King of Madness

Dear Diary 

The funniest thing happened today. Not funny haha but funny because everyone freaked the fuck out. Nanna the most of all.

It’s like she thinks I don’t have eyes in my head and hadn’t noticed the people who had moved in up the road. Nice people , the mum smiled at me when I was coming back from town on my bike. 

Nanna is so lame sometimes. I think because she grew up in the dark ages and didn’t notice boys until she met grandpa that I have to be the same.

I’m almost fifteen! I’m not a child. 

So they are off bowling or what ever it is old people do on dates and I was here in my room when I saw him under the apple tree in the back garden. The one she’s always told me to stay away from because it’s not safe. 

Blugh , like I’m going to get bonked on the head by an apple and die. Nanna is so annoying sometimes. Fruit is healthy and doesn’t kill you. Everyone knows that.  

Anyway I looked out and there were people there. Two or three of them. All dressed in black and looking shifty. Like they were stealing nannas apples or something. 

Grown men stealing apples… it’s so lame but hey adults are mostly lame anyway. I hope I don’t live to be as old as them. I want to live my life and die young. 

One of them wasn’t old though…. Oh no. He was young. Young and gorgeous. And he looked right at me. ❤️ 

I’ve never had anyone look at me like that before, not even Jonny and he’s my kind of boyfriend. And I think I fell in love because he smiled at me. Just a small smile but it meant so much.

He even pressed his fingers to his lips to his mouth like he wanted this to be our little secret.  

But then Nanna came in and she hit the roof. She went totally crazy when she saw who was outside and now I’m going back to mums tomorrow. All because I smiled at a boy and he smiled back

She says it’s not safe for me anymore.

Why are old people so LAME. It was just a smile. I don’t even know his name and now I never will.

I think she’s just trying to ruin my life. 

Old people suck!!!!!

I need to know who he is ❤️❤️

Chapter One

Audrey 

It was raining when I pulled up outside the house that had been my safe haven for the first fifteen years of my life. Which was kind of fitting because they mirrored the tears that ran down my face. 

It didn’t matter how hard I tried,I just couldn’t stop crying. Most of my life I had felt like I was alone and now I really was. 

There was no one left. 

I was the only McAlister left. None that I was related to anyway.

Killing the engine I leant forward. Peering out into the rain and the house that loomed larger than life in front of me. Had it always seemed so gloomy and unkept or was that me projecting? I honestly didn’t know anymore.

Maybe between the tears and the rain everything just looked grey?

Still I wasn’t sure I had the emotional willpower to go back into the house. Not because my memories of it were bad , because they weren't. I had been happy here. Happier than I’d ever been before or after but that had all ended when nanna had sent me away. 

I’d never been back. Not even when my grandpa died. I had been told to stay away. 

None of it made sense. It hadn’t when I was fifteen and it didn’t now. 

I let my head slip down onto the steering wheel. Bumping against the horn which blared loudly. Jolting me backwards with a startled scream. 

“Get it together Audrey. Get it the hell together.” I hissed at myself as the rain pelted down on the car and my tears kept on falling. I was jumpy as hell and I didn’t know why.  

Because, a small voice seemed to hiss in my ear. You just buried your only living relative and no one came and now you're meant to spend weeks inside of a house in the middle of nowhere sorting through dead people’s things.

All of that made sense of course but it wasn’t the reason I was so jumpy. There was nothing in that house that would harm or scare me. 

More than anything I think being alone scared me the most. It was something I should have been used to but it seemed to press down on me from all sides now.

I had no one.

Lifting my eyes to the house again, I frowned. Something was wrong. Something was out of place but I couldn’t quite figure out what. All I knew was that something had moved. In a literal blink of an eye. 

Nothing moved, apart from the rain that fell down in a steady torrential grey sheet everything was still, so it was my imagination. 

Had to be. 

Sighing I pushed the car door open and stepped out. Within seconds my black blouse was soaked and stuck to my skin and still I stood there. My arms at my side as I stared up at the grey shell of my happy place.

I could be happy here again. I told myself. All I had to do was take a few steps and push my way inside. A few seconds of bravery and I could be home. 

To where I had been happiest.

To where I could be happy again.

Wrapping my arms around myself and ignoring every instinct I had that was telling me to run I took that step.

“What do you mean you’re on your own.” My best friend's voice was shrill and I pulled the phone away from my ear as the line crackled. 

“It’s fine, Bethan.” I lied. It wasn’t fine at all but I couldn’t tell her that. If I admitted to her just how weird today had been she would be straight in her car and racing up here before I could even try and stop her. I was a little surprised that she wasn’t here already. 

“It’s not fine. I can’t believe no one else was there.” She huffed loudly. “Hadn’t your nanna lived there her entire life?”

I sighed, pushing my way on to one of the stools that lined the kitchen island with its copper pans hanging overhead. Reaching up I tapped one with my fingernail, sending it crashing into the next one with a brassy clang. 

I thought it was strange as well. My family had lived here for generations. There had been some solemn , almost sad nods as I had walked from my car to the church by the people in town but no one had said anything. Not even a “I’m sorry for your loss.” And no one had stood at her grave side but me. 

It was like she had been forgotten by everyone but me.

Which was heartbreaking.

“That’s completely sad Audrey. If you had said anything I would have come up.”

I smiled even though she couldn’t see me. The reception up here was just too spotty for a video call to work. I was a little surprised I’d managed to even make a call. 

