Once my soup was heated, I took my things down the hallway and shut myself in my room. It was on the ground floor, the smallest in the house, and not really a bedroom at all. It was more like an old, unused utility closet which Vee tried to pawn off as a bedroom. There was barely a foot between the bed and the walls, and it only had a small window above the bed.
Before Dad died, I slept in a big room upstairs. However, several weeks after he passed, Vee made up some story about mould in order to move me into my current minuscule lodgings. I suspected the small cruelties brought a tiny sliver of happiness to her black heart, but I didn’t complain. I was biding my time.
I’d be her whipping girl. For now.
Sitting on the thin mattress, I ate my dinner while completing my Maths and Geography homework, before settling into my favourite subject, History. I loved learning everything about the past, but not for the notable events or the wars. I liked to study how culture and technology changed, but human behaviour rarely did.
Psychology had become something of an obsession of mine lately, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to discover. Maybe it was because Vee was my stepmother and trying to figure out the reasons behind her actions would keep even the most qualified psychologist busy scribbling down theories and notes.
Take her hatred for me, for example. I’d never done anything to harm her, but she hated me, nonetheless. There was also the way she treated her mother, Sylvia, who was in her sixties and suffering from multiple sclerosis. Her body was under attack by its own immune system, and she was confined to a wheelchair. Her carer, Irene, came every morning to help her through her daily routine, while Vee more or less ignored her completely.
If my dad were still alive and had an illness like Sylvia’s, I’d spend every waking moment making sure he was cared for. I missed him so much some days that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’d give anything to have him back.
Dad married Veronica when I was fourteen, so what little he had went to her after he died. She also received a settlement from the car accident, as well as his life insurance money. A modest sum was set aside for me, but even though I turned eighteen last year, I wouldn’t receive my inheritance until I finished school. That was the stipulation set out in Dad’s will. It was frustrating because, while legally an adult and well able to take care of myself, without any form of income or place to live I had no other choice but to remain with Vee for the time being.
I tried to focus on the positives though. One day soon I’d finally be free of this big house, where the ghosts of old horrors seemed to echo in the night.
I didn’t know much about the history of Ard na Mara, except for its name which in Irish meant a house on high overlooking the sea. It sounded pretty, but aside from the view there was very little pretty about this place. I could feel its corruption in my bones. Horrible things had happened here. Dreadful things. The six-bedroom Victorian residence sat close to the precipice of a cliff on the east coast, overlooking the vast Irish Sea. Sometimes I dreamt of a woman running from the house toward the cliff and jumping to her watery death.
Was death less scary than what she was running from? The thought made me shiver. Other times I had nightmares of a man drowning. He struggled for breath but was pushed down by strong, disembodied hands.
I wrenched my thoughts away from my frequent and disturbing dreams and concentrated back on my homework. A few hours later, Vee knocked on my door as she passed down the hallway, her voice high-pitched and airy, like a ghostly banshee.
“Don’t forget about the guest bedroom, Estella,” she called, and I grimaced, having forgotten. I’d been just about to fall asleep, still in my uniform with a textbook resting beneath my chin.
Grumpily, I got up, rubbed my eyes with my fingertips, and went to gather some cleaning supplies. Upstairs, in the guest bedroom at the far back of the house, I switched on the light, illuminating the large room and high ceilings. The curtains were open, revealing a dark view of the sea beyond. I remembered my dream of a woman diving off the cliff, and a shiver trickled down my spine.
It smelled a little musty in here, like all the rooms in this house. I opened the window and let the cold night air flow in, the sound of waves crashing against the shore eerie amid the quietness.