I've always hated Eden's Gate.
Alright, that's rather dramatic.
What I mean is— I've hated Eden's Gate for as long as I've known about it. Which is, to say, not very long at all.
It's a tragic place full of tragic people. I'm serious— I've never seen so many miserable, sullen faces in all my life, and I've been through the hell that is college. People wander vaguely from store to store, gazes locked forwards, lost to their own worlds. Their expressions are blank, tinged with a melancholy sort of fog, and even as we drive past, they do not spare the car even a fleeting glance, nor a shred of attention. It's like we've stumbled upon an apocalypse.
The car journey has been long and unforgiving. I've lapsed into silence, languid wax against my seat, as I gaze out at the streets, studying my new home and judging it at face value. My mum, who up until this point has provided a steady stream of one-sided, upbeat conversation, falls quiet and joins me in my assessment of the place. She turns the radio down and, I have to admit, I'm glad of it. They've blasted the same eighties classics for the duration of the drive, and I'm just about ready to lose my mind.
We warily look out at the town. Home. For now, at least.
It's a ghastly place. All cobbled alleys and run-down storefronts and grey skies. I mean, the weather can't be helped, but the place looks as though it was left back in the era of those awful songs and time hasn't quite caught up with the rest of the world just yet.
And, I figure, it wouldn't kill them to invest in a few flower boxes, or something. Anything to add a bit of colour. A pop of something interesting. But all we get is grey, grey, and more grey.
The problem with Eden's Gate, I decide, is that it could be picturesque, if only a bit of effort went into the place. We drive over a stone bridge, and a fast-flowing river weaves a ribbon through green-dusted forests and nestles right up to a low brick wall bordering a few houses, a quaint bakery, and a little library. The wall is washed with mottled algae and dried mud where the waterline must've risen, but it holds firm; a damp sentry acting as floodgate.
The cottages are gloomy and the stores dilapidated, and any hint of tranquillity gets swept away in the river the further into Eden's Gate we venture.
"This'll be fun," mum says, determination like a plate of armour coating her voice. She taps the steering wheel with her fingers and nods. The pretence cracks and I watch as her shoulders sag. "Holy shit, it's miserable here."
She's got that right, but we don't have a choice.
And, I muse, it has to be better than home.
The drive has been uneventful, until now, and I dislodge my glasses to rub at my stinging eyes. Serves me right for staying up all night packing. I delayed it for as long as possible, hoping for a better turn of events. The backseat is crowded with hastily packed bags and suitcases all shoved into whatever crevice they happen to fit in. It's a fine art — making a puzzle of your own belongings — and yet the masterpiece will be destroyed soon enough when we open the back door. Then it will go from a puzzle to an explosion.
We've left a bad situation for a bittersweet one; swapped them out like some horrible game we can't quite understand the rules of. We have no choice but to make do with what we're given, even if it's overshadowed by a gloomy circumstance and an even more gloomy town.
"It's not that bad, Theo," mum jokes, giving me a rallying nudge.
In an effort to follow her cheerful lead, I cover my eyes and pretend to weep.
The phone chirps directions at us in an electric voice; eternally energetic as it leads us towards a dismal new home.
We don't need the directions anymore. Or, at least, mum doesn't. She's been here before (as have I, but I was only small and my recollection is blurry at best), but she likes a job to be finished, and she will let the phone direct us until the very end, lest the house has grown legs and wandered off.
In any case, either the phone or my mother's own memory leads us out the other end of town, where we leave the dismal buildings behind for a dismal lane overshadowed with gnarled oak trees stretching over the car and blocking out what little light there is overhead.
The road — though that's a rather ambitious name for the winding, lurching river of pebbles we've found ourselves on — eventually leads us to a rusted iron gate lurking behind overgrown hedges.
It looks like the entrance to an asylum, I think bleakly. A great start.
I have to jump out the car to swing open the gate (though there is a padlock, it's old and broken and unlocked already), and it shrieks ominously as my mum drives through, like there are souls trapped in the metal and screaming for peace.
Not that I was expecting anything particularly miraculous, given the state of the town, but the house is like something from a nightmare you might've had as a child. The sort that warps itself into a mess of darkness and dread. The sort that has you checking over your shoulder even when you're certain you are alone, just in case. Brick walls pale beneath the onslaught of time; dark windows yawn and gape; ivy crawls its way up the walls, a waterfall in reverse; roof tiles hanging on by a thread.
