brutal rut to ensure that no feelings are involved. No cuddling, or coddling. No kissing.
No misconceptions.
Because no woman in her right mind would choose to be hogtied and butchered in an act of revenge by my enemies, and I’ve surely made enough of them over the course of the years.
13
Céleste
Having brushed away all of the debris into a pile, I lay my sleeping bag out onto the still-gritty hardwood floor of the would-be living room. Nine years isn’t really such a stretch of memory that I should forget having grown up in this place, and yet, I don’t recall much of this room. Could be that it’s so rundown and abused by vandalism, but aside from some vague recollections of Christmas and playing checkers on the floor, it’s all somewhat bland and almost cold. No laughter, or watching movies, with my father while eating TV dinners. Things I remember vividly from growing up with Russ.
There is no warmth here. No comfort.
This room is no different to a night sleeping in the shack, in the woods, with the propane heater running. Except here, there is no heater, only the battery-operated Coleman lantern that I bought at a hardware store back in Michigan.
Untucking the key from my shirt, I swipe up the lantern and wander toward the library. Before I even slip the key into the lock, I can tell the shape of it is different, confirmed by a tight nudge before I remove it. On to the next, I try the cabinet in the room, the closet, the credenza that now sits dilapidated against the wall. Nothing. I move onto the other rooms in the hallway, fumbling around with the key to no avail.
Nothing fits, and while attempting to try the key on the pantry in the kitchen, I nearly have a heart attack when it gets stuck for a second. Once loose, I stare down at the curious piece of metal in my hands, and shake my head. “What did you want me to find, Dad?” I whisper, and exhaling a resigned breath, I make my way toward the staircase.
Shadows cast by my lantern flicker on the wall of the second floor, the bright glow illuminating a passage from the Bible: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
How strange, the way religion winds itself around this crazy little island, like twisted vines that somehow creep into the most unexpected places. Even the strip club earlier today, once a church. And what about this particular house scares the locals so much? One article I read told of a woman who was arrested for showing up on the premises with a sledgehammer she claimed she brought for the walls, after months of hearing them speak to her. According to the article I read prior to coming here, voices told her to destroy the place.
At a tickle across my neck, I scratch and rub the sensation away. Chills coil around my spine. I don’t know what it is about this level of the house, why it affects me so profoundly. Physically.
I enter each of the rooms, testing the locks, just as I did on the first level. From one of the rooms in the left wing, I stare through the broken glass of a busted-out window, down onto the yard that’s now overgrown with weeds. Beyond it stands the dilapidated gates of the Charpentier Cemetery, and when I angle my lantern through the hole in the window, I can just make out the tops of elaborate headstones and stone angels scattered about the unkempt and timeworn graveyard. No one has been buried there since the last Charpentier, which, if I’m not mistaken, was back in the early forties, and it’s probably the most neglected part of the property.
A flicker of movement nearer to the house draws my attention toward a tall patch of grass, swaying as if something moves through it. I sweep the light closer and see something white, almost ghostly, within the cluster of narrow stalks. A step nearer, and I squint with my intense stare, gaze searching for a particular shape to its paleness.
That’s when I see eyes.
Red and glowing against the light. Evil.
“Minou, minou, I see you …”
Gasping at the voice inside my head, I jump back from the window.
The weeds rustle.
A white rabbit leaps out from the stalks onto a clearing of trampled dead grass, and I exhale a sigh. It rises up to its hind legs and nibbles at its paws, then lowers