-1- The water torrent

A girl named Dolores follows her spitting image into a haunted family home, where strange things are about to happen.

According to Dolores Wellington of 23 Wood Lane, who in the past had frequented salons, three basic types of hairdressers existed. You had those hairdressers who kept you sitting underneath the blow-dryer while you had twisted shreds of aluminum foil wrapped in your hair for longer than an hour. Who then followed it up with a five-minute haircut. You had those who would forget you till near closing, bent backward and in stifling pain in a washbasin chair over the sink, somehow never getting to the haircut. And then there was Aunt Fran using her plain old country scissors.

“Seriously, Auntie, how long is this going to take?” Dolo, for short, had to bear the agony of not knowing what she would look like in five minutes. “If I were at the salon, they...” She was cooking up a half-convincing lie. 

“Now, you’re only 11 and three-quarters, Dolores. I don’t see the need to be spending a ton of money on salons when...” She wheeled Dolo to the mirror in the swivel chair, allowing her a glance at her short pixie crop. Aunt Fran had done it once again. Blown her away with an incredible knack for everything new she attempted--after Dolo had expected the absolute worst. Her aunt’s old-fashioned mannerisms and rutty apron disguise could fool you. No doubt. But the homemaker and owner of an apple orchard was no fool.

“OMG, Auntie. I love it!” The floor lay carpeted in fluffs as though Rapunzel had a hair sale. The 11-year-old had been keeping up her rugged, windblown Island look until she woke up one morning and decided on a change. When first arriving on the scene, her amber eyes cast in the air like cinder sparks conspiring to take everything in. Kids in school hadn’t stopped to catch her name. They had, instead, rushed to call her PE-eyes or, even worse, Red Dirtling! Dolo had experienced far too much teasing at the new school already. And she wasn’t going to stand for any more of it. In a sequence of practical moves about the kitchen, Aunt Fran cleaned up the mess and returned to baking.

“I’m heading outside to find a victim to freak out with my new do,” Dolo teased her aunt.

“Oh, you’re an adventurer, alright, just like your mom and dad,” Aunt Fran said, reflecting.

“Whatever!” Dolores retorted, snatching her windbreaker off the banister. There wasn’t anything in her super dorky neighbourhood to make her feel adventurous.

Whenever Dolores left home these days, a sad and desperate feeling overwhelmed her that Territory should be at her side. She was her Pomeranian dog, who died a year ago. In the days, Dolores and her family lived on Prince Edward Island. Territory would have had a ball here, playing in the gardens. She missed her dog to a greater extent than her parents, who had been frequent travellers, often leaving her in strangers’ care. It had been difficult after their passing being plummeted into the midst of the most boring of towns called Fall River. Where she’d been handed dull responsibilities to earn her keep, such as apple picking, apple preparation, apples, and more apples. Regardless, Dolo was herself as coarse as an apple on the outside. She never felt at ease having others intrude into her innermost feelings. The new haircut she paraded was making a strong point of it. Thank you, Aunt Fran!  

Temperatures in late October, ahead of Halloween, had already dropped below zero. Every other kid bundled up, yet nothing could have persuaded Dolo to leave behind her precious windbreaker, which filled up like an air balloon while she was walking. It was super cool. She wasn’t thinking of anything much in particular. She only wondered as she crossed the street how all these perfect houses may have looked a hundred years ago. Was everything in black and white back then? As in old movies? And whether the dreariest of details could have added to making the neighbourhood any more boring? The scaredy cats and ghoulish pumpkins on the porches, awaiting Halloween, did little to improve the scene. When life was stifling her to the core, Dolo would walk past a dwelling and turn the ordinary sounds and pictures she perceived into freaky and obscene. For example, a parent beating his kid with a belt. Or a husband shooting his wife in the head in response to a dismal dinner. What should she tell you? Being morbid was all the rage. Over the treetops, against the oily grey horizon, she could appreciate the presence of the bustling city of Halifax. Now, there was a happening place. Full of excitement, for sure.

Dolo kicked a bunch of rocks into a gully and was counting the hits and the missed. Funny, she thought, how the dampness hovering was making shadows creep up behind you and dance around the back of your head. Late afternoon already? Her curfew to go home, following doing absolutely nothing, was 6:30 p.m. She had put three blocks between herself and her house, always wandering further, when a tomboyish creature of an alarming resemblance to herself appeared by the side of the curb. She wore the same windbreaker and had the self-same pixie crop of shiny strawberry blond hair, miserable as she looked. What an invasion of her privacy! The lookalike had given Dolo cause enough to attempt to have a serious talk with her.      

