This is an update to this post - Why does my boyfriend have things from my childhood in his house? (2) : nosleep (reddit.com).
I’m writing this in my mother’s house - thank you for the kind words and advice. I don’t really know what to think anymore, though.
I was sat in the bathroom, stunned after the revelation about the desk lid. For some reason, however, even though I was still experiencing a deep sense of fear, a certain amount of clarity came through at the same time. Strange moments throughout the day that initially flew under my radar suddenly made sense - like the conversations I had with George and Beryl, when their faces seemed to hide something. Or the hushed conversation I intruded on at breakfast.
Emma op-
Of course. Why hadn’t I realised it sooner? Tom was clearly saying that I had OPENED the lid! He was telling his parents what I had seen! This clearly meant that the entire family was in on this! I already knew that someone had put it back, and now it was frighteningly clear that I literally had NO IDEA who. All three of them could have easily have slinked back upstairs and done it at God knows when.
But, the biggest concern, as you all were saying in the comments, was not who did it. No. At this exact moment in time it was how I was going to get out of here. The theorising could wait once I wasn’t in a literal lion’s den.
If you remember I was asleep for almost the entirety of the journey here - which was 3 hours on the road, give or take - and the only thing I vaguely remember was Tom driving out of our street and gradually onto the motorway. The rest of the journey was a blur, with me either in a half-asleep state or completely knocked-out. I got out of the bathtub and peeked through the small window in the bathroom. It was extremely dark outside, not just because of it being the time that it was, but also because of the thick vegetation that surrounded us - woods that seemed to stretch for miles. At this point I’m pretty sure I was close to hyperventilating. How was I supposed to navigate my way out of here? All I knew about the location was the time it took to get here from our flat.
A stroke of reason hit me. My phone had a built in GPS and location tracker/map, like most phones. I proceeded to open the app and saw that the pinpoint was simply on a small grey box, surrounded by green. We were very far from the rest of the world.
I began zooming out, slowly. There was a main road that ran past the house, which was clearly where we had come from. I figured that I could just walk the way we came until I reached a petrol station, bus stop or literally any identifiable area. It wasn’t the safest option but I figured that it would be the easiest since I couldn’t ask someone to get me due to my limited knowledge. From there, I would call someone - a taxi, or even my mother. I didn’t want to drag her out here in the middle of the night, especially so far from home, but seeing her face would put me at ease.
I put my thoughts on pause. First, getting out was the main thing to do. I edged out the bathroom, slowly. Since we were only going to stay for a weekend all I had brought was a small rucksack, so retrieving my stuff from around the bedroom was easy. I shoved it all in to my bag, slipped on my shoes and threw my coat over my pajamas. Using my phone light, I navigated my way out of the room, where Tom was thankfully still sound asleep. He would wake up with my side of the bed cold and my possessions gone. That gave me a sick satisfaction.
The desk was still in its original position, and I felt like it was taunting me as I exited.
Once on the landing, I paused. I knew that George and Beryl slept on the floor above, and stopped to listen if they were awake, or for any sounds at all. Nothing. Faint snoring was the only thing audible, and I began to make my way down the stairs, one by one.
Creak.
The sixth step made a sound that, in the silent state of the house, felt like a cannon. I almost yelped, then bit on my tongue, clenching every muscle in my body and praying that nobody had heard. Tom’s snores stopped, and so did my heart - but thankfully resumed after a few seconds. I then practically sprinted the way down, not stopping, and finally reached the doors in the foyer.
Locked. Of course - wealthy family, older couple? There was no way they would keep their doors open, even if they lived in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know where the keys were kept, either, and setting off an alarm would be suicide. Then I remembered - the kitchen door that led into the garden. All I would have to do is exit, and then run to the main road in front of the house and go on from there.
Still holding my phone as a light, I made my way to the kitchen, and got to the door. It was locked, too, but I used my hairpin to let me out this time, and emerged into the cool night air. I ran, around the house and onto the driveway at the front. Hoisting myself over the small fence and onto the pavement that ran parallel to it, I let out a breath that I had probably been holding since I opened that stupid thing. All that was left, I thought grimly, was a long walk where I wasn’t sure I was going to end up.
I began walking, trying to use my phone data to try and get some sense of where I was. The connection, as expected, was extremely poor. At this point my phone might as well as been a brick. I decided that using it as a light source was the best option - all there was otherwise was the sliver of the moon.
Turning around, the house dominated the landscape. It looked like a spectral, something out of Gothic literature. Like you would blink and it would disappear. Something I would have found intriguing a few days ago, but now made unease run down my back like a colony of ants.
I shivered and walked on.
The path I walked was winding, a conventional country road fringed with tall grass and wildflowers. More than once I had to stop and reorient myself as it kept bending, a sense of claustrophobia settling in. All I could really see was the night sky and a few metres in front of me. It was something out of a slasher movie. I was half expecting a man in a mask to emerge from the grass with a chainsaw - but, to be honest, at that point I would have rather had that happen to me than spend another night in the house.
