Homecoming

The taxi stops and the driver’s eyes shift to me through the rearview mirror.

“You sure you have the right address?” he asks.

“Yup, this is the place.”

He shrugs. The gesture speaks volumes. I should listen; have him drive me right back to the airport.

Instead, I pay the fare, step out, slam the car door, and heft my backpack onto my shoulder. The taxi’s gone before I’ve crossed the boulevard.

A shiver runs up my spine. The house is in worse shape than I remember.

When Hunter suggested we run away all those years ago, I didn’t think twice. She’d poisoned everything, even the very bones of the house.

“Yes,” I’d said without hesitation. I didn’t bother to come back here to pack. There was nothing in the house worth the risk of facing her. Because she would’ve known. No matter how well I tried to hide it, she’d have felt that ember of hope and snuffed it out. I’d have been punished; locked in the cellar for days.

We bought bus tickets for as far as the cash in our pockets would take us, and I’ve never looked back. Although things didn’t work out with Hunter, I’ll always be grateful to him for liberating me from my stepmother’s suffocating grip.

I’ve never once contacted her. Never returned to Appleton. Never again set foot in Wisconsin. She left me the house in her will just the same. Her lawyers tracked me down.

A minuscule piece of my heart remembers this house before she came. It held on to the hope that without her the walls could hold love and laughter again. The stark reality casts that hope aside.

The door and windows are intact, at least at the front. My gaze proceeds up the sagging facade to the roof and halts at a second-story window. A shadow moves across the pane.

I blink. Refocus. The window is empty. Just a reflection of clouds in the glass.

With a steadying breath, I force my feet forward. The bottom two steps are rotted through. I test the handrail and vault onto the porch, bypassing the stairs altogether.

Rusted hinges grind in protest as I open the screen door. I expect a fight with the lock, but the ancient key turns easily and the heavy wooden door grants me entrance.

Stepping over the threshold is like falling into an abyss. I instantly return to those dark days following Dad’s death. The hollow feeling of being entombed in this house alone with my stepmother seeps under my skin.

“She’s gone.” I say the words out loud to banish the memories.

A pervasive musty odor of rot and urine invades my senses.

Intruders. Two-legged or four-legged I wonder.

In the heavy silence, I stand motionless in the foyer, listening for any sound of who or what has taken up residence. Skittering footsteps from above answer me.

Raccoons. Easy enough to evict.

The breath I’d been holding escapes in a rush. To give the little bandits time to clear out I begin a noisy inspection of the ground floor.

A simple two-up, two-down layout makes the task easy. Left of the entrance hall, sheet-covered furniture ghosts occupy the living room. Little clouds of dust take flight when I lift a corner to check the condition of what lies beneath.

The floorboards overhead groan again, louder this time. I send up a silent prayer for overweight raccoons. In this neighbourhood—unlikely.

Across the hall, the kitchen cupboards are bare. Not even a bread knife in the drawers. An old corn broom keeps a lonely vigil in the utility closet. Now armed, I stomp up the stairs to the second floor.

I expect to see evidence of the squatters—droppings and paw prints littering the dusty hallway—but it’s pristine in its state of abandonment. The doors on either side of the hall are closed, confining them to whichever room they’ve occupied. My false confidence doesn’t loosen the knot of fear in my stomach.

With a death grip on the broom handle, I reach for the doorknob of my old room. It resists, stiff from disuse. I wrench harder and push the door open, broom brandished like a lance before me.

Empty. No raccoons. Not a stick of furniture. Only rectangles of less faded paint where my posters used to hang hint it was ever occupied.

I retreat and cross the hall to her room. In contrast, the door practically swings open of its own accord. Inside, her scent assaults me—Shalimar and a hint of mothballs. The furniture is uncovered, except for the standing mirror in the corner.

The light dims and behind me the door slams shut.

I drop the broom, lunge around and twist the knob. It refuses to turn. My heart pounds against my ribs.

A sibilant whisper makes me turn back, and I watch the sheet slip from the mirror and pool on the floor. In the mottled surface of the tarnished glass, I see the face I ran away to escape all those years ago.

“Welcome home, Bianca,” it rasps.

I attack the unyielding doorknob with renewed vigour. “Let me out!” Flashbacks of the cellar door slamming shut and caging me in darkness choke me, stifling my scream.

Her laughter chills me bone deep. Against my will, I turn again to the mirror. My stepmother’s reflection shimmers and her inky black hair liquifies.

“Mirror, mirror,” she intones. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

She dissolves and a depthless black ichor slides from the mirror’s surface, oozing across the floor. Every fibre of my being urges me to run. I’m frozen in place, helpless as it slithers greedily toward me. It engulfs my feet and creeps up my legs with icy fingers.

I feel its triumphant satisfaction increase with every inch of me it consumes. A long awaited goal achieved.

A single tears slides down my cheek. I’d wipe it away if I could. My defiance is pointless now. She’s tasted my fear and my weakness is her strength.

In the mirror, I watch my reflection disappear into a darkness blacker than midnight. As the obsidian veil shrouds my terrified eyes, her voice echoes in my head.

“At last.”