Disillusions and Confusion, Part 2/3
Part One
The next day was one of Jared’s half-days; he only had to work until noon. He stopped at a sandwich shop to get something for lunch rather than eating at home, and once he’d finished he decided that it was a great chance to see a little bit of their new city. He spent a couple of hours walking through a park and taking photos of the gardens. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d usually take an interest in, but today it suddenly seemed like an awesome idea.
He headed for home once he was forced to admit that he was really just avoiding being in the house by himself. He sat in the driveway for a good ten minutes, daring a shadowy figure to appear in the dormer window. Nothing happened, and Jared shook his head, cursing his overactive imagination.
Inside, the house was quiet and still, like it was mocking Jared’s fears. He turned the TV up for company and went to get a snack out of the pantry. On the kitchen bench he saw the book he’d found the previous night and then forgotten about.
It had a light blue cover with yellow flowers on it. When Jared picked it up and opened it, he realised it was a journal, with page after page filled with handwriting in blue ink. Someone must have left it behind when they moved out of the house. Flicking through the entries, a date caught Jared’s eye, a date five years in the past. It must have been hidden in that closet for a long time. Jared wondered why his half-assed investigation had managed to uncover it, when it had remained safely hidden through five years of occupancy.
When he turned the page, different phrases began to jump out at him. ’I’m getting out of here the second I turn eighteen’ was written on one page, ’I wonder what all his friends would think if they knew what kind of man he is’ said another. The next page said ’I hate the way she never stands up for me’.
Becoming increasingly concerned, Jared turned to the last entry. ’I feel scared all the time now. I think something really bad is going to happen’ was all it said. The hairs stood up on the back of Jared’s neck. He flicked through the whole journal, trying to work out who had written it. The writer never mentioned their name or age, but the diary was five years old. Jared hoped that they’d reached eighteen and got out of whatever bad situation they’d been in. He hoped they’d managed to get away. He couldn’t help but remember the story the girl from across the road had told him; at the time, it had seemed ludicrous, but now he felt an urgent need to know if there was any truth to it.
Jared grabbed his laptop and opened his web browser. He considered for a moment, then typed ‘Canning Street’ into the search bar and hit enter.
’Canning Street Murder Parents Sentenced’ was the first result. Jared clicked on the headline, feeling suddenly uneasy.
A couple who allowed their fifteen year old daughter to die of her injuries rather than seek medical help were sentenced today.
The court heard that Brian Trotter had a history of abusive behaviour and that on the 18th of June last year, he violently attacked his daughter causing injuries which resulted in her death. Trotter confessed to striking his daughter and pushing her down the stairs.
When the Trotters realised that their daughter was severely injured, they chose to conceal her inside the house rather than seek medical attention. Rachel Trotter told the court that she and her husband kept their daughter hidden in the downstairs bathroom of their home for almost two days until she died.
The court heard that the Trotters played music loudly to drown out their daughter’s cries for help, and that once she was dead they dumped her body in a landfill. Rachel Trotter told the court, “I thought we could keep it hidden, but I couldn’t take it. I had to come forward.”
Brian Trotter was sentenced to life in prison for murder and concealing a crime. Rachel Trotter was charged as an accessory and sentenced to seven years in prison.
When Jensen arrived home from work several hours later, Jared was sitting on the front lawn. “What are you doing out here?” he asked as he climbed out of his car.
Jared didn’t answer, keeping his gaze on the front of the house. Jensen reached his side and put a hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Jared?” he repeated. “What’s going on?”
“It’s haunted, Jensen,” Jared replied in a small voice. “Our house is haunted.”
***
It took around thirty minutes for Jensen to calm Jared down and convince him to come back into the house so that he could show Jensen the articles and the journal and try to explain himself.
“She lived up in the upstairs bedroom, and she hid this up there,” Jared said as Jensen flipped through the journal. “I saw someone in the window up there the other day, but when I went up to the room no one was there. I found this journal last night because I heard someone calling for help and I went looking for them. We keep hearing music, and it’s always the same song, have you noticed that? And I keep seeing writing on the glass in the bathroom - the mirror and the shower door. There’s something in this house!”
“Jared...” Jensen said, hesitantly like he wasn’t sure how Jared would react, “don’t you think that’s kind of a stretch? I haven’t noticed anything like that.”
“Because you haven’t been paying attention!” Jared snapped. “You read the articles, right? She died in this house!”
“Yeah, I read the articles, Jared, and it’s horrible, but we don’t know that - it could be any house on the street . We don’t know if that girl is the same one who wrote the journal.”
“Then it would be a hell of a coincidence!”
“Look, I’m sorry, Jared, but...”
The globe illuminating the dining table burst in a shower of sparks. Jensen ducked, while Jared squeaked and jumped backwards. He looked around frantically, like he was expecting an attack to materialise from nowhere. Jensen was looking at him oddly, and Jared tried to compose himself. Not just for Jensen’s benefit - he didn’t want the house to know it was getting to him. Under normal circumstances, having that thought would have made Jared laugh at himself, but now it didn’t seem so funny.
Jared took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “That’s another thing,” Jared said emphatically. “When either of us says - that - she doesn’t like it.”
“Says what?” Jensen asked, puzzled.
“You know what I mean!” Jared snapped.
“Sor-“
“Don’t say it!”
“Okay, Jared,” Jensen said with exaggerated patience. “I can see you’re really upset about this, but I bet if you just get some sleep and calm down, you’ll feel better.”
“I’m not imagining this!” Jared insisted. “I’m not crazy.” But he had no idea how to convince Jensen of that. Even to him, it sounded pretty out there.
Eventually Jensen convinced Jared to eat some dinner and go to bed, but he lay awake all night in the silent house, waiting for something to happen.
***
Jared thought maybe the house knew that he was on to it and watching with a sharp eye for any more strangeness that he could point out to Jensen, because things were stubbornly normal for the rest of the week. He almost started to think that he’d imagined the whole thing. Nothing had happened that didn’t have a perfectly logical explanation, and they had no proof that their home was even the one which had been the site of the girl’s death. Jared felt pretty embarrassed by how much he’d overreacted, but Jensen seemed to have put it out of his mind so Jared tried to do the same.
On Saturday their renovations began in earnest. They’d already pulled up as much of the old tile as they could, but with the arrival of the weekend it was time to rip out the toilet and sink and the remaining tiles around them. A plumber was coming on Monday to help them install the new sink and toilet, and before then they needed to lay new tiles and wash the walls down so they could be painted.
Jared still felt slightly uneasy about working in the bathroom, but he tried not to let on that it bothered him. It was probably obvious that he was jumpier than usual - when Jensen dropped a tile while Jared wasn’t expecting it, the loud crack made him jolt. When Jensen cursed, Jared spun around, demanding, “What is it? What?”
“Nothing,” Jensen said irritably, looking at Jared like he’d lost his mind. “I just got grout all over myself, that’s all.”
Jared could see where Jensen had spilled the grout all over his pants. “Sucks to be you,” he said, trying to relax enough to find it funny.
Later on, Jensen filled a bucket with offcuts of tile to take to the trash and left Jared to sweep the new floor. He went around the floor meticulously, getting into every corner and clearing out all the dust.
