Annie's Room (9 page)

I open my mouth, still feeling as if I should say something, but no words come. What words could possibly be appropriate at a time like this? Better, I think, to just let her slip away. She certainly doesn't deserve to be comforted.

I don't know the exact moment when she dies, but after a couple of minutes I check for a pulse on the side of her neck and find nothing. I check the other side, just to be sure, and then I check her wrists, but still there's nothing. Worried that she might be trying to fool me, I take the knife and drive the tip into her cheek until the blade has passed through into her mouth and pierced her tongue, but she doesn't react at all. Pulling the knife out and sitting back, I realize that I'm ever so slightly out of breath, but I can't hold back a smile at the realization that Mother is finally, and permanently, out of the way.

In fact, I even allow myself a brief, contained laugh.

After a few minutes, I get to my feet and look down at all the blood that has soaked into my dress from Mother's back. Lifting the dress over my head, I drop it to the floor and then glance out the window, to make sure that Father is still working. Slipping out of the rest of my clothes, which are also stained with blood and which I must surely throw away, I step over Mother's body and head to the bathroom, where I draw some water into the bath and take a moment to clean myself. The water is cold, of course, and I start shivering a little, but I absolutely
must
get clean as quickly as possible. I even scrub under my fingernails and wash my hair, and finally after about half an hour I climb from the bath and dry myself, before hurrying upstairs and going to my room, where some of Mother's dresses are still hanging in the closet. I look out the window to check that Father is still working, before slipping into one of the dresses and then looking into the mirror so that I can fix my hair. It takes a while to get everything sorted but I want to look my best, so I don't rush. The worst thing in the world would be for Father to see my when I'm not all fixed up.

By the time I get back down to the kitchen, it must have been an hour at least since Mother died. She's still where I left her, and her dead eyes are still staring up at the ceiling. Stepping closer, I look down and see that the scratches from the sandpaper were deeper than I'd realized, and it's hard to believe she could even get from one room to another without bumping into things. Still, this isn't the time to start feeling pity. I have to get on with the job of making this roast, although first I need to clear the kitchen.

Heading out to the porch, I watch for a moment as Father continues to work. I can't hide a faint smile as I make my way across the lawn, and my heart is pounding in my chest as I reach him. At first he doesn't look at me, preferring to keep chopping wood, but finally he turns and waits for me to speak.

“Is something wrong?” he asks finally.

“No,” I tell him, “nothing's wrong. But we need to bury Mother.”

Thirteen

Today

“Mom!” I shout, sitting up in bed and listening to the sound of something bumping downstairs. “Mom, what's wrong? Mom!”

It's midday and while Dad and Scott are out in town, Mom stayed behind to keep me company and get started painting the front room. With no internet and no TV, I've spent the morning reading more of the old books that Mom found from her boxes, while waiting with increasing impatience for her to find
my
boxes with
my
books. And then, about thirty seconds ago, I heard the sound of someone banging into things in one of the rooms below.

“Mom!” I call out again. “Are you okay?”

I wait.

Silence.

“I'm fine!” she calls back suddenly, sounding distracted. “It's nothing, Annie, really.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing!”

“More nothing, huh?”

I wait for a reply, but none comes.

Frowning, I listen to the sound of her moving things around in the room directly below. I guess maybe she's been shifting furniture and knocked something over, but for the past couple of days Mom has been acting increasingly strangely, and this morning she seemed positively jumpy. I've tried asking her what's wrong and she always says it's nothing to worry about, but she also tells me not to mention anything to Dad, which I definitely take to be a sign that I should be concerned. Even now, listening to her clattering about down there, I can't shake the feeling that she's hiding something. I've started to lose count of how often I've heard that word 'nothing' lately.

A few minutes later, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and Mom comes into my room with a sandwich on a plate and a glass of milk.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she says with a forced smile.

“You're not fooling me, you know,” I tell her as she sets the plate and glass down on my bedside table.

“What's that, sweetheart?”

“I said you're not fooling me. Something's wrong.”

She sighs.

“Something's
wrong
,” I say again, figuring that I need to force the matter a little. “You can either tell me now or tell me later, but we both know you
will
tell me at some point, so...” I pat the bed next to my right leg. “Spill the beans.”

She stares at me for a moment, before making her way around the bed and looking out the window. She seems worried.

“Have you seen something?” I ask finally.

I want her to tell me that no, of course she hasn't seen anything, but instead she glances at me and I can immediately tell that I'm on the money.

“What did you see?”

She hesitates, as if she's worried I'll laugh at her.

“Was it that woman again?” I ask.

“I...” She pauses. “What woman?”

