Dream House Read online

  Plagued by the constant feeling that I’m being watched, I wrap the blanket around me and throw myself into bed, using the covers as a shield until I fall asleep.

  DAY 7

  AT 8:00 A.M., the alarm clock that I don’t remember setting starts ringing, and has me up and ready for breakfast far earlier than the week’s bizarre timetable has accustomed me to. It also reminds me that it’s already been seven days since I first arrived here, and that what I’d imagined as a short stay has turned into something else.

  As far as I know, I might well be staying here forever.

  Amabel and Marvin still haven’t shown up, the food is running low, and the weird events keep getting more and more unfathomable.

  Through the window I see the gardener at work outside, face still set in that miserable frown of his, while these thoughts—almost undisturbed by his presence—rattle through my head.

  I decide to make some coffee and take a cup out to him, but when I approach the herbaceous border he’s tending, he acts as though I’m invisible.

  “Hi there!” I say brightly.

  He turns to glare at me briefly before lowering his eyes to the mug I’m carrying. When I hold it out to him, he grudgingly accepts it, and I sense that he might actually be lowering his guard—not much, perhaps, but maybe just enough for me to try to start a conversation. If this man is going to be one of few people—if not the only person—that I’m going to see while I stay at this house, I at least want our relationship to get off on the right foot.

  As he raises the cup to his cracked lips, I stand there studying him a little more closely than strictly necessary, and suddenly my eyes widen in surprise: there’s a dark red stain on his grey shirt.

  Alfred notices my reaction before he’s even taken his first sip of the hot coffee. He looks down at where I’m staring, then back up.

  “It’s from a plant,” he assures me vaguely.

  But the simple fact that he’s bothered to provide me with an explanation brings two different, equally plausible ideas to mind:

  1) He might be opening up to me.

  2) He might be hiding something and feel the need to lie about it.

  My reaction would be the same in either case, so I ask, “Can I get you anything else?”

  He shakes his head and turns his back to me, so I take the opportunity to manoeuvre myself closer to the shed in the hope of getting a peek inside. Through the half-open door, I can vaguely make out objects scattered messily across the floor, but I want to see more—I need to. I move a step closer to the little cabin, but, somehow sensing my intention, Alfred immediately steps between me and the door and reaches behind himself to close it.

  Feigning indifference, I give him a smile and back away silently until I’m inside my safe bubble again.

  The day goes by, and I spend most of it spying on Alfred from the bathroom window; it’s so small that I’m hardly visible from outside, and that makes it the perfect place for me to observe the gardener undisturbed, without him having the slightest clue what I’m up to—or at least, that’s what I hope.

  After yesterday’s nightmare—if a nightmare is what it actually was—I can’t rid myself of the thought that somebody is playing games with me. And I need to know if that person is the same one who’s spending so much time in the back garden. I need to know if I’m safe or not.

  Suddenly, Avery’s words come back to me, reminding me to keep my distance from the man I’m now watching industriously pluck dead leaves from the foxgloves. But how can I, if I’m stuck here with him?

  I don’t know anything about him, and I need to find out more. And since Plan A—talking to him—has failed so miserably, I’ll have to take another tack: observing him.

  After a while, I leave my lookout post to get a snack and have a poke around for anything that might help me collect more information about this creepy gardener. A search of my bedroom doesn’t turn up anything that might be useful, but when I open the drawer under the TV stand in the living room, I find a camera.

  It’s a cheap one, but it’s in working order, and it has a full battery plus a memory card, as well as a video option.

  I grab it and prop it up on the sill of the bathroom window, making sure that it’s stable and won’t fall into the bathtub and break. Once everything is ready, I press the Record button and leave it there, spying sneakily on Alfred for me, minute by minute.

  My curiosity getting the upper hand over my nerves, I start preparing myself mentally to give the basement a more in-depth inspection than—for obvious reasons—I managed the other night. And I want to do it before it gets too dark.

  Were those Alfred’s feet that I saw just before I fainted? Is he behind all of this? New questions keep popping up inside my head, and if I want to answer them the only thing I can do right now is try to collect more clues.

  With the camera now as my partner in crime, I don’t feel guilty taking a few minutes off from my stakeout of Alfred to examine that underground room which I’ve only been in once—and in less-than-ideal circumstances.

  Butterflies of anxiety are already starting to beat their wings in my stomach, but with my mind now firmly set upon the idea, I light a candle from the drawer full of them I find in the kitchen and, holding it steadily in my left hand, use my right to push open the cellar door. I make my way quickly down the stairs.

  The atmosphere down here now is nothing like it was the other night; without all those candles, the light is different. The room is much darker, but somehow I don’t sense any danger lurking within these stone walls.

  There’s a small wooden stepladder propped up against one wall, and the shelves and hooks dotted about host all the objects you might expect to find in a cellar: a toolbox, tins of rusty old screws, jam jars full of string and elastic bands . . .