Jared needed to find the dustpan, but there was so much junk in the room that it was difficult to spot. He looked in the mirror; it showed the edge of the bathtub with junk piled up against it, and the back wall. It was too high off the ground to show the floor, but the dustpan was on top of the toilet cistern for some reason. Jared grabbed it.
He turned back to start sweeping up, and the mirror caught his eye again. No, it was movement, movement had caught his eye. Movement of a reflection in the mirror. The reflection of a hand.
It was reaching up out of the bathtub. Jared looked rapidly from the mirror to the empty bathtub, and back again, his breathing becoming fast and shallow. He remembered reading “hidden in the downstairs bathroom of their home for almost two days until she died....” Then the hand reached out towards him.
Jensen came running at the sound of Jared’s bloodcurdling scream, and met him in the hallway. “What is it?” Jensen asked, grabbing his shoulders. “Are you hurt? Are you okay? What happened?”
Jared gulped for breath and realised that he couldn’t tell Jensen what he’d seen. Jensen already thought he was sort of nuts, and this wouldn’t help. Jared was already doubting what had happened. Maybe he only thought he’d seen a hand. He was really wound up, he might have imagined it. He knew nothing had been in the bathroom, after all. Only in the mirror, and a mirror couldn’t reflect something that wasn’t there. He must not have seen it.
“Nothing happened,” Jared said. “I just thought I saw... something.”
“What, like a spider?” Jensen asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, like that.”
On Monday the plumber got the new toilet and sink connected, and helped close off the pipes where the vanity had originally stood. He left after agreeing to come back the following Monday to install the pipes for the new shower and get the new bath connected.
“Have you thought about putting in a new heating system?” the plumber asked on his way out. “It gets pretty cold in there.”
Jared showed him to the door and then stood alone in the house, shivering and looking over his shoulder. He needed to get out of there.
Over the next week, Jared used every excuse to not be in the house by himself. He told Jensen, and himself, that he was just learning his way around their new town, but deep down he knew the truth. He still had to sleep in the house, though, and Jensen in the bed beside him wasn’t much comfort when he obliviously slept through snatches of music and the banging sounds coming from the bathroom.
The worst came on Thursday night when Jared woke up needing to pee but afraid to get out of bed. The house was quiet, but he was worried about what might happen if he left the bedroom, which felt like something of a safe haven to Jared. With the downstairs bathroom out of commission, they’d been using the one upstairs, which suited Jared fine, but he’d still have to walk past the downstairs bathroom to get to the stairs.
Jared checked his digital clock, hoping that it was almost morning, but to his annoyance it was only a quarter to two. He wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep if he didn’t relieve himself, he’d just lie awake in bed jumping at every little sound. It was ridiculous.
Jared tossed the covers back and stood up, pausing when his feet touched the floor and again when he reached the door, just to check that nothing was waiting for him. He walked down the hallway inch by inch. He’d put the light on, but that didn’t make the walk any less anxiety-provoking.
As he reached the downstairs bathroom, the door, slightly ajar, swung towards him with a creak. Jared scrambled backwards, heart pounding, then relaxed when it swung back the other way. It had to be a draft from the window, but Jared was damned if he was going to go in there and close it. He darted past the door and climbed the staircase, torn between his fear of looking back and his fear of not looking.
Upstairs, Jared flipped up the toilet seat, but had a hard time actually using it. The toilet sat opposite the mirror, and he didn’t want to put his back to the mirror, but he couldn’t exactly pee without looking unless he wanted to get it all over the floor. Eventually he lowered the toilet seat and pissed sitting down, which wasn’t exactly his idea of a great time, but it was the only way he could deal.
It was stupid. Nothing had ever even happened in the upstairs bathroom, but the damn house had him so jumpy that everything seemed scary. Even when he left the bathroom, Jared didn’t feel quite right having the mirror behind him. He hurried down the stairs as though something was following him.
The downstairs bathroom door was closed. Shut all the way, not just resting against the door jamb. Jared hadn’t heard it close. He might not have, of course, being all the way upstairs, but the skin on his back was crawling nonetheless. He couldn’t even make himself walk past it in the hallway; he went through the kitchen and back to his bedroom that way instead.
In the clear light of day, of course Jared could see how ridiculous he was being. But that didn’t help. Knowing he was losing his mind didn’t make it stop; it didn’t make him feel better. It didn’t make him any happier. It was time to talk to Jensen.
Jared was pretty sure that what he had to say wasn’t going to be well received at all, but he needed to say it anyway. He grabbed Jensen before dinner that evening.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“Shit,” said Jensen, looking worried. “That sounds serious.”
Jared sat with him at the dining table and started talking, not bothering to hold back. “I hate this house, Jensen.”
“You love this house,” Jensen said, looking confused.
“No, I loved this house,” Jared corrected. “Past tense. But I hate living here. Maybe it’s stupid, but weird things keep happening and it’s really freaking me out. I don’t want to live here.”
“What are you saying?” Jensen asked. He still sounded confused, but there was a growing touch of irritation in his voice as the penny dropped. “You can’t mean you want to move again.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“But Jared! We just moved in!” Jensen cried. “We have a mortgage now. I don’t think we can afford it.”
“But... sure we can,” Jared insisted. “If we sell this house... maybe we can get someplace smaller, or an apartment like we planned originally.”
Jensen was already shaking his head. “Think about it,” he insisted. “We’d still have to pay off the mortgage, which, yeah, the sale of the house should cover, but moving here was expensive too, and we just committed a whole heap of money to renovating the bathroom...”
“But your new job pays so much more. We can just save up...”
“What, another home loan deposit? Jared, that would take months, at least. And we’d still lose a stack of money.”
Jared sighed as the reality of the situation closed in. Jensen thought he was being ridiculous, but Jensen also had a good head for money. If he said they couldn’t afford it, it was probably true.
“Look, I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Jensen said gently. “But maybe you just need to give this place a chance. I bet if you let yourself get used to it, you’ll end up really liking it.”
“Maybe,” Jared agreed, but he didn’t really mean it.
***
If they couldn’t move, Jared was just going to have to learn to deal with it. He figured it was time to toughen up. No more making excuses to avoid the house, and no more jumping at shadows. He was a grown adult, and ghosts were not real.
He tried different things to make the house feel less creepy. He’d put the lights on as soon as the daylight started to disappear. He’d always have music or the TV running while he was at home to make the house feel less empty, even if it meant watching Jerry Springer. He always closed doors behind him so that they wouldn’t slam and startle him, and he never, ever, went into the downstairs bathroom if he could possibly avoid it.
It sort of seemed to work. Jared felt less jumpy; he could tolerate the occasional sudden noise without screaming or panicking. As the week drew to a close, he congratulated himself on conquering his irrational fears and let himself relax on the sofa with a beer in one hand and a sitcom on the TV.
As he sat there, Jared became aware of a touch on his shoulder. He shifted, but it didn’t go away. It seemed to move up towards his neck. Some ghostly presence was sitting next to him on the sofa and touching him, possibly in preparation for crushing his throat. Jared scuttled sideways and, although he was afraid to look, he turned his head to the side.