“You know, the -”

“Describe her to me,” she continues. “The one you thought you saw the other day from this window.”

“She was wearing a white dress and she had black hair,” I reply. “That's really all I could see. She was standing out there, looking down at a spot on the lawn. I didn't see her face or anything.”

She stares at me for a moment, before looking back out the window. I swear, the cold morning light is making her look so pale right now.

“Where did you see her?” I ask.

“Annie...”

“
Where
did you
see
her?”

She continues to look out the window for a moment.

“The basement,” she says finally, her voice so faint it's almost impossible to hear.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“It's silly, really...” She looks back at the door, as if she's worried we might be overheard. “Your father doesn't like me going down there,” she continues, turning to me. “He says it's not safe, something about exposed wires.” She sighs. “I don't even know if that's true, but he's got the place locked up like Fort Knox, and then yesterday morning I had to go down there to take a look at the fuse box. Your father was out and I couldn't wait, so I found the spare keys and...” Her voice trails off for a moment. “There are no lights down there,” she explains, “and I only had the light from my phone, but you know where the fuse box is, right?”

I shake my head.

“Of course not,” she mutters. “You've barely seen outside this room. Well, it's about halfway along the basement's far wall. There was light coming down the stairs from the open door, obviously, but it was still kind of creepy being down there alone. Not that I was getting paranoid or anything, I definitely didn't get worked up and imagine the whole thing.” She pauses again. “I was replacing one of the fuses when I heard a noise. At first it seemed like something scraping across the concrete floor, but after a moment it seemed more like it was coming from the ceiling, like someone... So I looked over, thinking it was a rat or something, but I didn't see anything. I got back to work, and even though I heard the sound a few more times, I told myself it was nothing. And then...”

“Then what?”

“There's a meter on the fuse box case, with a glass panel. I kept checking it to see if the dial was turning properly, I could see my own reflection in the glass but that didn't really matter, and then one time when I looked...”

I wait for her to continue.

“What did you see?” I ask.

“There was... I
thought
there was someone standing right behind me. A woman in a white dress, with black hair, and as I stared at the reflection I saw her hand reaching up to my shoulder.” She reaches up and touches her right shoulder. “I was too shocked and scared to move, I just stood there and watched as her hand moved closer and closer. I stayed completely still until...”

“Until what?”

She pauses. “I felt her.”

“What do you mean, you
felt
her?”

“I felt her hand on my shoulder,” she continues, indicating a spot at the side of her neck. “Right here. Just lightly, but... I didn't just see something, Annie, I felt it. It touched me!”

“Did you turn around?”

She nods.

“And?”

“And there was nothing. It was gone, but I swear...” She shivers as she looks at her shoulder. “It's probably nothing, but that combined with the nightmare -”

“Tell me about the nightmare.”

She shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“Because it's all just dumb,” she continues, clearly exasperated. “It was just a creepy dream about a woman with scratched eyes -”

“Scratched eyes?”

“Like...” She points at her own eyes. “They were both scratched to hell, with lots of little lines criss-crossing and... It's not something I really want to think about, I've only just started to get it out of my system.” She pauses, as if she wants to say something else but can't quite get it out. “She was staring at me with this intensity, like she expected me to know something or do something or...”

Her voice trails off.

“Mom,” I say finally, “are you starting to worry that this house is -”

“No,” she says firmly.

“But if it's -”

“Don't say the word.”

“I don't believe in ghosts,” I continue, “I mean not really, but if
you
think the place is haunted, then that's something we should talk about.” I wait for a reply. “Has anyone else seen anything?”

“I don't think so,” she replies. “Your father's being a little odd, but I think that's just the stress of the move. Scott seems quiet, but he's probably picking it up from me. Your father was worried that might happen, maybe he was right.” She pauses again. “What about you, Annie? Have you seen or heard anything, stuck up here in your room?”

“Not really,” I tell her. “Not apart from that woman I saw from the window.”

“She was probably just one of the neighbors.”

“I hope so.”

“Mom,” I continue, “do you know about -” I stop myself just in time, figuring that maybe this isn't the right moment to tell her about the murder that took place here seventy-one years ago. Dad said she's better off knowing, and I think he might be right. “You should talk to Dad about this,” I tell her. “Seriously, don't let him brush you off. If you've got concerns, you need to air them.”

“This has gone far enough,” she continues, forcing a smile as she gets to her feet and pats my knee. “Eat your lunch and I'll be up later, we can watch a film before your father and Scott get home. Does that sound like a good deal?”

