5: Part One: Haunted House

Play Pretend

Friday, October 31st. A little past 11 pm.

Stepping inside the house, I slip off the wolf hide, letting it rest on the couch, and head straight for the bathroom to retrieve my glasses. After, I search for Eva. I call out her name only to be greeted by silence. I search in all the rooms downstairs before trying my luck upstairs. Hearing hushed voices, I make my way to the hallway connecting our rooms where the latter, leading to the attic, had been pulled down. I half-smirk to myself. Figures she'd start without me.

"Eve, you up there?"

"No," she giggles. "This is Casper, the ghost!"

"Uh-huh. And that would make me what, the boogeyman?" I step onto the ladder and climb up. Eva's eyes meet mine as I pop my head in to see her handiwork sorted out in front of her. She's sitting cross-legged on the bed with all our candy in piles of her own assortment. There is music playing from our grandmother's old record player. I don't think Eva is paying that much attention to it, though. I watch her continue her sorting and cross my arms over the floor to lay my head down.

I finally ask, "What are you doing?"

"Collecting what's due."

I lift my head, "Are you stealing my candy, child?"

"It's not stealing when you leave your candy in my possession!" She exclaims.

"Says the princess of lies and stubbornness!"

She barks at me, "I'm a dragon, you little stinky banana peel! Not some softy princess! I eat princesses for breakfast!"

I lean my head on my arm, enjoying her witty nonsense, "If princesses are what's for breakfast, then what about prince charming?"

"He's lunch!"

I snicker, "And who'll you be having for dinner and dessert?"

"The whole kingdom!" she laughs diabolically.

I shake my head and laugh, "Sure, sure. Just leave me a few of my favorites, and you can go into a sugar coma after you eat that whole kingdom of yours." I tease. "I'm going to take a shower since I apparently smell like a stinky banana peel and get dressed for bed."

"Aren't we going to stay up and watch movies all night, though?" For half a heartbeat, I swear my sister is nearing the verge of tears. And at that moment, all I could feel was hatred toward our father and how much I dreaded him coming home. I force myself to smile for Eva, even if it meant thinking about something Alex had jokingly talked about in one of our old conversations just to get me to laugh, to really sell it.

"Yes, Eve. Of course, we're still staying up and watching movies all night. I just want to feel comfortable, because, you know. I stink." I snort pretty hard, but it comes off horrible sounding. Eva giggles anyway, making me feel a little more at ease. "Stay in that costume all night if you want, just wash the paint off your face, you darn goofball."

"I will."

Stepping down the latter, I head back downstairs after gathering a new set of clothes to wear after the shower. I lock the bathroom door behind me, turn the water on to my preference, and strip off my remaining clothes. I take a good look at the gash on my leg and grimace. It looks just as bad as before, maybe even worse. At least the bleeding had stopped. I trace a finger gently over the dark blood that had dried before wincing as prickles of pain shoot up my leg. Around the punctured area are newly dark purple and blue bruising. I can only hope I got all the glass out as I bring my leg over into the tub. The water hits the wound immediately, making me yelp as I stumble back hunched over. I hold the wall along with my injured leg as I steady my breathing.

"Damn it!" I lean to adjust the water pressure, all while feeling my leg throb where the wound still stung. It hurts just as bad as before when I first pulled the glass out, but all of a sudden, I find my thoughts drifting back to the boy I'd seen upstairs. It's strange. The pain I felt seconds before dulls, even as I drift down into the tub. It feels so random to think about, but I can't erase those vibrant red eyes from my memory. I press close to the wall of the shower, letting my thoughts run loose. I close my eyes under the soft spray of the shower as I persist with the memory. They seem so lifelike, even now in my head, that it almost doesn't feel like a memory. I wouldn't call it a dream, but I can't shake this strange feeling. It's that feeling of being watched. As if the very thought could make something sinister appear, I poke my head out of the shower. I glance around the curtain and then around the room to find myself alone. Which should be good. Then why do I still have this feeling? Maybe I'm just making myself paranoid. But how are eyes like that even possible? And why are they the only feature I remember so clearly from that boy's face?

