The Haunting of Ashburn House (17 page)

It wasn’t the only time Edith came by that night.

Every hour, just before the clock’s chimes, the clicking noise returned. The first two times, Adrienne rose and Wolfgang scrambled into a dark corner, but as the night wore on and their exhaustion mounted, they both learned to keep their place and silently listen as the tapping passed them by.

Adrienne managed to sleep in patches of thirty and forty minutes between Edith’s visits. Her naps were fitful, though, and she dreamed repeatedly of her mother, her eyes wild as she clutched Adrienne close and fled Ashburn, six drops of red glistening on her chin.

By the time dawn rose, the physical and mental tiredness weighed so heavily that Adrienne felt as though she might drown under it. One minute, she was watching the blood-red sunrise creep over the treetops; the next thing she knew, she was startling awake as the grandfather clock chimed. The sun’s angle had changed. Adrienne held still, breathing quickly as she counted the rings.
Eleven
.
How did I sleep so late?

She looked down. Wolfgang napped at her feet, his back to the dying fire embers. He looked languid and content.

Edith must have left at dawn. Maybe light hurts her. Maybe it’s her weakness.

Adrienne peeled herself out of the chair. The pain in her ankle had settled to a dull ache, but she was careful not to put weight on it as she clambered into the kitchen.

She hadn’t eaten since the previous day’s breakfast and suspected hunger was responsible for the lingering nausea and weakness. She collected two packets of instant noodles, a pot, more dishtowels, a bowl, and a fork and bundled them in one of the crocheted tablecloths for easier carrying. She then filled the metal whistling kettle with water, looped the tablecloth’s tie over the crook of her elbow, and carried the kettle in her other hand as she brought them all back to the lounge room.

The fire was nearly dead, but some kindling and careful tending revived it. Adrienne waited for the blaze to grow then hung the kettle on the metal rod to boil. She slumped back into the seat and ran her fingers through her hair as she tried to think.

Wolfgang stretched, flexing his claws, then sauntered to the overflowing food bowl. Adrienne watched him eat. He seemed happy again, which she assumed meant they were alone.

We’re safe right now, but I can’t assume that will last.

She turned towards the nearest window. The woods shifted and rocked in a gentle wind. The glass was too dirty to pick out details, but it was easy to imagine a hunched, angry figure waiting just inside the forest.

Adrienne felt as though something inside of her had broken the night before. She would have thought she’d be a hysterical, shivering mess over the idea of having a dead—
or undead or whatever she is
—woman stalking her. But she felt as though the entirety of her tears and fear had been burnt up during the night, leaving behind a small, smouldering coal: single-minded determination to get herself and Wolfgang out of Ashburn.

I need to decide on my priorities. Top of the list is physical safety. Edith wanted to get into the house; the fact that she didn’t, despite circling Ashburn all night, suggests she can’t break through locked windows or doors. Thank mercy. But it means I’ll need to be cautious when going outside or not leave the house at all.

The kettle was hissing. Adrienne pulled it off the fire, took the lids off both noodle cups, and added the liquid. She was supposed to leave them to cook for two minutes but began scooping food out of the first cup immediately. The noodles were crunchy and the water hot enough to burn her tongue, but she was too hungry to care.

The second priority is to get out of this place. Maybe someone in town will let Wolf and me stay with them for a night or two until I can find a more permanent place to live. With no money. No relatives. Very few friends.
She grimaced around the noodles.
We’ll figure it out somehow. Anything’s got to be better than staying here.

She discarded the empty noodle cup and picked up the full one.
How I’m getting out of here is a different kind of puzzle. Edith might not like light, but I don’t know how badly it affects her. Am I safe during the day, or is she still out there, waiting for me to emerge?

That came back to the first priority: physical safety. For the time being, until she had evidence suggesting otherwise, she needed to assume Edith was still active during daylight.

She was able to chase me down while I was flat-out running, which makes me a sitting duck with this leg. I need transport to get out. If I’m lucky, someone will drive up here to check on me. Both Peggy from the vet’s clinic and Sarah are expecting to see me within the next few days. How long will I have to be absent for them to worry?

That tied in with her next two priorities: food and infection. Both the dwindling pantry and her ankle were ticking countdowns to death. Adrienne finished the second noodle cup, got up, and hopped back into the kitchen to check the pantry’s stock. It was enough to last a day and a half, or a little over two days if she rationed it. She could probably last another couple of days after that before weakness from hunger became a serious concern. At least water was unlimited, provided Jayne didn’t cancel her account.

