Changeling - Part 4

Maya burst through the door, the sudden gust of air displacing the soft pieces of dust, making them dance away from the outside like frightened rabbits, clinging to the water on Maya’s boot’s, trying to contaminate her with the decay and abandonment this house seemed to hold. The sound of her beating heart echoed in her ears and her ragged breath was too loud in such a silent place. Life hadn’t been here for a long time, it was almost... wrong that she was here, filling the empty rooms with warmth, stepping on the creaking desolate wood where living human feet hadn’t stepped in a long time. The walls were mouldy and the paper, tacky as china cats, was peeling and had succumbed to water damage, the inks fading and blending together. Moonlight seeped through the holes in the red brick behind the sickened paper, casting an eerie glow around the entrance, causing the flecks of dust to glisten like tiny crystals.

 

Continuing into the living room, Maya scratched her eyes; the cold, dry, filthy air being to blame. She looked behind her, she wasn’t sure why, and saw her footsteps deeply etched into the grime, slightly lower than the animal paws �" of which the dirt had reclaimed the flaking wood. A vase stood on the coffee table and even through the filth and years of decomposition Maya could still see the vivid colours shining in the less than plentiful glow. Her hands found the tiny torch in her pockets, noting that she really needed to sew up the hole in it, so that the beam of light could find the vase once again. It was strikingly blue after Maya had wiped off the dirt and it fell to the floor with a slight crunching, making her grimace; any place where you can hear the dust fall is a place that really, really needs a clean. She very tempted to go back home and get a dust pan and brush... and an entire cleaning club.

 

She placed the torch in her mouth and exchanged it for the side of the azure container as to pick it up. It was heavy. As she struggled to keep it up she glimpsed her reflection in the blue swirls. No, wait a second, that wasn’t her face looking back at her at all. Maya peered closer; it was a young lady, with hair that seemed to be red even within the sapphire of the vase. Without a moment to take a breath, even to scream, the face contorted; the mouth gaping as the eyes widened. The end result was an inhuman mess of very human features.

 

With a mangled shriek, Maya dropped the beautiful ornament as you would a spider and backed away. The shriek soon turned to a hacking cough because of the muck the vase had rendered airborne as it hit the floor with a clatter.

 

Once she had calmed herself enough, she stepped forward towards the fearful object for, although every muscle, bone, blood cell in her body told her to run and never turn her eyes the way of Bunlock Manor, her mind needed to know whether what she saw was true or a trick of the light. Picking up her torch, which had settled a few feet away, she shone it upon the vase and moved in its direction, but when she finally brought herself to look at it she saw nothing but her own reflection. She almost laughed with relief. She placed the vase back onto the table, brushed off the dust on her gloves, wondering momentarily why the seams were on the outside, then remembering that was a defence against fairies, and continued her exploration.

 

Stepping lightly up the stairs, in case they decided to give way beneath her, Maya made her way to the master bedroom to see if Cwenhild had left anything behind. It was the same as every other room in this derelict building; grey, but grand.

 

Maya was still on edge after the face incident, she swore she felt eyes upon her; eyes that could watch her, but which she couldn’t return the favour. It made her uneasy; not being in control. She wanted more than anything to be in bed, turning softly in her dreaming world.

 

She wanted it more than anything except for knowledge.

 

There was something off about this room, more off than the rest of the house. The strange house on the cliffs, where the brutal surges below couldn’t be heard �" even though they were close to consuming the house. Where the rain, coming down in torrents outside, didn’t touch within the abnormal protective dome surrounding the cursed building. Where the reason for it being called cursed was a wild child torturing occurring, a loving mother going insane and possible evil spirits at work hundreds of years ago. That might be after her right now.

 

The facts came at her at one hundred miles an hour, making her almost faint for the second time tonight. This wasn’t freak weather, it wasn’t a trick of the light, this was serious and happening and more importantly she right in the centre of it.

 

She started to shake uncontrollably and her legs finally failed her. So she lay there, freezing, soggy and reduced to a quivering mass on the disgusting floor of Bunlock Manor, a place so contaminated in misery and terror Maya wondered why she ever came. Did she want to be scared of her own shadow forevermore? Scared that it wasn’t her own.

 

Remembering that she had planned to come here, she slowly managed to calm her breathing and contain the shivering to a rate that she could cope with. She once again brought out her recorder and let her experience pour out, she wasn’t quite sure if it made the fear better or worse, but it gave her time find the strength to get up again. She finished off, “I don’t know what happened here or what is happening, but you can bet your bloody life on it that there is no way in the deepest depths of hell that I am ever coming back. I’m leaving.”

 

Something moved behind her and a chilling yet beautiful voice spoke from the shadows, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Maya, you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to stay with me, forever.”