Of Witches and Monsters
“Things I used to believe as a kid: I am surrounded by monsters and ghosts, the house I live in is haunted, my mother might be a witch.
Things I understand now: my mother is crazy; she took away my father and my sister is gone because she liked a house more than any of us.
Things I’m afraid to find out: Either my mother was right, or I am crazy too. I can’t tell which is worse.”
Lili Wildes is tired of hearing the stories about the house she grew up in and wants nothing to do with her mother or her past, but it doesn’t stop her from constantly thinking about them both. And when a series of strange occurrences, bad dreams and another tragic event pull her back toward the house where the worst happened, she realizes she can no longer ignore her past and the fact that she may have more in common with her mother than she’d like to believe. What could possibly have the worst outcome? Ignoring the truth or facing herself?
Prologue
Lili
When you are near the house, you can feel it in your bones. It’s like being called back to the nest, even when deep down inside, you know the nest is rotten, filled with horror and bone dust. There is both soft comfort and horrendous pain trapped under this roof. That’s the reason why some people vow to never go back and others can’t seem to stay away. I came to find out I am both the addict and the poison. Being born within its walls forces me to carry a part of the house with me, a part which refuses to let go, its rotten teeth sinking a bit deeper in the flesh with every biting bad dream and unwarranted thought that I find impossible to silence. I thought all the anger I directed toward my mother would help me move on, instead it made me afraid of following in her footsteps now that she is out of the house and in prison.
Vivian Wildes has always been a bit strange and her unhealthy obsession with our family home was obvious. However, my father coming back years later uninvited and trying to take back the space she had spent years protecting and reclaiming as her own woke up a fear already so deeply ingrained in her mind that when provoked, turned out to have the strength of a thousand demons. Even after her arrest, my mother never stopped talking about the house. Almost a decade later, she still claims that stabbing her former lover to death while her daughter slept in the adjacent bedroom is what the house wanted.
Now it seems like I am the one this place is calling out at night; sometimes even in the middle of the day. It’s like the feeling of being watched, or a voice in the back of my head pleading come play with me again. My thoughts are almost always pulled toward the woods and the house on top of Cherry Hill. And the more I resist, the worse it seems to get. It’s like witnessing history repeats itself, powerless and bitter.
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