Remember this. The novel I was meant to be writing as thing for this. I decided
to do another chapter after 17 months. Well, here it is and nothing of
interest happened to me this week.
I've
read the last four chapters and know there's weird mistakes. I'm going
to need to fix them. There's some contradictory stuff about a gate, but
that what happens when you writing on the cuff of the online form. I don't
know if I should post this story somewhere else to get feedback more
likely.
I also regret coming up with this title as I have no idea where I was
going with it. I didn't want to just be filler, but it probably just filler but long filler.
Chapter 5, Temporary Homes
I
jump into the car.
“Go.”
My
mother sighs.
“Nova,
I wish you would stop being so dramatic.”
She
starts the car anyway and we leave the Most Haunted Hotel in this town. We sit
in silence till I realise something is off.
“Isn’t
the motorway the other way?”
“Yes,”
my mother says simply, as if that was the actual question I was asking.
“Where
are we going?”
“House
inspection.”
I
stare at her. That was what the agency was for. My mother almost never deals
with her any of her property directly anymore. Not with us moving around so
much. We’ve even left the country months for at the time, which lead to having
to share a room with a ghost that was screaming in French.
The
last time we had did a house inspection ourselves was when a tenant was trying
to say the house was still Haunted. It wasn’t, they were either lying (they
most certainly were) or had let the stories get to them. She was up to something. Hell, my mother was always
up to something.
I
was too tired to deal with my mother’s schemes. I don’t know why she still hides
shit from me. I slipped down my seat and shut my eyes. Maybe I can sleep through
whatever this is. It not long before the car has come to stop. I opened my eyes
to one of our former homes and the one where the rumours never went away from.
It
was the third house we had fixed up and had only stay occupied enough to make
the low-cost worth it and have its own “investigation” which had happened twice
before the first one was aired. It hadn’t even been that haunted to start with,
we just had to have the tenant that wanted to have a profitable haunting. They
had been asked to leave once they contract had been up, which had not been a
profile decision on my mother’s part, but it had been annoying when my former
home suddenly had Christian demonic entities in it.
They
had several problematic tenants in it. Something that been noisy complaints
about it from my mother who got had been annoyed when she knew that house to
having nothing in it. It had only taken a month to de-ghost the house. An old
lady had stuck around and liked to leave tea everywhere. Sometimes not in cups.
She hadn’t known she was dead. She had been killed in the 80s during a burglary
gone really wrong. The ‘investigations’ had uncovered dark age witch burnings.
It was stupid, those witch burnings had happened in the centre of town and had
been faked by the witches wanted to avoid an actual witch hunt in the town
where so many were going in the rest country.
“We’re
moving here, ain’t we?”
“You’re
physic.” My mother says and gets out the car. I followed her out and into the
house. I bet she went and got the keys from the agency this morning. It white
and bland like most rental places. It opened into the Livingroom and stairs up to
the upper floor. It was three bedrooms, a living room with hole into the kitchen,
and dining room/office that had boiler in it so couldn’t legally be a bedroom. It
had two toilets so that was a plus.
“Are
we not going home?” My mother has got and left everything before. Photos and prized
toys don’t mean much to my mother. Now it would be comfortable jeans with holes
in the wrong places and farewell gifts covered in dust.
“Don’t
be silly,” She can be so disregarding to me, like I’m three and I’m just
blankly asking why? I stomp up the stairs to remind her I’m a teenage. Hell, I’m
almost the same age she was when she had me.
The
upstairs was just as bland. The walls were all white, no pangrams that “suddenly”
appear on the walls. The wall had to be painted four times to get rid of the
red underneath. Bright colours are bitch to get ridden of. Strangely, Yellow
was actually the worst. I walk to the back of the house to see the decent size
garden, which was one of the other selling points of this house. If you just
ignored the ghost stories, it was a perfect family home. Too big for just two
people. Last time we live here, my mum was still seeing Ian. He had been living
with us, before mum decided to leave town and then we never seen him again. I
don’t know exactly what went down, one of the successfully things mum hides
from me. Though, I had gotten use to not getting attached. God, I’m a cliché
sometimes.
The
garden was over running with weeds in the flower beds, but the glass had been
cut. It was probably going to stay that way while we stayed here. We’re heading
into winter, so we might not need to cut the glass at all. I turn around, to
see if we could actually go home now.
I
turn around to see a laden in the hallway. Fuck, not a damn attic ghosts. I
hate attic ghosts. They always the worst. But we couldn’t have missed that. We scanned
the whole house. Hell, I even spent the night in that attic once. Nothing ghost
love is a pre-pubescent girl. Actually, they don’t care.
“Mum”
I shout up into the attic, re-acting one of the few ghost films I was forced to
watch at sleepover. I hear nothing. I’m not going up there by myself, even I
can control ghosts.
I
got backdown the stairs to find my mother raiding the cupboards.
“The attic opened by itself,” I say factly.
She
jumps, banging her head on the cupboard door.
“God
Damn it,” she rubs the sore spot. I doubt that was her reaction to the attic.
“Knowing
our luck, those idiots attracted something.” My mother stormed up the stairs, I
follow her. The attic was still opened but now the light was on. It was possible
to trap wandering ghosts or come upon an attached ghost.
It
could just be left junk in the attic. That’s would actually be lucky. My mother
runs up the ladder.
“Wait,
don’t you think we should scan it?”
“I
know who this is.” What? I don’t know to follow her. Then I noticed that door in
front of me. I slowly approach the door. I pushed open to dark figure…trying to
climb out of a second story window. Not dead but about to be.
“What
the hell are you doing?” I grabbed the
back of the hoodie and pulled them into the room. They fall into their back, to
reveal a masculine face. He was pretty scrawny and might be short than me. It was
hard to tell with him laying on the floor.
My
mother appears holding a tape recorder.
“Ar,
another ghost hunter.”
“I’m
not a ghost hunter,” he wines. “I’m an investigator looking for proof.” Like that’s a different thing.
“By
breaking into people’s house.” This house had never been that haunted. She was
a little odd lady and made cups of tea. If you’re liked tea she was the perfect
house guest. All the stories were bullshit, that ignored facts.
“No
one lived in here for months.”
“That
doesn’t make it abandoned,” I say to the idiot.
“I’m
feeling nice, so I won’t call the police, but if I ever find you in my house
again I won’t be so nice.” He scamps up and runs into the ladder before half
falling down the stairs. I go to follow him, but my mum grabs my shoulder.
“Turn
that light off,” she says and goes down the stairs. I huff.
I
swing myself up the first few steps. Ladder is cold and the pattern cuts into
my handles. I rush up and scanned the empty attic. The same random toy cars
were still scatter over the insulation that the previous owner hadn’t bother to
take with them. This might be their grave until this house came down or got new
insulation.
I
turn the light off. The switch was just right at the opening, saving from
pulling myself up and down. The ladder was stiff going back up and the door was
slightly opened. How the hell did that kid open this door?
There
was a pole somewhere. I scan the empty rooms, and shut the open window, before
making my way down the stairs which is also empty. I wonder how that idiot got in
here. Alarm system might be needed.
My
mum storms in, still holding the recorder.
“I’ll
be having words with that agency. That little shit had their spare key.” I don’t
know she knew it was their exact keys.
“Going
to be quitting them anyway.”
“All
the houses are with them” I just nod, I have no clue about this side of the business.
“Can
we leave now?”
“Fine,
I’ll sort this later.”
We
finally leave in awkward. I was wary about moving back here but the locals have
proved themselves to be bananas. Perhaps this place is too “haunted”.
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