Written by Chelsey
The quick background is that Kelly (the writer of the last post/story) and I (Chelsey) and taking a prompt from a kit. We have one week to write a short story from said prompt. This is sent to me and I will be posting them here on Weird Headspace. Along with this, Erma is writing stories as they come to her and as she feels the calling to do so. These will also be posted here. Now! On to this week prompt.
When people say country estate it sounds really grand but looking at it now I realize our house is…. A dark place. As I rise out of my car, unable to drive up the path due to the overgrowth. Dad was always so particular about this path while I was growing up. Now, it is filled with weeds and the pebbles are almost lost to the grass. As I take those tentative steps up the small incline of the hill, the sound of those pebbles send me back. To a time when I thought that sound would mean freedom. My hopes laid with the sound and feel of the shifting rocks under my feet. Too many times would I feel that glory only to have it snatched away. Still, I push myself forward toward the house.
I try to not allow myself to feel or think as I look upon the yellow pillars of the wrapped porch. Yellow due to disrepair. Too many years of lack of care have caused the sun to bite into the color. It peels away from the post like dead skin on a sunburned back. Like the skin as it heals from being whipped for running away again. Dry and dead but trying desperately to hold on for one more day. For another moment of protection.
My foot feels like it is lead as I lift it to place it softly on the first step. As the board creaks under my weight, I can feel the house crying. Even these boards know the horror of times past. I idly wonder if the boards will be able to hold the weight of my soul returning to this place without bending and breaking under me.
I never wanted to return here. I always just wanted to get away. That was always the goal from the moment that mom passed away and I was 7. Once she was gone, there was no love in this home any longer. Not for me anyway. Not here. Not from him.
The rusty door ahead of me looks menacing. Like if it could ensnare me, it would jump at the chance. As the dried out, forgotten hinges moan loudly as I pull the door, I can hear my own moans of pain and anguish as a child echoed in their sound. The sound of misuse bringing back memories of long days with lack of sleep and hypervigilance. As the door drags across the porch, a world opens before me. One I thought I hoped to never see again. I awaited the feeling of dread. The fear. The anger. However, instead I felt a rush of cooling forgiveness.
He is not here. The nightmare is past. The man who would keep me here and beat me, is now nowhere in sight. The demon who drank too much and hit too hard, is gone. The man who valued my life less than that of the dog no longer walks these floors. The hatred he showed has absolved. His scent has even begun to lift from the air inside this home.
All that lay before me is empty. The creaking rocking chair in the corner is the only furniture that has not been disposed of. All signs of the past are just that, in the past. The kitchen stands in the same color of pink that my mother painted it years before she passed. Still just as vibrant as the days when the house filled with the smell of cookies and cake. When there was love and acceptance.
The shadow from the window moves as I realize that the bars that have always been there are being removed. The men I hired are working already. Good. Once again, the breeze and the sweet smell of summer will be allowed to flow through this place. It will take work, but this place that I once thought of as my death was going to change. It was mine now, fully mine. I will flush this place of all traces of hate and fill it with love. What once was my hell will now be my heaven. I will fill it with my love and absolve all traces of his hate.
As I feel a movement within me it brings me out of my fantasy world within myself.
“Don’t worry little one, while this was my childhood prison, your father and I will not let you down. This will be your castle and you….. you will be its princess”