From the corner of his eye, Jared saw something dark and many-legged sitting on his shoulder. He yelped and swatted at it with his hand; the spider fell to the floor and scuttled under the couch. Jared tugged off one shoe and held it in the air as he pulled the couch out with his other hand. “Come out here and fight, you coward!” he bellowed. Then he realised how ridiculous he sounded and continued hunting for the spider in embarrassed silence.
When Jensen arrived home a little later, he thought the story sounded simply hilarious.
***
The next day, they removed the bathtub. Unfortunately, it was one occasion when Jared couldn’t get out of going into the bathroom. They had to chip away the tiles surrounding the bath, slowly and painstakingly. They had to remove the faucets and disconnect the drain, which was also a lengthy process - neither of them knew much about plumbing, so they had to look everything up.
Once the tub was, theoretically, loose, they still had to get it out of the house. They laid drop sheets through the hall and Jared wheeled the trolley in, but first they had to get the tub out and standing on its end. They each took an end and started to pull it out, inch by inch.
It didn’t come away at first. Jared knew it was mad, but it almost felt like the bath didn’t want to go. Jensen grabbed the chisel again and chipped away remnants of mortar, and they tried again. The bath slid out with a low groan, like a death rattle. Jared shook his head and tried to stop thinking such bizarre, morbid thoughts.
They got the bathtub out through the back door and took it around to the skip they’d hired for the duration of the renovation. They heaved it up and into the skip and exchanged a happy, exhausted, high-five.
“Good riddance,” Jared said emphatically.
“Yeah,” Jensen said, giving him a funny look. “It’s going to be so much better once it’s finished.”
“Yeah, it really will be.”
***
Jared didn’t let himself explicitly hope that the creepiness of the house would diminish once the bath was gone, but if pushed he might have admitted that the thought had crossed his mind. With every loud noise that came from the bathroom, Jared firmly reminded himself that Jensen was still working in there. It was harder to explain the snatches of lyrics that Jared was beginning to recognise, but he considered a few possibilities. Maybe he was hearing things, or Jensen was playing the song to freak him out. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
That evening, though, when they were eating dinner, Jared got up to get the mustard out of the fridge. He went into the kitchen and looked through the doorway. He didn’t consciously think about doing it, he just glanced to the right and looked across the hallway to the bathroom. The sun was setting on that side of the house, and a dim orange glow shone through the bathroom door onto the tiles. The stairs and the laundry were in shadow, but the light was on in the kitchen and the white, electric light nearly met the orange in the middle of the floor. It was like a little illuminated path through the hallway, and Jared let his eyes follow it from the bathroom back to the archway that opened into the kitchen. He raised his eyes up.
Someone was looking at him.
Jared gasped and dropped the mustard; the jar smashed on the floor but he barely noticed. Someone was looking around the edge of the door frame. Thick brown hair lay over her forehead and her eyes were wide and dark. She stared at him, and then she stepped back from the doorway and Jared lost sight of her.
Jared would have yelled if he’d had the breath to do it with. His heart pounded. He wondered who she was and how she’d got into the house, but even as he thought about it he realise that didn’t make sense. She hadn’t made any sound. Jensen was home, and he hadn’t noticed her. One of them should have heard the door open. She could only have gone out the back door without Jared seeing her, but it was locked, and yet he was sure that if he went looking, all trace of her would be gone. Not that he was about to go after her.
“Jensen,” Jared croaked out.
***
“I saw her, and I didn’t imagine it! She was there!”
Jensen opened his mouth to say something else logical and reasonable, and Jared just couldn’t take it if he did that. “I want to move,” he said. “I know you said we can’t afford it, but I don’t care. I’ll get another job if I have to. Hell, I’ll work three jobs if that’s what it takes.”
Jensen studied Jared’s face carefully. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes!” Jared cried.
“Okay,” Jensen said. “Okay. If it’s really that important to you, and I guess it is, then... we should both save up, get enough money together so we can move somewhere else.”
It was an immense relief to Jared to finally have Jensen’s agreement. “It is that important,” he said. “Thanks, Jensen.”
It was good to have something to focus on, but it wasn’t an immediate solution. It was going to take time for them to save up enough to move again, and in the meantime they had no choice but to continue living in the house.
The plumber came out on Monday like they’d already planned, because it was too late to cancel and if they wanted to sell the house it would be much easier with a functional bathroom. Jared stayed nearby for a little while to answer some of the plumber’s questions about how they wanted the new bath placed, but he left as soon as he could find an excuse and went to vacuum the living room and bedroom, taking much longer over the task than it really needed.
He was just putting the vacuum cleaner away in the laundry when he heard footsteps in the hallway. It had been quiet in the bathroom when he’d finished cleaning, so he’d assumed the plumber was nearly finished. “Is it done?” he called.
There was no answer. Jared left the laundry and came out into the hallway, where the plumber was standing and looking his way.
“Is the bath connected?” Jared asked uncertainly. Something wasn’t quite right about the plumber’s expression. His face was slack, his eyes a little unfocused. His hands were empty and he didn’t fidget - in fact, he was almost disturbingly still.
“Are you okay?” Jared asked. The plumber didn’t answer. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, towards Jared. “Um... is something wrong?”
The plumber’s mouth twisted and he bared his teeth in a snarl. He put his hands up threateningly, and Jared stepped backwards. He felt the back door behind him and knew he couldn’t go any further. The plumber stepped closer and Jared put both hands against the other man’s chest, shoving him back forcefully.
The plumber stumbled and caught the stair railing to balance himself. “What...?” he asked, looking around and shaking his head. “What just...?”
Jared watched closely, wondering if anything else strange was going to happen. When it didn’t, he asked, “Is the drain connected yet?”
The plumber started a little, like he’d forgotten Jared was there. “Uh...” He glanced back into the bathroom. “There’s a bit more to do,” he said, and went back to work. With his heart still beating hard, Jared watched from the other side of the hallway to make sure that nothing else happened.
***
Thirty minutes later Jared paid the plumber and showed him out. He stood on the front porch and looked doubtfully back through the front door.
What had happened to the plumber? He hadn’t seemed aware of what he was doing. It belatedly occurred to Jared that he might have had some kind of medical issue, a stroke or something. At the time he hadn’t even considered that possibility, he’d instantly assumed it was somehow related to the malevolent spirit in the house. The plumber’s behaviour had been threatening enough that it had seemed a logical conclusion to draw. For a certain value of logic, anyway.
Once again, Jared waited outside until Jensen got home from work. Jensen pulled up and got out of his car with a tense, worried expression. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“I... yeah. I’m fine.” Jared wanted to tell Jensen what had happened, but he didn’t want to deal with Jensen’s scepticism. He didn’t want to listen to Jensen telling him that he was stressed and imagining things, but it had been a while since the plumber had left and the memory of what had happened, the visceral terror and uneasiness of it, was already fading. Jared wasn’t sure he could convince Jensen he was telling the truth, he wasn’t even sure that Jensen wouldn’t manage to convince him he was wrong.
Inside, Jensen raved about the bathroom and talked happily about his day, but it was the sort of forced cheerfulness that Jared could see through easily. Jensen was just trying to convince him that things were fine, or, if that failed, convince him to pretend that they were. Jared was in no mood to go along with that, however, and he was withdrawn and sour all evening.
