Creativity Inspired: A Haunted Story
This week I’ve been following an instagram challenge (called the 1wordpromptchallenge created by @mjvaughn1_author) that offers a single word to inspire that particular day’s post. Several years ago, I participated, and the process inspired two new books, one of which was The Stories Stars Tell. Since I’m between projects, I thought I would participate again to get that creativity moving. Here’s the posts for the last 4 days combined into one piece. The words were punish, uncover, plaster, and disrespect:
The attic door opened with a horrific creak as if its bones were breaking. Layers of dust rained down, and I ducked my head, squeezing my eyes shut to keep anything from getting inside them. With a cough I waved a hand back and forth in front of my face.
“What is it?”
I glanced over my shoulder at my younger brother—by seven minutes—behind me. “Does it look like I’ved done anything more than pop the attic opening?” Sometimes he was exasperating—so scared of everything—but then I couldn’t blame him. Not really. There was a lot to be scared of in the world, and we knew it better than anyone.
“You don’t have to be a jerk, Rue,” he muttered. “This is going to trigger my asthma.”
I sighed. “Cover your mouth and nose with your t-shirt. I’ll climb up and see what’s up there, grab something, then we can take it back.” I unfolded the old ladder, the joints of which required a bit of extra tugging to get it unfolded and moving again.
We actually weren’t supposed to be in the house at all. Mom’s orders. Only Forrest—our older brother—dared us, and despite Ren’s best effort to play it off and keep us cooped in at the apartment, I couldn’t back down from a challenge. It hadn’t helped that Forrest had been playing video games with his friends Kenji and Will—and I thought they were both really cute though Kenji had the edge on Will.
“Bring me a trinket from the attic,” Forrest said, his game paused as he goaded us—well me anyway—into taking on the challenge. As summer stretched slowly toward the first days of sophomore year, boredom had kicked in. The idea of sneaking into the old house to do some exploring sounded like an intriguing way to pass some time.
Ren had followed me, because he always did. When we’d snuck in through a loose board near the back door, he’d insisted we could take anything really. “Forrest will never know.”
“I will!” I’d said and moved deeper into the dark house, the flashlight swishing back and forth as dust motes filtered the light.
Now, as we stood in an upstairs hall at the ladder looking up into the even darker space of the attic, Ren said, “I want to go on record that I still think this is a bad idea.”
“You already went on record,” I replied.
“Mom’s going to be pissed that we're here at all. And that ladder doesn’t look sturdy. And when if you get a horrible bout of allergies–”
“Mom doesn’t have to know–”
“She will if you fall and break a bone. And if I break one because you’ve fallen on me. I don’t feel like being punished for the rest of the summer.”
“Why doesn’t Mom want us in the house?” I asked.
This, of course, was the strangest demand to me.
The house—hundreds of years old—was a plot of land tucked back into a copse of trees from which our family had never strayed. Though no one in the family had lived on the lot or in the house for at least a generation. Grandma Lily claimed it was because the house was unfit for habitation. “Falling apart,” she’d said.
“Why hasn’t anyone sold it?” I’d asked.
“There’s a provision,” she’d said.
Truthfully, that’s all anyone said. “There’s a provision.”
“In the will?” I’d asked Mom at dinner a few weeks ago. “That’s what everyone says. There’s a provision.’”
She’d looked at me, tilted her head a moment and then said, “Yes. Exactly.”
Only I knew she was lying. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but it was clear enough.
My fascination with the house began back when I was around ten. And at the same time Ren developed his aversion to it. I was prone to asking Grandma about it because she’d lived there until she’d been about five. But getting her to share anything about that time was like trying to dig for treasure. “I don’t remember,” she’d said, only when she’d slid toward the twilight of her life, she began to let clues slip.
The house—Ivy Manor as it was technically called—had been built nearly two hundred years prior. Some ancestor back in the dark ages of colonialism staked the land, then passed it down through generations. And though it had been home to many, not a soul had lived in it since my grandmother was a girl. It hadn’t been sold.
The first time Ren and I snuck in, we’d been thirteen. It was like a dusty, musty museum, everything still in its place as if the family had just walked out the door and locked it behind them. The furniture was coated with dust. Trinkets covered shelves layered with grime so thick, it was knuckle deep in some places. A piano tucked into an alcove near the stairs was warped and most of the keys wouldn’t even play a note. Then there were the picture frames of frowning strangers.
Everything about Ivy Manor was a mystery, one I wanted to uncover. But Ren was content to let this mystery remain one.
The first step up onto the ladder cracked under my weight—
“Rue!” Ren shouted.
