The House in the Woods

Chapter 1

The night sky was clear as I walked home from the diner. At eleven at night, the moon was getting pretty high in the sky, and it illuminated my way. It was busier that night at work than it usually was, so my feet ached and my head hurt from how tight I’d pulled my hair back into a bun.  It was a hot June night, and I fidgeted with the itchy collar of my uniform as I trudged on.

For what felt like the millionth time that night, I scowled to myself for letting dad take my car. I’d paid for it with my money, money that I’d rose by myself without his help whatsoever. I’d been doing my hair for my shift at work when he’d barged in, his blue eyes glazed with another one of his new theories and one side of his shirt untucked.

“Lilah darling, can I borrow Macy?”

Macy was the name I’d affectionately given to my red truck. I shot him one of my signature “are you crazy?” looks in the mirror. “Dad, I need it to get to work!”

He waved a hand absently at me, his eyes still bright. “Oh, you can walk! It’s a fantastic night; a stroll would be good for you! Plus darling,” He smiled eagerly as he wandered further into my room, “I’ve got a foolproof strategy for tonight. I’ve been thinking it over for two days straight! Luck has no choice but to find me at the tables, and I’ve got to get to the hall early for it to work. What do you say?”

My dad was a gambling addict, and he’s been thinking up get rich quick schemes for as long as I can remember. I was always ragging on him to get out of it, but he’d pull that excited little boy look on me and I was a goner. I sighed as I stuck a bobby pin through a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

“Take her.” I said wearily.

A sunny grin spread across his face. “Thank you, Lilah! I knew I could depend on you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I grabbed my keys from off my dresser and held them out to him.

Like lightning, he was across the room and he grabbed them from my hand. “Don’t worry darling, I’ll come home a rich man tonight!”

I rolled my eyes, but he’d already wandered out again. He’s been saying the same line for the last eighteen years.

I brooded over my dad’s childish tendencies as I turned a corner into our street. Sometimes it felt like he was the eighteen year old, and I was the thirty nine year old. I was forever covering his gambling debts with the money I’d slaved for at the diner, and he still skipped off to the gambling hall every night as if he was heading out on his first date. He was always between jobs; forever distracted, Greg Winters was not the ideal employee. It was only when he was seated with a pack of cards and a mini city of chips in front of him that he was ever focused.

I sighed as I reached our little bungalow and pulled out my keys. Macy was in the driveway, and he’d forgotten to put the pot of geraniums back on top of the key I’d left there for him. I’d given up on him keeping a set because he always lost them.

After straightening the pot out and walking inside, I glanced around for him. “Dad?”

“In here, honey!” His voice came from the kitchen and I immediately froze in suspicion. My eyes narrowed as I made my way toward him; he only called me “honey” when he needed something.

A horrible sight greeted me when I walked into the kitchen. My dad was sitting at our little round table, two cups of lemonade – which I made, might I add – sitting in front of him. His eyes were focused for once, and his hands were folded firmly in front of him on the table.

My instincts were screaming at me to get out. All of these things together meant one thing – that my dad was in more trouble than usual, and he needed me to help dig him out of it.