Home sweet home.
Solus Estate, the place is so aptly and fondly called— the name is engraved in stark letters arched over the gate, and they are apparently the only thing about the house that isn't broken. It sounds creepily like soulless, I have to admit. According to my hasty research before my data ran out halfway through the drive, when curiosity got the best of me, 'Solus' is Latin for 'alone'.
And that seems rather fitting, given the circumstances.
The house — which, gazing up at the bleak monstrosity before me, is a bit of a lie — belonged to my gran. Apparently it was a steal and, since no one else wanted it and my gran fancied herself a lover of renovations at the ripe age of sixty, she bought the dilapidated place almost twenty years ago.
The only problem with that ambitious plan to turn a contender for a horror film house into a home was that none of the local builders, plumbers or electricians wanted anything to do with it, and calling in favours from out of town was expensive and borderline impossible. Renovations ground to a halt. My gran made the place liveable, just about.
But now, given my gran's no longer with us, the house has fallen into disrepair once more. Smashed windows, frames bent and brick walls cracked, garden overgrown and unkempt. A mess, to say the least. The sort you turn your back on and ignore for as long as you can.
We haven't been here in years— well over a decade. For good reason, my mum tells me. According to her, when I was five and more forgiving of traumatic events, she left me alone upstairs in the nursery (yes, the house has a nursery, which is horrifying enough) to do some laundry, only to return to find me laughing and having a conversation with a dark corner. When she — rightly so — scooped me up and hightailed it out of there, I screamed bloody murder and begged her to let me play with my new friend.
My gran — a stout, firm woman who never raised her voice but, never one to be wasteful, put the fear of God into me if I didn't finish all my food — only waved off her fear and said it was just a child's overactive imagination. But I was hysterical and, no matter what my mum tried to distract me, I begged and begged and begged for my nursery friend.
It's no surprise, really, that she packed our things that very afternoon and never looked back.
Until now, that is.
Visits with gran became phone calls, which became sporadic texts, which became overbearing silence. My mum only realised the pit she'd fallen into when it was too late. When she'd already lost all her friends, all her family, all her independence. Her wedding ring was a cage— one she's broken out of. One she's determined to keep us both away from.
Neither of us are eager to return to Eden's Gate, to uproot our lives and start somewhere new, but we have no other choice. With my gran gone, the will read, and the house falling quite unexpectedly into our laps, it is a bittersweet escape we would be stupid to cast aside.
Especially since my dad doesn't know it now belongs to us. And, with any luck, he won't figure it out anytime soon. Long enough for the restraining order, and the divorce, and the new life to thread together.
We can't afford to be picky. We can't afford much at all.
By the time I've finished my appraisal of the place, mum has parked up and gotten out of the car.
I close the gate, sealing us in, and wander over to meet her. My footsteps crunch in the gravel— an archaic alarm system.
"She always said we would have a home here, if we wanted it," she says, her voice soft as she gazes up at the house. Her expression is inscrutable; fogged with memories. "It's strange, being back and knowing she's not waiting in there with cookies."
I pull a face. "Don't mention the cookies."
I remember those little nuggets of charred sugar. Rock-hard, burnt to a crisp, with my gran's scratchy voice asking why I hadn't finished the plate. I remember my mum deftly sliding them into the bin when my gran wasn't looking and winking conspiratorially at me, just in case we died of food poisoning.
She smiles, hugging herself. "Alright— the barely-edible cookies."
"Ah, good, you're here!" A man emerges from the foliage, voice booming, and I just about have a heart attack.
As I try to recover, and as mum bites her lip to keep from laughing at my expense, I study the man that's approaching. He wears a tailored suit and carries a briefcase, and I see that he has not manifested from the shrubs; in fact, these shrubs merely conceal his sleek car, from which he's just emerged.
"I'm glad you've found the place alright— I know it's a bit of a maze, round here," he says, offering us both a warm, contagious smile. He's attractive, in a clean, sleek sort of way, and when he offers his hand, I find his grip is as good as his refined posture. A lawyer. "Oliver Atwood— Ms. Langley's attorney. I'm very sorry for your loss."
