I watch my sister drive off into the distance. Our vacuum cleaner no longer works and she's going into the village at the bottom of the hill to see if she can find a new one. I'm glad we're making progress, but I'm not all that keen on staying in the house on my own. I feel like I've shrunk several sizes. I watch until I can no longer see our cheap bright orange Ford Cortina and then turn around, reluctantly walking back inside.
The figure I thought I saw yesterday evening is still playing around in my thoughts. It had to be imagined – right? Who walks through the forest that late? Even I know that's dangerous. So easy to trip and fall or get lost. When I told my sister she just shrugged.
"Northern Scotland. People must be bored. Or maybe you were just imagining things, Lysandra. We're both very tired." She threw a piece of toast at my head. "I imagined I saw a tall man with horns on his head in my room last night. Turns out it was just my coat hanging on the door."
I know it's the logical option, but being here... logic seems a far-off thing, a strange thing, a thing reserved for big bustling cities where the only green space consists of carefully thought-out, human-made parks and the occasional flowerbed full of cigarette butts and condom wrappers. Here, though... I feel like a visitor.
Determined to surprise my sister when she gets back, I set to work in the salon. We can't vacuum the floor yet, but I can dust the shelves. I can clean, I can tidy up, I can throw out what we no longer need. It's dull work. It's a rhythm I desperately need. It will take my mind off things, I'm sure of it.
As soon as I notice I'm getting hungry I take my apple and sandwich outside. Being inside the house does not make me feel better. Every little thing kickstarts a childhood memory I'm not ready for. I almost burst into tears upon seeing a teacup. I wander through the garden looking for a nice place to sit, and preferably not a place where the woods are clearly visible down the hill. I end up walking quite a bit. The garden is huge and ends where our neighbours' garden begins, separated by an overgrown thorny hedge. Only their side is carefully cut into a nice square shape. It's not tall, though. The neighbours must have kept it short – as if they still wanted to be able to spy on our house. The idea makes me feel uneasy. I still haven't seen them.
I find a stone bench that isn't covered in weeds or broken and sit down carefully. When it holds up I relax a bit and try to eat my lunch. I call some friends from back home, desperate to hear their voice, but most of them are busy at work. Still, even a few minutes of normal human contact instantly makes me feel better. I'm in the middle of texting my friend Philip a full update on the house when a noise startles me. I look up and nearly scream.
A woman stands on the other side of the hedge and watches me. Her eyes are the same colour as her hair – disturbingly light grey, bordering on white. The same colour as my hair, in fact, though hers is fuzzier and longer and sloppily wrestled into a braid that reaches her ankles. She squints her eyes as if she's angry and doesn't say a word.
I clear my throat.
She doesn't speak.
"Uh... hello."
She raises one eyebrow and finally opens her mouth, revealing some very stained and yellowed teeth.
"You're Selus and Lyta's daughter, aren't you?"
Hearing my parents' names is enough to almost make me cry once again. I swallow thickly and try to seem normal as I answer.
"One of them, yes."
She nods slowly. "You look like your father."
Her tone suggests it's a bad thing. I shift uncomfortably.
"Right. I've heard that before, actually. You're, uh... my neighbour, I assume?"
She ignores my question. "You and your sister are back."
"Yes."
Another slow nod. "Interesting. Why?"
What's it to her? She seems... angry, somehow. Upset at my presence. Well, I have just as much right to be here as she does. My sister and I are the official owners of this house, no matter how much I hate it.
"We're her to renovate and sell it," I say as curtly as possible.
The woman snorts. "Good luck with that. Murder houses rarely sell."
How does she-
"Excuse me?"
She crosses her arms. The rows and rows of dangling bracelets she wears clink together like crystal wine glasses. I half expect a toast to the happy couple.
"I know what happened," she says, almost smugly. "To your parents."
I don't respond.
"You really shouldn't be here."
I cross my arms as well. "And why is that?"
Her eyes travel towards the woods. "Things... come from the trees sometimes. Not fit for city girls. You should leave, you know."
Anger flares. Who is this woman to tell me what to do, where to go? We've never met before, or at least, not that I know of. Perhaps I saw her once as a child. Probably not long enough to leave a significant impression.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I say coldly.
"Which is why you should leave."
"I don't think so."
She shrugs her bony shoulders. "Your choice."
"You're right, it is," I say angrily. "Who do you think you are? We've never even met before!"
Another shrug.
"And what do you mean with 'things come from the trees'? Are there wolves here or something? Foxes?"
Her gaze meets mine again and my body goes a bit colder. She unnerves me. Why, oh why could we not just have normal neighbours?
"Did you know," she says slowly, "that if you fall asleep under a fruit tree, they will come and claim you?"
"What?"
She nods at the apple tree on the hill above us. "I'd cut that down if I were you. Doesn't bear any proper fruit, anyway."
I step as close as I can without being attacked by the thorn bushes. "Listen, you're going to have to start making sense. I'm in no mood for riddles."
