Chapter 1

A Chapter by f1rstperson

Rennette's moves and explores her Great Aunt's house, but finds it unwelcoming.

A worn, powdered-blue car sped down the rural highway, followed by a bulky moving truck. Every once in a while Rennette’s mother would glace around the passenger seat to try to gauge her daughter’s mood. Rennette had been staring out the window for hours, eyes wide with excitement. As they got closer to her Aunty Helen’s house, their new house, the girl began to stare more intently at the lush green surrounding which ran together like fresh paint in the wind. She desperately wanted to catch one of the many town landmarks her mother had related to her: An old fashioned barn, once-vibrant red paint dulled by time and weather; a red-wood that had towered over the land centuries before the country was founded, a giant in a forest, with roots that twisted out of the ground and extended under dozens of trees; a rustic mom & pop store that always had local fruits and vegetables out in front. All of these memories that her mother had passed on to her with such nostalgia were almost alien to Rennette, who had grown up in the city and had only seen the countryside when she was too young to remember it. Through her mother’s stories, Rennette began to visualize the new life in her head, a glossy wood house encased in a dense forest, and behind it a wonderful garden with roses and vegetables. She pressed her face closer to the glass as if that would help her take in the scene in front of her better. Her mother noticed her enthusiasm and chuckled to her father.

After a jarring stretch of dirt road, the family pulled into the stone driveway, followed by the moving truck which bounced and dipped along the uneven stones. The white streaks of her mother’s hair caught the light as she stepped out of the car, smoothed her dress and stretched. Rennette, wobbling when her feet hit the ground, followed suite, hoping it would get rid of the confined feeling of her muscles. Her father glanced quickly at the house before rushing over to the moving truck to have a smoke and a chat with his brother and friend, who had promised to drive with them and stay a few days to patch the place up.

The house was a stark contrast from the warm, homely place Rennette had fantasized about. Its front lawn was full of thick overgrown grass interrupted every now and then with a patch jagged-edged weeds. Surrounding the house were the skeletal remains of bushes, long dead guardians of a broken down house. The paint had faded to a polluted white color, and some parts had given up altogether, leaving long strips of brick exposed. On the patio, the wood looked feeble and hollow; it’d grown grey over time. Tall rectangular windows circled the house with ashen opaque glass.

“Christ, Rob, that’s a bit more than a weekend fixer upper!” said Uncle Greg, looking at her father incredulously. Her father’s friend, Teddy, stared at the house with a face heavy with regret. Teddy was a loyal friend, but a lazy man. Her mother shook her head at both of them and replied,

“Weren’t you listening to me over the phone? We’re only using this week to fix the things that absolutely need it and clean so we can move in. The rest of it Rob and I are going to patch up in increments.”

“See? You two p*****s don’t have to worry about a thing, Sharon and I are gonna do all the work.” Her father said jovially, smiling in response to her mother’s glare. Drawing in a deep breath, Rennette could see a storm of anger building behind her mother’s eyes, and she did not want to wait around while her mother unleashed it on him, so she tugged her father’s sleeve and said,

“I’m gonna help out too, right? Can we build a flower garden?”

Her father hoisted her up while her mother bit back her lecture. Taking a deep breath and patting her daughter on the head, she said,

“Of course we will sweety! You can have as many flowers as you want. It looks like a shabby house now, but just imagine what it’ll be like once we’re done.”

Rennette tried to imagine but it was hard with the corpse of her Aunty Helen’s house staring her in the face. She paused for a second, trying to grasp all the possibilities of this new house.

“Can we get a puppy now?”
“Yes"” “Honey no"”
Her parents chimed in at the same time. Under her breath, her mother starting rattling off how the house was in bad enough shape without something gnawing on it and who would take care of it and what would they do with it while they were replacing wood and painting. Her father’s loud protests slowly dwindled in the face of his wife’s reasoning, while Greg and Teddy looked on and snickered.

