Authors: Gayle Eileen Curtis
Chrissie yawned, threw the last dregs of her coffee on to the grass and made her way into the house. She wanted to get some more boxes unpacked and pictures up to give the house more of a homely feel. As she walked through the small cottage door the darkness covered her whole being like misty rain. She hadn’t realised how quickly it had turned dusk. It had blanketed the cottage in a thick, sad, darkness, making it quite apparent that there had been no life in it for quite some time. Chrissie wasn’t fazed by this, as she’d gotten used to being on her own. What with the divorce and all the dark lonely evenings that had brought her. And anyway she wasn’t alone; she had her three beautiful cats.
After an hour of mainly moving items from one room to another, unable to make a decision about where to put anything, she lit candles and turned the oven on to heat up some supper. Cats were fed, dinner underway and the television was flickering in the background and suddenly the house seemed to smile, glad of the company.
Eventually, after some supper and half an hour spent arranging her bedroom, Chrissie snuggled down with Lewis, Harry, and Rosie, her somewhat confused and unsettled felines, and slipped into a deep and peaceful sleep.
The morning appeared as quite a shock and Chrissie woke up wondering where she was and where she’d been. The night had passed in a flash with lots of dreams full of faces she didn’t recognise, which were now drifting from her mind. They swirled like steam, disappearing into the atmosphere as she pulled herself into an upright position in the bed.
She swung her still aching body out from underneath the warm quilt and threw on a comfy sweater over her pyjamas. She stretched and made her way down the stairs to make a hot drink.
The house felt different this morning, slightly drab, and there was a strong cloying smell of damp. Outside wasn’t much better, but then it was to be expected being five hundred yards from the sea.
She tried not to allow the atmosphere to affect her and decided over a cup of coffee that she would spend the day making the sitting room cosy and homely. Hopefully then she could get some work done and concentrate on the new book she’d just started writing.
Chrissie opened the kitchen door to the garden and breathed in the salty, fresh cold air. Lewis wound his body round her legs as she wandered across the uneven grass, almost tripping her up. She never worried about her cats wandering off, she’d moved so many times and they were so fond of her that they just accepted their new surroundings. Chrissie bent down and picked him up with one hand. He immediately climbed onto her shoulders and curled his silky black body around the back of her neck. Slightly stooped, she continued her exploration of the garden. She reached some thick undergrowth that she pushed her way through. Lewis chirruped and chattered to her as she eventually came across a wooded area that led to a narrow stream. She’d seen it before when she’d viewed the property, but not from this end of the garden. It was just as beautiful as she had remembered, even though it was an overcast day. Through the evenly spaced trees the sparkling stream flowed, the field acting as an embankment. The views were breathtaking and she stood for many minutes taking it all in, as Lewis purred in her ear.
Chrissie looked around her and noticed a small ivy covered brick building through the trees. Intrigued, she made her way across the soft undergrowth towards the odd looking building. On closer inspection it looked very much like a miniature chapel, mainly because of its pointed roof. Most of the tiles were missing and there were lots of saplings growing out of it. Above the door was a small hole cut in the brick. Inside it contained a discoloured old bell which had taken on the shade of the concrete it was set in.
As Chrissie approached the unhinged cracked wooden door, the temperature seemed to plummet, which made her pause. She put it down to her overactive imagination; she had a habit of thinking too much, which was what made her such a good novelist. But in certain circumstances it occasionally frightened her out of her wits. Being in a wooded area in front of a derelict building was causing a whisper of a chill to creep over her skin. She stopped for a second to focus her mind to the fact that she was standing in the bottom of her garden in front of an old brick shed. The house and garden she’d viewed and fallen madly in love with all those weeks ago
Pausing dispersed her irrational feelings and she began to move again towards the rickety old door. It was definitely colder and there seemed to be complete silence, as if someone had pressed a switch and turned off the countryside. Even Lewis had stopped purring. She felt his body tighten around her neck and a soft growl was emanating from the pit of his throat. This only caused her senses to heighten again as she felt Jack Frost tip toeing up her spine. However freaked out she was, she still had a need to find out what was behind the door, knowing that would then stop all this silliness. After all, it was just an old shed and Lewis was only picking up on her irrational fear. But Lewis continued his growl and had started to sit up, digging his claws into her shoulder. Chrissie reached her hand up to stroke him but he ducked from it, his big green eyes like marbles, intent on staring at the shed door.
As she pushed the door with her foot and her hand, it was all too much for him and he leapt from her back growling and hissing. Chrissie flinched at his claws leaving her shoulders; her skin prickled with goose-bumps. She peered inside the shed, her heart was pounding and every hair on her arms was standing to attention. As her eyes got used to the light all she could see was an empty building with a few young trees sprouting out of the top. The floor was made up of soil, which would explain the cold damp feeling in the air. As she strained her eyes to the back of the building, she became aware of some piles of logs but that was all she could see. She had a sudden need to look behind her, which only revealed the wooded area, just as still as it was before. It was as if it had been pulling faces at her behind her back and she’d almost caught it.
“It’s just an old wood shed,” she muttered to herself over and over again as her body relaxed and her heart slowed down. She could feel a sweat flashing all over her body and a warm heat rising up her face as she walked away and headed back to the house. Lewis had completely deserted her and she cursed him as she gingerly made her way across the garden. She kept thinking how silly it was to get in such a tizzy over a stupid old wood shed. But she was walking quicker than normal, eager to get inside and close the door. What a drama over nothing. But even though she was telling herself this, there was something niggling in the cellar of her mind. There had been a strange familiarity about going into that shed, a flash of a memory, a smell, and a feeling that she couldn’t quite grasp. Whatever it was, it wasn’t sitting very well with her. She physically shuddered as if to mentally shake the feeling off and steered her mind to emptying boxes and heading back towards the house.