After around forty minutes of this, I was utterly, completely lost - or at least that’s how it felt, with the disorientating feeling of the road and lack of location services, let alone any connection. I was ready to curl up in a ball on the side of the road and cry.
Yet, in the distance, I could see a light flashing. It took me a few minutes to register what it was, especially due to the sleep deprivation I was experiencing, but it was unmistakably neon. Something man-made, like an advertisement or sign. My heart sped up, adrenaline taking over my body as I broke into a run, barely registering that I was in the middle of the road - but I hadn’t seen a soul drive past, so what was the worry?
The road widened, grass and flowers still flanking me but to less of an extent. And there, in front of me, was a petrol station. I had never been so grateful for something so mundane. The light was from a a sign, like I had thought, advertising a ridiculously high petrol price, flickering occasionally. It was completely deserted, but the lights were on inside the small convenience store, and I rushed inside.
The shelves were sparse, and I couldn’t see anybody else there - but, thank God, I had a small connection, enough to see that, by foot, it would still take around an hour to the nearest settlement, a small village from here. I didn’t think I could hold out that long, not with my nerves at its height and my energy levels dropping.
My mother picked up on the fifth ring this time, her voice drowsy. ‘Em? It’s past midnight, why’re you calling?’ Her voice set me off, deep sobs erupting from my chest like a dam had been broken, voice cracking.
‘M-mum? I’m so so sorry for calling so late, but please can I stay at yours for a little bit? I’m coming home early from Tom’s, and I have no idea where to go, or what to do, or where I am-‘ I was heaving with sobs at this point, my mum’s voice immediately becoming alarmed. I have no idea how she made out what I was saying, honestly, with how hard I was crying.
‘Yes, of course you can! You always can! What happened?!’ Her own breaths were quickening, I could make it out. ‘Are you hurt? Are you safe?’
‘No, no. Not hurt.’ The sobbing had stopped, becoming a steady river of tears that ran down my face, punctuated by my hitching breathing. ‘I’m going to make my way there, gonna call a taxi or something.’
‘I can come and pick you up! I don’t want you to get in a random car, especially not in this state!’ Oh mum. My wonderful, sweet mum. I didn’t want her here. Not somewhere like this.
I made a silent pact in my head - that when I’d get home I’d start appreciating her a lot more. ‘It’s alright. I don’t want you to get out of bed and it’ll be like, three hours. No, I’ll get an taxi, or something. It’s ok.’ I made the plan in my head - I would stay in this station and book an Uber from here, which would take a while to come anyway, because of how remote I was as well as the late hour. I would book it so it would arrive at the small village, the one around an hour from here.
‘Are you sure? You’re really not in the state, I can tell. I can make it there quickly.’
‘I will, I promise. Just let me come home. I’ll be there soon. I love you.’ Her protests stopped after this, my tone final yet still affectionate. I had made it clear that I didn’t want her coming here, of all the places in the world.
‘I love you too, Em. Come back to me safe.’
Hope kept me going, the rest of the way. I stayed in the petrol station after that, booking the Uber and resting my legs for a few minutes. It was still strange that everything looked so deserted - for the ten minutes or so that I was inside I didn’t see a single car, not at the petrol pumps or on the road. I looked back the way I came before I left the station, and realised why.
It was a mass of trees, grass and vegetation. The road let into it and then promptly disappeared in the darkness. The station I was in was close to the entrance. Why somebody would build this here, when no cars seemed to take that direction, was baffling. I initially thought that it might have been because of how late it was - but then why was an Uber readily available at the village, even if it would take fifty minutes to arrive?
Why did George and Beryl live so far away from the village at all?
The rest of the walk went quickly, my adrenaline fueling me. I noticed that the further away I got from the station the more visible it became - suddenly, the road was punctuated with a few street lamps, some signs arriving that pointed the way to the village, which was called ‘Pryham’. This was a godsend, as by this point, my phone was extremely low in charge. After I followed the signs for around twenty minutes - now on a smaller road - I began to hear the distinct sounds of people. It was minimal, at first, but I could hear an amalgamation of voices and even the occasional bike wheel skid on the road, which made me walk faster, finally entering the village after two more minutes.
It was small, but quaint - small thatched cottages, a church and small shops lining the high street. The bike sounds came from a small gaggle of teenagers who were grouped near the village limits, where I had emerged from, probably looking quite strange in my rucksack and pajama-coat getup. They all paused their conversation and looked at me, staring. Two boys and two girls, all around sixteen/seventeen at most. I thought I’d just inch past them and carry on, finding the pub where I was going to be picked up, but one of the boys frowned, leaning forward to ask me a question.