“It’s weird though, Shar, the way you described this house it sounded like a goddamn palace",”
“Greg"” Snapped her mother,

“"Right right, sorry kiddo. Anyways,” he drew closer to Rennette’s parents, speaking in a hampered tone, “I can’t believe that Helen would let the house fall to s**t like that. She seemed like it was the only thing that mattered to her.”
Her mother shrugged, “Well, you know, Aunty Helen was a bit off, especially in her later years.”

“Sweet lady though,” said her father offhandedly.
“Yeah, Aunty Helen was a sweet lady. It broke Mom’s heart when she started locking herself away from everyone.”
Rennette sat quietly with wide eyes, feeling like an ease-dropper. Her parents had never mentioned Great Aunt Helen all that much, except for the annual holiday card from her there wasn’t much of a drive to. That was, until she passed and left her house to Rennette’s mother. But even when Rennette’s mother began weaving stories of Aunty Helen’s beautiful country house, Helen herself was always absent.

“What was wrong with Aunty Helen?” Rennette asked as casually as possible, hoping to sate some curiosity. The men finished their cigarettes, her father ground his on the bottom of his shoe and flicked it off into the thicket of weeds.
“Ah, nothing hon. Come on, let’s go check out the house” said her mother, as she began striding towards the patio.

The front door, despite being unlocked, would not budge. As her mother strode around the house to the back, her father and uncle took turns body-checking the door while Teddy walked over to have a seat on a bench, which it turns out was infested with termites. Finally the door gave way. Greg and her father walked in rubbing their shoulders, followed by Teddy who was complaining about splinters in his a*s. In the hallway stood her mother, tracing over old photographs and furniture with a look of sad recollection. Dust fluttered in the thin rays of light that managed to sneak past the hazy windows.

Her mother flipped a switch and the room was illuminated with harsh synthetic yellow light. The wall paper in the house had ornate gold flower patterns, surrounded by what Rennette supposed used to be white. She began to walk through each room, fumbling for switches hidden in the dark. As they walked through the sitting room from the hallway, Rennette caught sight of torn silk furniture and a table with a full ashtray before her mother swung around, striding into the dining room across the hallway. They walked past a dirty cabinet and through the kitchen, which was dusty and piled with dishes. Rennette was on her mother’s heels, entering a much larger room with old sofas and a fire place. Her mother paused and relaxed, turning to Rennette with a smile.
“Mom and Helen and I used to play chess and drink cocoa in this room during snow storms. The wind would blow ice against that big window there, and we’d be snuggled up by the table” she said. “That door there leads to the back yard.”
Rennette demeanor sparked up, pulling on her mother and saying, “I wanna see I wanna see!” But her mother held her back for a moment.
“Helen wasn’t able to get out there to keep it. You can go out to the porch but no further; I don’t want you going out there until your father and I get in there and cut everything back.” Her mother pushed open the heavy wood door.

The back yard was worse than the front. Long vines covered in spikes and flowers were dragged across the ground; some had pulled themselves up onto the fence. White flowers blossomed here and there, but they stood behind a jail-cell of thorns. Crab grass and thistle plants dominated the open ground. Rennette thought about the time she had stepped on a nail, and had to watch her parents pull it out of her foot. Skin pulled against the nail as it exited, and blood rolled out of the wound like sweat. She didn’t like the back garden.

She walked back inside, letting the door swing back on its own and bumping it closed with her hip. Sharp, impatient footsteps thundered up the stairway, and Rennette tried to make each step take as long as possible to get to the stairs. She didn’t want to see anymore. But her mother called her from the stop of the stairs, and she picked up her pace. She felt too low to fight with anyone; the sooner she could get to sleep, the better.

Toeing the blue pastel rug beneath her feet, she waited at the top of the stairs. Her mother emerged from a room on the right and beckoned to her. “This is going to be your room, sweety,” she said. Rennette glanced around; the room was filled with old fashioned toys, on the bed lay a greyed lavender quilt and embroidered pillows. A few porcelain dolls dressed in night-gowns stared down at her from shelves beyond her reach. The entire room smelled like mothballs. She hopped on the bed and was a little bit relieved to find it was soft and comfy enough, even if the room wasn’t hers in the slightest. She wondered how long it would be before the feeling of being guests in someone else’s house went away.