“Excuse me? Where did you get that haircut?” she pestered as though she was demanding the return of stolen goods. The tomboy couldn’t have jumped any higher in her startled fright if some crazed chainsaw-wielding freak had offered to give her another trim.

“Uh… the salon, where else?” the slightly older girl snapped. Her large, imploring eyes beckoned to ask a question whenever she would make a closing remark. Apart from sizing Dolo up and trying to pin her down on a scale of kids her age, the tomboy was preoccupied, keeping a close watch on her house at 21 Brookside Street. It was as though she had been babysitting it, finding it all out of sorts. The vintage octagon building, notable by its dark green sidings and animated windows, did appear to have a personality of its own. But was it overbearing enough to have one shivering on the curb outside in the cold?

“So, what do they call you?” Dolo dug a bit further. She felt convinced she was looking at a Bobbi, Kit, or Robin. Not a girl who bore a name such as Dolores, which had to be chopped up and coolified if she wanted to wander the streets of the 21^st century.

“This is around the worst time,” the jumpy lookalike whispered, spying over her shoulder and dodging the question. Then, in the self-same sentence, she invited Dolo to follow along into the house--a magnificent house so lively it was almost talking. She pursued Tomboy up the marble-plated walkway, decorated at the right with a unique seahorse birdbath. Her new friend was having a fair amount of trouble manoeuvring the latchkey inside the front lock. One would have thought it was her first time using it. At last, it gave way to a large, lonely foyer.

“My parents are Professors at Dalhousie. Never home,” the tomboy explained in light of the ensuing silence. A single glance around at by far the most disastrous living space ever encountered. And it confirmed Dolo’s presumption how a place left all day in the hands of a tweenager raised by two absentee parents came to fare. Whatever gravity-bound objects their living room contained. They must have been tossed up at the ceiling with exuberant force and come crashing back down at unfortunate angles, landing far from their original resting spot.

“You got a maid?” Dolo asked half in jest.

“My house was once a fancy restaurant, long before we moved in,” Tomboy related, determined to defend the majestic place. “But it just didn’t do too well,” she added, sounding sad. “A French seafood lounge. My parents said the owners closed up shop cause they were facing certain unexplained obstacles.”  

Tomboy’s bedroom was a luxurious mess of the same calibre. Most recently, her Beta fish aquarium had toppled over on its belly and had forced pint-sized fish of various colours to compete all afternoon for the last available water puddle on the dresser. Their gaping mouths snapped at the gems that a disco ball was spinning at their dying faces.

“It’s nothing!” Tomboy waved it off, shrugging her shoulders and rushing to conceal the damage by whipping shut a by-standing set of lace pattern curtains. In a flash, the entire ceiling light fixture began to twist and shake, sending bits of plaster circling about their ears. The air was split by one resounding pop, extinguishing the electrical light in the room via a flicker and a sizzle. The girls ran to seek cover. The remaining daylight trickling through the window was peeking indoors like an impudent sun poking fun at the moon.

“What in theee hell was that?” Dolo demanded to know. Both girls were crouching in the walk-in closet, somewhat dumbfounded, when, a few seconds later, the chaos had returned to normal, apart from yet another burnt-out smoking bulb.

“Your house has serious issues!” was all Dolo managed to stammer. But she felt obligated to help her lookalike out of her pitfall. They sifted through a litter box filled to the rim with batteries and light bulbs.

“All dead!” Tomboy confirmed, who had expected as much. “Can you bring a working flashlight when you see me next?” she begged. “Mom and Dad don’t get home until seven in the evening.” The frightened look on her friend’s face persuaded Dolo to promise she would ask the help of Uncle Hal. He was, on odd occasions, willing to distribute his tools and gadgets while other times not.

It was time for Dolo to go home now, Tomboy decided, seeing the worst had passed. She entered the shabby chic kitchen and dispensed three Oreo cookies onto a plate, taking extra care in balancing the snack to a shadowy alcove between the kitchen and the linen closet.

“These are for Lion, as they comfort him a bit. He gets real scared this late at night without his mother around,” she muttered in her breath. “Come, I’ll walk you to the door,” she said to Dolo. “He gets kind of nervous, having strangers in the house.”   