As she made her way through the wooded area and back to the bumpy lawn, she glanced up at the cottage and as she did so she lost her footing on the uneven grass and stumbled forward onto her hands. On pushing herself up from the ground her vision had flashed across the front of the cottage and in that split second she saw a small figure of a child, standing on the doorstep, and she almost stumbled forward again, as she looked back at it. But when she did so, there was nothing there. Having composed her balance, Chrissie stood still on the grass and stared, then looked around her. Then stared again. Icicles dripped down her back and a sick feeling crept through her stomach and into her heart. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it. She hadn’t even got through a month in her new home and she was already feeling frightened and homesick.
Chrissie sat on the damp grass for a few minutes while she rationalized her mind. She didn’t care for the fact that the wetness from the ground was seeping through her trousers. She was more concerned about how tired and stressed she appeared to be and what a huge factor it was playing in all of this. She felt a bit like a child refusing to give in to exhaustion. But she didn’t want to kid herself. Moving house was supposed to be one of the most stressful things you could go through in your life. Along with getting divorced. She knew perfectly well what stress could do to a tired mind and body.
Feeling newly composed, she put it all down to the fact that she’d frightened herself in the wood shed. She rolled over onto her knees to make it easier to stand up. Taking a deep breath and feeling much better she stomped back in the house and began unpacking boxes. It took her a while to settle to it, and there remained an obsessive urge to keep looking behind her. But she turned the radio on and erratically hummed her way through it until the atmosphere seemed to have lifted. The problem was that however much Chrissie tried to convince herself that the figure hadn’t existed, the more the little child became clearer in her head. She kept seeing flashes of a little girl in the cinema of her mind, with straggly bobbed dirty blonde hair, wearing a smock style dress covered in a loud pink and turquoise pattern with a pinafore. Not dissimilar to the type of thing she had worn as a child. But this little girl was barefoot and very dirty. There was also something peculiar about her eyes, but Chrissie hadn’t been close enough to see properly. She pushed the vision away and busied herself, until a creek from the front door made her gasp and jump at the same time.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you!” said a friendly faced woman who was looking round the door.
“I live in the white cottage down the track, the Old Dairy? We’re your most immediate neighbours, my husband Tim and I, albeit two hundred yards or so away. I’m Grace. I just wanted to say hello and see if there was anything you needed. I am so sorry; I gave you quite a fright didn’t I?”
“Gosh, sorry…come in, come in…I’m just a bit jumpy today. Think it’s just the move and everything” replied Chrissie, getting her breath back and feeling relieved that the woman standing in the doorway was actually a real solid human being.
“How are you settling in? You’ve made a lot of progress, seeing as you only arrived last week.” Grace said looking around at the already cosy sitting room.
Chrissie could tell that she’d moved into a typical village where she presumed no one missed a thing. She decided to be friendly but not reveal too much.
“Well, not really but I’m getting there. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? I’m Chrissie by the way.”
“Oh… um... yes that would be nice, as long as I’m not stopping you. I did just pop by to say hello and see if you needed anything.”
“Not at all, I’d be glad of a break to be honest.”
They stepped into the garden while the kettle was boiling and chatted as if they’d known one another for years.
“I tell you what? I’ve got a nice bottle of wine in the fridge….”
“That’d be nice, but it’s a bit early isn’t it…?” Grace said glancing at her watch.
“No! It’s Saturday afternoon and I haven’t celebrated my moving in yet.”
“Ok, why not…”
Chrissie smiled at the warm amiable lady who she knew would become her first friend in the village. Maybe she was just being friendly and not the nosy neighbour that Chrissie had first judged her to be.
Chrissie tied back her straggling brown hair with a band that she had wrapped around her wrist and went to the kitchen to get the drinks. Grace followed her.
“So how are you finding this strange old house?”
Chrissie frowned at her and then smiled. She had a lovely warm face with small features apart from her soft brown eyes, which were huge and accentuated by her blonde hair. In fact she was extremely tiny in form, Chrissie realised as she took in the physical outline of her new companion. She reminded her of her mother a little bit; she was about the same age.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean strange…because it’s lovely, but…” Grace said, trying to recover herself.
“Its fine,” Chrissie raised her hand to reassure the nervous woman, “I know exactly what you mean. It is strange but carries a lovely charm with it. Let’s go back outside and enjoy the last of the summer weather.”
They chatted like old friends once Grace had relaxed and Chrissie was glad of the company. It seemed to lift the spirit of the whole house and garden. It was almost dark by the time Grace left and they’d drunk a whole bottle of wine.
“I better get back; I only popped out for five minutes.”
“I’m sorry it’s my fault, enticing you with white wine! Will your husband be worried?”
“No, he won’t be back yet, he’s gone on one of his fishing trips with his friends and afterwards they always end up in the local pub. Which reminds me. Most Sundays we all pop there at lunch time for a few drinks and sometimes lunch, for whoever can’t be bothered to cook. Do you fancy joining us? Get you properly ensconced in the village?”
“Yeah…I’d like that, thank you, that’s really kind.”
They hugged each other and then said their farewells feeling warm and light-hearted at the prospect of their new friendship. Chrissie pulled her cardigan tightly around her and wandered back into the house. She really felt like they’d picked up where they left off. Then she realised what she had just thought. Left off from where? They’d only just met. It had suddenly turned cold and feeling slightly uneasy again, Chrissie wanted to get the lamps and the television on in the house before her imagination got the better of her again.