I think back to how Alex looked when we were leaving Brickfield Road. I've seen him jump out of his skin with a handful of things, but I've never seen him truly bothered by it. Not since we were kids anyway. That memory alone feels foggy when I try to remember it. I close the curtain and wonder alone to myself if Alex had seen the red-eyed boy too. That wouldn't make me the only one to sound crazy, but it doesn't exactly make me feel better either.

Instantly, the boy's conversation that stemmed from Max seeing red eyes resurfaces, leaving a frigid chill to creep its way down my spine. It couldn't be possible, could it? I mean, it isn't impossible to see albinism in people, however bizarre it may be. But his eyes glowed like mirrors of a lake struck by light. Or exactly like when you shine a light on an animal in the dark, except they were bright red. And his skin wasn't ghostly pale. It was dark, not someone with brown skin, but more like an ash color, or even darker than that. I try to focus harder on the memory, but all I can picture clearly are those red eyes. I fear the longer I struggle to find clues in the memory, the less accurate I'll be able to recall it. There wasn't much light in that room, not that it mattered being blind as I was without my glasses. A part of me doubts it all. That what I'd seen was just in my head, or at least the majority of it. For all I know, the red eyes and bloody footprints could have all been hallucinations. Thoughts of my mother threaten to surface, only adding to the self-doubt already choking me, and suddenly I can barely breathe. I wrap my arms tightly around my body and force my eyes shut. Instead of letting the memories consume me, I focus on the sound of the shower, imagining it to be raining all while counting my breathing. Inhale for seven seconds, hold for four, then release slowly for eight and then repeat. All that's missing in the tin roof and thunder, a rumble to soothe me to sleep. Even if it did feel safe to cry here, I hold back. I forcibly drown every worrying thought of going mad and let the rest of me sink into the soothing sound that marks my happy place. Tonight, will not be like all the others. Tonight will be full of treats, discarded movies, and thick warm blankets until I manage to doze off. I owe Eva that. All thoughts of the boy with red eyes are pushed aside as I let myself sink deeper into those soothing thoughts. At least until the water runs cold.

Swiveling the handle to the showerhead left, I quickly rinse my face under the freezing water before shutting it off. It does the trick and shocks me back to the present. As another distraction, I step out onto the mat to start cleaning my wound. I rub a cloth dampened in peroxide over the gash until the pain becomes too much for me to tolerate. At least now my leg isn't covered in dry blood. It's mostly bruising. After, I dry off and wrap a bandage around my leg. It bleeds a little through the first few layers, but eventually, it stops. It should heal on its own, I hope, but if gets any worse by morning I might need stitches. The thought almost tempts me to call my aunt, but I stop myself short. I don't want her to have to drive down here and see how much of a failure I am in looking after Eva while dad is away. She'll certainly think I can't take care of myself, let alone my sister. And I certainly don't want her to tell dad about tonight. It'll give her even more reason to take us down there to live with her. It would mean leaving all of Redwood behind. Our entire life here, and all of our mother, or at least what's left of her... She definitely wouldn't allow us to bring all of our mother's belongings to her tidy home in the country. And I don't want to leave Alex behind. There's a knot in my stomach when I imagine not being able to say goodbye. I take a deep breath, shaking off the feeling completely. My patchwork will have to do until Monday. At least then I can come up with a cover story to tell dad if he ever saw the bandages or the bruising.

I put on some comfortable shorts to make it easier to pull over the bandages and throw on an old large t-shirt. Stepping out of the bathroom, I hobble my way to the kitchen and grab a few bottles of water before making it back upstairs. I can hear the Harry Potter theme music playing as I get halfway up the steps. Shoving the bottles in both my shorts pockets, I climb up the ladder to the attic.

"Harry Potter?" I announce, a little surprised.

"Yep! I figured it would be a tie-breaker between what we like." I set both bottles down before lifting myself into the room and sitting my ass on the cool wooden floor. I shiver, "Why is it so cold up here? Doesn't heat rise in this house?" I say while shutting the hatch door and proceeding over to the bed with both bottles in hand.

