My hands are shaking as I write this and I don’t know how much time I have left so if I have any mistakes, just know that I tried before it was too late.
I’m Vanessa, I’m thirty-six years old and though I’m not from here, I live in a lost place in England. A few years ago, I traveled to a more populated city looking for opportunities, without much more to lose other than my clothes and dignity, so when I heard about a rich family that was hiring staff for the house I applied immediately. It offered a place to stay and food while also paying a little money for this full-time job. I was over the moon with the idea of living in this enormous white mansion that had nearly as many rooms as a castle would, not to mention that I knew the others working there would be like a family.
Naturally when I got the interview I grew increasingly nervous as the minutes passed, the man talking to me was Edmond Theodore Ziesser, the head and owner of the house. I had studied him and he was one of the most successful in his family, and of course, loaded with money. True to the picture people had painted of him, his voice was intimidating as a director’s while his light blue eyes remained freezing me, cold as ice. His expression rarely changed by a frown or a notably fake smile, he was serious as if displeased all the time, which honestly could make anyone uncomfortable and yet he didn’t seem to care.
Surprisingly despite the poor development of the meeting I was hired, beginning three days after. I soon came to know the people there. From the other members of the staff to the family itself. Miss Ziesser was Judith Evelyne Le’Clair and I suppose I could start describing this lady with her albinism, contrasting to her husband’s dark brown hair, she had the palest shade of white I have ever seen in a person, and that, combined with long eyelashes decorating beautiful downturned eyes gave her a serene, wise vibe, though the next thing I noticed was their color, her irises where red or somewhere between that and fuchsia, attention-seeking and intense. It was a weird combination that made me reckon of animals, but what totally got me was their son. Ren Ziesser, such a simple name for a rich kid. He had purplish but the shape of his mother’s eyes and features, as well as his dad’s portion of genetics too. He wasn’t albine but had really clear hair, with brown eyebrows and eyelashes a little darker. He did have delicate, but defined attributes, with a height that in the future would for sure beat Miss Ziesser’s. He was the quietest of them three, though there weren’t many chances to talk to him either, he mostly spent his days studying and being trained for the business, and I heard he was very clever, but that was about it.
I was told the reason they were hiring new people was that they were in need of more staff since the previous ones had started to quit suddenly, without any explanation. I have to admit this was kind of a red flag, but to be honest, it was too much of a good deal to care about this.
The first day I was instructed by and met most of the others working there, being told what to do and how to do it was a relief, since they were mostly very polite and kind. The only thing that I was not too convinced about was the treatment that they received from the family, because every time they would come across any of them they would seem… scared, overly cautious. I wondered why, and not afraid of asking, I did so. Yet I was answered with something more intriguing than before, a list of homemade rules, advices followed by most of the ones there, a short list, but a specific one. It went like this:
1- Don’t ask why. If you’re ordered something, just follow it to the letter.
2- Don’t ask about other family members.
3- If Miss Ziesser talks to you, make clear that you’re listening while also doing your task.
4- If Young Mr. Ziesser ask you for help, don’t answer and go away as quickly as possible.
5- If any of the parents ask “If you have heard or seen anything” say no.
6- If you hear a fight, get away.
7- If any of Young Mr. Ziesser’s teachers asks how he’s doing; you must answer fine.
8- Whatever happens in the mansion, stays in the mansion.
Being given all of this while I cleaned was one thing, but processing it was other entirely different, not only was this shady, but also harsh on some topics. And yet I guessed every home had its quirks so I kept my cool and followed them as a part of my job.
Caring for a mansion is hard, every day was exhausting and I would end up so tired I barely had time to share before going to my room, but now is when it all started. I remember this particular night, I had been there for about two weeks and I was walking to my bedroom. It was raining, not cats and dogs but definitely not lightly either, just a regular kind of rain to clean the roofs and water all the plants. My feet crawled across the marble floors as I tried to reach my door, the lights turned off as I passed the others, seeing a fainted glow squeezing through the lock from time to time of the people who were still awake. I was calm, sleepy even, until I heard something. There was an opening sound and a loud thud coming from a window behind me, it was a few meters away turning right. No one seemed to care, so I went to look what was going on by myself, waking up a little. When I noticed there was a wet trace on the floor I sighed, thinking about how someone would have to clean that, but soon I realized what this would also mean. Someone had broken in.