Jayne didn’t want to come back here. And Sarah listens to Jayne, even down to what she should wear. I can’t count on Sarah to visit.

Adrienne sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. She needed the bathroom, but that involved navigating the stairs to the second floor. She hopped into the laundry behind the kitchen and found a broom. The bristles were soft from decades of use, but the wooden handle was worn away and rough. Adrienne took one of the smaller tablecloths from the kitchen and twisted it around the handle before tying it off tightly. The result was a silly-looking walking stick that worked surprisingly well, and Adrienne used it to get upstairs and into the bathroom.

While she washed her hands, she stared at her pale reflection in the new mirror and let her mind wander. The second major worry, besides food, was infection. She’d done a poor job of cleaning her leg and was limited in how much more she could do.
I’d need disinfectant or at least some clean bandages—

An idea struck her, and she opened the cabinet below the sink. Like the rest of the house, it had been kept immaculately clean. Adrienne found a large wooden box behind a stack of handtowels and pulled it out. It hadn’t occurred to Adrienne before but now seemed obvious: Edith had lived alone at Ashburn for more than eighty years. She would have been an idiot to not own any emergency medical supplies. And Edith definitely wasn’t an idiot.

Adrienne looked inside the box and exhaled in relief. It was overflowing with bottles, bandages, and little vials of pills. Most of the packaging looked modern too.

As she lifted her head, a flash of motion in the mirror caught her attention. As soon as she tried to fix on the shape, it disappeared. Adrienne turned to examine the room over her shoulder. She was alone. Frowning, she hoisted the box and turned to the door.

She was grateful for the makeshift crutch on the climb downstairs. The kit was heavy and threatened to overbalance her, and she had to lean on the railing and the wall a few times to keep herself upright. She put the kit on the lounge room’s small, round table, returned the kettle to the fire, and opened the box.

The only thing missing was a guidebook. A few of the bottles were unlabelled, and Adrienne discarded them, but most of the other packages had instructions on them. There were unexpired painkillers, so she dry swallowed two of them then took out bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, and a pack of swabs.

Adrienne then returned to the problem of escaping Ashburn while she watched the fire lick at the kettle’s base and waited for it to boil.

She couldn’t count on Sarah or her three friends visiting, especially not within the first few days. The only other person who would miss her was the vet nurse, Peggy, and she was a complete wild card. She’d been interested in Adrienne and seemed to enjoy being helpful, but would that helpfulness extend to visiting Ashburn if Adrienne was a day or two late picking up the laptop?

Probably not.

The kettle whistled. Adrienne chewed at her lower lip as she poured the boiling water into the bowl. Sarah’s group of friends and Peggy were long-shot chances but nothing she could count on.

The pain tablets had started to work when she began cleaning her leg, but it still hurt like crazy. The swelling hadn’t gone down, but at least Adrienne was able to bathe the cuts in antiseptic and wrap them in clean bandages. The old towels were crusty with dried blood, so she put them to one side to throw out.

She was starting to piece together the puzzle that had been growing since she’d moved into Ashburn. Almost certainly, Edith was responsible for the sunset phenomenon, Adrienne’s torment over the previous two nights, and the power cutting out—all events that had happened after nightfall. Even that day’s encounter hadn’t started until after the sun went down.

Adrienne repacked the kit carefully then glanced towards the window. The early-afternoon sun was bright and warm, though precious little of it was allowed into the house.

I promised myself I wouldn’t take unnecessary risks. But if Edith is dormant during daylight hours, it would be insanity to stay here and give her another night to hunt me. Even carrying Wolf in the cat case and with my leg like this, there’d be plenty of time to walk to town before nightfall.

Wolfgang had jumped onto the windowsill to watch the outside world. His silhouette was almost perfectly still except for the occasionally twitching ear, and he was the cutest, fluffiest sentry Adrienne had ever seen. She blew her breath out and went to join him.

“Whatcha think, buddy?” She scanned the forest. The dark trees rustled in the breeze, but she couldn’t see any unnatural motion amongst them. “Take a risk and run to town, or stay put and hope for rescue?”

True to form, the cat ignored her. Adrienne scratched behind his ears while she thought through the choice. Running to town was almost painfully tempting. Once she was outside the property’s bounds, there was nothing that could bring her back. She would never have to face Edith or the house again.