They had pasta for dinner and an apple pie for dessert. Jensen, who’d grown steadily quieter as the night wore on, got up to cut himself a second slice while Jared wiped down the table. The silence was broken only by the clatter of plates being stacked until Jensen let out a pained yelp.
“Fuck!” he cried, his voice a mix of pain and fear.
Jared dropped the cloth instantly and went to him, asking “What is it?” even as he took in the bloody knife on the counter and Jensen clutching his left hand.
“It cut me!” he said. “Shit. I’m bleeding fucking everywhere.”
The cut must have been deep, because droplets of blood had splattered the counter and the cupboard doors, and even now was welling up between his fingers. Jared grabbed a dish towel and pressed it over the cut. “You’ve gotta be more careful,” he said gruffly.
“It wasn’t me.”
“I know, I know, accidents happen,” Jared said.
“No, Jared, you’re not listening,” Jensen snapped. “I didn’t touch the fucking knife. It moved on its own and stabbed into my hand!”
Jared gave Jensen a searching look, gauging his sincerity, then glanced at the knife. Now he was paying attention, he did notice that Jensen was giving it a wide berth, as though he was worried it would move again.
“I wonder if you need stitches,” Jared said, pulling the towel back slightly to assess how bad it was.
“Did you hear me?” Jensen asked. “The knife slid across the counter by itself! That’s not fucking normal!”
Jared’s patience snapped. “Don’t you think I know that?” he demanded. “What do you think I’ve been telling you this whole time, Jensen? You’ve been treating me like I’m crazy or making shit up, and as soon as something happens to you, you want me to act like it’s a big deal? Well, welcome to my world!”
Jensen looked pretty guilty at that. “I didn’t think, Jared,” he said, shamefaced. “I’m sorry.”
Jared kicked him in the ankle, but too late. The knife on the bench trembled, and Jensen leaped backwards. Thinking quickly, Jared reached out and put his hand down over the handle. Maybe he was stronger than whatever was trying to move the knife, or maybe it was just tired of toying with them, but the knife stilled. Jared glared at Jensen, who gulped.
“I’m-” Jensen began, then cut himself short. “You know,” he finished weakly. Jared nodded.
“Do you think you need stitches?” he asked, reaching out for Jensen’s hand again. As he moved the towel away blood welled up again. “It is bleeding pretty heavily.”
“Yeah,” Jensen said faintly. “I feel a bit dizzy. Need to sit down.” But there were no chairs in the kitchen, so he just leaned heavily on the counter. “Maybe we should go to the emergency room. And, you know, away. From here.”
Jared rolled his eyes at Jensen. “Yeah,” he said. “Great idea.”
***
The hospital was busy and there was a long wait. As they sat in the waiting room, Jared and Jensen had a whispered discussion about what had happened.
“I mean, it could have been vibrations from traffic in the street, or even, um... magnetism!” Jensen speculated. “Something that makes sense!”
Jared groaned. “No, Jensen, damn it!” he snapped. “Don’t do that! Don’t convince yourself it was just your imagination. I’ve been dealing with this on my own for weeks, and now you’ve finally seen what’s happening with your own eyes. I need you to be in this with me.”
Jensen frowned but didn’t argue. “It’s just so bizarre,” he complained. “This stuff doesn’t really exist. It doesn’t really happen. What are we supposed to do now, call the Ghostbusters or something?”
“I don’t know, maybe?” Jared wondered. “I mean, there has to be someone out there who knows about this stuff. Someone who can help us.”
“You want us to hire an exorcist?”
“Well, would it be cheaper than moving again?” Jared challenged. Jensen didn’t answer. “And I was thinking that maybe we should find out a bit more about what’s going on, do some research. Maybe we can talk to the people who rented the house before we moved in, see how they dealt with it. Maybe if we can understand what’s happening a bit better...” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure it would help to investigate what had happened in the house, but it couldn’t hurt.
“Ackles?” called a nurse from the desk, and Jensen got up. “We can figure this out tomorrow,” he said, and went to get his hand stitched up.
***
The bad part about escaping the house for a few hours was having to go back. It was shortly after midnight when they got home, and it was a dark night. Jared hesitated in the driver’s seat of the car, reluctant to get out, and when he glanced over at Jensen he didn’t seem any more eager to go inside.
They had to in the end, though. It was going to be hard enough getting up in the morning as it was. They went inside, stepping quietly and turning on every light switch they passed. Jensen left the hallway light on and the bedroom door ajar, and Jared didn’t say anything about it. He still slept poorly that night.
The next day before work, Jared checked the spot on the top of the fridge where they’d been collecting all the mail that had arrived at the house which wasn’t addressed to them. They’d been putting ‘return to sender’ on the mail and posting it back every couple of weeks, but there were two letters still there addressed to an Anton Ricks. Jared put the letters in his laptop case and took it with him when he left.
When he finished work that day, Jared headed to the library. He started by sending out a heap of job applications, and then started researching the house. Anton Ricks, as far as he could tell, was a bank manager at a local branch. Jared was able to organise a meeting with him for Thursday afternoon.
From Katie, the girl over the road, he’d been able to get the phone number of her friend’s family. He sat on the bench just outside the library to make the call.
“Hi, my name’s Jared, and I’m looking for the Landing family who used to live in Canning Street?”
There was a long silence on the other end. “This is Fiona Landing. What’s this about?” the woman asked eventually.
Jared instantly forgot what he’d planned to say next. “Um, hi!” he said. “Hello. It’s... I’m a friend of Katie’s.”
“You’re a friend of Katie’s?” the woman asked suspiciously.
“No, I mean... I’m her neighbour. I live across the road? She told me you lived in our house a few years ago...” He trailed off, but Mrs Lading didn’t answer so after a minute he added, “I’ve got some questions about the house.”
“Like what?”
Jared wasn’t sure what to ask that wouldn’t put Fiona off completely. “Did you ever notice anything strange about it?” he asked, for lack of anything better.
“Strange like how?”
“Like... weird noises. Banging, late at night, or music, or a voice...”
Fiona blew out a long breath. “I’ve been trying to forget about it,” she said at last. “I’d hear crying late at night, sometimes. Things would fall off shelves, sometimes the lights went on and off by themselves. It was always just so... creepy. Uncomfortable.”
“I saw something in the bathroom mirror once,” Jared said. “A hand. And once I think... I think I saw a face.”
“That’s... I never saw anything like that,” Fiona said. “I think I would have broken my lease if I had. How long have you lived there?”
“About a month. How long did you...”
“Almost a year. I remember nearly every week something strange would happen.”
Jared tried not to laugh. Nearly every week? He could barely remember a day going by that something strange and terrifying didn’t happen. “Last night, a knife slid across the bench by itself and cut my partner’s hand,” he whispered. “I’m getting really scared.”
“It wasn’t like that when I lived there,” Fiona said after a moment. “Maybe you can get out of your lease - you should call your property manager.”
“We’re not renting the house, we bought it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Jared sighed. “Look, thanks for your time. I’d better go.”
“Okay,” Fiona said, sounding troubled. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will.”
