The White House - Book 6, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Ten

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“I wish you hadn’t said you’d start work before you were supposed to,” Elise said, putting his cooked breakfast in front of him. “We could have spent the day together.”

James smiled, awkwardly and picked up his cutlery. “What would we have done instead?”

She grinned and sat opposite him. “I’m sure something would have come up,” she replied chuckling. “Still, there’s always tonight.”

He frowned down at his breakfast and, quietly, said, “Elise, about that –“

She glanced around the room. It was a lovely house and there was no reason to believe that anything she’d experienced hadn’t been the work of her own imagination. She’d been prone to hallucinations whilst in the grip of her flight to madness. She couldn’t blame James for being scared and angry with her at the thought she might be taking them back down that road.

She couldn’t allow her past demons to invade their new home.

She looked at him, smiling. “This is exactly what you wanted for us. A fresh start, here in this pretty little village, in this lovely house and I’m going to do my best to make it work, James. I promise you that.”

Something from his nightmare nagged in his brain and he felt tense and coiled like a tightly wound spring. He was suddenly anxious to be out of there; away from Elise and the memories of the night before. He pushed his plate to one side and stood up. Quickly, he kissed her on the cheek, goodbye, grabbed his rucksack and left through the mudroom.

Elise cleared the breakfast things, thoughtfully. James had looked pale and anxious when he’d rushed off to work and she couldn’t help but feel guilty. She had put him through so much, thoughtlessly, and in recent days, sometimes cruelly. Was it any wonder he looked every one of his forty-five years?

She was going to be a different woman. She was not going to give a thought to the strange noises of a house she wasn’t used to and she wasn’t going to entertain the fantasies of a little boy haunting it. She was going to be sane practical Elise and she would make a contented future with James.

After she’d cleaned the house and put some dirty laundry in the washing machine she phoned Ben’s number and left a message saying she’d like to cancel the meeting with his friend, Kay. She said it had clearly just been her imagination playing tricks on her. She hoped it wouldn’t cause him any inconvenience and thanked him for the offer of help. Her tone was polite and her goodbye abrupt.

As if in response to her new pragmatic persona, the now familiar creaking noise of the rocking horse drifted down from the top floor of the house. Elise slammed the phone down and ran upstairs; however, when she reached the second floor only silence as thick as an ocean fog greeted her. She stood in the hallway, staring up at the closed attic door, waiting...

After a couple of minutes Elise went into her bedroom and gathered her art supplies.  When she stepped out of her bedroom the attic door was now open, as if in invitation. She shook her head and ran downstairs without looking back. She put her coat on, retrieved her keys and went out to her car. Elise drove to Bodmin Moor and parked in a layby. She walked for a few minutes until she reached a pile of rocks she could perch on. 

The sky was a light blue and a few white clouds hung low, moving quickly with the fresh winter wind. The air was crisp and clear after the storm the day before. The moor was quiet; a peaceful natural silence. Elise began to draw the scene before her. Her mind drifted as she sketched; memories of the years with James, before they got caught up in medical tests and invasive treatments, reminiscing about holidays they had taken abroad and long nights spent wrapped around one another.