‘Is the rich girl a nutcase?’ Dolo wondered. ‘Did I really see her leaving cookies on the floor to feed an imaginary lion?’ The lucky devil! As far as being hip, she was in a league of her own. Dolo always got more of a kick out of a person exhibiting the signs of true craziness, contrary to your ordinary everyday bloke. You could bet on her return to this setup as soon as possible, flashlight or not. What she had witnessed sparked her curiosity enough to want to give the whole affair a closer look.

In life, well known for its endless assortments of characters, the saying goes: all good things come in threes. To Dolo’s knowledge, you had those handyman-type guys who kept a few essential tools stacked away in their backyard shed. To end up prepared should an emergency arise. You had the Mr. Toolboxes of the world, who had the skill set to fix anything you urged them to, who owned a modest little workshop and were proud to watch their tool collection grow. And then there was Uncle Hal with his home-based handyman superstore, so to speak. It was in impeccable order and contained everything available on the market. If he ever lost his job as a park ranger, he would have the means to fall back on.

Uncle Hal had his workshop set up in a camper, painted bright red--the colour of an apple. He spread his time and energy between his job, the apple orchard, and his giant toolbox, and not too much remained for raising little girls. Let alone one who had been dropped into his lap by tragic circumstances. The wife would be the better candidate to handle such a challenge. Today, unlike herself, Dolo so willed to get something from her uncle. She felt obliged to act respectful and wait on the step of the camper, having first knocked as would a proper lady.

“What can I do you for?” Uncle Hal said over the rim of his glasses. He was wrapped up in the drawing of a fence, which he intended to put up at the orchard in the spring. When she asked him to lend her a flashlight, any flashlight, he gave the larger of the metal pull-out drawers along the wall a casual tug and surfaced a load of flashlights. Yeah, her uncle was an obsessive pack rat, alright. “What kind do you need?” he said, showing off. He offered her a choice because of how polite and ladylike she carried herself.   

“A flashlight,” she repeated, and feeling gawky, she pointed to a few pretty shapes and sizes. “That one… or that one.”

“You can have my tube flashlight to keep and take the LED shake as well but return it to me, PLEASE.” Yup. Whatever. Her friend needed it more. The odds were Uncle Hal would have forgotten about it by tomorrow. “This for Halloween?” he feigned interest. “What are you kids up to? Chasing witches, hunting lions?” He chuckled, Robin Williams style. Dolo beat around the bush. She wasn’t sure whether to bother divulging her secret to this man? A guy who would have, in the space of ten minutes, replaced every thought of his niece with the preoccupations of nails and two-by-fours.    

“Uncle Hal?” She tried, nonetheless. “Do you believe in ghosts?” An awkward silence filled the air.

“Not if they don’t believe in me.” Her uncle snorted and laughed without restraint over his lame joke. It was pathetic! Dolo backed out of the camper, eyes faced front and her guard up. She was fearful her uncle’s unbearable sense of humour might be catchy.

Going to school was the same drag as always, except, as Dolores arrived in Science class today, the teacher slid a vast supply of slick and lifeless frogs off a slide tray before everyone. One slimy frog per student and the person who sat next to them. For Dolo, the unusual handout came as an unpleasant surprise. Perhaps she had missed out on vital info by not listening in class? It would clarify why no one else acted the least bit shocked.  

“Uh?? No!” she said on receiving the instructions. “You won’t get me to butcher no frog! If anything, I want to help animals. Not muck up the ones whom you killed for no reason!” She folded her arms square across her chest in defiance. At her former school, kids had never been made to do anything as barbaric in nature.  

  

“What’s the matter, Red Dirtling? Don’t they eat frog legs back in PEI?” one guy hollered over to her, and the class exploded, laughing. The teacher ignored his remark, focusing the bulk of her attention on troublemaking Dolo. 

“You know, Dolores, if you didn’t have your stubborn mindset, you might have learned already that to help animals, one has to also open up and study them.” Uh-hum. Somehow, the torch of wisdom held up by her teacher failed to move Dolo to pick up the tweezers and poke at a stiff frog. --Not about to happen. “Have it your own way, Dolores,” she snapped, shuffling off. “But I assure you, you won’t get to leave my classroom until I see your frog properly dissected.” Witchy woman! She knew full-well a different class was supposed to use the room right after the bell, who wouldn’t tolerate a smelly frog affair on the side. Plus, her desk partner would have already completed the entire task.

