Uprooted

Content Warning: References to Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Descriptions of Violence and Gore, Implications of Creepy Behavior by One Character, Some Coarse Language

They say you can’t change the past. That it’s better to just let it go. God as my witness, I’ve tried a lot of ways. Smoking just gave me a bad cough. Drinking numbed me but the hangovers would claw the memories into my dreams like a slasher escaping a film reel. Didn’t matter how many beds I talked myself into either.

Eventually, everyone wants to know where you’re from. They just keep grasping for that missing puzzle piece. The one you keep tucked under your bed, in a locked box, deep beneath the cushions, but you can feel it. Look at me. The Princess and the frigging Pea.

It all went to hell in this house. Sure, it looks normal from the outside. Nothing fancy about it. Two stories and a garage. A little backyard perfect for a kid. Big windows, but with curtains permanently shuttered, you’d never know it. They’re open today, though. It’s the day of the open house. A shit housing market where prices are through the roof, but not this one. This house is eager to sell. Sellers are ‘motivated’ is what the realtor is telling my parents on the drive over. Little me is probably tuning them out with her book.

Back when once was then. Till twenty grains fall to clean the stain. Else your soul caught in twain.

Twenty minutes to figure out how to make them leave. One last game with the witch. That’d been the bargain. Nothing left to lose.

I just have to stop them. Whatever it takes. Except all I’ve got is some pocket change and Dad’s lighter.

When you take a first look at it, you’d say this is a nice neighborhood. They keep the streets clean. Nobody’s dogs are digging up their begonias. Traffic’s slow and quiet this far back in the suburbs. School’s sturdy, well funded. Rarely rains for longer than an afternoon, all bright and sunny out. There’s just one problem with it, soaked into the soil.

We couldn’t have imagined it. The tree in the backyard seemed like a perfect bonus. Shade from the sun. Dad adds a swing to it six months from now. That’s when he opened — opens the door. That knife cutting into the bark. The final straw. Amazing it didn’t bleed on him when he was done, but I guess it needed time to boil. Didn’t help that I was just a kid, open minded and curious. You see a little girl dressed funny in your backyard, crying, you ask her what’s wrong. Because you’re a good kid who doesn’t know better.

For over forty years, I’ve been trying to find some reason to blame myself for trying to help her. It’d make it easier just to hate myself. How I missed the cut in her neck, too busy staring into her bright yellow eyes. They were so stark, shrouded by dark, mud-soaked hair. Like the sun was looking back at me underneath a veil of misery. I had too kind a heart, just wanting help. Well, will want to help. All the while, my folks will be too busy being grownups, debating about which neighbors to invite over, what movie to watch. They never pay enough attention to see what their daughter welcomes into the house. Superstitious nonsense.

This ground was stolen. Hell, most ground is stolen, but this spot in particular… it was more than a stain. The guilt ran deep. Tainted. We were just the idiots who picked up the bill without reading the fine print. We wanted to get out of the city, away from the noise and bustle. I wonder if they missed it, when push came to shove. I’d dare to ask them, but there’s no time.

“Oh, hello!” the realtor’s assistant tries to keep a polite face as I enter. Enough hard years make you get used to people having to force a smile at you.

“Nice house you got here,” if memory serves me right, he’s actually the first to die. ‘Freak accident’ with hedge shears left unattended, the cops will say, at a house party a year from now. Except nobody trips on a hedge trimmer twice in a row. My parents are acquitted of any wrongdoing. The realtor never comes back after that. I wonder if she's ever hunted down, or if she got away from this mess.

“Why thank you!” Yeah, his voice is just as fake as his knockoff wristwatch. Rolex is spelled with one x, dumbass... No wonder it gets to you before the rest of us. “If you have any questions, uh, please let me know.” We both understand that I will not. That you’re praying I leave before I scare off any of your actual customers.

“Great. Thanks,” I grit my teeth into a smile, brushing past inside. The stairway greets me, living room off to the right, kitchen down the hall to the left. And she’s there too. Top of the stairs. Patience, looking the same as the day I first met her.

