Dream House (18 page)

Right away I come up against a few things that still don't quite make sense.

1) Avery organised a nice dinner for us, but I can't really believe that it's him who's been playing these games with me;

2) When I read the note again, I notice with puzzlement that he called the tunnel “our secret place”—what does he mean by that?

3) Why would he think that it was my birthday? And most importantly, why go to such lengths to spend some time with me, only then to just vanish like that?

Even more confused than before, I eventually climb out of bed and, following what is by now my daily routine, I walk down the hall to the main part of the house for some late breakfast. There's no milk left, so I drink a glass of water and toast some stale bread. As I'm spreading it with salted butter, I hear a thud coming from the living room.

I turn around: a book has fallen from the bookcase to the floor.

I walk over and pick it up—it's
Spiritual Relief
. Is this some spirit's way of communicating with me? Is there something in here I need to read?

I carry the book to the table, lay it open there, and wait for something to happen. But, predictably, nothing does.

I'm certain about the fact that someone is here, in the house. In fact, I'm 100 percent positive of it, and that might be the reason I can't leave this place just yet.

All of a sudden, a thought crosses my mind—one so awful it takes my breath away.

I sit there, the book in front of me, mentally reviewing everything that has happened since I came to this house and focusing on the very beginning: the day I met the Blooms.

What if something bad has happened to Amabel and Marvin? What if they need my help? What if they were never alive to begin with?

My hands gripping the book, I take a deep breath, unsure of what my next move should be. I walk over to the bookshelf, ready to put the book back in place, but then another title on the shelf seizes my attention.

The Reverend Mansion.

I pick it up, not sure what to expect.

Opening the first page, I see the title again, followed by the name of the author, Nicholas Goodman, right above the date—1975.

On the following page is a picture of a house with a similar structure to that of the Blooms', but a bit bigger and more cosmopolitan looking—the picture is dated 1923.

And as I leaf through the pages, I see more pictures of the same house over the years, from when it first changed hands and became the property of the first reverend of White Hills, Mr. Smith, through its first renovation about fifty years later, right up to photos in which it looks almost exactly as it does now that it belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Bloom.

There's a chapter called “The Underground Path” which explains the reason for the tunnel under the house. As I start reading, I wonder to myself how I could possibly not have thought to ask Avery about it after spending so much time down there with him the previous night. Never mind—I'm too anxious to discover the answer to waste any more time wondering about last night, so I dedicate my attention to the words before me.

Apparently, the tunnel was dug at the same time the house was built at the request of its original owner. He seemingly had a slightly obsessive desire to be connected at all times with his beloved church, even when the weather—or some other mysterious, unspecified impediment—made it impossible to reach.

By the time Mr. Smith had managed to create a nice little community in White Hills, he'd become an influential, important man. And as he got richer and richer, there came a point where he decided to give something back to his village by opening right behind his delightful abode a hospital, the Smith Medical Centre, which was eventually converted into a private mansion—the same private mansion which is now Avery's family home.

Once building work on the hospital was completed, Mr. Smith decided to dig further tunnels connecting all three of the places which were most important to him, uniting them underneath the ground via a single, dark passageway.

After Mr. Smith's death, a new owner moved into his property—Mr. Goodman, the author of this book and the next reverend of the village.

Mr. Goodman explains that as he was unable to afford to maintain the land the hospital was built on, he had to let it go up for sale. That was when Avery's father bought it and decided to close up the passage under the ground.

The book ends with a section full of detailed before-and-after shots of the house, the hospital, and the church.

I put the book back where I found it and gaze out through the big French windows. The rain is still pouring down, and the bitter chill of the autumn weather is palpable, but the heat of the kiss that Avery and I shared keeps me warm inside.

I find myself staring at his window, my head bursting with questions about him.

About us.

But even though I'm tempted to flick my lights on and off so that we can meet, I don't—I want to save that meeting, hold on to it so that I've got an excuse to see him again.

And I wait, hoping for him to make a move.

Not long after, it suddenly occurs to me that my mind has completely switched off. And that I'm sick and tired of always fighting to know more. So I sit there on that stiff couch and just wait for something to happen, hardly even moving.

I let the day and the night go by, gazing passively out of the window at the rain falling onto the grass.

T
HROUGH THE
blanket covering my face, I hear a creaking noise, as though a door in the house were being opened.

I pull the blanket away from one half-opened eye to peek out at my surroundings, and immediately notice that I appear to be in my bedroom, and yet that it's somehow not quite the
same
bedroom. I sit myself up and take a good look around me.

The white walls that I liked so much are now covered in wallpaper, its floral pattern covering everything and leaving no plain space on the walls. I gaze at the desk, no longer pale white but instead a bright, cherrywood tint, matching the rest of the furniture. Even the sheets feel different.

My heart racing, I climb out of bed. Where am I?

I turn around and reach for the doorknob—I give it a twist, and the door opens onto the same corridor I've walked down so many times before. But again, it doesn't look like it normally does: the walls are darker, almost as if they've aged all of a sudden.

In the darkness, I force my uncooperative feet to move towards the living room, the room closest to my bedroom, all the while feeling certain that somebody is watching me.