“What a witch our teacher is,” she said to her friend on their way to the next class.

“Yeah, eh?” her frog partner giggled, amused. Dolo found her agreeable enough to befriend, her meagre options at Fall River Elementary considered. Yet her mind couldn’t rest on her new ally. She caught herself scanning at every chance, every corner of the hallway for another altogether person. Why wasn’t she popping up here? Did she attend a different school? First-year Junior High, maybe? 

“Not if they don’t believe in me!” By the end of the following school day, October 31^st, 2008, her uncle’s words still circulated in her brain. She was early getting out of school, and the two flashlights in her backpack decided to pay a second visit to that hissing fuse box of a mansion and the lookalike she couldn’t locate anywhere in her elementary school. It was a long shot, but let’s say she and those invisible companions, right then, happened to be home or sitting on the curb. “Not if they don’t believe in me,” the refrain continued to sing in her head. It was promising to be a fine night. Outdoors on foot, one sensed an otherworldly waft of sea air carried past from salty harbours. It hovered about the streets of Fall River for a while, touching up blank and aimless faces with a streak of anticipation. Before long, these sidewalks would be overrun by witches, goblins, warlocks, and what have you, engaged in their most notorious candy heist. Dolo preferred to think of it as kids having their designated day a year to show the world their inner demons or animal selves. An entertaining twist on the whole dress-up affair she found amusing playing out in her imagination. She also rollicked in a fabricated version where her aunt cautioned the trick-or-treaters to pay heed to razor-blade-injected apples, which strangers might offer them. In real life, Aunt Fran would have never brought such an absurd idea across her lips. 

Unlike she expected, Tomboy was not on the curb today sitting and watching. The doorbell of the octagonal house played a classical musical chime upon pressing the button that bounced off like a tumbling piano into the deepest corners of the establishment. Tomboy opened the door a mere crack upon the second ring and was ecstatic to receive a flashlight you could operate by shaking it. No deadbeat bulbs or batteries on this one. Her new toy! Dolo followed her friend up the stairs and along a corridor lit by artificial candle holder lamps, twitching and stretching their necks far across the parquet. It lent the floor a three-dimensional appearance, giving Dolo the misguided sense of attempting to move forward on a treadmill. She had difficulty keeping pace with the strange girl. Who sped down the hall, telling Dolo of the fantastic decorations she’d been putting up in her room while her voice drifted off into the distance. A door slammed shut nearby, followed by the thundering of footsteps. She half-expected Tomboy to come running back in fright to check on the situation. Meanwhile, the strawberry blond lookalike absorbed in her new light source was worlds away in a different room of the establishment, under the impression she was following up close. 

The halls slowly changed colour around Dolo and adapted to the carpet and wallpaper patterns of a simpler, bygone era. Heavy drapes fell on the setting and threatened to snuff out the light. A curious body swooshed past her. And on mere contact, she found she was transported as though by someone else’s will to the centre of a precious universe of Lego figurines and Fisher-Price castles of a child’s manifestation. She could hear the laborious breathing of a child hard at play. And as Dolo opened--what she would later embrace as her second set of eyes--the shapes of two pyjama-clad boys came into plain view. Caught by surprise, each disappeared into their chamber at the end of the hallway and slammed shut the door behind him as if enraged at the sight of her. She had not encountered anything. Not anything she’d want to see first-hand! She was Dolores Wellington, in her right mind, who was en route exploring Tomboy’s spacious manor. Where the distinct unveiling of young boys and their odd-looking playthings meant none other than an invisible finger pointing at catchy craziness.

“Are you comiiing?” Tomboy called from afar.

“Dude, where the devil are you?” Dolo’s patience felt stretched to the limit. The recent creepiness was pushing on her bladder. Likely, no one in this God-forsaken place had anything against it that she showed herself to the bathroom, wherever it was.

“So… I’m gonna need to use your washroom quick,” she mumbled under her breath, to be, at least, in the clear and have asked first. Rushing to open a couple of doors was the most she could afford to do before an unfortunate accident occurred.