She makes room for me to sit down, and I thank her kindly by offering her a bottle, "When has it ever been warm in this house? Summer maybe?" She laughs.

I roll my eyes, but smile, "So, which one is it?"

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

"Ah. I forgot she had those movies on tape. So you're not going to have nightmares of the Basilisk?"

She opens her bottle and takes a long gulp, "No, I like snakes. They're like little dragons without legs or wings."

"Except this snake is larger than our house and paralyzes anyone who looks it in the eyes. And don't forget the size of those fangs!"

"You're not going to scare me with this, Shae. It may have worked when I was younger, but I'm bigger now. And it's petrifying, not paralyzing," she remarks while mimicking my eye-rolling practically to the back of her skull.

I snort, and as a result, choke on my water. I clear my throat after and nod, "Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing."

I sink into the bed and get comfortable with my water bottle and candy while Eva snuggles up against me. We stay that way for a while, cuddling under one of Mom's thick handmade quilts and furry blanket while watching the movie until it was pitch black outside. When it's time to pick another movie, and most of our mound of candy is in a pile of empty wrappers on the floor, I ask, "You want to pick the next one?" I look at the time on my phone and yawn. Two twenty-six.

"Sure! Let's watch the next one!" She throws off the blankets and heads for Mom's boxes.

"That's another two hours," I groan jokingly and stretch. "How about Little Shop of Horrors!" She bares her teeth, making me laugh. I roll over, so my body is covering the whole bed, "Come on it's more comedy than actual horror, child."

"It's distasteful," she whines back.

I only laugh, "Ok, whatever the dragoness wants, I'll watch." She smiles wickedly over her shoulder while deep in a box of movies, "Anything to please your dragoness queen!"

I smile while sipping my water bottle before setting it back down on the floor. After, I curl up with the blankets again. I watch Eva dig through a few more of Mom's boxes, and my thoughts travel back to her, despite my better judgment. Eva was young then, too young to remember our movie nights together, just the three of us when dad went away on his business trips. Mom always made us a tray of snacks. We weren't picky eaters since Mom loved to surprise us with one of her new specially made treats. I still remember the peanut butter-covered apple-shaped dinosaurs she made us. And the deer Mom made out of apples too, she always carved herself. She stuck them together with toothpicks. Sometimes, she used carrots or other fruits and all kinds of vegetables she brought home from the market. She told us to always pluck off a piece before taking a bite so we wouldn't eat the toothpicks. I remember how strange her creations looked and the odd names she gave them. I loved that about her, though. I still do. I miss her, even more so when Eva does something that reminds me of her. All those little moments, and every spark of strangeness she offered us as kids, I used to want to follow in her footsteps. I see that in Eva sometimes with her stories. I wonder if Eva remembers any of the tales she used to tell us as kids before bed. I miss those stories. They were stories involving monsters both kind and beautiful. Sometimes they were wicked and misbehaved, but sometimes they were just sad, lonely beasts that didn't understand how to make friends, let alone what it meant to be human.

She would tell us that even the most horrific-looking monsters were the kindest if you knew what they needed to heal and how to help them. And then there were the monsters that stole another's face to blend in and play pretend to be someone they're not. They were never to be trusted because how can you trust a monster who hides its true face? I used to write my own stories because of her and the worlds she'd share with us. Now I let Eva live in that dream. Because that's all it ever was. A dream that leads to nowhere and some fantasy to escape into. But I know better now than to believe in such fairy tales. Our mother is gone, and no dream of ours will make her come walking back into this house.

"Hey, Shae, check this out!" Like a daze, I'm pulled from my thoughts, suddenly realizing that I've been crying. I quickly pull on the side of my shirt to dry my eyes and get up from the bed.

"What is it?" I ask after clearing my throat.

"Look!" Eva pulls out a long thin cloak with brown, white, and darker shaded markings. She ties the black thread around her neck and spins. As she slows, I get a better look at what she's wearing. It almost looks like a butterfly, but upon closer inspection, it looks...it looks almost like a moth.

