Page 12 of We Live Here Now

11

Emily

I’m boiling in bed under the blanket and duvet. How can Freddie be cold? It’s baking in here. He’s always had bad circulation—a hangover from the chain-smoking that was one of the lesser bad habits of his youth—but this is crazy. I’m sweating in my pajamas. A worse thought strikes me. Maybe I’m coming down with something. Could my foot be infected?

I creep out to the bathroom and press the thermometer against my forehead, taking deep calming breaths until it beeps and tells me I’m exactly 36.8 degrees Celsius, normal for me. I peel the plaster off to check my foot and there’s barely any sign that it was hurt at all, certainly no red ring of infection. It’s more of a relief than it should be, and I remind myself I’m no more likely to get sepsis again than anyone else. Probably less likely because I’ll be so careful. I was unlucky. It isn’t some bullshit punishment for what I did. There is no karma. And anyway, I’ve already been punished. The hollow ache inside is a reminder of that.

I turn off the bathroom light and step through the gloom onto the landing. It’s a clear night and moonlight streams in from the hall window, a pool of white to light my way, and I’m almost in the bedroom when—

Scraaatch scraaaatch.

I freeze. In the quiet, the sound, like a secret whisper, barely carries to me.

Scraaatch scraaaatch.

It comes again. Not a thud or a flutter of frantic wings. Whatever it is, it’s not a bird. And whatever it is, it’s coming from upstairs.

The moonlight now seems to only enhance the dark shadows that fill the corners and doorways off the landing, and as I hear the sound again I reluctantly peer up to the next floor.

Maybe it’s a rat. It’s a grim thought. We had mice once in the flat but never a rat.

Scraaatch scraaaatch .

Definitely too loud for a mouse. In fact, it doesn’t sound like an animal of any kind. For a moment I’m not sure what it sounds like, and then when it comes again it strikes me.

Fingernails on wood.

I look back toward the bedroom and then upward, caught in a no-man’s-land, but I know I won’t be able to sleep until I’ve checked it out, and I don’t want to wake Freddie up two nights in a row. I’ve got no choice. Despite the niggling irrational fear in the pit of my stomach, I grip the banister and press my good foot down on the first stair.

One step at a time I climb the steep staircase, my good leg doing most of the work, but finally, a little breathless, I reach the top and flick on the light. A solitary bulb, no shade over it, pools soft yellow across the landing.

Dust motes hang suspended in the air against the pale green walls of the large landing—paint, not paper here—and the old gloss skirting boards are chipped, as are the cupboards covering the radiators in an old-fashioned way, as if perhaps the previous owners ran out of energy or money to make it as ornate up here.

I find a bathroom on the left with a double bedroom alongside it, as well as several storage cupboards lining the wall. I don’t find any evidence of mouse droppings or worse, and certainly no flapping bird. The landing and the rooms off it stay silent. In the faded dusky bulb light I wonder if I heard anything at all or if it was simply my imagination playing tricks on me.

There’s only one door left to open, on the far side of the staircase—the primary bedroom suite, the one we’ll be moving into as soon as my leg is more manageable. From outside, the large oval window is the centerpiece of the front of the house, hinting that the space inside is something special. Facing the wooden door, I hear the very faintest scraaatch coming from inside , and then, taking a deep breath, I step forward, grip the cool metal handle, and twist.

As the vast room comes into view I have such a wave of cognitive dissonance that I can’t move or think. It is breathtakingly beautiful, the moon hanging at the window like a perfect bauble of light, dressing the polished floor in sheets of silky white, and from the pale walls the ceiling arches up to a point, running out to where the large oval window sits in the middle.

But despite its beauty, the air is punched from my lungs as I cringe backward. What I feel is a terrifying darkness. I stare, my eyes wide. An invisible foulness covers every surface in the room like a sentient oil, clinging to it, spoiling it like rot.

Darkness.

The room is a bleak, cold space, void of anything good . As I stand there, my legs trembling under me, my bladder suddenly full, I’m too afraid to move. It’s as if the essence of every terrible event that has ever happened has been trapped inside this one room. Has gestated here, is still gestating new horrors here.

I can’t breathe, and I don’t want to breathe in case the stench of it—because surely something this wicked must have some stench—eats into me like maggots on a corpse and I’ll have to carry it with me forever.

Something bad happened in here. Someone died in here.

I step backward, out of the room, and the temperature rises several degrees against my goosebumped skin as my heart pounds, the room stretching endlessly in front of me, that oval window mocking like a black eye glinting wickedness, malevolent and with purpose, and then suddenly something is rat-a-tatting on the outside glass and I let out a small shriek, sure my heart is going to explode.

Only the screeching caw and its large beak tapping again at the window before flying away makes me realize it’s the raven, not some otherworldly creature, and I quickly yank the door shut. But not before a waft of cold air steals out after me. I look around, half expecting something— whatever was scratching —to physically manifest, grotesque, in a corner.

My fear of the room overwhelms my fear of the stairs and, clutching at the banister with both hands, I come down sideways like a crab, one foot at a time, looking backward more than forward, afraid I might see a thick, sticky black smog determined to rot my insides creeping down after me. What happened in that room? What is in that room?

“Why did you open the window?”

I startle when I see Freddie, irritated, standing on the landing as I round the corner, and then almost laugh with relief. He doesn’t wait for me to answer before he speaks again. “You know I was cold.”

I look up, confused. The lower half of the sash window has been pulled up, wide open. Freddie yanks it down and screws the latch tight. “And now this place is an icebox.”

“I haven’t touched it. I heard something upstairs and went to look, that’s all.”

“It didn’t open itself,” he mutters, shivering. “It must have been you. Maybe you were half asleep. And there’s nothing upstairs. The rooms are all empty.”

I open my mouth to protest, to tell him how horrible it felt in the room, but he’s obviously annoyed and tired so instead I say nothing. He yawns.

“God, I need more sleep.” He heads to the bathroom, leaving the door open, and calls out while he pees, “We’ve got to get everything ready tomorrow. They’ll probably arrive early on Saturday.”

I stare at the window. Was it open when I got up? Suddenly I don’t remember, unsure of myself. I don’t think it was, but I wasn’t looking. But surely I wouldn’t have been sweating in bed if the freezing night air had been swirling through the house.

On the other hand, if the window was open, then I could have been hearing noises from outside, not upstairs. Maybe that was why it felt colder in that third-floor room? Maybe.

The window wasn’t open though , a little voice whispers in my head as I pull the duvet up over me. You know it wasn’t. Not when you went upstairs. So then who opened it? Or what?

I stare at Freddie’s back, wishing I could tell him that the house is freaking me out a bit. I wish I felt closer to him. I wish I’d felt closer to him back then. I wish I hadn’t done what I did. I’m the reason we’re struggling to be normal. Hiding this guilt. Guilt I’ll have to hide forever.

But what could I say now? I’m sorry I was such a bitch when we were on holiday, but I’d drunkenly cheated on you with my boss because I wanted that promotion so badly, and if that guilt wasn’t enough, I’d just found out I was pregnant and didn’t know if it was yours, and I wasn’t even really sure I wanted you anymore?

God, this is such a mess. And all my own making.

As I roll away to face the wall, I touch my flat stomach and feel another stab of hollow pain. The baby died in the fall. My punishment, I’m sure. I’d been drinking when I shouldn’t have been, trying to convince myself that getting rid of the baby would be for the best, even though I knew I never could, the little life already gripping me like a small tight fist. And then, with one stumble, it was gone.

Freddie thinks we lost our baby. But whoever the father was, the baby I lost was mine. And it was all my fault.