Page 18 of We Live Here Now
17
Emily
With a sense of trepidation, I look into the study, but the fire is still glowing hot and all the books are on the shelves where they’re supposed to be. It must have been just in my head. My aching body is testament to the fact that I’m far from fully physically recovered. What sort of state are my senses in?
With the sepsis leaflets stuffed into my pocket, I go straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth, happy to leave the others drinking downstairs, but as I push open the door, I’m startled to see Freddie there. He’s standing with his phone in one hand, face furrowed, as shocked to see me as I am him—we’ve never been a couple happy to share toilet habits—and I stumble an apology.
“Sorry, thought you were downstairs.”
“I thought it was locked,” he mumbles, pushing his phone into his pocket and then flushing the toilet. “Got distracted by a work email. So much for the company policy of protecting weekends.”
“I’m going to bed. So tired. It’s been lovely though.”
“It has.” He gives me a squeeze as he passes, and I expect him to say something about the Ouija board but he doesn’t, maybe still distracted by whatever was going on at work. “Shout if you need anything,” he adds as he looks down at the doorknob, confused, then heads back to the others. When I lock it, I rattle the handle to make sure it doesn’t open again.
The toilet lid is down, which is odd. Leaving the seat up is Freddie’s specialty; he never closes the lid.
Unless he was using it as a seat.
I remember his phone sliding into his pocket. Did he come up here just to do something on his phone away from everyone else?
My skin prickles with a sense of something not right, but I dismiss it. I’ve got enough crazy in my brain for one day. He had an email from work. That’s all. It probably required some thinking about. So why did he flush , the small voice in my head asks, if he hadn’t used the toilet?
Habit , I decide firmly. What else could it be? I’m second-guessing myself enough at the moment. I don’t need to add second-guessing Freddie into the mix.
Teeth brushed and face washed, I close the bedroom door, relieved to be on my own. I flick through the leaflets, and while much of it seems scary, the general consensus is that any strangeness will pass. Sooner rather than later, I hope. Maybe I’ll speak to Dr. Canning. Just in case. I let the warmth of the duvet encase me, and although I don’t expect to, I fall asleep within moments. With people in the house it’s like sleeping on an old boat, the occasional creak infiltrating my sleep as the others move around, but they’re comforting sounds, humanly heavy and recognizable, and they pass through me like kind whispers.
When I finally do wake, in the heart of the night, it’s not a bird or a haunting that disturbs me in the quiet, but a woman’s murmuring. I sit up slightly, frowning to see the bedroom door is open a few inches, allowing the voices in. Freddie must have come to check on me and forgotten to close it properly. The voices come again, and a floorboard creaks as someone shifts their weight on it.
They’re on the stairs maybe. The murmuring turns to urgent whispering. A man and a woman. Are they arguing? The whispering continues, getting louder but not loud enough to make any sense of it, and then the deeper tones of quietly spoken words. A man. Placating. Then a gentle laugh. Something else. A wet sound. Is that kissing? Maybe Mark and Iso on the way to bed. They get annoyed with each other sometimes after too much wine and then are all about the making up.
I lie back on the pillow as their whispering drops to almost imperceptible. Outside, the raven scratches the night with a series of caws. Ravens are drawn to death. That’s what Sally had said. As I drift back into sleep, I hear the echo of my own voice— Were you murdered in this house? —and feel the sharp tug of the planchette, and it pulls me into such a heavy sleep that I’m almost back in the empty void again, so much so that I don’t even feel the mattress shift when Freddie finally creeps in beside me.