"Just stay away from the trees."
"Thanks," I say sarcastically, "for this sagely advise. Anything else you'd like to vague up for me?"
To my surprise, she smiles. "No. That's it."
"Great." I grab what's left of my sandwich. "I'll go eat my lunch somewhere else. Somewhere without crazy people."
She doesn't seem fazed. "My name's Isla."
"Okay."
"And yours is?"
I scoff. "None of your business."
Still fuming, I turn around and march back up the hill towards our house. Isla yells something, but I can't understand what, and I'm too proud to go back and ask. When I turn around on the porch and look down she's still there, staring straight at me, her hands buried in the pockets of her murky apron.
"Crazy woman," I mumble.
A chill runs up my spine nonetheless. I tear my eyes away from the snowy-haired figure at the hedge and go back inside.
"Lysandra, look at this."
I stop scrubbing the salon coffee table momentarily and look up. My sister stands over me, a square red object in hand. She was vacuuming the corridor only moments before. How does everyone around me move so silently?
"What is it?"
She kneels down and shoves it towards me. "Picture album."
My body temperature drops. "Ah."
"From when our parents moved in here." She smiles a little. "We weren't even born yet. Do you want to see?"
I squeeze the sponge I'm holding. Drops of grey water fall on my tattered jeans. "I'm not so sure."
"It's okay if you don't want to," Demetria assures me. She slips her fingers under the leather-bound cover. "But it's really sweet. There's more albums around. Some with our baby pictures in them. How embarrassing is that?"
Before I can respond she throws the album open. The air is made of cotton balls all of the sudden, muffling any other sound. It's my parents. Selus and Lyta Midsummer, twenty-five years old. The same age we are now. They smile into the camera, each with their arm around a huge wolf-like dog. They used to own two huskies. They died before we were born, but there's tons of pictures of them around. My mother holds up a trowel and my dad a paint brush. Renovating the house as we are now, but for vastly different reasons. It's hard to imagine this house being prepared for a long, happy life.
"They're so..."
I don't finish my sentence. Demetria smiles.
"I know." Her smile broadens. "There's one of mum on her motorcycle, look..."
She flips through the pages. I don't understand how she can be so calm, how she can do this with such ease, such quiet determination. I'm afraid to even touch the paper.
"And here, see, one of the later ones – I think mum's pregnant here."
My mother smiles broadly into the camera. Outside in the sun, one hand on her still-flat belly, eyes glittering knowingly. A bottle of soda stands next to her and one of the enormous dogs, now greying at the snout, has laid his enormous head on her lap, staring up adoringly, as if he is just as excited for this new life to come.
"Demetria..."
"Look, look at this one. Dad in a suit. Never thought I'd see that. It's so ugly, it's like, red and orange stripes or something. The tie doesn't match either."
She flips the page. Our father. He does look like me – or rather, I look like him, and so does Demetria. We share his eyes. The green of a poisonous frog or snake, flecked with only a little bit of black. It's a close-up of him. He laughs. Someone has written Selus, tenth anniversary dinner next to it.
"Mum's handwriting." Demetria follows the thin lines with one finger. "So sloppy. Artist's handwriting. Some of her paintings are still in the attic, I think."
I blink away tears. "Right, uh... are there any... is there anything with our neighbour in it in here?"
Demetria frowns. "Our neighbour? No. Why? Did you see her?"
"We met."
"And?"
I sigh. "Nightmare. She told us to leave. That we shouldn't have come. And that we had to cut down our fruit tree, because 'they' might come to claim us, and that there are things living in the forest that are dangerous."
Demetria chuckles. "Old people. They still believe in strange stories in this part of the world, I think. Don't let her bother you too much."
"She's strange."
"We just won't mention her when we try to sell the house."
I play with the hem of my shirt, ignoring my father's smiling face in front of me. "She mentioned our parents. Their death. She said she knew what happened."
"What?"
Demetria is no longer smiling. I shrug.
"I don't know what she meant. She was a bit vague."
"I'm visiting that old hag tomorrow," my sister hisses. "Let's see if she's still vague, then."
"Please don't. We don't want any trouble."
She gets up and lifts the photo album from my lap. "Correction. You don't want any trouble. I won't have anyone talk of our parents like they... like they know more than we do, or something."
Without another word she marches out. I stay behind, squeezing the sponge, and stare at the wall. But the fading plaster does not have any answers either.
Dinner that night is quiet. We're both tired. I stab at my salad with my fork, somehow not that hungry after a long day's work. Demetria on the other hand is already on her third helping.
"You not hungry?" she asks.
I shake my head. "No. I'm sorry, I don't know why."
"It's this stupid house. It's not good for you. I can see that. But... it will get easier, in a little while." She smiles. "You just need an adjustment period."
