The Christmas Guest

by Peter Swanson

I flip through the pages, arriving at an entry from December 1989. Exactly thirty years ago. I decide to take a look, not entirely sure that I’m prepared to go back in time to that annus horribilis, that murderous year,

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” In my case the past really is a foreign country. And, yes, they do things very differently

It is not your job to fill any silence that lasts more than three seconds.

I laughed at that, thinking she was making a joke, but I don’t think she was.

pointed out that I didn’t have a scarf (pressing the tip of his finger against my breastbone!)

Scene of the crime, he said,

how I never knew my father (WAAH!) and then my mother died of cancer, and she looked at me with hungry eyes and said, I know I shouldn’t say this but that sounds amazing.

Um...theres your suspect

I was disappointed, only because I wanted to spend time with Adam, but I loved being inside with E as well.

Heavy sapphic vibes

then the new girl suddenly said very loudly, Oh my God, she does look just like her, and E shushed her.

Oh bitch they setting you up!

whatever you call it, had gone missing and then had been found dead in the nearby woods, murdered. Her name was Joanna Davies and that was her mother who was staring at me because I guess I look like her, like the murdered

Why do they think that? Him: No good reason. It’s just that we were friends. The police questioned me because I’d seen her shortly before she went missing,

told E I was going to go read and take a nap but I really wanted to write to you, my Dearest D. It’s looking like I’m in more of a murder mystery now than a romance.

There are LOTS of people who believe that Adam killed that girl at the end of the summer, including the police.

Daniel, in particular, was very funny and very handsome and I noticed that whenever he made everyone at the table laugh he would dart his eyes toward me to gauge my reaction.

I suspect you’ll see a far more impressive display during your week here. Cruelty is his gift. Later, we were reading

When I told him that I should go to bed he put his hand on my thigh and asked me outright if I wanted to go to his bedroom instead. He’s about twice my age

A lot has happened today but two things have happened that seem IMPORTANT.

greenhouse (Oh my God, it’s a conservatory, just like in Clue!)

I didn’t know what to do. Had E really gone home without me?

was halfway to the house when I saw the man come out of the woods.

But instead he lifted a finger and swept it across his neck, then pointed at

Mrs. Chapman passed through the hallway while I was taking off my muddy boots and asked me if I’d seen Emma.

....thats not good

stopping in front of Adam’s bedroom. I would never have gone in, but the door was slightly ajar and when I pressed my hand to it, it swung open silently on its hinges.

There were brown crusty stains down the front of the dress and I had a sudden flash of memory, Emma at the beginning of the term getting a nosebleed at the Dragon and telling everyone that she used to get them all the time. Had she wrecked this dress with a nosebleed? And if so, why was it in Adam’s closet?

She was just someone for when he came back here, I guess, in case he got bored, or in case Claud wasn’t around.

Chance of romance: nonexistent. Chance of gothic thriller murder mystery: growing by the minute.

It’s four in the afternoon and the police have just left after questioning Emma and me.

beside it was a small dirty mat, covered with tiny bones, like chicken bones, and somehow I knew that Mr. Chapman slept in the bed and Mrs. Chapman slept on the mat.

I killed Ashley Smith that Christmas Eve. This was back when I was called Emma Chapman.

I’d never really doubted that he could do it, that he could make Ashley so enamored that she’d be willing to go out at night even with a maniac on the loose, but he’d smirked and told me that it was not going to be a problem. And it hadn’t been.

Not they killed her together?!

The other unsettling moment is when Ashley describes her dream, saying how she saw a mat with bones on it beside my parents’ bed. The thing is, my father did use to make Mummy sleep on the floor beside the bed. It was a way of punishing her.

been found dead on our property, a current of fear ran through my body. I knew that Adam had done it.

He had a pet rabbit named Myra that he doted on all summer. A few days before the two of us were to leave for our respective boarding schools, Adam told me that Myra had died. “I wasn’t going to leave her here with our parents,” he said. “She’s better off now.”

We went behind the cottage, to the edge of the pond, and she was crazy, just out of her mind. She told me that she’d only let me break up with her if I did something really despicable, like hit her. That otherwise she’d just keep trying to win me back.”

“You don’t like my plan?” He was smiling broadly, enjoying himself. “What, your plan where I commit premeditated murder to cover for your accidental murder? No, I don’t like it.”

did what I did for Adam. We were born into a bad family, raised in a house where we didn’t feel safe.

knew that if the situation were reversed, if Adam needed to kill someone in order to help me, he wouldn’t hesitate.

She’ll get a whole lifetime in a week. Jesus, Em, we’ll be doing her a favor.” I’ve thought about Adam’s words quite a bit over the years.

Maybe he really did it all sincerely, a way to make her sacrifice less painful.

I wonder if Adam was simply playing with his prey while she was still alive.

He’s probably dead by now, like Mummy and my father.

At the time I treated it as proof of the weakness of her character, telling myself she was just a slutty American girl who would throw herself at any handsome English boy with an accent. It wasn’t fair, but I was also steeling myself for what I had to

It was the electric thrill that only comes from truly transgressive acts. I

know it was you. I know you only brought me out here to murder me and save your brother. It’s totally obvious.”

Ashley saying that we should have weapons with us. “Like what?” I said. She picked up the largest rock

“Point your light straight down the path,” I said. And as she did I brought the weighty rock down on the crown of her head as hard as I could.

I knelt beside her and hit her two more times in the face. One of her legs kicked, and then she was still. Blood pooled on the cold, hard forest floor.

There had been a time when the thought of not seeing Adam again would have filled me with despair, but that time was now gone. Ever since I’d murdered Ashley Smith in order to ensure his freedom, we’d grown further apart.

Don’t fall in love with the first boy who’s nice to you.

That literally would have savwd you

instead, I enter my apartment, and I am not surprised to find her there, my Christmas guest.