Part Three
The next day was one of Jared’s half-days; he only had to work until noon. He stopped at a sandwich shop to get something for lunch rather than eating at home, and once he’d finished he decided that it was a great chance to see a little bit of their new city. He spent a couple of hours walking through a park and taking photos of the gardens. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d usually take an interest in, but today it suddenly seemed like an awesome idea.
He headed for home once he was forced to admit that he was really just avoiding being in the house by himself. He sat in the driveway for a good ten minutes, daring a shadowy figure to appear in the dormer window. Nothing happened, and Jared shook his head, cursing his overactive imagination.
Inside, the house was quiet and still, like it was mocking Jared’s fears. He turned the TV up for company and went to get a snack out of the pantry. On the kitchen bench he saw the book he’d found the previous night and then forgotten about.
It had a light blue cover with yellow flowers on it. When Jared picked it up and opened it, he realised it was a journal, with page after page filled with handwriting in blue ink. Someone must have left it behind when they moved out of the house. Flicking through the entries, a date caught Jared’s eye, a date five years in the past. It must have been hidden in that closet for a long time. Jared wondered why his half-assed investigation had managed to uncover it, when it had remained safely hidden through five years of occupancy.
When he turned the page, different phrases began to jump out at him. ’I’m getting out of here the second I turn eighteen’ was written on one page, ’I wonder what all his friends would think if they knew what kind of man he is’ said another. The next page said ’I hate the way she never stands up for me’.
Becoming increasingly concerned, Jared turned to the last entry. ’I feel scared all the time now. I think something really bad is going to happen’ was all it said. The hairs stood up on the back of Jared’s neck. He flicked through the whole journal, trying to work out who had written it. The writer never mentioned their name or age, but the diary was five years old. Jared hoped that they’d reached eighteen and got out of whatever bad situation they’d been in. He hoped they’d managed to get away. He couldn’t help but remember the story the girl from across the road had told him; at the time, it had seemed ludicrous, but now he felt an urgent need to know if there was any truth to it.
Jared grabbed his laptop and opened his web browser. He considered for a moment, then typed ‘Canning Street’ into the search bar and hit enter.
’Canning Street Murder Parents Sentenced’ was the first result. Jared clicked on the headline, feeling suddenly uneasy.
A couple who allowed their fifteen year old daughter to die of her injuries rather than seek medical help were sentenced today.
The court heard that Brian Trotter had a history of abusive behaviour and that on the 18th of June last year, he violently attacked his daughter causing injuries which resulted in her death. Trotter confessed to striking his daughter and pushing her down the stairs.
When the Trotters realised that their daughter was severely injured, they chose to conceal her inside the house rather than seek medical attention. Rachel Trotter told the court that she and her husband kept their daughter hidden in the downstairs bathroom of their home for almost two days until she died.
The court heard that the Trotters played music loudly to drown out their daughter’s cries for help, and that once she was dead they dumped her body in a landfill. Rachel Trotter told the court, “I thought we could keep it hidden, but I couldn’t take it. I had to come forward.”
Brian Trotter was sentenced to life in prison for murder and concealing a crime. Rachel Trotter was charged as an accessory and sentenced to seven years in prison.
When Jensen arrived home from work several hours later, Jared was sitting on the front lawn. “What are you doing out here?” he asked as he climbed out of his car.
Jared didn’t answer, keeping his gaze on the front of the house. Jensen reached his side and put a hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Jared?” he repeated. “What’s going on?”
“It’s haunted, Jensen,” Jared replied in a small voice. “Our house is haunted.”
***
It took around thirty minutes for Jensen to calm Jared down and convince him to come back into the house so that he could show Jensen the articles and the journal and try to explain himself.
“She lived up in the upstairs bedroom, and she hid this up there,” Jared said as Jensen flipped through the journal. “I saw someone in the window up there the other day, but when I went up to the room no one was there. I found this journal last night because I heard someone calling for help and I went looking for them. We keep hearing music, and it’s always the same song, have you noticed that? And I keep seeing writing on the glass in the bathroom - the mirror and the shower door. There’s something in this house!”
“Jared...” Jensen said, hesitantly like he wasn’t sure how Jared would react, “don’t you think that’s kind of a stretch? I haven’t noticed anything like that.”
“Because you haven’t been paying attention!” Jared snapped. “You read the articles, right? She died in this house!”
“Yeah, I read the articles, Jared, and it’s horrible, but we don’t know that - it could be any house on the street . We don’t know if that girl is the same one who wrote the journal.”
“Then it would be a hell of a coincidence!”
“Look, I’m sorry, Jared, but...”
The globe illuminating the dining table burst in a shower of sparks. Jensen ducked, while Jared squeaked and jumped backwards. He looked around frantically, like he was expecting an attack to materialise from nowhere. Jensen was looking at him oddly, and Jared tried to compose himself. Not just for Jensen’s benefit - he didn’t want the house to know it was getting to him. Under normal circumstances, having that thought would have made Jared laugh at himself, but now it didn’t seem so funny.
Jared took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “That’s another thing,” Jared said emphatically. “When either of us says - that - she doesn’t like it.”
“Says what?” Jensen asked, puzzled.
“You know what I mean!” Jared snapped.
“Sor-“
“Don’t say it!”
“Okay, Jared,” Jensen said with exaggerated patience. “I can see you’re really upset about this, but I bet if you just get some sleep and calm down, you’ll feel better.”
“I’m not imagining this!” Jared insisted. “I’m not crazy.” But he had no idea how to convince Jensen of that. Even to him, it sounded pretty out there.
Eventually Jensen convinced Jared to eat some dinner and go to bed, but he lay awake all night in the silent house, waiting for something to happen.
***
Jared thought maybe the house knew that he was on to it and watching with a sharp eye for any more strangeness that he could point out to Jensen, because things were stubbornly normal for the rest of the week. He almost started to think that he’d imagined the whole thing. Nothing had happened that didn’t have a perfectly logical explanation, and they had no proof that their home was even the one which had been the site of the girl’s death. Jared felt pretty embarrassed by how much he’d overreacted, but Jensen seemed to have put it out of his mind so Jared tried to do the same.
On Saturday their renovations began in earnest. They’d already pulled up as much of the old tile as they could, but with the arrival of the weekend it was time to rip out the toilet and sink and the remaining tiles around them. A plumber was coming on Monday to help them install the new sink and toilet, and before then they needed to lay new tiles and wash the walls down so they could be painted.
Jared still felt slightly uneasy about working in the bathroom, but he tried not to let on that it bothered him. It was probably obvious that he was jumpier than usual - when Jensen dropped a tile while Jared wasn’t expecting it, the loud crack made him jolt. When Jensen cursed, Jared spun around, demanding, “What is it? What?”
“Nothing,” Jensen said irritably, looking at Jared like he’d lost his mind. “I just got grout all over myself, that’s all.”
Jared could see where Jensen had spilled the grout all over his pants. “Sucks to be you,” he said, trying to relax enough to find it funny.
Later on, Jensen filled a bucket with offcuts of tile to take to the trash and left Jared to sweep the new floor. He went around the floor meticulously, getting into every corner and clearing out all the dust.