I do. I don't even know how long it's going to take. My sister seems fine already; the house doesn't trouble her anymore. She moves through it with ease, whistles sometimes, goes through childhood memorabilia like it's nothing. It's like... she has more purpose here. Like she's found something she was looking for. I envy her. It makes my own adjustment all the more difficult. I was hoping we could at least suffer together.
"I can make you something else," she offers. "I can make soup. Though we are out of croutons."
I frown. "Don't be ridiculous. We brought four bags."
"See, that's what I thought." She points at me with her fork. "But there's not a crumb left. I found an empty bag in the cupboard."
"That's impossible."
"I thought you'd eaten them," she admits.
"Four bags? On my own?"
"It would explain why you're not hungry."
"I didn't. And I'm thinking neither did you. So what the hell happened?"
My mind immediately starts running wild. What kind of animals could have crawled from the trees into our home, mutating as we speak, turning into huge monsters with claws and teeth and hatred? Or is a person living here, a murderer, the one who killed our parents?
"Probably rats," Demetria says calmly.
"I'm not so sure. Maybe we should investigate."
She stares at me. "Alright, Sherlock. You go investigate the thrilling mystery of the missing croutons, and I'll go ahead and finish dinner."
I throw my lettuce at her and get up. Fine. If she won't help me I'll go on my own, though the thought of wandering around this definitely-haunted estate does very little to calm my nerves. My fear of something or someone strange wandering around the house won, though, and I armed myself with dustpan and a fire poker and went into the kitchen.
Nothing in the cupboards. No secret passages or chewed-through cables or plaster. No other crumbs or stolen food.
"Are you going to skewer a rat on a fire poker?"
I banged my head against the cupboard when my sister suddenly popped up next to me. She has always been able to move eerily quietly.
"Jesus, knock for once."
"Sorry. But serious question. Isn't this a bit much?"
I glare at her. "Rat don't steal an entire bag, plastic and all. Unless they're suddenly environmentally friendly and are taking it with them to dispose into the recycling bin when they've finished eating."
"Very funny. Just come have dinner."
I bang one of the cupboards with the fire poker, hoping something will come scurrying out; to no avail. "I can't. I'm anxious now. I can't relax."
Demetria mumbles to herself, rolls her eyes and then grabs a frying pan from the cooking top. "Okay. Let's go. I'm coming with you."
"You don't have to."
"It's not like I can have a nice dinner when you're scurrying around the house like a robber goblin. Let's do this."
I reluctantly allow Demetria to go first. She raises her frying pan dramatically and starts sneaking through the house in a cartoonish fashion, occasionally shooting me questioning looks like I'm a criminal accomplice. I slap her on the back of the head and push past her, desperate to get to the basement. If there's rats, they have to be in the basement, right? I don't know how rats work. I don't even know if it's rats. I hope it is – if it's something else, if our weird neighbour was right... I don't even want to think about it. That crazy old woman got under my skin. I carefully walk down the flight of rickety wooden stairs leading to the basement, fire poker at the ready.
"Should we call in a swat team, just to be sure?"
"Shut up, Demetria."
The door is ajar. Not a good sign, though the logical part in my brain whispers that nobody has been around to close it for about sixteen years. I grit my teeth and step through. It's dark and dank and smells like unmoving water and spilt wine. The lights don't work (of course) so I slowly grab my phone with one hand to use as a flashlight, never lowering the fire poker. I hear Demetria scoff and choose to ignore her.
"Lysandra, come on. It's just rats."
"Could you maybe be quiet for about five seconds?"
She sighs, but doesn't respond. I turn on my flashlight, momentarily blinding myself, and carefully step forward. It's a mess of empty crates, knocked over gardening tools and empty bottles.
Empty bottles?
"So that's why it smells like a bar here." I pick up one of the empty wine bottles. Some reddish liquid drips from it – it's been opened recently. The floor around it is still vaguely moist. "Do rats drink red wine, now, too?"
"They might," Demetria says, but she is holding the frying pan up a bit more anxiously now and scans our surroundings. "Rat... alcoholics... hey, can you shine your flashlight over there? I didn't bring my phone."
"Told you so."
"Just do it, Lysandra."
As soon as I move my flashlight towards where she is pointing, I hear something. A quick scuffle, like a large animal – or a person. My flashlight casts shadows on the brick wall behind the stack of boxes and I see it. Someone, something, moving. An arm or a leg disappearing behind a crate of cans.
"Demetria!"
"I see it."
With surprising calm and determination my sister moves forward, frying pan raised, and kicks the crate aside. More scuffling, a muffled swear. I stay behind Demetria as she moves aside to let the light of my flashlight through. Once again I see a few lanky limbs disappear – the shape moves towards the stairs this time.
We swear simultaneously and move in tandem, running towards the stairs at full speed with weapons raised. But whoever or whatever the figure is, they're fast. Before we even reach the bottom of the stairs they have already fled through the door upstairs. Footsteps echo through the house and the front door slams. They're done.