Does she know what she’ll inflict up there? Was she workshopping it? I can still see the railing coming apart, the spokes and broken wood stabbing through his lungs and neck. The last, struggling, useless breaths as his glasses fall into a crimson pool. Except she’s not free to do any of that, yet. All she can do is watch. Which she does, right back at me. She smiles. I grit my teeth into an approximation of the same, struggling not to chase her away.

I can make this simple. Find something to break or cut in at the right moment so they turn away from the property. The owners are some company that flips suburban dumps. This one had taken too long, but my memory’s fuzzy on the details. More boring adult talk while all I wanted was to read undisturbed. I’m halfway through Walden in the car. I miss Thoreau. Envy the silent peace he once knew. Then Dad makes that stupid swing to get me outside more. A girl my age should be more active, he thinks. Good intentions, but a damn fool.

“Excuse me miss. Are you alright?” Speaking of damn fools, the dead man walking distracts me long enough for her to skulk off.

“What? Oh, yeah, just... admiring the sunlight.” I point to the window. I remember it shattering. The branch crashing through. The storm the night I let her in. Should’ve said something, but would they have even believed me?

Best keep walking so the scrawny vulture of a man doesn’t keep leering over me. Someone young as he is shouldn’t behave like an old creep. He did seem to keep awfully close to Mom and I. Maybe the girl getting to him was karma, in the long run. Evil wiping away another evil would at least add some poetry to it.

Mom’s obsessed with a working kitchen. Figures that’s where the girl got her. If I can make the pipes backup or go off wrong, she’ll be out of here in a flash. Or an electrical fire — no, that risks them. I’d already decided: fire is the last option. Thankfully it’s far enough back that the corner store didn’t card me. So a molotov could make for a final solution.

Part of me’s tempted. Except the fire department is fast around here. There’s enough people wandering around that I don’t want to mess with. I’m here to solve one mistake, not ruin someone else.

Am I, though? That family inspecting the big CRT that comes with the place. This could be their nightmare house, if it’s not ours. Three kids flipping through the channels like it’s a race. Gabbing to one another, fighting over the remote, but never too much. They could all be her playthings.

No guarantee that they won’t build something else in this house’s place. Might be fruitless. So I just browse on past, polite nothings to the family as I keep walking. You see, that’s the trick. I’m guessing I’ll only know if I fail. I do this right, and there’s no me to hear about it. I won’t be… this. Looking at myself in the hall closet mirror is enough to make me sigh. I never was good at hiding the scar from my left eye. That little shit steals that from me like she does everything else good in my life. I could only ever afford a glass replacement.

Mom would’ve liked it. I got one that sparkles in the right light. Makes me think of her earrings. She wasn’t a gaudy woman by any stretch, but she found this pair at a pawn shop back where we used to live — where we currently live. Probably worth five dollars, but she made them look dazzling. I only have the one. The other melted on the stove next to her head. Never been able to stand the smell of bacon since.

The dining room is vacant. There’s an electrical panel here, hidden behind that old painting. I don’t know why they left the painting too when they sold the place. It was some tacky cavalry charge painted in watercolors handled with the absolute lack of precision I used to think only an algorithm could produce. Except those don’t exist yet. They haven’t figured out a horrible new way to try and put Dad out of work, not that they weren’t already trying.

Slide it off to the side, and pop it open. It looks good as new. More likely electrocute myself than tamper with it properly. Never great with machines. Although…

No, that’s crazy talk. It might make things uncomfortable, maybe scare them off for a while, but if the damn assistant realtor dying doesn’t make them turn tail within a year, what do they care? I’ll be some stranger they’ve never met fooling with things she shouldn’t. My parents were — are good people, but they were at that point in your life where cleverness dulls. So tired from work and raising a child that they’ll take whatever answer lands in their laps.

That’s when I hear Mom’s voice. She’s laughing at something the realtor is saying as they enter. They’re early. Or I’m late. Shit.

You seem familiar. Ignore her. Keep moving. Get to the basement. There’s got to be something you can do in the basement. Maybe if you start a fire or flood in the basement, they won’t be able to stop it in time. Everyone always tours the basement last. Half the houses on this block don’t even have them. Are you still my special friend?