Jared needed to find the dustpan, but there was so much junk in the room that it was difficult to spot. He looked in the mirror; it showed the edge of the bathtub with junk piled up against it, and the back wall. It was too high off the ground to show the floor, but the dustpan was on top of the toilet cistern for some reason. Jared grabbed it.
He turned back to start sweeping up, and the mirror caught his eye again. No, it was movement, movement had caught his eye. Movement of a reflection in the mirror. The reflection of a hand.
It was reaching up out of the bathtub. Jared looked rapidly from the mirror to the empty bathtub, and back again, his breathing becoming fast and shallow. He remembered reading “hidden in the downstairs bathroom of their home for almost two days until she died....” Then the hand reached out towards him.
Jensen came running at the sound of Jared’s bloodcurdling scream, and met him in the hallway. “What is it?” Jensen asked, grabbing his shoulders. “Are you hurt? Are you okay? What happened?”
Jared gulped for breath and realised that he couldn’t tell Jensen what he’d seen. Jensen already thought he was sort of nuts, and this wouldn’t help. Jared was already doubting what had happened. Maybe he only thought he’d seen a hand. He was really wound up, he might have imagined it. He knew nothing had been in the bathroom, after all. Only in the mirror, and a mirror couldn’t reflect something that wasn’t there. He must not have seen it.
“Nothing happened,” Jared said. “I just thought I saw... something.”
“What, like a spider?” Jensen asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, like that.”
On Monday the plumber got the new toilet and sink connected, and helped close off the pipes where the vanity had originally stood. He left after agreeing to come back the following Monday to install the pipes for the new shower and get the new bath connected.
“Have you thought about putting in a new heating system?” the plumber asked on his way out. “It gets pretty cold in there.”
Jared showed him to the door and then stood alone in the house, shivering and looking over his shoulder. He needed to get out of there.
Over the next week, Jared used every excuse to not be in the house by himself. He told Jensen, and himself, that he was just learning his way around their new town, but deep down he knew the truth. He still had to sleep in the house, though, and Jensen in the bed beside him wasn’t much comfort when he obliviously slept through snatches of music and the banging sounds coming from the bathroom.
The worst came on Thursday night when Jared woke up needing to pee but afraid to get out of bed. The house was quiet, but he was worried about what might happen if he left the bedroom, which felt like something of a safe haven to Jared. With the downstairs bathroom out of commission, they’d been using the one upstairs, which suited Jared fine, but he’d still have to walk past the downstairs bathroom to get to the stairs.
Jared checked his digital clock, hoping that it was almost morning, but to his annoyance it was only a quarter to two. He wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep if he didn’t relieve himself, he’d just lie awake in bed jumping at every little sound. It was ridiculous.
Jared tossed the covers back and stood up, pausing when his feet touched the floor and again when he reached the door, just to check that nothing was waiting for him. He walked down the hallway inch by inch. He’d put the light on, but that didn’t make the walk any less anxiety-provoking.
As he reached the downstairs bathroom, the door, slightly ajar, swung towards him with a creak. Jared scrambled backwards, heart pounding, then relaxed when it swung back the other way. It had to be a draft from the window, but Jared was damned if he was going to go in there and close it. He darted past the door and climbed the staircase, torn between his fear of looking back and his fear of not looking.
Upstairs, Jared flipped up the toilet seat, but had a hard time actually using it. The toilet sat opposite the mirror, and he didn’t want to put his back to the mirror, but he couldn’t exactly pee without looking unless he wanted to get it all over the floor. Eventually he lowered the toilet seat and pissed sitting down, which wasn’t exactly his idea of a great time, but it was the only way he could deal.
It was stupid. Nothing had ever even happened in the upstairs bathroom, but the damn house had him so jumpy that everything seemed scary. Even when he left the bathroom, Jared didn’t feel quite right having the mirror behind him. He hurried down the stairs as though something was following him.
The downstairs bathroom door was closed. Shut all the way, not just resting against the door jamb. Jared hadn’t heard it close. He might not have, of course, being all the way upstairs, but the skin on his back was crawling nonetheless. He couldn’t even make himself walk past it in the hallway; he went through the kitchen and back to his bedroom that way instead.
In the clear light of day, of course Jared could see how ridiculous he was being. But that didn’t help. Knowing he was losing his mind didn’t make it stop; it didn’t make him feel better. It didn’t make him any happier. It was time to talk to Jensen.
Jared was pretty sure that what he had to say wasn’t going to be well received at all, but he needed to say it anyway. He grabbed Jensen before dinner that evening.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“Shit,” said Jensen, looking worried. “That sounds serious.”
Jared sat with him at the dining table and started talking, not bothering to hold back. “I hate this house, Jensen.”
“You love this house,” Jensen said, looking confused.
“No, I loved this house,” Jared corrected. “Past tense. But I hate living here. Maybe it’s stupid, but weird things keep happening and it’s really freaking me out. I don’t want to live here.”
“What are you saying?” Jensen asked. He still sounded confused, but there was a growing touch of irritation in his voice as the penny dropped. “You can’t mean you want to move again.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“But Jared! We just moved in!” Jensen cried. “We have a mortgage now. I don’t think we can afford it.”
“But... sure we can,” Jared insisted. “If we sell this house... maybe we can get someplace smaller, or an apartment like we planned originally.”
Jensen was already shaking his head. “Think about it,” he insisted. “We’d still have to pay off the mortgage, which, yeah, the sale of the house should cover, but moving here was expensive too, and we just committed a whole heap of money to renovating the bathroom...”
“But your new job pays so much more. We can just save up...”
“What, another home loan deposit? Jared, that would take months, at least. And we’d still lose a stack of money.”
Jared sighed as the reality of the situation closed in. Jensen thought he was being ridiculous, but Jensen also had a good head for money. If he said they couldn’t afford it, it was probably true.
“Look, I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Jensen said gently. “But maybe you just need to give this place a chance. I bet if you let yourself get used to it, you’ll end up really liking it.”
“Maybe,” Jared agreed, but he didn’t really mean it.
***
If they couldn’t move, Jared was just going to have to learn to deal with it. He figured it was time to toughen up. No more making excuses to avoid the house, and no more jumping at shadows. He was a grown adult, and ghosts were not real.
He tried different things to make the house feel less creepy. He’d put the lights on as soon as the daylight started to disappear. He’d always have music or the TV running while he was at home to make the house feel less empty, even if it meant watching Jerry Springer. He always closed doors behind him so that they wouldn’t slam and startle him, and he never, ever, went into the downstairs bathroom if he could possibly avoid it.
It sort of seemed to work. Jared felt less jumpy; he could tolerate the occasional sudden noise without screaming or panicking. As the week drew to a close, he congratulated himself on conquering his irrational fears and let himself relax on the sofa with a beer in one hand and a sitcom on the TV.
As he sat there, Jared became aware of a touch on his shoulder. He shifted, but it didn’t go away. It seemed to move up towards his neck. Some ghostly presence was sitting next to him on the sofa and touching him, possibly in preparation for crushing his throat. Jared scuttled sideways and, although he was afraid to look, he turned his head to the side.
