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She thought about her life the past few days. April knew she could lie and tell this man that she did have a husband back home. But what good would it do pretending? “A daughter. And I used to have a husband.”
“I see.” He said it plainly, matter of fact.
April nodded along as she ate her burger. As the two talked, Nigel eventually sat down opposite her. “What’s brought you into town?”
She dreaded this question. Again, she would be laughed at, ridiculed for wanting to come here. “My last name is Faith. I’m-”
“Oh! You live in that house? Beautiful property. I was really sad to see it left all these years. Glad you’re back.”
He was so genuine that April almost teared up at the sincerity. No one had talked to her like that all day. “Yeah. Happy to be back.”
April finished her burger as fast as she could, her hunger finally subsiding as she slipped the last few fries into her mouth. Nigel slid her card to Hank behind the bar. When she received the check she noticed that she’d gotten some kind of discount because it wasn’t as much as she was expecting.
Nigel stayed seated with her until she finished the last sip of her wine.
A few more patrons filtered into the bar, calling out Nigel’s name. “Well, I better get going. Thanks for the talk. It’s always nice to see a new face around here.” As he stood, he never broke eye contact with her. Even as he backed up to the bar with people trying to get his attention, his eyes never left her. “I hope to see you again real soon.”
CHAPTER NINE
Darkness crept into every corner of the house the first night April slept in the living room. She knew there wasn’t room to fully set up her tent in the corner of the space, so she instead made a fort out of blankets and sat beneath them.
The air mattress would have to do for now, but there had to be something else that could make it a bit more home-y in her little makeshift room. She shuffled around on the mattress, trying to find a position that worked for her. When she couldn’t get herself to settle in, she decided to sit on the edge of the bed and think instead.
It took her longer than she thought to get things set up and comfortable. She’d swept the floor and mopped it with a wet paper towel, but it still felt grimy. It was something about seeing the place like this, with all its littered contents. It made April feel gross.
Her feet slid across the wooden floors, trying not to think about how scared she was in a house that once felt more like home than anywhere she’d ever been. The wind howled outside. It pushed the branches of the trees together and she listened to them sway and crash over and over again.
April’s feet swayed in the same rhythm as her mind began to wander. She thought about this house, how good it was to her for so many years. This place used to look like a palace of some kind. It was Cinderella’s castle for a young girl like April.
And now, she was terrified of it. April willed herself to be brave, but it was hard to pretend in a place like that. After the day that she’d had, she should have welcomed sleep with open arms. Yet here she was, struggling to lay down.
Her eyes began to glaze over, but she willed them open again. She had to make sure this place was safe.
Her body slumped closer to the floor, feeling the weight of the world pressing her down, until she felt something on the tip of her toes.
Something smooth tickled her leg. “No!” she screamed as loud as she could. April’s body rolled onto the mattress. She had no idea what had just touched her. Was it the spider coming back to bite her? A possum or raccoon that got into the house?
She crawled slowly to the edge of the bed with the lantern in her hand. Lifting it up in a fit of fake bravery, she pulled back the blankets to find… nothing. There was nothing where her foot just was.
Nothing had crawled up her leg to bite her. Nothing was there.
April, determined to find it, threw the blankets around the fort searching for anything that could have touched her just then. Not even a dust mite was found.
So again she sat on the edge of the blow up mattress she’d just bought that day and placed her feet on the cold hardwood floors. She maneuvered her feet in every direction until she felt it again.
Something brushed up against her, smooth and silky.
This time, instead of panicking and pulling herself away, April slowly grabbed the lantern at her side. She held it up to her feet and examined the area. And finally, she found what she was looking for.
The blanket hung up for the fort had blown in the wind, tickling her ankles, and sending her into a frenzy. At least it wasn’t her worst case scenario, she thought. Still, she was disappointed that she went to all that trouble just for a little throw blanket.
And after it all, April understood that she was still scared. Not of the blanket, but of everything else surrounding her.
If she closed her eyes, she was afraid that something would happen. That spider was still looming in the distance, probably watching her right now. It was waiting for her to close her eyes so it could come and crawl all over her.
April’s body shivered just thinking about it. She never did find the spider; maybe she wouldn’t ever see it again. Her arms clutched her knees up to her chest and held her just a little bit tighter as she worried about getting sleep that night.
It wasn’t only the spider that was frightening April. The house settled at night. It creaked and moaned.
