Dream House (5 page)

“So, what are you doing out here?” I joke. “Were
you
spying on
me
?”

His eyes linger on my face for a moment, and his expression becomes serious.

“Yes—yes, I was,” he says in a hammy voice, theatrically raising a hand to his brow. “You've found me out.”

We both burst out laughing until he asks, “How is the house treating you?”

“What do you mean?” I reply, my laughter dwindling away.

“I've noticed lights on at night,” he explains. “I was just wondering if you like it in there . . .”

Without wanting to go into it any more deeply, I give him a smirk. “So you actually
are
spying on me!”

He looks away, but for a split second I glimpse a sad look in his eyes, just like the other day. Worried that I might have taken the joke too far, I add, “The house is lovely—I'm just waiting for the owners to come back.”

“Did they go away?” Avery gives me an enigmatic look. “If so, how is it that you're still here, then?”

I tell him about the day they invited me in and clarify that I'm only staying so I can thank them for their hospitality when they return.

He looks even more puzzled, to the point that he wonders aloud, “But if that's the only reason you're here, shouldn't you just leave them a note?”

Surprised that the thought has never even crossed my mind, I start hurriedly attempting to justify myself. “They were so kind to me, I really have to speak to them in person—I can't just leave.”

“Is that the only reason?” he insists.

His questioning is starting to make me feel uncomfortable, so I lie. “I'm looking after the house for them.” Not sure that he has fallen for it, I nervously fake a laugh and continue, “Actually, it's getting a bit chilly out here. I'd better get back inside.”

He nods and lets me go with a vague half smile.

The truth is that I love this house, that there is something so homely and so safe about it, that even despite all the strange events, I wouldn't want to leave it. Ever.

“Shhh—don't tell him I'm here,” hisses the little girl from her hiding place between the armchair and the living room wall.

I gaze at her little form squeezed into that tiny space, wondering how I could have managed not to notice her arrival, and ask myself how long I've been sitting here, curled up on this sofa.

With a terrified look on her face, she brings her finger to her mouth and motions to me to keep quiet.

“
Him
who?” I ask, looking around me.

“The Derfla,” she answers.

“The
Derfla
?” I repeat.

“He grows babies, and then he eats them,” she blurts out, tears streaming down her face. “He's looking for me!” She suddenly covers her mouth with her hands. “He's coming!” she squeals, hastily pushing her way out from behind the chair and running down the corridor to my right.

I get up from the sofa to follow her, but for some reason can't get the lights to switch on, so I start carefully peering into every dark corner in an attempt to find her.

She isn't there, though—the only place left to look is my bedroom.

I slowly open the door, whispering that I'll protect her, that I'll help her, and that together we will fight this monster, but she doesn't reveal herself.

I place my cheek to the floor in order to have a look under the bed and I see them: two eyes, gleaming in the shadows.

I reach out my hand towards her, stretching farther and farther without any hesitation.

Until something grabs me.

Something strong—much stronger than any little girl could ever be.

I start screaming in fear

. . . and wake up, my face wet with tears.

I look around me. I'm on the sofa; the lights are on; there's nobody around.

It was another nightmare. Or was I hallucinating? Could that really be a possibility?

Plagued by the constant feeling that I'm being watched, I wrap the blanket around me and throw myself into bed, using the covers as a shield until I fall asleep.

A
T 8:00 A.M.,
the alarm clock that I don't remember setting starts ringing, and has me up and ready for breakfast far earlier than the week's bizarre timetable has accustomed me to. It also reminds me that it's already been seven days since I first arrived here, and that what I'd imagined as a short stay has turned into something else.

As far as I know, I might well be staying here forever.

Amabel and Marvin still haven't shown up, the food is running low, and the weird events keep getting more and more unfathomable.

Through the window I see the gardener at work outside, face still set in that miserable frown of his, while these thoughts—almost undisturbed by his presence—rattle through my head.

I decide to make some coffee and take a cup out to him, but when I approach the herbaceous border he's tending, he acts as though I'm invisible.

“Hi there!” I say brightly.

He turns to glare at me briefly before lowering his eyes to the mug I'm carrying. When I hold it out to him, he grudgingly accepts it, and I sense that he might actually be lowering his guard—not much, perhaps, but maybe just enough for me to try to start a conversation. If this man is going to be one of few people—if not the
only
person—that I'm going to see while I stay at this house, I at least want our relationship to get off on the right foot.

As he raises the cup to his cracked lips, I stand there studying him a little more closely than strictly necessary, and suddenly my eyes widen in surprise: there's a dark red stain on his grey shirt.

Alfred notices my reaction before he's even taken his first sip of the hot coffee. He looks down at where I'm staring, then back up.

“It's from a plant,” he assures me vaguely.

But the simple fact that he's bothered to provide me with an explanation brings two different, equally plausible ideas to mind:

1) He might be opening up to me.