My shirt tightened around my chest and neck as I flew backward into my brother’s arms, my back plastered against his skinny chest. He’d yanked me back against him, protecting me as usual, his arms tightening around me.
“Please, Rue. I don’t think you should go up there.”
I straightened, spinning to look at him. Though we were fraternal twins, everyone said we looked alike. Dark hair, dark eyes, freckles sprinkled across our cheeks and noses. There were impressions of our older brother, Forrest, in Ren’s features hinting at how he might look when he was eighteen: large eyes framed with long dark lashes, full dark eyebrows that made him look broody, and high cheekbones. His nose was a bit delicate and its triangle shape made Ren appear kind, which he was. Everyone said we looked so much like our dad.
It pained me to think of him.
“Why are you so jumpy.”
“Have you ever thought there’s a freaking reason Mom has told us to stay away?” His dark brows crashed between his eyes. “A reason that Grandma Lily left as a girl and why the family hasn’t ever sold it?”
I shrugged. “Sure. But don’t tell me you believe in like haunted shit, Ren.”
“It isn’t about whether I believe, Rue–” he said my name like an accusation– “but rather understanding the why behind it all.”
I looked up at the black hole in the ceiling, longing to climb the ladder and inspect the space overhead, but there was a part of me that knew Ren was right. Sure he might have been the overly cautious twin, but he’d been pretty good at keeping us alive. Whereas I would have had us in the hospital probably more times than I had fingers. I looked back at him. “Fine.”
He took a giant breath. “Just grab something else.”
“Fine, but I swear, if Forrest says anything, I’m blaming you.”
“Acceptable.”
I refolded the ladder, its groaning loud as I pushed the hatch back up with a thud.
When I turned toward Ren, wiping my hands on my shorts, he was looking over my shoulder, his eyes giant, and his face pale. “What is it?” I asked.
But he didn’t answer. His face didn’t move, his mouth frozen in a terrified grimace. Everything about him was petrified with fear. I couldn’t even tell that he was breathing.
“Ren?” I whispered, reaching for my brother and grabbing hold of his arms to shake him.
My heartbeat elevated in my chest, to terrified to turn and look at what Ren was staring at behind me.
Chills raced up my spine knowing that whatever Ren was fixated on had him catatonic. Rather than paralyze myself by looking, I pushed against my brother's chest to get him moving. Saving him from whatever had him locked up was the priority. “Move,” I shouted.
A cold feeling slipped up my spine like dry, bony fingertips, and I shivered.
“Move!” I screamed, but my brother seemed stuck.. “Ren!” I shook him.
He blinked, turning his head to look at me, as if resetting his brain, then grabbed my hand. “Run!”
We raced down the hallway, took the narrow stairwell several stairs at a time, and shot out into the formal foyer of the old house. Even as fast as we were running, however, those cold impressions lingered against my skin. In my ear I heard my name breathed, beckoning me to turn around, “Rue–”
“Hurry!” I yelled, pushing against my brother and refusing to look over my shoulder.
“I see you,” the cold whisper murmured in my ear. “I see you both.”
Ren jerked me through the kitchen to the back porch to our entrance point, shoved me through first, then followed. The board slid shut with a smack against the frame of the house, a plume of dust with it.
We scrambled back over the porch, now on our asses, breathing harshly, and watching that entry point for movement. The woods around the house were quiet, not even a breeze stirred the green leaves on the verge of turning yellow as fall knocked to be let in.
“Oh shit. Oh shit,” I chanted, my chest heaving with a mixture of exertion and terror. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and reset, not knowing exactly what had happened, but understanding the feral fear coursing though me was real enough. But I didn’t dare, my eyes fixed on the spot. Just in case.
“What are you doing!” a voice growled behind us at the same time a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
Ren and I screamed, flinging our hands out and connecting with whoever was behind us.
“It was a joke!” Forrest snapped, jerking back and bumping into his friends behind him. Kenji and Will exchanged glances.
“That was so disrespectful,” Ren said, and though he wasn’t crying, I could hear the tears in his voice.
“Disrespectful?” Forrest asked, then laughed. “You should see your faces.” Our older brother glanced at his friend who chuckled with him. “So worth it.”
I looked over my shoulder at the house, at the board where we’d climbed inside and then escaped whatever had been saying my name in my ear. Though I wasn’t prone to being afraid, whatever had just happened had me shaken. “There’s something in there,” I mumbled, and looked over at Ren, who’s look matched my own.
(Please note: all of the images have been taken from Pinterest from various sources).