Across the hall was a play room, where an audience of pallid dolls sat. Lustrous glass eyes in all different colors seemed to be watching Rennette. Her mother was blathering on about how cute they were, but Rennette didn’t care to listen. Their hair sat in perfect fat curls, some held up by ribbons. Their lips were sealed with bright red paint, and their round cheeks powdered with a perfect circle of pink. Most of their fat baby fingers were bent, as if they were grabbing for something.
“Do you want to just stay in here and play while I-”

Rennette shook her head.
“Are you sure? I’ll just-”
“No,” she said with conviction.

“Fine,” said her mother, rubbing the bridge between her eyes. “Well you can play here any time you want, you know that?”
Rennette made a face that perfectly conveyed how dumb that idea was, but her mother had already swept off to the next room.

Across from the playroom was her bathroom. It was very tiny, with only a shower and a toilet, and lavender towels. The lights were very weak, and barely made it look different at all. She had to back up for her mother to get out of the bathroom and move on to the next room.

The hallway turned right after that, but before the turn was a big, oak door. Her mother threw it open, knocking up a flood of dust. Inside bookshelves towered above the two. Rays of light flowed through old windows like sunlight breaking rain clouds. Large books were scattered across the floor. On one of the top shelves, something glass and round was catching the light; the white luminous patch moved as she did. Her mother had never told her about this place. She was about to ask why when her mother gingerly shut the door and hunched down to her eye level.
“Rennette, I do not want you going in there. Understand? There’s a lot of dust and maybe mold; you could get very sick. Listen, Helen never opened that place up, not even the windows, not even for family. You do not go in there.”
Too tired to protest, she appeased her mother with a nod, and an “I understand,” for extra measure. The both of them walked down the hallway to the guest room. Rennette didn’t care to pay attention; she was tired, she was disappointed, but most of all she wanted her mother to shut up and preoccupy herself with something so that she could go explore the library without getting in trouble. Even though it was in worse shape than the rest of the house, Rennette could tell it was full of treasure; full of elderly, worn books and interesting little collections of Helen’s things. There was a quiet, soft attitude to that room, unlike the sharp aggressive atmosphere of the garden and the cold, soulless one of the doll room. But her mother had no plans to let Rennette out of her sight; she grabbed her hand and walked her downstairs for dinner.

Her family ate pizza on the aged walnut table, the adults with cheap beer and her with a juice box. The greasy food lay heavy in her stomach afterwards, and her dad was kind enough to carry her up to bed while her mom showed Uncle Greg and Teddy to the guest room, muttering something about a missing pull out. But once she was safely curled up in bed her mind lit up with everything she had seen today. She thought of the garden, all sharp edges and thick, twisting vines. She imagined cold, poisonous snakes waiting in holes or under thickets to bite, or wired-hair rats with white teeth and yellow eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Then she thought about the dolls; their large open eyes and the way they were so cold to the touch, like they were frozen and just waiting to get free. The ones on the shelf sat completely still, but her mind couldn’t help imagining them moving just a bit or blinking or opening their mouths. She turned onto her side and pulled the old quilt up, hoping they wouldn’t notice. Her heart was pounding, and her body jerked in fear at every creak of the house. She listened with rapt attention to the sounds of silence, waiting for the sound of something that was going to get her. Eventually, the fear shaking her body ebbed away. Her body fell still and heavy, her mind began to unravel, her thoughts making less and less sense. Before falling asleep completely, images of the library flashed in her mind. She imagined herself standing below the shelves, her footprints left in the dust. Her hand stretched towards the glimmering orb on the top shelf before everything faded off into static.

© 2012 f1rstperson

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daftalchemist

You are crazy awesome at descriptions. I can really see every bit of imagery you describe, and very well.

This is extremely random, and possibly even nitpicky, but maybe write in a short sentence where they shake our the bedspreads? It's just that the house is so obviously full of dust, and her climbing into a dusty bed with dusty blankets kind of gives me a skeevy feeling.