  I walk over towards the narrow, slot-like window set at the top of the wall, right where it meets the ceiling, and look outside: the fact that I’m underground means that the view from here is extremely restricted, and all I’m able to see is the front gate and the path—or at least a part of it. Even though it isn’t much, I’m glad that I’m now aware of this space, particularly while I’m learning more about Alfred. It might help me gain an advantage over him and discover parts of the house that hopefully he doesn’t know about. After all, he specifically told me that the Blooms didn’t want him setting foot inside the place, so it’s highly unlikely that he knows all of its secrets.

  Somehow I’ve completely lost track of time while I’ve been down here—the only thing that tells me the minutes are actually passing is the hot wax dripping from my candle onto my hand and the floor.

  The appetising perfume of what smells like a delicious dinner wafting in from somewhere makes me realise how hungry I am, and I set off towards the stairs with the intention of cooking myself a healthy meal—it’s been a long time since I last had the pleasure of eating one—when suddenly my foot collides with something. It skids across the floor and hits the wall with a metallic clang.

  I hold up my candle—it’s the knife that I brought down here the other night to defend myself with, for all the good it did.

  I pick it up and climb back up the stairs to the ground floor of the house. But as soon as I reach the kitchen, I realise that something strange has happened.

  I am not alone anymore.

  A puff of air blows out my candle, and I drop it to the floor, race over to the dining table, and stand there, knife in hand, breathing heavily and gaping in disbelief at what I find before me: a banquet of appetising food—bowls of crisp, steaming vegetables; quiches; mashed potatoes and rutabagas with butter and pepper; pumpkin pie. It’s obvious that at least one person must have been here to cook this, and that this isn’t all just a strange dream.

  But no one comes, no matter how long I wait.

  Absolutely at a loss as to why all this is happening to me, it occurs to me for the first time that I might actually, seriously, be starting to lose my mind.

  And ri
ght then, something even worse happens. Right before my eyes.

  Hearing a tapping noise from the kitchen, I turn round, unable for a second to locate exactly where it’s coming from. And then I do.

  The fridge.

  The magnetic letters on the chrome door are moving.

  With spasmodic little jerks that grow more assured as I watch, a T begins making its way hesitantly towards an E. It’s joined by a Y, which rattles as though fighting to free itself, and an instant later all the letters are twitching and shifting.

  Slowly at first, then with increasingly decisive movements accompanied by delicate clicking, sliding sounds, they start skidding across the shiny surface of the fridge, gradually positioning themselves to form a sentence.

  I watch, spellbound and horrified.

  For you, dear Amethyst, it reads.

  At this point, I’m seized by complete, total panic. I start trembling and spin round, searching desperately for anybody, anything, that might be making this happen.

  But I’m the only one here.

  Or at least, I’m the only human being here.

  Terrified, I race over to the French windows in the hope of finding some sign that Avery is at home so I know that a chance exists of running away and finding somewhere safe . . . but outside, everything is pitch black.

  It takes all of my courage, but I decide to turn off all the lights in the house and run as quickly as I possibly can into my bedroom, closing the door behind me and pulling the curtains shut across the window. Here, enshrouded in obscurity, is the only place I can still feel safe.

  I lie awake in my bed for what seems like hours, unable to relax and jumping in fear at the slightest noise. At one point, I swear I can hear footsteps outside my door, followed by whispers, but I don’t dare move an inch.

  Most of the night passes like this, until finally the new day arrives and the first beams of morning light begin tentatively poking through the curtains of my window.

  I haven’t closed my eyes once, and my entire body feels achy and sore. I can say with some certainty that it’s been the worst night I’ve ever suffered my way through in my entire life.

  But despite everything that’s gone on, despite all the bizarre things that I’ve seen, all the weird stuff that’s happened, they still haven’t managed to scare me off: I’m not going to run away.

  I’m going to wait for the Blooms to come back.

  And as the light forces the darkness away, my body and mind finally allow me to rest, and I sink into a deep sleep.

  DAY 8

  11:30 A.M. Time to get out of bed.

  The air feels a lot colder than usual, and a strong wind is blowing impetuously against the house.

  With a thrill of excitement, I remember the camera that I left filming on the bathroom windowsill the evening before and rush to retrieve it. In no time at all, I’m holding it in my hands and trying to find the video. The display says that it recorded for two hours and thirty minutes, only stopping when the memory card was full.

  After giving the magnetic letters in the kitchen a couple of cautious pokes to make sure they’re not going to start moving by themselves, I clear away the food from the table, covering the bowls with cling film and storing them away inside the fridge. Then I place the camera on the dining table, take a seat, press Play, and start watching.

  For a good fifteen minutes there’s no sign of anybody on the footage and everything appears to be completely normal—but when I get to the sixteenth minute, for a fraction of a second something changes slightly. I rewind and replay it.

  In that brief instant, two events follow one another in rapid succession: the door of the shed opens, and random flashes of light appear, seemingly corrupting the footage. The next frame—like the following two hours—is a mixture of weird sounds and broken images. But not once does Alfred appear.