From the corner of his eye, Jared saw something dark and many-legged sitting on his shoulder. He yelped and swatted at it with his hand; the spider fell to the floor and scuttled under the couch. Jared tugged off one shoe and held it in the air as he pulled the couch out with his other hand. “Come out here and fight, you coward!” he bellowed. Then he realised how ridiculous he sounded and continued hunting for the spider in embarrassed silence.
When Jensen arrived home a little later, he thought the story sounded simply hilarious.
***
The next day, they removed the bathtub. Unfortunately, it was one occasion when Jared couldn’t get out of going into the bathroom. They had to chip away the tiles surrounding the bath, slowly and painstakingly. They had to remove the faucets and disconnect the drain, which was also a lengthy process - neither of them knew much about plumbing, so they had to look everything up.
Once the tub was, theoretically, loose, they still had to get it out of the house. They laid drop sheets through the hall and Jared wheeled the trolley in, but first they had to get the tub out and standing on its end. They each took an end and started to pull it out, inch by inch.
It didn’t come away at first. Jared knew it was mad, but it almost felt like the bath didn’t want to go. Jensen grabbed the chisel again and chipped away remnants of mortar, and they tried again. The bath slid out with a low groan, like a death rattle. Jared shook his head and tried to stop thinking such bizarre, morbid thoughts.
They got the bathtub out through the back door and took it around to the skip they’d hired for the duration of the renovation. They heaved it up and into the skip and exchanged a happy, exhausted, high-five.
“Good riddance,” Jared said emphatically.
“Yeah,” Jensen said, giving him a funny look. “It’s going to be so much better once it’s finished.”
“Yeah, it really will be.”
***
Jared didn’t let himself explicitly hope that the creepiness of the house would diminish once the bath was gone, but if pushed he might have admitted that the thought had crossed his mind. With every loud noise that came from the bathroom, Jared firmly reminded himself that Jensen was still working in there. It was harder to explain the snatches of lyrics that Jared was beginning to recognise, but he considered a few possibilities. Maybe he was hearing things, or Jensen was playing the song to freak him out. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
That evening, though, when they were eating dinner, Jared got up to get the mustard out of the fridge. He went into the kitchen and looked through the doorway. He didn’t consciously think about doing it, he just glanced to the right and looked across the hallway to the bathroom. The sun was setting on that side of the house, and a dim orange glow shone through the bathroom door onto the tiles. The stairs and the laundry were in shadow, but the light was on in the kitchen and the white, electric light nearly met the orange in the middle of the floor. It was like a little illuminated path through the hallway, and Jared let his eyes follow it from the bathroom back to the archway that opened into the kitchen. He raised his eyes up.
Someone was looking at him.
Jared gasped and dropped the mustard; the jar smashed on the floor but he barely noticed. Someone was looking around the edge of the door frame. Thick brown hair lay over her forehead and her eyes were wide and dark. She stared at him, and then she stepped back from the doorway and Jared lost sight of her.
Jared would have yelled if he’d had the breath to do it with. His heart pounded. He wondered who she was and how she’d got into the house, but even as he thought about it he realise that didn’t make sense. She hadn’t made any sound. Jensen was home, and he hadn’t noticed her. One of them should have heard the door open. She could only have gone out the back door without Jared seeing her, but it was locked, and yet he was sure that if he went looking, all trace of her would be gone. Not that he was about to go after her.
“Jensen,” Jared croaked out.
***
“I saw her, and I didn’t imagine it! She was there!”
Jensen opened his mouth to say something else logical and reasonable, and Jared just couldn’t take it if he did that. “I want to move,” he said. “I know you said we can’t afford it, but I don’t care. I’ll get another job if I have to. Hell, I’ll work three jobs if that’s what it takes.”
Jensen studied Jared’s face carefully. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes!” Jared cried.
“Okay,” Jensen said. “Okay. If it’s really that important to you, and I guess it is, then... we should both save up, get enough money together so we can move somewhere else.”
It was an immense relief to Jared to finally have Jensen’s agreement. “It is that important,” he said. “Thanks, Jensen.”
It was good to have something to focus on, but it wasn’t an immediate solution. It was going to take time for them to save up enough to move again, and in the meantime they had no choice but to continue living in the house.
The plumber came out on Monday like they’d already planned, because it was too late to cancel and if they wanted to sell the house it would be much easier with a functional bathroom. Jared stayed nearby for a little while to answer some of the plumber’s questions about how they wanted the new bath placed, but he left as soon as he could find an excuse and went to vacuum the living room and bedroom, taking much longer over the task than it really needed.
He was just putting the vacuum cleaner away in the laundry when he heard footsteps in the hallway. It had been quiet in the bathroom when he’d finished cleaning, so he’d assumed the plumber was nearly finished. “Is it done?” he called.
There was no answer. Jared left the laundry and came out into the hallway, where the plumber was standing and looking his way.
“Is the bath connected?” Jared asked uncertainly. Something wasn’t quite right about the plumber’s expression. His face was slack, his eyes a little unfocused. His hands were empty and he didn’t fidget - in fact, he was almost disturbingly still.
“Are you okay?” Jared asked. The plumber didn’t answer. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, towards Jared. “Um... is something wrong?”
The plumber’s mouth twisted and he bared his teeth in a snarl. He put his hands up threateningly, and Jared stepped backwards. He felt the back door behind him and knew he couldn’t go any further. The plumber stepped closer and Jared put both hands against the other man’s chest, shoving him back forcefully.
The plumber stumbled and caught the stair railing to balance himself. “What...?” he asked, looking around and shaking his head. “What just...?”
Jared watched closely, wondering if anything else strange was going to happen. When it didn’t, he asked, “Is the drain connected yet?”
The plumber started a little, like he’d forgotten Jared was there. “Uh...” He glanced back into the bathroom. “There’s a bit more to do,” he said, and went back to work. With his heart still beating hard, Jared watched from the other side of the hallway to make sure that nothing else happened.
***
Thirty minutes later Jared paid the plumber and showed him out. He stood on the front porch and looked doubtfully back through the front door.
What had happened to the plumber? He hadn’t seemed aware of what he was doing. It belatedly occurred to Jared that he might have had some kind of medical issue, a stroke or something. At the time he hadn’t even considered that possibility, he’d instantly assumed it was somehow related to the malevolent spirit in the house. The plumber’s behaviour had been threatening enough that it had seemed a logical conclusion to draw. For a certain value of logic, anyway.
Once again, Jared waited outside until Jensen got home from work. Jensen pulled up and got out of his car with a tense, worried expression. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“I... yeah. I’m fine.” Jared wanted to tell Jensen what had happened, but he didn’t want to deal with Jensen’s scepticism. He didn’t want to listen to Jensen telling him that he was stressed and imagining things, but it had been a while since the plumber had left and the memory of what had happened, the visceral terror and uneasiness of it, was already fading. Jared wasn’t sure he could convince Jensen he was telling the truth, he wasn’t even sure that Jensen wouldn’t manage to convince him he was wrong.
Inside, Jensen raved about the bathroom and talked happily about his day, but it was the sort of forced cheerfulness that Jared could see through easily. Jensen was just trying to convince him that things were fine, or, if that failed, convince him to pretend that they were. Jared was in no mood to go along with that, however, and he was withdrawn and sour all evening.