‘Where’d you come from?’ It was incredulous, but tinged with humour at the same time - something he probably said to make his friends laugh. I wasn’t sure.
I answered him, my voice low and still scratchy from the tears. ‘The main road. I just followed the signs from there.’ The second I said that, however, all four faces looked bewildered.
One of the girls piped up. ‘You, you mean you came from THAT way?’ She was pointing in vaguely the direction I had walked from.
‘Yes? Isn’t that how people normally get here?’ They shook their heads, the first boy speaking again. ‘Nah, people always come from the opposite direction.’ He gestured with his head to the opposite side of the village, where the main road continued. I realised that it was parallel to the village altogether. ‘All that’s there where you came from is just, like, trees and shit.’
The other boy looked at me with confusion. ‘I didn’t think anyone could come this way. I reckoned that the road just ended after a couple of miles… dunno how you did it.’ I was deeply uncomfortable at this point, not wanting to recount my journey.
I cleared my throat. ‘Doesn’t matter. Please could one of you show me where The Royal Oak is? I’m getting picked up from there.’ One of the girls nodded, walking over and telling me the way - just a left turn and minute’s walk onward. I thanked her, shrugging my bag onto my shoulders as it kept falling, and carried on. The teens kept talking after I had left, probably theorising how I had ended up there, somewhere they probably hung out because nobody would think to see them.
The Royal Oak was easy enough to get to, and my Uber promptly arrived five minutes afterward.
The driver poked his head out of the window. ‘Emma, is it? 12 Dryburn Road?’ I told him that it was, clambering into the back seat, my joints aching with relief. The driver turned, taking in my expression and odd, mismatched appearance, raising his eyebrows.
‘Are you ok, miss?’
‘Yes, thanks. Just been a long night.’
He nodded. ‘It’ll be around two and half hours, not much traffic, but you’ve got time to rest. I’ll keep the music quiet.’ I thanked him, both for the reassurance and the lack of questions. We drove into the night.
My mother opened the door, hair tangled and eyes squinting. I fell into her arms, shaking, and I think she was too.
We stayed like that for a while, swaying back and forth near the door, then I fell asleep next to her like I was a child, her arms encircling me, stroking my hair.
I slept until the late afternoon, waking to her shaking me gently, a bowl in her hands.
‘I tried getting you up for breakfast and lunch, but you wouldn’t budge. Thought you needed the rest.’ She placed the bowl of soup in my hands and sat with her own across from me, watching me as I ate. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes, yes. So good Mum, thank you.’ I put my empty bowl to the side and got out of bed, and my mum looked worried immediately. ‘Where are you off too? I think you could do with some more sleep, dear.’
Shaking my head, I opened my bag, getting out some fresh clothes. ‘Could I freshen up? And then, maybe in a bit, can we have a talk?’ Her eyes widened.
‘Yes, yes, whatever’s good for you. I can wait.’ I couldn’t help smile a little, my first in a while, and my mum looked relieved at the look on my face. Here, away from it all, I felt braver. I wanted to think about this whole situation more, in a place that felt safe.
Half an hour later, I was sat by the small dining table. Mum was getting some tea ready, busying herself with the kettle, but I could sense she was nervous about what I was going to tell her - I couldn’t blame her at all. Soon, we were sat across from each other.
The tea was like a calming drought, and I was ready to talk.
I started speaking, eking out words slowly. I don’t want to type everything out - believe me, the events have replayed in my head at every waking moment. But when I got to when I opened the desk I paused.
‘D’you remember when I called you and asked about baby photos?’
‘Yes, of course. Something about Tom showing you his, right?’
‘Yeah. That was a lie. I called you because of something I saw, something inside of the desk lid.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Mum, there was a picture of me inside. Me when I was like, five. A pair of dungarees and a bow, too.’
I counted to ten before I heard a response. When I told her, my eyes were closed - but I opened them to see that she was deathly pale.
‘What?’ I didn’t realise she actually spoke. It was like an exhale, pure disbelief in a sound.
‘Yes, mum.’ I don’t know how I found my voice. ‘That’s what was inside. That’s why I had to leave, a-and also because they knew.’
At this, she twitched slightly, like being pricked by a pin. ‘They what?’
Why was she reacting like this? Like she couldn’t comprehend what I was saying?
Of course, I was traumatised by it all, too. I could barely come to terms with it two days later myself.
But my mum was different. It was like I had re-opened something, an old wound.
‘They knew, mum. They knew that I had opened it. I left because I was scared something was going to happen to me.’ I swallowed, reaching for her hand. It felt like a role reversal - me comforting her. ‘Mum, say something, please!’
Silent tears were building in her waterline. My mother looked at me - and I’ll never forget the expression on her face.
Unadulterated human fear.
‘Emma-‘
My phone rang, the sound punctuating the still air of the dining room.
Part 4: Why does my boyfriend have things from my childhood in his house? (4) : nosleep (reddit.com)