his hip and scrubbing along his chin with the other hand.
“Sure. Give me five minutes to get Jacqueline settled in the house.”
The ride is quiet and uncomfortable. Edward keeps looking over at me and my mind is on the phone conversation I had with Garret before I left.
“I’m going to go to the house. Maybe it will help with my memories.”
“I think that’s a good idea. It can stimulate familiarity, but you shouldn’t go alone, Evi. It may also cause stress and trauma. You could regress further into yourself.”
The anxiety eats away at me like tiny bugs crawling around under the skin, devouring until there’s nothing but frayed nerves left.
“Then come with me. I need you, Garret.”
His heavy sigh down the line rumbles and crackles the signal. “If you give me a few days, maybe I can…”
More excuses.
“It’s okay. We can talk about it more later,” I say and end the call.
The town is really a couple of shops, a post office, and a train station. It’s quant and has been run by the same family for decades.
Edward pulls into a space and the tension becomes unbearable.
“So, I’ll see you in a few days,” I tell him, unlocking the door and stepping out into the light rain.
He follows suit and my heart sinks. I wish he would have just stayed in the car. I feel dirty and awkward in his presence all of a sudden and I wish I’d just walked here.
Opening the trunk, he pulls my suitcase out. “Do you want me to wait with you?”
“No,’ I snap too quickly, and I recoil when he jerks his head to mine and pins me with a stare that looks too deeply within me.
“Thank you for bringing me, but it’s fine. You can get back to your wife. Jacqueline.” I stumble over my words and it all feels odd and out of place.
We don’t fit and everyone knows it.
“Have a safe trip then,” he says, cautiously eyeballing me over the hood. I nod my head in response and wave half-heartedly.
This is it. I’m going back to the beginning.
The unsettled stirring of my stomach is in full-blown tornado force as I step from the cab on the street I grew up on. Familiarity invades my senses and my mind tells me to run.
The storm closes in around me, almost in warning of what this place is, and yet I know I can’t run. I need to face this to be able to move on with my life.
After discussing whether or not to come here with Garret, he texted me an hour ago, offering to accompany me, but it would need to be next week. I told him I would wait but was already on the train traveling here.
The keys dangle from my finger and my feet stick to the pavement as if the cement is wet and I’m sinking into it, to be its prisoner forever.
“There you go,” the driver says, planting my suitcase next to me.
The lights from him pulling away fade, along with my chance to turn back.
Night has crept up on me, blanketing the street in a haunting darkness. A street light flickers a few feet away and I find my arms wrapping around my torso in a hug to protect myself from whatever this place holds.
There are lots of houses boarded up and derelict, yet the garden of the house I now own has been kept trimmed and the shutters have a fresh coat of paint.
The house next door is lived in; a small sliver of light seeps out from drawn drapes.
Their house is well-kept, as is their neighbor’s, but that’s where the tidy row ends.
Overgrown, graffiti-adorned boards covering window holes on the other houses make it look like a forgotten place. Ironic.
A chill races up my spine as a glimmer of a memory sparks.
It’s sunny. The street is full of people sitting in deckchairs in their gardens, and kids racing around shooting water guns. I feel myself, the old me, standing on the sidewalk. Everyone stops moving as if frozen in time and all attention is on me. Sad gawks, staring at me in pity.
“Hey, you.”
A croaky voice pierces the night and draws me back to the now. I was lost in a memory. I hadn’t even realized how detailed it was and how swallowed by it I’d become.
Maybe Garret was right and this place will unlock more of my past life.
The neighbor from the tidy house next to mine has come out onto her porch.
Skin hangs from her bones, wrinkled. Grey hair droops in stringy strands. Her hunched shoulders make her appear short.
“This isn’t a sightseeing attraction. Get gone.” She waves a walking stick in the air to drive her point home.
Oh, scary.
I open the gate to my house. It rattles and scrapes over the concrete path. I cringe internally at the sound and march up to the house without looking at the old lady.
“Hey! Did you not hear what I said? I’ll call my son.”
Oh God. She lives here with her son. The wrinkles littering her skin show she must be in her seventies at least.
Who lives with their mom when she’s seventy? He must be a real treat. Forty-year-old virgin pops into my mind, and I snort, jamming the keys into the lock and opening the door as fast as I can, disappearing through it and slamming it shut.
Thud…
I’m facing the door, and all of a sudden it dawns on me that I’ve shut myself in a house that holds ghosts, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to face them.
Night time has plunged everything into darkness and I scramble to pull my cell phone from my pocket and bring up the torch app, using it as a light source to locate the actual light switch.
I didn’t even think that someone could be in here. What if my mother lives here and used the deed as a ploy to get me to come here so she can finish the job?
My ears prick to listen for movement but it’s still and quiet. Too damn quiet.
My fingers brush over the wall next to me as I take tentative steps forward, searching for a light.
When my hand hits the switch sticking out from the wall, I exhale in relief, only to gasp when nothing happens.
Flick, flick, flick. Nothing.
Damn it.
The power is out and I should have known that by just doing the math of how long this house had been empty, waiting for me to come of age. My stomach somersaults, making sickness stir.
I can’t stay here in the pitch black; there’s a stagnant thickness in the air making me want to gag.
The shadows taunt me, every corner deep and dark like a black abyss, and every object a threat of being so much more.
Moonlight pours through a window and highlights a doorway into the kitchen.
There may be candles.
Shuffling my feet forward, I go to the kitchen and use the natural light to search the drawers and cabinets, only to find nothing.
There’s an earthy smell emitting from some of the cupboards but I can’t see that there is anything within them that could be creating the smell.
I can’t stay here.
Cold damp creeps into my bones and an overwhelming feeling seeps into my heart. I will myself not to cry, not understanding why my body wants to do just that.
Emotion I’ve never experienced before crashes over me. It overcomes me like a wave engulfing me in a once calm sea, unprepared for it.
I didn’t see it coming until it was towing me under and sweeping me away in its current.
My mouth opens and I want to scream, but a weird, empty sound comes from the gaping hole instead.
My bones feel like they’re cracking and snapping, caving in on themselves to crush the organs beneath. Tears burn and leak freely down my face like a torrential downfall. My legs give out on me and I crumble to the floor, my knees making a nasty thud as I land. Curling into myself, I lie there and cry years and years of pain out onto the kitchen floor of a house I spent nine years growing up in.
It’s too much. I can’t contain it.
Garret warned me of this happening. The magnitude of coming back here could cause a break in my psychological healing. Well, fuck you, Garret for never being here when I truly need you.
My eyes close to ease the exhaustion of the sobs ripping out of me. All I want to do is close my mind off and wake up remembering who I am so I can heal and move on from this nightmare.