Page 14 of One Last Touch

I drank my tea as I got ready. Not quite trusting the shower yet, I had a quick wash and then brushed my teeth once I’d drained my mug. Sage might be a liar, but he wasn’t wrong. It was absolutely rotten outside but I could see him out there, standing in the waist-high grass and looking at the forest. He turned to my window and I backed away smoothly, if he was preoccupied out there then that was all the better for me.

I left my mug on the desk with the one I’d brought up yesterday afternoon and headed up the stairs to the master suite, retracing my steps from last night.

Despite all the dusting I’d already done, it still seemed to drift in the air with a staleness that was exhausting. Maybe the rain last night had stirred it all up again, the wind blowing through the cracks of the old house and making my cleaning a wasted effort. I couldn’t help wondering what the house might have been like twenty-years ago when it had been well-maintained. When my mother had still lived here.

The red-runners in the corridor kept my footsteps quiet as I ran a hand against the faded wallpaper, my fingertips skipping over the seams with ease as I tried to picture my childhood here in Alswell instead of with my mum, moving around from county to county. Would I have been happy here? Would we have been a family? Me, my mum, and my father? Filled this place with a light and laughter that would have sunk into the foundations instead of the rot that was undoubtedly there now?

The door opened as easily today as it had yesterday and nothing looked noticeably different. It was a large room with a deep vanity taking up a lot of the wall on the side of the room furthest from the door. Small glass bottles dotted the surface as well as a hand-held mirror that looked antique. I ran my fingertips over the handle and looked up into the mirror sharply, like I’d expected someone to be standing behind me. Obviously that was just skittishness and paranoia shining through from yesterday night but it still took a moment for my heart to resume its usual rhythm.

There was a photo wedged into the frame of the mirror and I carefully prised it free and brought it closer to my face, my breath leaving me in a whoosh that made me feel like I was choking. It was my mother. Natalia Cole, or, as I supposed she must have been in this photo, Natalia Alswell. She was smiling, beaming really, her eyes practically sparkled and the man beside her had the soft kind of smile you only saw on the faces of people in the full throes of love.

Remembering how my mum had always labelled her photos, I turned it over with shaking hands and bit my lip against the tears that wanted to spill as I saw the names written there—Natalia and Edward Alswell. Obviously I’d known there hadn’t been a mistake, that this was who my mum had once been, that this house had become hers, but it was one thing to know something and another to see the hard evidence of it in front of you.

What happened? I wanted to ask the smiling woman in the picture. Why did you leave? She couldn’t answer me. The only way I would get answers now was by searching this house, these rooms.

I tucked the photograph into the pocket of my jeans and opened each drawer of the vanity methodically, stopping to sniff delicately at the perfumes in the bottles on the top and stroke gently over a hairbrush still entangled with dark strands. Small pieces of her that I’d never known, that had faded long before I’d lost her and found them.

Then I found the second photo, buried in the bottom drawer under what looked like spare linens for the bed, now dusty and in need of a wash. It wasn’t so different from the last, the man was the same and the woman was the same—but her smile seemed stretched thin, her eyes a little too wide, and when I looked closer at the man his smile was less soft and more proprietary. The photo was ripped along its width, their torsos lost, and the edges were jagged and fraying. I turned the photo over but only found my mother’s name, the rest of the caption lost with the remainder of the photo. Why had this been hidden away? And what had changed between the first photo and the second?

After a moment of consideration, I placed the second photo in my pocket with the other and continued searching the room without finding anything else of any real interest. Mostly the space was dominated by books and I couldn’t help wondering if Edward Alswell was the father I’d never known, whether this was the more intangible proof, and I also wished I knew what had happened to him. Obviously, he wasn’t alive or the inheritance would never have passed to me. Was his death what had driven my mum away? I would have to remember to ask Ms Weathers.

I couldn’t see any obvious exits from the room except the one I’d used to enter, but I ran my hands over the walls anyway, searching for a latch or the seam of a secret door. I leaned back against the aged cream wallpaper and sighed. It seemed like a room that had once been pretty. The walls had a blue forget-me-not design that had faded and smudged into a more mottled colour, like the house itself had wept over whatever had transpired here.

I thunked my head back and gasped as the wall moved and I fell backwards into a closet not unlike the one Sage had pulled me into before. There weren’t any other passages that led on from the room, just a small storage space with empty shelves. I sighed as I turned back to the door and pressed on it gently. It didn’t move.

Shit. I pressed harder and still didn’t feel it give. Oh fuck. I couldn’t be stuck in here. Small spaces weren’t my favourite, but I could normally manage fine. Something about being here in this storage space felt different though. The air was heavy and I gasped in frantically as I thundered my hand into the wall entrance to no avail. How had I not noticed it closing? Was there any air in here? I had to assume these places weren’t meant for storing humans, which meant if nobody knew about this space… if I couldn’t get myself out…

I hit the wall where the door should be, feeling the impact all the way up my arm as I hit it relentlessly. Surely it should have opened by now? Unless… had someone deliberately trapped me in here? I sucked in big gulping breaths of air and tried to calm myself by blowing it out of my mouth slowly but the air was broken up by my ragged sobs. I didn’t know where this panic was coming from, it just felt like… I froze, like a rabbit in headlights as I realised what it was that felt off.

It felt like something was in here with me.

A quiet breath hit the air, but it wasn’t mine. My entire body shifted, pressing itself fully against the wall as I pounded on it with both hands, crying and screaming as I felt another breath on the back of my neck. Or was this just my imagination again? What if I was finally breaking under the stress of it all and there had been no breath, no footsteps?

A scuff sounded outside, a murmur of voices that almost sounded like arguing but it was too muffled to tell what they were saying. I slammed my hands harder, more desperately and knew they would be bruised tomorrow if I got out of here. But there was someone there, definitely, I just needed them to—“Let me out! Please! Let me out.” My voice had grown hoarse from the volume of my shouts and I slammed my hands forward again, only to have them hit something solid. I stumbled forward and winced as weak daylight washed over me, trickling in through the window.

I sagged in the arms that held me upright as the shudders racking my body finally stilled. I could breathe, I’d got out. “There was something in there.”

“What?” The deep voice was gentle but familiar, and I blinked my eyes free of the moisture in them as I repeated my words slower.

“There was something in there with me.”

“I’ll check.” I tightened my hands on the jumper they were clutching and hands pried my fingers away as they moved to the closet. “I can’t see anything, are you sure?”

My head felt like it was swimming, everything felt blurry and strange and the room started to sway.

“Whoa.” Sage’s arms caught me as I realised the room wasn’t swaying but I was. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

I didn’t protest, just let the soothing voice guide me down the stairs and back into a room that smelled like eucalyptus and cotton.

“Here, come on, lay down now.”

I hesitated, spotting the bright white linens and suspecting that I was covered in dirt and tears. “No. I need to…” I gestured to myself and I heard a small sigh that made me jump until a hand squeezed mine briefly.

“You’re okay. Go ahead and shower, then. I won’t let anything hurt you. Don’t take too long though, I don’t want you passing out in there.”

I thought I nodded but I wasn’t sure, my body felt sluggish, like I was travelling through jelly as I stripped off my filthy clothes and stepped into a shower that was, mercifully, hot. I washed as quickly as I could, stopping several times to lean on the wall when the room threatened to become dark again. Then I wrapped myself in a towel and padded over to my bed, climbing in quickly to avoid the cold but still feeling shivers start to wrack my body.

“Better?”

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