“Sure,” I reply, feeling as if she needs the company as much as I do. As she heads out of the room, I can't shake the feeling that she's way,
way
more on edge than I've ever seen her before, but I honestly don't know how to help. Everything she told me can be explained away as the result of her being spooked and a little impressionable, but then there's the woman I saw from the window. Leaning across the bed, I look out and watch the lawn for a moment, half expecting to see someone, but of course there isn't a soul out there.

Not at the moment, anyway.

Fourteen

Seventy-one years ago

It's another beautiful July day, and Father works from dawn 'til dusk. Mostly he chops firewood, but he also checks traps in the forest and repairs a hole in the barn door. It's not that I'm checking up on him; I simply spot him from time to time when I glance out the kitchen window, and I see him going about his business in the distance.

He's happy.

I'm happy.

I can't help but smile.

For my part, I have a great deal to learn. Mother always ran the house reasonably well, even if she cut corners from time to time, so I have to get up to speed before Father notices any differences. I want him to see that he can rely on me. I've already spent the morning reorganizing the kitchen and giving it a good clean, including the spots that Mother evidently missed. Working hard and fast, I got that job done by midday and now I've moved on to the rest of the house, going from room to room and fixing everything methodically. Truth be told, I've fallen into something of a daze, working almost like a machine, and by the time I'm done upstairs I find that it's almost four in the afternoon, which means I must start preparing dinner.

This all feels so right, as if it's what I'm meant to be doing.

The one strange thing is that every so often, I find little patches of water, as if something has dripped onto the floor. There appear to be no holes in the roof, and I'm certainly not spilling, and in some cases the water even appears in spots that I
know
I've already cleaned today. On one occasion, I even see water smeared against the wall in the hallway, as if someone wet brushed against the wood, but such a thing is quite impossible.

I even start to feel as if -

But no, I'm just letting my thoughts run on. Father is in the garden and I'm quite alone in the house.

As I head along the landing, I stop and look at the words 'Annie's room' carved into one of the door-frames. That awful night, when Mother pushed Father to such great anger, feels as if it took place a hundred lifetimes ago. Smiling, I run a fingertip against the deep grooves that Father cut into the wood, tracing each of the letters one by one until I've completed both words, and I whisper them out loud.

“Annie's room.”

The irony, of course, is that now Mother has left us, there's really no need to have this little notice anymore, but I feel it should remain. Not as a warning, not any longer; more as a reminder, and a statement of great pride.

Heading downstairs, I glance out the kitchen window and smile once again as I see Father carrying a heavy load of wood to the barn. He puts too much weight on his shoulders, of course, but then again I suppose he knows what he's doing. He's a strong, capable man who has been working hard on this land since he was just a child, and I wouldn't dare interfere and tell him how things should be run. The house is my domain, now that I've taken it over from Mother, and I must focus on the tasks that fall to me. I can be quite happy like this.

No, I can be
more
than happy.

I can live my whole life in this daze of usefulness.

I belong here. Mother never understood, of course. She ascribed base, lowly motives to my actions, and she allowed her foul mind to imagine all sorts of perversions and disgusting acts. It's typical that she thought like that, but at least she's gone now.

This is a pure and happy house.

Chaste and calm.

Later that night, after dinner has been eaten and tidied away, Father goes and sits in his armchair, and I take him his usual glass of whiskey. In the old days, when Mother was around, these moments were often the most tense, since he would often be brooding and thinking of Mother's many mistakes. No longer. He seems more relaxed, albeit a little pensive, and for a short while I'm not really sure what I should do. Finally, aware that all my tasks are done for the day, and feeling aches and pains in my joints, I make my way over to the chair and settle on the floor. I lean toward Father and set my face against the side of his trousers, the way I would in the old days, and I look up at his face as it's caught by the hearth's flickering light.

He glances down at me briefly, before turning and looking back at the fire.

Something is definitely on his mind.

No matter. I shall simply wait here, happily, until he decides that it's time to retire for the night. I have been useful to him today and made him proud, and that's really at my first proper attempt. I cannot imagine how much better I will be at housekeeping once I've had more practice, but I know one thing for certain:

We're much better off without Mother, and my room is now Father's room too.

Still, as I sit here, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched. I turn and look across the dark room, with only the light from a single candle flickering in the corner. There's no-one in the doorway, but I feel as if perhaps there
was
someone there just a moment ago, just before I looked. I tell myself that I'm being foolish, but just as I'm about to turn back to Father I realize I can see more splashes of water on the floor, right in the doorway, glistening in the candlelight. I hold my breath for a moment, trying to work out what could possibly be happening, but I figure I should just keep my concerns to myself and deal with the problem without disturbing Father.

A moment later I hear the back door bumping shut in the breeze. Somehow, I must have left it open.