As I tiptoe down the hall I try my best to keep calm until I eventually reach my destination—except that it now looks nothing like the living room I was expecting. The layout, with its open-plan kitchen, is still the same, but nothing else is the way I remember it. From the kitchen—so modern and boring compared to the French country style of before—to the big old couch that looks completely different to the stiff but adorable sofa I've spent so much time happily curled up on.

Everything is different.

I stand in front of the couch and hold my left hand out, reaching for it.

But when my fingers make contact with the fabric, I shiver—and to my surprise, it's suddenly daytime.

And everything is back to normal.

Was I
sleepwalking
? Have I done it before?

The house looks as wonderful as ever. It must have been a dream.

I take a seat, and, unbidden, my eyes go to the book,
The Reverend Mansion
, which I was reading the previous day, as though suggesting that my subconscious must have projected all those images into my mind while I was sleeping.

Then, just when I'm starting to feel like I'm making sense of the situation, telling myself that I'm not crazy after all and that there's always an explanation for everything, I hear the sound of a door closing.

Unable to tell exactly which one it was, I stand up and run towards where the sound came from—the hall to the left, where the bathroom, the master bedroom, and the basement are.

I get to the end of the corridor to find all three doors are shut. It's obvious that there's not a moment to waste, so I follow my intuition and go for the door on the left—the basement. Which this time is unlocked.

I throw it open—and see two shadows standing there side by side, right in front of me, only to then disappear in the blink of an eye.

Leaving me alone there, wondering.

Was that . . .

“Mr. and Mrs. Bloom?” I ask out loud.

I peer down the stairs. For an instant the darkness I see there frightens me, and the knot of tension I feel inside my gut tightens further.

And then I race down into it.

The creaking of the old wood under my feet as I quickly descend the stairs is the only sound, but I know that those shadows must be hiding down here.

When I reach the bottom I rush over towards the centre of the cellar—and realise a moment too late that I've put my foot on the wrong flagstone. It wobbles under my weight, and I lose my balance and fall to the ground, my knees and palms banging down hard onto the stone floor.

I feel something under my right hand, but it's so incredibly dark down here that I can't tell what it is.

I get myself up into a sitting position in the corner of the room and take a good hold of the cold, insubstantial object which keeps almost slipping out of my grasp, realising when I lift it up and run my fingers over it that it's a delicate metal chain running down to a pendant. I feel its shape and try to figure out what it might be, but can't work it out.

I lift it up and try to force myself to see whatever it is that I'm holding in the darkness, and sure enough, after a few moments my eyes finally get used to the dim light in the cellar enough for me to just about make it out.

It's a flat, rounded disk with several stems extending radially from its edges, and bearing a violet gem. It slightly resembles a sun, and it's extremely familiar to me, but I've no idea why.

I lift my eyes from the necklace—and suddenly see the two shadows.

They're standing there quietly, right in front of me. Almost invisible, but made of a different kind of darkness to the gloom in the cellar.

I scrutinise them for a moment, and when I'm almost certain that I'm sure who they are, I say again, “Mr. and Mrs. Bloom—”

But before I can get out another word, both shadows suddenly lurch forward towards me.

I recoil in fear, twisting away from them as I try to escape, but then I feel their hands on my back, colder than ice, a nightmarish touch which instantly makes me feel nauseous and vulnerable.

I start screaming, begging them to stop, but after just a few seconds all my strength abandons me, and I faint clear away and collapse down onto the cold stone floor.

W
HEN I
come back to my senses, the first thing I feel is the throbbing inside my head—which is also spinning vertiginously—and how sore and tired my body is.

The light from the morning sun filtering through the little window illuminates the floor around me.

What happened?

Blearily aware that I'm grasping something in one hand, I open my eyes, and when I look down at my hand I see with surprise that the necklace is still there, safe and sound. I squint at it more closely, able now to study all its details. The rays extending from the base are pointed, but one of them is missing, and a little grey patch of solder makes me think it might have been broken off. In the centre of the gemstone is carved a small A.

Without even thinking about it too much, it feels perfectly natural for me to pull the chain over my head and around my neck. I sit there staring at it for a while, although my thoughts are actually focused on what happened here.

I see again those two shadows looking at me, too blurred to be able to tell if they truly were the owners of the house—but at the same time, I can't imagine who else it could be.

I remember the pain and the fear I felt—and which still feel real, so real that I wrap my arms around myself as though trying to protect myself from something that might even not be there at all.

Maybe I'm just losing my mind.

Maybe it really is time for me to leave after all.

Overwhelmed by everything, I know that there's only one person who might be able to understand what I'm going through.

Avery.

The moment I start to stand, a sharp pain shoots up my leg from my knee, but I somehow manage to get myself to the top of the stairs, and with a huge sigh of relief I push the door shut behind me.

The entrance to the bathroom looms up in front of me, and I limp straight in to clean myself up. There's a scab forming over the graze on my knee, but there doesn't seem to be any blood anywhere else. In the mirror I notice some small purple bruises behind my shoulders where the shadows put their hands on me, but the pain that touching them causes is too much for me to deal with right now, so I put my T-shirt back on and just wash my face with some lukewarm water.