She grins at my false eye, tapping it, vanishing as I try to grab her. I always leave my mark. My eye socket starts to itch. You can’t hide it. The glass eye goes flying, thudding against a wall. I pick it up off the floor. Don’t draw attention. Get downstairs. Break something. Then get out.

It’s been so long since I had someone to play with. When I bothered with a therapist, he told me I should read up about the house’s history. That it was all in my head. It might give me closure. Then he’d prescribe me meds that cost half my salary. The pills were pointless for anything other than convincing me to try harder stuff. The history, though. I’d always assumed she was some poor girl. That this was guilt of the past falling upon us.

I was wrong. Hers was the family that stole the land in the first place. What are you running from, rabbit-beat heart? Most of the time, things like Salem were madness. Paranoid men afraid of losing control. Not her, though. Not her. A good kid reaches out to help. A rancid child gets hung for things that made my family’s future look like a cartoon. Won’t you help me? I rear on her mid-step, taking the bait like an idiot. Those four words. Those damn four words ruined everything.

Except when I whip around, ready to… I don’t even know what I planned to do. All I know is she jumps at me, sending me tumbling down the stairs. I land hard at the bottom, nobody noticing. Except when I reach into my coat pocket, the damn bottle is broken. From my pocket to my ass, I’m soaked with cheap vodka. And she laughs. I can’t see her, but I know her laugh. High-pitched, but deep as a devil’s stomach, sharp as the knife that she played doctor with.

My glass eye goes back in smoothly, but it stings from the alcohol. I try to stifle the swear that breaks my lips, finally seeing it. The old boiler. This piece of crap always broke, one way or another. Gurgling in the deep of the night. All I have to do is break the right valve. Look for something that flushes or purges. Make the biggest mess possible. If I pair it with the coat ablaze, it’ll look like a freak accident.

She reaches a hand through the pipes at me, giggling incessantly. Instinct overrides, and I stumble back into the tool rack hard enough to feel a few rusty metal rods tear through my shirt. And my back. The groan that escapes me is far from quiet. I don’t care at this point. This is all temporary. I just have to be sure it ends better this time.

“Is somebody down there?” I can hear from the floorboards overhead. It’s Dad.

“No, I don’t believe so. There shouldn’t be. Uh, Tyler. Do you know if anyone’s in the basement?” Lady, you are so clueless, it’s amazing you’re the only other person to maybe walk away from selling this flytrap alive.

Your blood tastes as bitter as ever! She giggles. I can smell it…

“Taste this, bitch.” I grab the handle next to her head, and pull. Hot water pours out, burning through her like the air she is. It spills out for a good minute or two, and then… nothing.

Like dried up roots, all I’ve got is a dead stump.

Wait...

That’s not a half bad idea.

You’re running out of tiiime.

“I’ve got all the time I need.” As I race up the stairs, best these tired legs can manage, I finally see that horrible little smile of hers twist around into a frown.

You can’t win! Watch me, you little shit.

“As for the heating, it’s—oh my!” I barrel through them. Mom falls against the wall, exclaiming. Dad’s trying not to cuss out my ass, adjusting his glasses awhile, because... because I’m standing right there. He finally says something, but I don't hear it. Little me and I, our eyes meet. She smiles. For a moment, it almost feels like she recognizes me. I hope she doesn’t. All I do is smile back at that sweet baby girl, then keep charging out the door.

Won’t win by being rude! Back to chiding, but she sounds nervous. Didn't bet on me remembering it’s been a dry summer. Barely any rain. And I’ve still got Dad’s lighter. Time to deal with the root of the problem. The coat lights easily, and lands up in the branches. As it does, I start feeling wrong on the inside. Except I can hear screaming too. She didn’t think I’d go for the throat. If only I’d thought of it sooner.

“That’s the difference between you and I, Patience. I’m not afraid of fading away. Now we both get laid to rest. See you aroun—”

I know I saw the lady standing there. She was dressed funny, but she seemed sad. Then she was gone, like magic. Nobody ever believes me. They say she must’ve run off. She didn’t run though. Mommy and Daddy say this must not be a safe neighborhood, but I met another girl. Her name is Patience. She told me I’ll see the lady again.

And she asked me to tell the lady that she’ll be seeing her, real soon.