But it also carried the greatest risk by far. She could picture herself running through the woods, cat carrier clasped to her chest, as Edith hunted her, snagged her foot, and toppled her to the ground. She would be eaten, or worse. And then what would happen to Wolfgang?
Would he be left in the case—mercy forbid—to starve, or would Edith carry him away to add him to her simmering witch’s brew?

No, don’t get carried away. Edith is a ghost, and that tall man in the café was adamant that covens of witches were distinct and separate from fraids of ghosts.

She snorted and buried her face in her hands. Wolfgang, blissfully ignorant of the horrific fates he’d been doomed to in his owner’s mind, flicked her an irritated glance.

No matter how much I want to get out of here, and despite the evidence that suggests Edith may be harmless during the day, the risks are far heavier than the rewards. I can’t leave. At least, not today.

But that doesn’t mean I have to stay inside the house.

Adrienne couldn’t see the front yard from the lounge room’s window, but she could picture it: the weedy patch of dirt just ahead of the porch where she’d dropped the torch.

It was close enough to the house that she could run back inside if Edith tried to leave the forest. And the torch would be an invaluable boon during the night.

Ten steps past the door. It should be safe enough.
Adrienne limped into the hallway and faced the front door.
Right?

No matter how small the risk of the brief sortie, it was still a risk, so Adrienne prepared herself as thoroughly as she was capable of. The mace had been useless against the corpse, but she figured a knife would be able to chop bits off it as well as it could with a regular human, so she took the large, wickedly sharp blade out of the kitchen drawer. She also brought the broom-turned-crutch, partly to make the trip faster and partly to use as a weapon if it came to it.

She pressed against the door’s narrow windows and scanned the yard. Everything was still and quiet. Slowly, moving with care in case noise attracted Edith’s attention, she turned the handle and nudged the door open.

It groaned on its hinge, and Adrienne cringed. She waited in the opening for several minutes, one hand on the doorknob, prepared to pull it closed again if a shape burst out of the forest. It didn’t. Nothing was out there except still, quiet solitude.

Adrienne took a quick breath and stepped onto the porch. Her footsteps sounded unpleasantly loud on the aged wood. She left the door open, in case she needed to run for it, and approached the porch’s edge. Her nerves were buzzing and her senses on high alert as she followed the steps one at a time until her feet landed in the weed-clogged yard.

She felt vulnerable with the stairs separating her from the door, so she increased her pace as she retraced her path from the night before.

I was facing the house head-on when I came out of the forest, which means the attack would have happened in line with the door. It wasn’t far away. It should be somewhere around—ah.

Dried blood stained a clump of weeds. The area around was scuffed up from the fight, brief though it was. Adrienne gave the treeline a final scan then bent and began hunting amongst the weeds.

A minute of searching revealed the torch. It was small, but its black plastic stood out against the natural browns and greys. She picked it up, pressed its button, and wasn’t surprised when the light didn’t come on.
The battery would have drained during the night. Hopefully, Edith will have spares somewhere.

Adrienne lifted her eyes to the forest edge. It would take less than a minute to cross the yard, and the burial site was only two minutes past the treeline. Her shopping, including spare batteries and food, waited on the forest floor. She swallowed the saliva that had built in her mouth. It was too risky; if Edith didn’t return, she might risk a trip into the woods when her supplies ran low. But not before.

She tucked the light into her pocket and turned back to the house. A second temptation struck her as she thought of the power box waiting on the building’s side. A short walk and a handful of flicked switches would give her light, a hot shower, and a working kettle. She knew better than to think it would last; Edith was capable of nixing the electricity with just her presence. But Adrienne was tired, stressed, grimy, and sore, and a hot shower promised to solve all of those problems.

Adrienne took a step towards the house’s corner. She could reach the switch box in less than a minute, even hobbled with a bad foot.

But a lot can happen in sixty seconds. And you promised you wouldn’t take risks.

She wrinkled her nose in resignation and turned back to the front door.
Fine, fine. Stupid conscience. We’ll just have to deal with another day of cold showers.

Movement caught her attention, and she raised her eyes. Suddenly she was very, very grateful that she hadn’t tried to turn the power back on.

Edith crouched on the roof.

She was only a silhouette against the overcast sky, but the twisted body was unmistakable. She held completely still, crouched like a predatory animal on the spire near the chimney. Her thick hair ran like a river onto the roof tiles, and her eyes flashed as Adrienne met them.

