But I swore . . . I swore I’d heard a loud creak on the deserted side of the house when I’d made it to the top of the sweeping staircase.
Unease shivered through my senses, and I clung to the banister as I tried to orient myself.
To ground myself.
To latch on to sanity rather than the horror I’d been livin’ for the last three months.
This old house had been my dream. Taking the neglected plantation and turning it into a bed and breakfast. Restoring it to its original beauty.
The gorgeous mansion was three sprawling stories of old-world charm and history. It was hidden on a secluded patch of land about ten minutes outside the small town where I’d grown up.
It was funny how dreams could shift into nightmares in the blink of an eye. How the comfort I’d found in this place could turn into this unbearable feeling of isolation and vulnerability.
“Hello, is anyone there?” My voice trembled as a fresh wave of fear rushed through my senses.
Even with the air conditioner doing its best to pump into the space, I could feel the sweat slick my back in the humid summer air, my breaths panted into the night as I peered into the darkened hallway to the right where I stood at the top of the stairs.
In this spot, the second floor split into two directions. There were four bedrooms to the right and four to the left.
Our rooms were to the left.
Was it my mind playing tricks on me that I’d heard something coming from off to the right?
The problem was, I no longer knew what was real. What was paranoia and what was a true threat.
My heart drummed, this erratic boom, boom, boom that thundered the walls as loud as the thunder that rumbled outside.
Heavy clouds hugged the old plantation while something like chills went skating across my flesh.
Silence echoed back.
But still, those spikes of awareness lifted the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
“Who’s there?” I called again, my voice cracking like a plea.
Nothing. Tears of frustration and helplessness built in my eyes. No doubt, my mind was conjuring things that just weren’t there.
I was nothin’ but a prisoner to shock and sorrow and a debilitating sort of fear.
I hadn’t been able to sleep for more than a minute at a time for the past three months, and an anxious exhaustion had set in.
My body succumbing while my mind continued to race.
Pictures invaded my mind every time I attempted to close my eyes.
Blood. Blood. So much blood.
His eyes so wide.
His body so still.
I wasn’t sure I would ever recover from the way Joseph had died, from the fact my husband had been murdered, my world rocked by grief and guilt and questions. I’d thought that moment was the lowest low. Rock bottom.
That was until the ominous notes had begun to show up, making demands of me that I didn’t know how to meet.
I hadn’t even been able to comprehend how terrifying things might become. How I’d begin to question everything I’d once thought I’d known.
I squeezed my eyes against the visions that assaulted me, shaking myself out of the spiral I was getting ready to stumble into and tried to convince myself everything was fine.
I had to get it together. Hold the splintering pieces together that were close to shattering.
The only thing left of me was dust and debris and desolation.
Except for one thing.
It was the one thing that got me out of bed every morning. The one thing that made me put one foot in front of the other. The one thing that forced me into believin’ that one day, no matter how hard it was right then, everything would be okay.
Clutching my cell phone in my hand, I ignored the fear and turned left down the quieted hall. I gently pushed open the door that had remained open a crack.
A sliver of light lit up her angelic face, a little fist pressed to her chubby cheek, all those curls of wild, dark hair spilled out over her pillow where she slept safe and sound on the pink toddler bed.
My heart pressed at my ribs. The emotion so big I wondered how it didn’t suffocate me.
My purpose.
My life.
The only reason hope still glowed within these walls.
Within me.
When everything felt impossible and wrong.
I edged across her floor and knelt at the side of her bed. My fingers gentled through the soft, soft locks of her hair.
In her arm was tucked the stuffed Beast doll that she’d found buried in my closet and had carried everywhere since, as if it were a lifeline that she didn’t understand.
She sighed in her sleep, and I leaned up to kiss her cheek, whispering my love for what had to have been the millionth time that night.
It was almost a smile on my face when I pushed to my feet.