“I know you would have but you couldn’t.” I let my eyes drift around the kitchen that used to be so full of light and laughter. The real heart of the home. It was dead now. 

Maybe because its owner was dead and buried as well. My nanna had always been the soul of this place.

God, I was depressing myself now. My thoughts were dark and downright dangerous and I knew I had to stop it. 

“How did the big interview go?” I forced some cheeriness into my voice. 

A moment's silence and then Bethan cackled out a laugh that was cut off as a crash of thunder boomed overhead. Rattling the windows and making me shiver. 

“What the hell was that?” Even with the hundreds of miles that separated us, she could hear the storm building outside and was worried for me. 

“There’s a storm rolling in. Nothing to worry about.”

It was like I had jinxed myself the moment I said the words the light went out. Plunging me into complete darkness. 

I sucked in a breath and then another one. Trying to calm my thundering heartbeat. I wasn’t afraid of the dark I never had been.

“Audrey, Audrey?”

“I’m here.” Shaking myself I slid from the stool. “The electricity just blew, that's all. I’m going to find some candles and a bottle of my nannas wine and curl up with a book. If the line goes dead then it’s just my battery dying ok? Don’t freak out.”

I knew her well enough to know she would. Freaking out was just part of her personality.

“That’s it, I'm coming up there.”

Sighing I pinched the skin between my eyebrows. I loved her, I really did but I wanted some time alone to grieve. At least I thought I did. 

Maybe back in the car I had been scared to be alone but now I was back here, in the safe warm kitchen of my grandparents old stone cottage I didn’t feel alone at all. 

Quite the opposite in fact.

It felt like friendly eyes were on me.

Loving me.

Maybe my grandparents' spirits? But no, that was silly.

“But your new job-“ I tried to interject and the line went dead.

No lights and no signal. 

Now I was really alone but not for long because I knew she was going to come up here. That’s just the kind of friend she was. The kind of friend that would ruin her shot at her dream job to be there for me. 

But she wouldn’t come here tonight. It was too late. Tomorrow I should expect her. Hopefully by tomorrow the power would be back on but if not- 

The images that flooded my mind made me smile.

Well If it wasn’t we would just have to drink wine by candlelight. Just like I was planning to do tonight.

There was a small chaise lounge , threadbare and kind of musty by one of the house's big arched bay windows in the informal living room that I used to curl up on and read when I was a kid. It looked out over the back garden . With the lake in the distance and the solitary apple tree. There were no climbing frames or children’s toys out there. There never had been , not even when I had been a kid. My grandparents had been pretty strict about their garden being dug up.

It was just a quiet peaceful place. Serene and in this storm. With the clouds rolling angrily like boiling water and the lightning splitting the sky open and illuminating the grounds around me.

I had always loved it here. I’d never needed toys or other distractions because the beauty of the place was enough. But now?

Now everything just felt empty and the sprawling garden was no exception. There was nothing out there and yet it felt like the world outside was watching me through the giant windows. And even though I knew that wasn’t the case I couldn’t shake the feeling. 

Dropping the book to my lap, I hadn’t really been reading it after all. I had just looked sightlessly at the words on the page without seeing them ,I stood. Drawing the heavy woolen blanket around my shoulders I pressed my fingers to the cold plane of glass. Tracing the reason drops that danced down its surface. 

It was such a strange feeling, how alone I felt. Alone but watched. Alone but devoured.

Something moved under the shadows of the apple tree and my back stiffened. Leaning forward I pressed my nose against the cold glass. I stared at the tree. Nothing moved apart from its heavy branches in the wind. But I had seen it. I knew I had. When the lightning had lit the world up in its spooky glow for just a second I had seen someone standing under that tree. 

Just like that night , all those years ago when I was fifteen. Back then there had been more than one but now.

My nose squashed on the glass and I squinted as the world lit up white again for a second. There was nothing there. Just a weathered trunk and branches heavy with apples.

It was all just my imagination. It had to be. I was letting the lonely house and the storm raging outside get under my skin. It was just an outward manifestation of my grief bubbling to the surface. 

My Nanna was gone.

My whole family was gone. 

All I had was this house and the memories it contained and I didn’t know what to do with either. The grown up thing would be to sell up and leave. My life wasn’t here anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time. 

But could I do that? Could I give the keys to the hundreds of years of my family's history to a stranger and watch them change everything about the place?

I honestly didn’t know. 

“You don’t need to make a decision now Audrey.” My nannas voice seemed to whisper in my ear so clear that I started. 

Ghosts.

I didn’t believe in them but I believed in my memories so strong that they felt like ghosts. My nanna wasn’t talking to me from beyond the grave, she was talking from my memories. 

Reaching for the glass of homemade elderflower wine I had found gathering dust in the back of the pantry I took a sip. It was like no wine I could get in the city. It was as thick as syrup, sticky and sweet on my tongue and lethal. And I’d already demolished half a bottle. If I wasn’t careful I would fall into a drunken stupour and knowing my luck set myself on fire with the candle that was burning on the table.

If the place burnt down I wouldn’t have to decide what to do though. I would just - I shook the thought away. This place was just too special to even think about that. So I wouldn’t. I would think about the future in well- the future. Possibly tomorrow or the next day.

Because what else could I do? Tonight I had to lose myself in the past. 

It was time to let myself grieve and remember.

So that’s what I would do.

Wrapping the blanket around myself I grabbed the candle in one hand and headed to the family room. The one with all the books and photographs. I knew what I had to do. I had to relive the memories and let them fill me. 

To move forward I needed to look back.