I quickly ran up to the opening not letting the cold breeze paralyze me and shut it as silently as I could, decided to ask for help on what to do in this kind of situation, I went and knocked the first door, but the light inside turned off, and when I tried to open it was locked. So I tried on the next one, but it was the same. I began talking, explaining the situation and trying to get anyone to come out, but no one seemed to want to get involved. It was only when I heard footsteps coming to this direction that I realized how loud I had probably been, my petition then becoming increasingly insistent and impatient, scared of what might happen, and yet not a door opened. So I figured it was enough and sprinted to my room, closing and locking the door as soon as I got in, with my lights off and a jump to bed, I covered myself in sheets before peeking from my place, restless. The footsteps, ones that sounded like high-heeled shoes, stopped before the door and I watched as something tried to open. The doorknob moved from left to right, up and down and to the front, I just closed my eyes waiting for it to stop, the rectangular piece of wood trembling for such strength being used to try to open it, I grew so scared I started crying, but just when I thought it would crack open, another door from behind did. Everything went silent.
Next day and I learned that one of my colleagues had left at some point in the night, I had fallen asleep like that so I couldn’t really tell when, so when I asked about what had happened to the others they just answered I should sleep earlier, or that they didn’t hear anything, which was impossible. But as someone told me to leave it, I did.
Perhaps in the end I was too tired and hallucinated such events. I tried to convince myself of that, but it turned out impossible when I found, cleaning one of the bedroom’s hallways, a necklace. It had one of those circles where you put pictures inside, it was of him and his wife, the one who had left. This time I didn’t tell anyone, I had already understood that no one wanted to get involved in anything but their routines. I was on my own. I was about to slide it in my pocket when someone touched my shoulder, a white glove.
‘Excuse me, miss, that doesn’t belong to you’ he said, staring straight at me. It was Young Mr. Ziesser.
I froze as there wasn’t any rule for this, and I didn’t want to appear a thief either, so I nodded and gave it to him, apologizing.
‘Who’s is it?’ I asked as gently as possible, but all I received was a subtle fake smile and silence as he left to go to his room.
‘What’s wrong with Young Mr. Ziesser?’ I questioned to my co-worker, rubbing the clothes of a shirt to clean it neatly in the washing room later. She looked around and took a breath before speaking in a quiet voice.
‘We’re not supposed to talk about this but… I think he is recovering.’ She affirmed.
‘Recovering from what?’ I looked at her, confused.
‘He used to appear with bruises and stuff. Miss and Mister Ziesser are very severe when it comes to him. Oh, you should have heard how he screamed when he was a child, he couldn’t stop crying while we did his makeup.’ She spoke completely focused on what she was doing, hanging the clothes now for them to dry. I just listened, horrified. Did all of them know about this and did nothing? I remained silent for a moment, but before I could say anything, we heard a loud scream, calling for anybody who could help. It was Judith.
We ran to where the sound was originated only to discover her with a broken glass of wine crying uncontrollably on the floor, pointed by the sun rays that got through the window as if they were a reflector.
‘My glass, my sister’s glass…!’ She cried, trying to put the pieces together with her hands. We went and helped her to stand up, but she didn’t want to get away from there. ‘You have to do something, please, do something…!’ She glanced to a man past us, Mr. Ziesser, who ordered us to take her to her room. So with four of us we did exactly that, and eventually, after throwing hands and some objects, she calmed down.
‘She was always… mentally unstable.’ My colleague explained as we cleaned the mess. Of course she was, I wouldn’t even discuss that, but no one knew exactly what she had, there were only rumors. So my chance got ruined and now I only could ponder about what happened once in bed.
So the following week I kept going back to how unhappy everyone seemed, for the way Edmond had referred to his wife I could see he didn’t have not even the littlest scrap of love for her. The lady was crazy, the kid surely traumatized and everyone afraid of them. Keeping all that in my mind, I could rationalize about how probably the woman had scared me the other time, perhaps she was the one that broke in and tried to open my door, but I couldn’t tell.
One night I tried to prove my theory, I stayed up until late and I began wandering through the tall-roofed, white and empty echoing hallways, making the long way to my room until I heard a voice, Young Mr. Ziesser’s. He was talking to somebody, but by the time I approached and peeked from a corner, they were gone. It hadn’t been Miss Ziesser’s voice, it was another woman’s, yet none of my co-workers were awake.