2) He might be hiding something and feel the need to lie about it.

My reaction would be the same in either case, so I ask, “Can I get you anything else?”

He shakes his head and turns his back to me, so I take the opportunity to manoeuvre myself closer to the shed in the hope of getting a peek inside. Through the half-open door, I can vaguely make out objects scattered messily across the floor, but I want to see more—I need to. I move a step closer to the little cabin, but, somehow sensing my intention, Alfred immediately steps between me and the door and reaches behind himself to close it.

Feigning indifference, I give him a smile and back away silently until I'm inside my safe bubble again.

The day goes by, and I spend most of it spying on Alfred from the bathroom window; it's so small that I'm hardly visible from outside, and that makes it the perfect place for me to observe the gardener undisturbed, without him having the slightest clue what I'm up to—or at least, that's what I hope.

After yesterday's nightmare—if a nightmare is what it actually was—I can't rid myself of the thought that somebody is playing games with me. And I need to know if that person is the same one who's spending so much time in the back garden. I need to know if I'm safe or not.

Suddenly, Avery's words come back to me, reminding me to keep my distance from the man I'm now watching industriously pluck dead leaves from the foxgloves. But how can I, if I'm stuck here with him?

I don't know anything about him, and I need to find out more. And since Plan A—talking to him—has failed so miserably, I'll have to take another tack: observing him.

After a while, I leave my lookout post to get a snack and have a poke around for anything that might help me collect more information about this creepy gardener. A search of my bedroom doesn't turn up anything that might be useful, but when I open the drawer under the TV stand in the living room, I find a camera.

It's a cheap one, but it's in working order, and it has a full battery plus a memory card, as well as a video option.

I grab it and prop it up on the sill of the bathroom window, making sure that it's stable and won't fall into the bathtub and break. Once everything is ready, I press the Record button and leave it there, spying sneakily on Alfred for me, minute by minute.

My curiosity getting the upper hand over my nerves, I start preparing myself mentally to give the basement a more in-depth inspection than—for obvious reasons—I managed the other night. And I want to do it before it gets too dark.

Were
those Alfred's feet that I saw just before I fainted? Is he behind all of this? New questions keep popping up inside my head, and if I want to answer them the only thing I can do right now is try to collect more clues.

With the camera now as my partner in crime, I don't feel guilty taking a few minutes off from my stakeout of Alfred to examine that underground room which I've only been in once—and in less-than-ideal circumstances.

Butterflies of anxiety are already starting to beat their wings in my stomach, but with my mind now firmly set upon the idea, I light a candle from the drawer full of them I find in the kitchen and, holding it steadily in my left hand, use my right to push open the cellar door. I make my way quickly down the stairs.

The atmosphere down here now is nothing like it was the other night; without all those candles, the light is different. The room is much darker, but somehow I don't sense any danger lurking within these stone walls.

There's a small wooden stepladder propped up against one wall, and the shelves and hooks dotted about host all the objects you might expect to find in a cellar: a toolbox, tins of rusty old screws, jam jars full of string and elastic bands . . .

I walk over towards the narrow, slot-like window set at the top of the wall, right where it meets the ceiling, and look outside: the fact that I'm underground means that the view from here is extremely restricted, and all I'm able to see is the front gate and the path—or at least a part of it. Even though it isn't much, I'm glad that I'm now aware of this space, particularly while I'm learning more about Alfred. It might help me gain an advantage over him and discover parts of the house that hopefully he doesn't know about. After all, he specifically told me that the Blooms didn't want him setting foot inside the place, so it's highly unlikely that he knows all of its secrets.

Somehow I've completely lost track of time while I've been down here—the only thing that tells me the minutes are actually passing is the hot wax dripping from my candle onto my hand and the floor.

The appetising perfume of what smells like a delicious dinner wafting in from somewhere makes me realise how hungry I am, and I set off towards the stairs with the intention of cooking myself a healthy meal—it's been a long time since I last had the pleasure of eating one—when suddenly my foot collides with something. It skids across the floor and hits the wall with a metallic clang.

I hold up my candle—it's the knife that I brought down here the other night to defend myself with, for all the good it did.

I pick it up and climb back up the stairs to the ground floor of the house. But as soon as I reach the kitchen, I realise that something strange has happened.

I am not alone anymore.

A puff of air blows out my candle, and I drop it to the floor, race over to the dining table, and stand there, knife in hand, breathing heavily and gaping in disbelief at what I find before me: a banquet of appetising food—bowls of crisp, steaming vegetables; quiches; mashed potatoes and rutabagas with butter and pepper; pumpkin pie. It's obvious that at least one person must have been here to cook this, and that this isn't all just a strange dream.

But no one comes, no matter how long I wait.

Absolutely at a loss as to why all this is happening to me, it occurs to me for the first time that I might actually, seriously, be starting to lose my mind.