"Isn't it just wonderful, Shae? It feels so smooth too!" Eva beams while wrapping the cloak around her, cuddling it like some strange animal she had just found. "I think it's silk!"

"I swear I've seen that before."

"It was in Mom's things! In that box over there!" Eva points. Realizing I'm not following, she comes over to me and drags me away from the bed to follow her. She leads us to a group of boxes nuzzled in the corner with a few still partly covered by a dark sheet before letting go of my hand. "Here, come look inside them with me! There are so many weird things in this one!"

There's a pit at the bottom of my stomach threatening to choke me. I had no idea mom had other boxes hidden up here. I swallow thickly and follow her. Every step closer took everything in me not to shut it all away and take Eva downstairs. We shouldn't even be up here, let alone go through all of Mom's belongings. Suddenly I'm leaning over Eva staring blankly into the box. With haste, Eva pulls out a crown made entirely of two elegant deer antlers, bound by amber gold and burgundy thread and ribbons with a silk sunflower fastened to the center.

Immediately I picture our mother dressed as a Netherling creature wearing this same crown. Before Eva was born, she wore this one year for Halloween along with the moth cloak. I think I was dressed as some strange flying beast with a long fluffy tail that she had to carry so it wouldn't drag on the sidewalk. The memory drew more tears to my eyes that I couldn't force back.

I take the crown from Eva and stare down at it, cherishing the memory, "Mom wore this one year for Halloween. She was what she called a Netherling from one of her favorite stories."

"What's a Netherling?" Eva asks as I slowly sit down on the floor. I wince as I fumble awkwardly trying to sit comfortably as my leg started to throb. I don't look at her directly, but I know there are more questions behind her gaze she desperately wants to let out and be answered. I sniff, whipping my nose on the hem of my shirt, not caring about how disgusting the action was. She sits beside me, letting her fingers trace over the thread woven on the antlers as I take in her question.

"I don't know. I never really thought about it before. Mom used to tell me stories about them before you were born. She said they were real tricksters with their words, and you'd have to watch them by their actions carefully to start to understand them. Maybe they're like evil fairies."

Eva sticks her tongue out and growls like an animal, "All fairies are nasty little pests."

I smile at that and look her in the eyes, "Ah, so you're their leader then?"

I go to set the crown on her head, and immediately she bats my arm away, yelling, "No!" and scrambles to her feet. She rushes to grab another item from the box. It's a beautifully strange necklace made of smooth milk white-colored beads and animal claws and teeth.

"Whoa... Did she make all this stuff?"

I set the antler crown down bedside me, thinking quietly to myself for a moment before answering her, "Not that I remember. She made lots of things, so it wouldn't surprise me she collected bones and made necklaces or crowns out of them."

"You knew her longer than I did," she murmurs, eyes fixated on the necklace in her hands. "Here." She hands me the necklace and says, "This would look pretty on you."

I smile again, but I'm sure I looked far from happy at the moment, despite her efforts, "You know we can't keep any of this stuff out, right?"

Eva nods while digging through the remaining items in the box before moving on to the next. "Just until dad gets home," she whispers. I can hear the pain in her voice.

"Which is Monday morning."

"I know that." She pulls out an old stuffed teddy bear stitched together with nothing but golden-brown thread, and gasps, "Shae, look! It's a teddy bear!" It's an ugly thing, but then again, we both have a habit of collecting broken and ugly things. Not including all the dead things that I keep in my room. I guess we both take after mom.

"Yeah, Eve, I see it." I play with the strand of beads in my hands, feeling each one along with every tooth and claw, noticing how smooth they are and well made the necklace is. The beads even feel like glass. Running my thumb across the beads does little to calm my nerves, but I can't seem to sit still anymore, let alone drop what is in my hands.

"Huh, there's an E stitched on her left foot. Oh! I wonder if mom made this for me before I was born! Did she make you a teddy bear too, Shae?" Before I can even think to answer, she adds, "Aw, she's missing an eye. I can fix that!"

"Eva." We can't keep these things, which is what I want to say, but the words fumble in my throat by the pure joy on her face.

