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No one should have to live like this.
“Alright. Uh, okay.” Victoria sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, and I’m immediately harder than stone. I wait until her back is turned before I subtly adjust myself in my jeans. Thank goodness Orion is already following her. He doesn’t turn around to give me a look of disgust as he parts the weeds in the yard to get through, but I can feel his disappointment radiating off him like an overheated radiator.
I walk quickly to catch up, and even between the noxious scent of cow manure wafting from somewhere down the road, the pungent aroma of crushed weeds, and the dusty smell of the gravel road, I can smell peaches.
I swear I can smell peaches. Or maybe apricots? Nectarines? It could be any of those things, but I don’t see any fruit trees around. I know for sure it’s not Orion, so it can only be Victoria.
I try very hard to keep my mouth from hanging open as she shows us around the house, taking a wide berth so we can see it from every angle. It’s just the house. There are no outbuildings on the property. I assume there were some at one time, probably a shed or an old barn, but they’ve been torn down over the years.
“I inherited it,” Victoria explains, her small hands cutting through the air to punctuate her words. She doesn’t sound entirely happy about it. “My parents gave it to me as a gift. Well, actually, they just didn’t want me living in their basement anymore. They let me stay rent-free while I was in college, but after I graduated, they gave me this place to clear me out. I swear they were, in fact, making a point about how disappointed they were that I didn’t go into something lucrative like business or law or that I didn’t become a doctor. My brother has a business degree, and he works for a big corporate company. He’s happy, even if his soul is being sucked out on a daily basis. Anyway, I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was little, so that’s what I pursued. They said I needed a nice place to write, that they were looking after me, but our whole family knows this place is haunted. Freaking frack frick. Just look at it. And this is just the outside. You haven’t even seen the inside yet.”
Orion shuffles his feet uncomfortably. The sun is beating down on all of us, and I’m starting to soak through my cotton T-shirt. “Shall we?”
Victoria nods. “Yeah. Just watch the porch. Both of them are…um, I’d say they’re ghost booby-trapped, but that sounds ridiculous, so I’ll just stick to they’re rotten beyond belief.”
She takes us through the back since the porch is smaller and lower to the ground. I can see another big hole, and I wonder if she fell through it. I suddenly hate that porch, and my protective instincts come surging to the forefront. As Victoria carefully steps over it, followed by Orion, I flip off the bastard porch and enter the murky dimness of the house.
It’s obvious she’s done her best to clean up. The dust and cobwebs I was expecting have been swept away. There isn’t much furniture around. The kitchen comes first—the faded pink and white cupboards sagging, the white and black linoleum peeling, and the white farmhouse sink stained with rust from the ancient tap. The appliances are so ancient that they’d probably fetch a reasonable price just about anywhere. I wonder if they work.
“This one is okay, from what I can tell.” Victoria hesitates, then points out a closed door at the far end. “That’s the bathroom. I won’t make you go in there, but there’s something wrong with the toilet. It’s very frightening. I tried the water in the tub, but nothing came out, and I don’t have any water in the kitchen either. I don’t know if a line burst under the house or…I just don’t know. That’s the state of this.” She walks on quickly, and we shuffle after her.
She’s light, and her quick steps make me feel even more like a clumsy hippo lumbering through her house. The floorboards groan violently under our steps, and Orion shoots me look after look as we walk through the living room and then up a shady-as-hell set of stairs. Victoria points out the boarded-up windows, the plaster falling from the ceiling, and the walls coming away to reveal the slatted wood beneath. There doesn’t seem to be much insulation in here. I recall seeing an ancient wood stove in the dark corner of the kitchen, and I wonder if that’s all the house has to heat it. There certainly is no AC in the place. Obviously. And the further we go up, the more we all start to cook in the heat.
