writing_shadows

The cottage always felt bigger after dark.

Reese had no idea why. It just did. The front garden, which seemed small and cramped in the daylight seemed to expand. The roses that grew there grew and stretched, tendrils reaching out like triffids, whispering ominously in the midnight breeze. The path that led up to the front door felt narrow and uncertain. When one of the flagstones wobbled slightly beneath her foot Reese actually squeaked.

"Damnit," she said quietly to herself. She wasn't a nervous person. She really wasn't. But since she had moved here...

Something rustled in the darkness and she forced herself forward. Up the steps, stepping over the one which was too loose and would send her tumbling. Key into the door, which creaked as it slowly opened into the dark hall. Over the threshold and into the house. She tried to ignore the smell of mould. God, at least it wasn't lavender.

Finally, Reese was able to grope for the light switch, and flick it. In an instant the hall was bathed in the thin white light of the electic light. Reese breathed a sigh of relief.

The hallway looked perfectly normal. There was damp running down the walls, unpleasant looking bubbles in the plaster on the ceiling and a nasty damp in the air, but it looked perfectly, squalidly, depressingly normal. The old mirror that her mother thought she remembered from her grandmother's house was hanging on the wall. She could see her face dimly reflected in the aged and spotted glass. Beneath is sat the rusting old umbrella stand that she really ought to throw out. It had been a good quality item in about 1900. Now it was just old and fraying. The only thing it held was a broken umbrella which had turned inside out in a gentle breeze on the one occasion Reese had tried to use it. Apart from that, the hall was empty.

She sighed.

She was going to look like an idiot when Julius Van Helsing came over. She really really would. What would the psychotherapist see? No ghost, that was for sure.

She stood in the hallway for a moment. Oddly, she realized she liked this room the most of all the cottage. It was small, cramped, and utterly normal. Nothing weird happened here.

"And that," she said aloud, "is pathetic."

Her voice sounded louder than she would have liked in the silence. It made her jump, and for a moment she wished she had invited Will in with her. She would have liked some company tonight.

From somewhere in the house the faintest scent of lavender wafted. Reese shuddered. For a brief moment she just wanted to turn and run. Go over to Will's house. Ask him if she could come in, ask him to hold her. Ask for...anything.

"No," she said firmly. "You're not. You're not throwing yourself at some guy just for the sake of company. You know you're not ready, and it's not fair to just turn some perfectly nice guy into a rebound fling."

The scent was a little thicker now. Reese tried to remind herself of Julius' suggestion. It was probably scented oil, spilled long ago. That thought comforted her, and got her out of the hallway, and into the sitting room. In the dark the room seemed like some kind of cavern. She could almost imagine some kind of bear lurking in the shadows. She forced herself across it, and into the small and dank kitchen. The lighting at least worked in there.

The smell of lavender seemed to have faded slightly which was a relief, to be replaced with an unpleasant odour which seemed to indicate that the sewage tank was leaking again. She sighed. She'd have to try and get someone round to sort that in the morning. She hung her coat up on a nail behind the door.

She did need to work out what to do about Will. He was a nice guy. She liked him, but liking him hadn't seem to rid her of the empty feeling inside. He chatted to her and she felt comfortable. She didn't get that shot of electricity that she had with...

The scent of lavender was back. It was stronger now than before, and filled up her nostrils. She almost felt as if she were choking on it.

"It's just spilled oil," she said.

It didn't help. The scent was still strong, and the house felt enormous. In front of her loomed the kitchen, and beyond that the cavernous living room, where she'd first woken up, choking for her life. Behind her was the garden, which right now was thick with thorny bushes, and when she opened the kitchen door she was sure she could hear them howling in the wind.

Reese shut the door again.

"I won't run," she said, determinedly. "I won't run. I'm a grown woman. I'm not afraid. I won't be afraid."

Tap tap tap.

Shit.

What was that? It sounded like footsteps above. She took a few steps backwards herself until she was pressed against the kitchen door.

Tap tap tap.

The footsteps came again, directly above her now.

"I won't..." Reese said, but the back door was already open, and she was standing on the threshold. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the wind dropped. The scent of lavender faded away. Reese felt as if she was going limp with relief.

"I don't care," she said quietly to herself. "I don't care any normal, sane person would think me crazy. I don't care if I think I'm crazy. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I've got to, before it kills me."