“Oh—oh, crap—”

Adrienne dashed towards the door in the same instant as Edith threw herself forward. The woman scraped over the roof’s slates, half running and half plunging towards the gutter, her lips peeled back from her teeth.

Climbing the stairs would waste precious seconds; Adrienne threw herself over them. She hit the porch hard and rolled, trying not to scream as her injured ankle buckled.

A heavy, crunching
whump
told her Edith had flung herself off the roof and impacted the ground. Adrienne flipped and gasped at the sight. Edith’s body, already contorted, had been broken by the collision. Her skin hadn’t torn, but the bones inside were jarred to unnatural angles and created sickening tents in the flesh. Her skull was flattened, as though it had broken like an eggshell, and her ribs poked towards the sky. She looked like a jumble of bones held inside a fleshy bag.

A brief spark of hope lit in Adrienne’s chest.
Could she actually be dead?
But then Edith shifted, and the hope was drowned in sickening terror.

Edith rose from the yard as though propelled by something other than muscle and cartilage. As she stood, the bones twisted into their correct positions, the rippling and adjusting clearly visible under the skin. A skull plate popped back into place to round out her head as she turned to face the porch.

Adrienne scrambled backwards, trying to crawl inside the house before Edith could collect herself, but the other woman was shockingly quick. She scuttled forward before her body had fully righted itself, her grasping fingers stretching towards Adrienne’s face.

They were both through the doorway, sprawled over the threadbare runner as they grappled. Bony, chilled fingers dug into her skin as Edith tried to crawl towards her throat. Adrienne still held the knife and thrust it forward from instinct more than intention.

It pierced Edith’s face, slipping into the space between her nose and her left eye. Momentum forced Edith and the knife together, and the blade crunched through fragile bone as it imbedded itself hilt-deep. Putrid, thick black blood splattered out of the cut, dribbling onto Adrienne’s hand and spraying her cheek.

She screamed and kicked at the corpse. The force knocked Edith back through the entryway. Adrienne tried to slam the door, but Edith’s arm stretched through the gap, keeping it open, and it twitched as the wood crunched into the fragile forearm bones. Adrienne opened the door an inch and slammed it closed again and again, squashing the limb and sending cracking noises echoing through the hallway with every impact. Edith’s long, bony fingers flexed, twitching and twisting like a dying spider, then withdrew through the gap. Adrienne slammed the door so hard that her ears rang.

Please stay down. Please stay dead.

She rose onto her knees and turned the door’s lock with shaking hands. Then she huddled there, ear pressed against the wood, as she sucked in panting breaths and listened.

There was the slow, distinct sluicing sound of a knife being pulled out of flesh then a spattering noise as congealed blood fell to the porch. A low, slow hiss of anger was expelled through rotting teeth.

Adrienne didn’t stay to listen further but crawled back from the door until she could use a table to pull herself up. Her ankle throbbed, and her limbs were shaking. She’d lost the knife and the makeshift crutch in the yard, but in its place she’d gained two valuable gifts: the torch, and confirmation that Edith wasn’t night-bound.

I’m a fool.
She staggered down the hallway and into the lounge room that she’d grown to think of as her safe refuge. Wolfgang crouched in the corner, his ears flattened and tail bushed as he stared at the door. Adrienne closed it firmly behind her.
I thought it would be safe. It was only ten paces from the front door, and I thought she’d retreated to the forest. I didn’t expect her to be waiting for me on the roof, of all places.

Adrienne slumped into her chair and gave Wolfgang a bitter smile. “It was so quiet, too. I should have realised that meant she was nearby. Not even a cricket chirping. I was such an idiot.”

Lesson learned. Even the safest gamble is still a gamble. And Edith is more cunning than I expected. I’ve got to give up any hope of walking out of this house.
She chewed on her thumb as she stared at the dying embers.
This means my only escape will be if someone comes to check on me and I can get a ride to town in their car. But even that’s going to be dangerous for everyone involved; there’s nothing to stop Edith from attacking them when they try to get out of their car.

And that’s only if someone comes, which isn’t very likely.

A piece of wood collapsed in the fireplace and sent up a little burst of sparks. Adrienne sucked in a breath and leaned forward in her chair. She’d had an idea. It was ridiculous to the point of being laughable, but she thought it might just work.