Fiction: “This Sinister Inheritance: Chapter 4”

As I stand here on my front porch, I think of those women who fell victim to the cunning ways of Lord Ashter. Just how many women were there? Those whose stories remain untold and buried. I watch the house constantly, mesmerised by the sight of it, standing tall and dark. I watch these figures standing by the dark, gloomy street where all the children play during the day.

Today is misery itself.

I went to the doctor for my three-month checkup, and the doctor ran some routine checks on me. He discovered my secret. I am pregnant. This will destroy my husband, who hopes for many boys. I can tell it’ll be another girl; our daughters are a disgrace to him, and I am a disgrace to him for their sakes. Staring at the positive result from my blood test, I felt like a caveman realising those berries he ate were poisonous.

My husband knows my body inside-out; he can smell the hormones. He already knows, I think, as I drive back with a sense of dread washing over me like the first dip in the sea. This wasn't supposed to happen. I sit here watching all the people walk by, and they are none the wiser.

The Mackay family have been moved in for less than a week already – things are starting to take a turn. Their youngest Trixie has developed a strange cough. The teenager has missed the opportunity to attend nationals with her gymnastics team. Every single family member has had some wrongdoing inflicted on them already – all of which they don't deserve. Innocent, yet proven guilty by that house. Innocent, yet somehow guilty under that roof. Yet all we can do is watch. Nobody can interfere with the curse.

I’m starting to think the curse will spread to your house and make you rot from the inside out. I see that rot everywhere I go. I see it in the doctor’s office; I see it in the garden. Maybe it's already spread to me, that brief while I spent in that house?  Nobody deserves that kind of torture. Seeing what the others can't. They don’t see it, so they never listen.

That brutal cycle has already been turning for years. Lord Ashter made sure of that. The second he built that house, it became a house of horrors. The women were naive, alone, and ordinary. Nobody deserved what those girls went through. There was no one to hear the screams or their pleas for help. The house is soundproof; walking by, you can't hear the family laughter, the noise of the school run, or the hypothetical arguments. That house haunts us all to this day. The curse will never go away.