"I'm going to call her stitches!" As quick as a fox darting away from a hound, Eva scurries past me and the heaps of old boxes only to practically leap down the ladder. The thud that comes from below startles me, and immediately my thoughts race to she's broken a rib or a leg or worse. Then I hear her boisterous laughter echo below the floorboards as she runs into her room.

I yell loud enough to wake the neighbors, "Hey! Be careful, will you? You'll break a damn bone if you do that again!" No response. I sigh. "So much for watching another movie."

I go to pick myself up off the floor and am immediately reminded of my wounded leg, gasping when I rolled over onto it. I let out a shaky breath and stand, letting myself lean against one of the heavier boxes as I give myself a moment to recollect my thoughts. Why keep all of these things hidden up here?

Gradually I start gathering all the items Eva had removed from the boxes. I intend to put them back where they belong. But as I close the first box, I find myself lingering on the second. I stare down at the necklace in my hand, then down at the bizarre things nestled inside the box.

"What were you keeping up here?" I mumble. Under animal pelts and soft, colorful materials are more necklaces made similar to the one Eva had pulled out. Except these are in various colors, alluring patterns, and abnormal bones I've never seen used in jewelry. I wouldn't even know where she got them from or what kind of animal they belonged to. I suddenly find myself wanting to take them back to my room to look them over on my bed. One necklace, in particular, captures my attention. It has various blue-colored beads that were not even in the slightest, with a few milk-white-colored beads here and there as if placed randomly. There was no pattern, nothing I could find at least. At the center of the necklace is a shiny blue button that's glossed over like glass. It's a bit bigger than a dollar coin and is just about the same color as Eva's eyes; our mother's eyes.

"Christ," I drop both necklaces on the pelts and leave the attic without closing the box. I can't keep digging through her things. Not caring about how we've left the attic a mess, I gently hop down the latter, leaving it pulled down as I head for my sister's room. I knock twice at her door even though it wasn't fully shut, "Can I come in?"

"Yes," she responds softly.

I let myself in, finding Eva sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her bed. The bear from the box is held gently in one hand while her other hand is holding a thread and needle. She's sowing a brown button eye back onto its face, parallel to the black button eye staring blankly back at her.

"You've found him an eye." It isn't a question.

"Her," she says stiffly as her body posture. She holds the stuffed bear, however, in a procure way, being gentle in every touch.

"Right. Sorry." I stand in the doorway some, watching her work. She doesn't say anything else, and she isn't looking at me. With one snip, she cuts the dark thread and ties it. After putting the needle and thread back in their case, Eva holds the bear in front of her, staring just as lost as it. She knows she can't keep it or anything of Mom's down here.

I sigh, "You know what'll happen if we start keeping a few of Mom's things down here. It'll upset dad and-"

"I know, Shae. But he's not going to be back until Monday." Still, she refuses to make eye contact with me. But her voice wavers.

"So, you will put the bear back before then, right?"

"It doesn't have to be right now!" She proclaims, raising her voice.

"Eva, look at me." I try to keep my voice steady.

She shakes her head, saying nothing. I step into the room and seize the bear from her. Immediately she tries to grab it back, a mix of rage and desperation battling behind her eyes.

"Hey! Give her back!" She reaches for the bear I'm keeping behind my back as she kicks and hits me with her fists, "Give her back, Shae-!"

I push her back, losing my temper, and shout over her, "You have a habit of hiding things-"

"I'm not hiding anything!" She screams back. Her hands ball into my shirt as she grabs onto me and kicks my injured leg. I stumble over onto the floor in pain as she snatches the bear from me. There's no apology, no guilt. She flees to the other side of her bed as if it were a shield against me. I should understand her, everything she's feeling and why, but all I can feel is this bitter rage wanting to snap loose.

Through clenched teeth, I bark back, "You always do this, Eve, and Dad always finds it and takes it out on us!"

"Stop calling me that! I hate when you call me that." Her voice drops on quivering lips. Her eyes are wet with fresh tears. We both fall silent, and that bitter rage wavers inside of me.

"Get out," Eva whispers. "I don't want to be around you anymore."