They had pasta for dinner and an apple pie for dessert. Jensen, who’d grown steadily quieter as the night wore on, got up to cut himself a second slice while Jared wiped down the table. The silence was broken only by the clatter of plates being stacked until Jensen let out a pained yelp.
“Fuck!” he cried, his voice a mix of pain and fear.
Jared dropped the cloth instantly and went to him, asking “What is it?” even as he took in the bloody knife on the counter and Jensen clutching his left hand.
“It cut me!” he said. “Shit. I’m bleeding fucking everywhere.”
The cut must have been deep, because droplets of blood had splattered the counter and the cupboard doors, and even now was welling up between his fingers. Jared grabbed a dish towel and pressed it over the cut. “You’ve gotta be more careful,” he said gruffly.
“It wasn’t me.”
“I know, I know, accidents happen,” Jared said.
“No, Jared, you’re not listening,” Jensen snapped. “I didn’t touch the fucking knife. It moved on its own and stabbed into my hand!”
Jared gave Jensen a searching look, gauging his sincerity, then glanced at the knife. Now he was paying attention, he did notice that Jensen was giving it a wide berth, as though he was worried it would move again.
“I wonder if you need stitches,” Jared said, pulling the towel back slightly to assess how bad it was.
“Did you hear me?” Jensen asked. “The knife slid across the counter by itself! That’s not fucking normal!”
Jared’s patience snapped. “Don’t you think I know that?” he demanded. “What do you think I’ve been telling you this whole time, Jensen? You’ve been treating me like I’m crazy or making shit up, and as soon as something happens to you, you want me to act like it’s a big deal? Well, welcome to my world!”
Jensen looked pretty guilty at that. “I didn’t think, Jared,” he said, shamefaced. “I’m sorry.”
Jared kicked him in the ankle, but too late. The knife on the bench trembled, and Jensen leaped backwards. Thinking quickly, Jared reached out and put his hand down over the handle. Maybe he was stronger than whatever was trying to move the knife, or maybe it was just tired of toying with them, but the knife stilled. Jared glared at Jensen, who gulped.
“I’m-” Jensen began, then cut himself short. “You know,” he finished weakly. Jared nodded.
“Do you think you need stitches?” he asked, reaching out for Jensen’s hand again. As he moved the towel away blood welled up again. “It is bleeding pretty heavily.”
“Yeah,” Jensen said faintly. “I feel a bit dizzy. Need to sit down.” But there were no chairs in the kitchen, so he just leaned heavily on the counter. “Maybe we should go to the emergency room. And, you know, away. From here.”
Jared rolled his eyes at Jensen. “Yeah,” he said. “Great idea.”
***
The hospital was busy and there was a long wait. As they sat in the waiting room, Jared and Jensen had a whispered discussion about what had happened.
“I mean, it could have been vibrations from traffic in the street, or even, um... magnetism!” Jensen speculated. “Something that makes sense!”
Jared groaned. “No, Jensen, damn it!” he snapped. “Don’t do that! Don’t convince yourself it was just your imagination. I’ve been dealing with this on my own for weeks, and now you’ve finally seen what’s happening with your own eyes. I need you to be in this with me.”
Jensen frowned but didn’t argue. “It’s just so bizarre,” he complained. “This stuff doesn’t really exist. It doesn’t really happen. What are we supposed to do now, call the Ghostbusters or something?”
“I don’t know, maybe?” Jared wondered. “I mean, there has to be someone out there who knows about this stuff. Someone who can help us.”
“You want us to hire an exorcist?”
“Well, would it be cheaper than moving again?” Jared challenged. Jensen didn’t answer. “And I was thinking that maybe we should find out a bit more about what’s going on, do some research. Maybe we can talk to the people who rented the house before we moved in, see how they dealt with it. Maybe if we can understand what’s happening a bit better...” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure it would help to investigate what had happened in the house, but it couldn’t hurt.
“Ackles?” called a nurse from the desk, and Jensen got up. “We can figure this out tomorrow,” he said, and went to get his hand stitched up.
***
The bad part about escaping the house for a few hours was having to go back. It was shortly after midnight when they got home, and it was a dark night. Jared hesitated in the driver’s seat of the car, reluctant to get out, and when he glanced over at Jensen he didn’t seem any more eager to go inside.
They had to in the end, though. It was going to be hard enough getting up in the morning as it was. They went inside, stepping quietly and turning on every light switch they passed. Jensen left the hallway light on and the bedroom door ajar, and Jared didn’t say anything about it. He still slept poorly that night.
The next day before work, Jared checked the spot on the top of the fridge where they’d been collecting all the mail that had arrived at the house which wasn’t addressed to them. They’d been putting ‘return to sender’ on the mail and posting it back every couple of weeks, but there were two letters still there addressed to an Anton Ricks. Jared put the letters in his laptop case and took it with him when he left.
When he finished work that day, Jared headed to the library. He started by sending out a heap of job applications, and then started researching the house. Anton Ricks, as far as he could tell, was a bank manager at a local branch. Jared was able to organise a meeting with him for Thursday afternoon.
From Katie, the girl over the road, he’d been able to get the phone number of her friend’s family. He sat on the bench just outside the library to make the call.
“Hi, my name’s Jared, and I’m looking for the Landing family who used to live in Canning Street?”
There was a long silence on the other end. “This is Fiona Landing. What’s this about?” the woman asked eventually.
Jared instantly forgot what he’d planned to say next. “Um, hi!” he said. “Hello. It’s... I’m a friend of Katie’s.”
“You’re a friend of Katie’s?” the woman asked suspiciously.
“No, I mean... I’m her neighbour. I live across the road? She told me you lived in our house a few years ago...” He trailed off, but Mrs Lading didn’t answer so after a minute he added, “I’ve got some questions about the house.”
“Like what?”
Jared wasn’t sure what to ask that wouldn’t put Fiona off completely. “Did you ever notice anything strange about it?” he asked, for lack of anything better.
“Strange like how?”
“Like... weird noises. Banging, late at night, or music, or a voice...”
Fiona blew out a long breath. “I’ve been trying to forget about it,” she said at last. “I’d hear crying late at night, sometimes. Things would fall off shelves, sometimes the lights went on and off by themselves. It was always just so... creepy. Uncomfortable.”
“I saw something in the bathroom mirror once,” Jared said. “A hand. And once I think... I think I saw a face.”
“That’s... I never saw anything like that,” Fiona said. “I think I would have broken my lease if I had. How long have you lived there?”
“About a month. How long did you...”
“Almost a year. I remember nearly every week something strange would happen.”
Jared tried not to laugh. Nearly every week? He could barely remember a day going by that something strange and terrifying didn’t happen. “Last night, a knife slid across the bench by itself and cut my partner’s hand,” he whispered. “I’m getting really scared.”
“It wasn’t like that when I lived there,” Fiona said after a moment. “Maybe you can get out of your lease - you should call your property manager.”
“We’re not renting the house, we bought it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Jared sighed. “Look, thanks for your time. I’d better go.”
“Okay,” Fiona said, sounding troubled. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will.”
Part Three