‘Don’t hurt this one, she’s new here, it’ll be odd.’ I heard, whispered by the teenager. And at that moment I knew I had to leave, so I began to quietly walk backwards until I got on track to my bedroom again, and it would have been it, if not for the table I moved. It made a screeching noise against the floor and that was my signal to run, but the footsteps that followed behind me were so fast… that couldn’t be human.
There wasn’t any choice but to hide in some room, yet I couldn’t just do it without solving the mistery, so I hurried to a random door and hid behind it, hoping for whoever chased me to not find me. She wasn’t Miss Ziesser. It was hard to see in the dark, but her irises glowed a saturated coral orange, her figure being tall, skinny and delicate. She was wearing strange clothes, like victorian style, as if she was in a costume from the past. And playing with her almost white light blue hair she looked around and said, with a gesture of a hand, corpse’s pale.
‘She has gotten away. What shall we…?’ She couldn’t finish the phrase, for all the running had captured someone else’s attention. A man approached, making her turn, and a millisecond before I shut the door she glanced right at me. She apparently disappeared, because Mr. Ziesser only pushed and kicked his son, yelling at him for staying up late. As soon as both left, I did the same. That night, I had trouble sleeping, I just kept on reckoning about the final glance and felt observed. That couldn’t be human at all.
The very next day I came across Young Mr Ziesser, but noticed no bruises or signs of what had happened, he didn’t even look at me as I cleaned. It was freaky, but I couldn’t have possibly imagined what was to come at night.
That night everything was silent, I had decided it was enough of just saying it was fishy and time to move on, to take the next step and leave before something else happened. So I prepared a note and was packing my stuff in my room when I heard something outside. I stopped rolling those old but dear clothes and remained like a statue for a second, listening. When I couldn’t distinguish anything else I left my bedroom and headed to the window to watch. They were Mr. and Miss Ziesser, going towards their son, who waited patiently until they got near him. I wondered what kind of game was he playing, I mean, he knew they would punish him for whatever he was doing, so… But I didn’t have time to finish, as his voice raised and he began talking to them, he told them how much he had suffered, how much they tortured him and how it affected him, he gave them the chance to apologize, but as his father grabbed him by the arm he instead pushed down and got him to the ground, kicking so hard beyond what he would be able to with that body that he rolled through the grass. Then he looked at his mother, and a fight later she was dead, on the ground, with her limbs twisted in all the wrong directions. His dad followed, with tears on his cheeks he watched the light leave his eyes for what felt like an eternity after making a punching bag out of his body, finally suffocating him. They looked like all their bones were broken, as if they were mere toys who had filling inside of them, but were soft. And when all of that finished, she came. She hugged him as he cried, telling him he had done the right thing, and I would have left again but her sight… her sight got me, and it was so bone-chilling that all I could do was faint.
The screams of pain and agony resonated in my head as I gained consciousness, all the pictures I had seen too coming back, it wasn’t until I heard his voice that I reacted.
‘Vanessa?’ he had kneeled down next to me and was staring. ‘Are you alright?’
I nodded, terrified, though I figured it would be better to hide it. ‘Did you see or hear anything?’ He asked.
And at that moment I knew why were the rules made. She was there, the lady, observing us from outside, narrowing her eyes so she could see better. I turned my eyes to him and opened my mouth.
‘No, did something happen? It might just have been my low pressure.’
He accompanied me to my bedroom. Where I felt the walls asphyxiating me so bad I couldn’t sleep one bit. I left the next day. I soon learned that both parents had gone missing since that day, no one knew how or why. And I didn’t tell a single word. I disappeared from the radars, moved out and never went back.
Of course the lady I had seen had something to do with what happened, maybe she was manipulating the boy or encouraged him to do it, but for all I know that night he did something I can’t explain. All that strength, and how fast he and she moved… they weren’t human. They just simply weren’t. I kept contact with the rest of my colleagues, yet one by one they went missing too. I didn’t want to relate the facts, but now that the only one left disappeared, is 3 AM and someone is knocking at my door, I can see a coral orange reflection on my window and I don’t know If I’m going to survive.