At this last bit, his smile falls obediently, tugged by social etiquette, but it's quick to build itself back up again. My mum and I introduce ourselves.
"A pleasure to meet you. I've got all the necessary paperwork and deeds in here," he continues, lifting his briefcase and giving it a little shake. "I just have to run through some details with you, and you've got to sign a few things, then I'll be out of your way."
As though the day could not get any more dismal, raindrops tap onto my forehead and my glasses, and an icy breeze howls its way through the trees caging us in. I hug myself, wondering which suitcase my coat is in, and if it's one of the easy-to-reach cases or one of the foundation pieces of the backseat puzzle.
"We've done all the legal checks and surveys— no asbestos, no mould, the infrastructure is secure enough. It's just a general renovation this place needs. And it's in a lovely area, too. Have you ever been to Eden's Gate before? There's such a lovely sense of community, I think," Oliver says, gazing up at the place with an easy smile. There's something off about his expression, and I find there's a hardness to his eyes; a sheen of something not quite right. Just as I pick up on it, he blinks and offers us an upbeat, gleaming grin, pulling a key from his pocket. "Shall we go inside?"
The inside isn't much better, by any stretch of the imagination. But at least we're out of the rain.
Just as well, because right as I close the door after me, I hear a distant rumble of thunder.
An icy gale, like some morbid exhalation, swirls from the depths of the house, carrying with it the sharp scent of mildew and dust.
My mum finds a light switch and flicks it on— sconces lining the walls flicker but eventually manage a steady stream of light. They reveal a grand entrance with a staircase right in the centre of the room, leading up to a landing with banisters overlooking the entrance on both sides. To our left and right, there's archways leading into, respectively, an outdated kitchen and a room full of furniture masquerading as ghosts covered in white sheets.
Further into the house, on either side of the staircase, there's more archways and more ghostly furnishings. A precarious chandelier looms over us, and there's a vase of decorative feathers tucked away in the corner, as though my gran attempted to make a nice hallway and gave up.
The place is eerily quiet, with a leak tapping off in the distance and a creaking noise emanating from above our heads. I take off my glasses and wipe them on the bottom of my jumper, as though the house will suddenly become inviting if only I could see it properly, and without distortion.
"This is..." mum begins, ever one to find the good in a bad situation. She trails off, surveying the place, but even she can't think of anything pleasant to say.
"Old," I fill in, donning the glasses and squinting at the light to check for any marks.
Thankfully, Oliver also seems like the cheery sort. He wanders ahead and rests against the ornate newel post cap at the bottom of the stairs. "It's a fixer-upper," he corrects, looking very much like the lord of the estate as he appraises the place. "Just a lick of paint, updated furniture, and it'll be beautiful."
I think, as I look around, that it'll need a whole lot more than that.
Mum nods with a grin, anyway. Cheery people bounce off each other's energy, and she and Oliver engage in an upbeat plan of action for making the place a home. They throw around renovation plans, what they'd do with each room, what they'd keep and what they'd get rid of. I wonder if Oliver will be staying with us, given his enthusiasm for the project.
I leave them to it and wander into the kitchen. The skin on the back of my neck prickles with the odd sensation of being observed— as though the walls have eyes and ears and follow my every move. It's unnerving, and I shove the feeling down with some difficulty.
Vague memories swirl in my head. A fine sheen of dust coats everything, from the counter-tops my gran worked on, to the knife block beside the stove, to the island where I recall sitting and colouring masterpieces, to the breakfast table sat before the window where I force-fed myself burnt cookies.
Rain hurtles itself against the windows as I make my way over to the sink. My gran bought a little stool for the sole purpose of getting me to help her wash up. The memory of being elbow-deep in warm, soapy water and listening to all my gran's stories tugs at my focus— a distant echo from a bygone time. I can't find the offending bit of wood I stood on, but I turn the tap on, pulled by nostalgia.
The water is icy against my fingers.
Mum and Oliver meander their way into the room with me. I glance at them over my shoulder and am about to point out that the water is freezing when it should be warm, but Oliver beats me to it.
"Ah," he says with an almost comical wince. He consults the strap of his briefcase for something else to do and tells us, "I'm afraid there's no hot water."
Mum and I share a bleak glance, and I turn the tap off. This ought to be fun.
Welcome to hell.