  I think back to the previous evening—did I actually see him leave? Was he up to something in the house? Maybe his working day was over and he’d set off for home. But then what would have caused the camera to act this way? Is it possible that perhaps he spotted it through the window? And if he did, how did he manage to corrupt the footage without letting himself be seen even once? Or is it just a coincidence?

  I feel more confused than ever, and the only thing that comes to mind is Avery’s comment about the gardener, the warning to keep my distance. He obviously knows something about Alfred that I don’t, and I need to figure out what it’s all about.

  After several days of wearing the same girly pyjamas, I finally slip back into my clothes, then brush my hair and splash my face with cold water.

  I pause for a moment in front of the mirror to stare at a reflection that I’m slowly beginning to feel strangely disconnected from. The dark rings under my eyes are getting worse, and my lips are chapped, but what’s most unsettling is the look on my face. Is this really me?

  Trying not to let my appearance worry me any more than it already does, I walk away from the mirror, checking my breath in my cupped hand as I go: deadly.

  In a half-hearted attempt to conceal it, I eat a yoghurt, too preoccupied now with getting out of the house as soon as possible to dedicate much thought to the problem of my halitosis, and soon afterwards I’m outside.

  I squat down by the gateway at the back, somehow confident that Avery will turn up and stop to talk.

  The wind blowing my hair all over the place, I wait. Without changing my mind. I have to stay here and wait for him. He’s coming—I need to believe that.

  After watching it struggle in the gusts of wind buffeting the earth, I rip a lonely daisy out of the ground and hold it between my hands.

  The last few sunbeams which gave some warmth to the air are now departing, allowing the night to gradually take over the world.

  At last, I hear his voice whisper, “Are you okay?”

  Without wasting a single moment, I tuck the flower into my jacket sleeve and hoist myself up to my feet.

  “I need to talk to you,” I tell him as I brush my hands clean.

  “Were you waiting for me?” he asks.

  I nod in response, and continue. “The other day you told me to stay away from Alfred. Why?”

  He casts a glance at the shed to make sure the gardener isn’t around, and then, his expression as serious as my own, begins to explain.

  “There are rumours about him in this village.”

  “What kind of rumours?”

  “Alfred has a past. Like all of us—except that his is pretty dark.”

  I let him go on.

  “He moved to White Hills with his young wife about twenty years ago. They were newly married, they didn’t have much in the way of money, so he started working as a gardener for some of the more well-off families in the village.”

  Intently, I follow his every word.

  “Over the years, he gradually managed to put enough money aside to be able to afford a family home, on the top of that hill,” he says, pointing at the highest peak visible beyond the cornfields.

  “I don’t see it,” I cut in. “Where do you mean, exactly?” But he ignores my question.

  “At that time,” he goes on, “his wife, Lilly, was pregnant. The day she gave birth, Alfred took a day off to be with her. The next day, he turned up for work, and he looked—a mess. Completely done in.”

  “What happened?” I whisper.

  Without taking his eyes from mine, he continues.

  “Lilly had died in childbirth.” Avery lowers his eyes. “Then, two days after—after the tragic event, Alfred went missing. People started looking all over town for him, in all the local pubs. But there was no sign of hide nor hair of him anywhere.”

  As he speaks, I file each word away in my memory.

  “Later that night, his house was set on fire.”

  My eyes widen as I listen to the end of the story.

  “By the time the fire brigade managed to get the blaze under control, the house was completely devastated. The police investigation
found the babies in their cots . . . but it was too late to save them,” he concludes.

  Twins.

  “What about Alfred?” I ask.

  “The next day he showed up in the village with a burn across his face—and that was proof enough for some people that it was he who’d done it,” he replies.

  “Did he confess?”

  “No, he never said a word about it. The police questioned him, but he was never charged with anything. People in White Hills started to believe that he’d killed his sons, though. Because he thought they’d caused Lilly’s death.”

  He pauses for a moment before adding, “And that’s when all the grown-ups started telling kids scary stories about the Derfla, so they wouldn’t go out wandering the streets at night.”

  “The Derfla!” I burst out, shocked by this last part of the story.

  Confused by my reaction, he shoots me a funny look and then picks up his story again.

  “The people round here were convinced that Alfred was a murderer, so right away they started trying to force him out of his job and out of local social life. Pretty much everyone just started ignoring him, acting like he wasn’t there at all. And they used a backwards version of his name—Derfla—to try to . . . well, connect him with evil. Make him into a kind of a monster, I suppose.”

  Another piece of my puzzle clicks into place, and so I ask, “If that’s what people say about him, how come he’s still working for the Blooms?”

  “The Blooms, they’re nice people,” he says with a shrug. “Mr. Bloom didn’t want to give up on Alfred, so he allowed him to stay on in the shed in exchange for working on the property. That went on for quite a while, until one day Mrs. Bloom accused him of stealing a picture from the house.”

  “A picture? Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Mr. Bloom’s theory was that someone was trying to set Alfred up—someone who wanted him out of the village for good.”

  “How do you know all of this?” I ask, brushing away the lock of hair tickling my nose.