Aaaah, rich people’s washrooms. They were intoxicating. The baby-soft scent in the air caused by delicate soaps and sweet perfumes. The silk cushion floor mats beneath one’s feet hinted at Angora. Dolo scanned the porthole windows as she relieved herself. Outdoors, it was nearing dusk. Time to head homewards. Today, she’d more than overstayed her welcome. The lights began to flicker again. An apparent electrical defect inside these walls. In urgent need of fixing! The tube light in her pocket sure came in handy right now. Among the dimness of fading daylight and the saving grace of her thin light ray, a dense steamy fog rose between herself and the enamel bathtub. She hadn’t been aware of Tomboy running a bath. Dolo blushed and pulled her pants up.

“Hello?” she called into the mist. Curious things were unfolding here. Although her brain knew better, her eyes, no doubt, beheld a hunchback figure bent over the rim drinking the bathwater. Humongous bubbles gushed to either side of its curved flailing arms as it took gulps from the tub, gurgling with immense appetite. Against her better judgment, Dolo was drawn ever closer toward the dimly lit corner where the scene unravelled, pointing her flashlight straight at it. What in heaven’s name was THIS? Someone or something was pressing down a stubborn bag in an up-and-down repeated motion. Dolo was an estimated three feet from the tub when the hunchback’s pumping action stopped, and a face, white as a sheet, surged up beneath the surface like a water lily. She was Dolores Wellington, a scant 11 and three-quarters, who should have long turned home. Instead, she let her uncle’s handy flashlight crash down on the bathroom tiles in shock. The little boy staring forth at her out of the deep remained submerged and forever asleep.

Distracted by the plopping sound of rubber hitting stone, the hunchback’s head spun 180 degrees around. Stuck at which angle it glared at Dolo through a hollow woman’s face lined by deep caves and tunnels. The silver-haired woman straightened her spine and rebelled at the outsider having disrupted her routine. Bouncing into the air like one released off a spring, her wasteland facial features dissolved into water. Water splashed onto the walls, the windows, the fancy mirrors, and all over Dolores. The hunchback dashed past, both arms extended as an oar, twisting her vaporizing body into a snakelike torrent that spiralled upward at enormous speed, flooding everything in her path.

In a sense, it was a pleasant way to die, staring at giant circles spinning round and round across the ceiling as you lay stranded on your back, water filling your lungs. It was the last sensation Dolores recalled having. After she lost her footing and let herself go to the eternal waves. Her eyes had fallen shut by the time the raging torrent woman made a sharp descent to collect her. A pair of hands clutching her tight by the throat and forcing the drainage plug into her mouth as though to ensure she had shut up a tab, tight. She took her on a death-defying loop-the-loop about once more. Dragging the young teen like a sack before she vanished with Dolo through the drain.   

                        

Author's Note

Copy edits ✔ (Grammarly, Hemingway)
Punctuation ✔
Developmental edits ✔ (Reedsy)
Word count: 4030

Join three small boys with much unfinished business and one determined girl on their crossover journey into the light.

Reviews

[Clif]

I really enjoyed this chapter! I laughed in early parts, like about giving a trim with a chainsaw. One part sounds like the girl may have had some clairvoyant abilities. The first part in the house sounds like a Poltergeist. Im not handy with fixing things, but like the uncle, I also have a lot of tools around the home. I guess its a guy thing. And the last part of the chapter is very frightening!

[Carina Baumert]

Thank you, Clif. I really appreciate you took the time to read and review this chapter. Yes, as you will find out a bit more in chapter 2, it will become a big part of the story that the girl may have some psychic leanings. Glad you could relate to the uncle character. We will not find out till much later in the book who tomboy really is.

[Anonymously_lee]

I only read half of your chapter, but I can say I loved the writing structure and content that you used. It really gave me some pointers and insights of how I should edit my book

[Carina Baumert]

Thanks for stopping by, A Lee, and reviewing my work. I'm glad I could be of help to you. I'm right now going through one final editing of the remaining chapters. Then I will write chapter 6.

[Anonymously_lee]

your on chapter 6 already I am adding more characters and writing down in a separate bag to keep count , writing takes a lot of time and effort i am rewriting my first chapter now and would like for you to read it when i am done

[Carina Baumert]

Okay, no problem. I lose focus working on one thing too long, so I switch back and forth between that and the other book, the memoir. Which is not for publication because my family would disown me lol

[Anonymously_lee]

oh, I think you should publish it people might be interested in the memoir more than the other book because its based on your life . Writers are meant to share their work not hide it

[Unspoken poet]

Excellent imagery and very descriptive, Enjoyed this

[Carina Baumert]

Thank you so much Kay-T. I very much appreciate you read my story.