《The Haunting of Watermill Valley》


 They are Watching the House

    Of coursethe moving truck crashed.


    After going through the worst month of her life, Amelia Ruiz had come to expect disaster.


    Thankfully, her friend Noah lived in Watermill Valley and was able to pick her up from where she''d been stranded on the median after her wreck. As they rolled down the quiet suburban streets in his shiny blue Toyota Corolla, she dodged his questions about how life had been since college. She''d gathered that he was doing pretty well for himself and had moved up the ladder as an investment banker.


    Amelia had little to show since her college days except for a string of failed relationships, frequent job changes, and decisions that generally hadn''t panned out. She dreaded the moment when they would pull up to her driveway and he''d see the humble two-bedroom farmhouse that she bought when she was still dating Erik. She could tell by the gleam of Noah''s new dress shoes and the quality of his thick cardigan that the house he shared with their mutual friend Gianna had at least four bedrooms, a pool, and rolling fields of tidy grass that were no doubt maintained by someone else.


    They arrived at her place, and Noah slapped his knee in a way that made Amelia want to chuckle at how much of adadhe¡¯d become.


    "Here we are! Are you sure you don''t need some help getting set up here? Gianna and I don''t mind, especially with you on your own. We can keep the kids distracted with their tablets and they won''t be any trouble."


    "No. You have already helped so much. I just needed a ride to my place."


    Amelia smiled at her friend and grabbed her tote bag from the backseat. The bag was a sun-faded red overlaid with a pattern of black apple outlines. The scent of better days wafted from its fibers: sun, sand, and campfires. The bag and its meager contents were the only things she''d been able to save from the road. She squeezed it to her chest for a moment and breathed in the musky odor.


    "In some ways, moving is easier now, I guess. No furniture to lug around!" She laughed even though she felt her chest tighten. The memory of seeing her few pieces of furniture strewn across the highway in pieces still made her feel depressed.


    The same dark mood also overtook her every time she found another tiny piece of glass in her hair. The glass seemed never-ending, just like her problems. It was starting to seem like she would just keep finding sharp slices of trouble anywhere she turned in life. But she had to maintain a positive attitude. If she fell into the well of depression, she didn''t think she''d be able to claw her way out again.


    She had to start believing that things would get better. Call it kismet, karma, or faith. Call it poetic justice. But Amelia felt that the universe owed her some good luck after all she''d been through. She just had to stick around long enough for the scales to balance again.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


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    As she stepped out of the car, she pressed theIgnorebutton on her phone below the image of her ex''s face. She had nothing to say to the guy who had convinced her to take out a solo loan for this house. The guy who ditched her the night before the move because he''daccidentallyfallen in love with someone else. The guy who had convinced her to buy a house in a town where she knew nobody because he wanted the best location near the motocross track. That guy could go fuck himself, as far as Amelia was concerned.


    She turned back to Noah. ¡°I¡¯m fine. Really.¡±


    "If you say so." Noah''s eyebrows were knit with concern. It seemed that becoming a parent had sharpened his powers of bullshit detection. "Are you going to have another vehicle soon?"


    "Yeah," she said, confident this time. "Thankfully my insurance proved to be more reliable than my ex."


    Noah laughed but the unease lingered in his eyes. They both got out of the car and looked at her little house for a moment.


    "I get to pick up a rental tomorrow," She assured him as she eyed her white house with black shingles. There was one shingle missing right in the middle. Another shingle on the right side trembled in the wind as if it was about to go as well. The screen door rattled with another big gust of wind, blowing open with a lonely wail before slamming back against the house.


    "Okay. Gianna has the afternoon off, so just give her a call when you need a ride to pick your rental up."


    "Thank you both so much," she said as tears pricked the back of her eyes. She put her arm out and gave Noah a side hug. "I really can''t tell you how screwed I would be if you hadn''t come out after the wreck. You''re the only people I know here."


    "Don''t mention it," Noah said. As he pulled away from the hug, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the property. "That''s funny," he said. He pointed at the stone lions that flanked the driveway.


    "Yeah, it is a little pretentious to have stone lions in front of such a tiny house." Her face flushed with embarrassment.


    "Oh no," Noah quickly corrected. "That''s not it. It''s just that they''re facing the house. Normally they are turned toward the outside, so that they look like they are protecting the place. Here, it¡¯s like they are protecting the house fromus.¡±


    Or protecting us from the house. The thought came to Amelia¡¯s mind unbidden. She shuddered at it.


    Noah popped a piece of gum into his mouth and the smell of spearmint filled the air. ¡°Odd.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    He offered her a stick of gum, and she waved it away.


    The stone statueswerewatching the house. Why was it that she hadn¡¯t noticed that before? As she took the lions in, with their gaping maws and scowling eyes, a trickle of ice entered her veins.


    "Talk about having an ass-backward sense of style," she quipped to cast off the fear creeping up on her.


    She made a mental note that if she stayed in this house for long, she''d find a way to tear those creepy statues down.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll get out of your hair,¡± Noah said, returning to his car. ¡°Good luck.¡±


    Amelia waved as he drove away. She turned back to the house and approached the flapping screen door, feeling the sensation of eyes following her as she passed the stern gray statues.

 Gelatinous Puddle

    Amelia didn''t have a lot of clothes to spare, considering many of them had been ruined when they''d all spilled over the highway. But she had to do something about the lions. All that first night in the new house she''d been unable to sleep because of their brooding presence. It didn''t make any sense but somehow, she could feel them staring at the house.


    No, not at the house. At her.


    She had never been one to buy into ideas about energy or auras or spirits, and yet she found herself without explanation for the sensations brought on by the statues. The word she settled on was presence. They had a presence to them, and it was terrifying the living daylights out of her.


    So that''s how she found herself outside at 6 a.m. after a sleepless night, wearing faded pajama shorts and a ratty old Led Zeppelin tee. She padded toward the lions with a small bundle of clothing. When a stray rock found its way right under her foot, she yelped. As she wrapped a pink bandana around the rightmost lion''s neck, she saw her next-door neighbor walk to their car. In the dark she saw the outline of a middle-aged woman with curly hair and a pantsuit. They locked eyes and she felt her stomach drop with embarrassment at being caught dressing statues in her pajamas.


    "Hi," Amelia waved. She put on a smile despite her embarrassment.


    Although the woman had seemed to lock eyes with Amelia through the meager morning light, she either hadn''t or pretended not to have seen or heard her. She turned her head away and climbed into her car. When the woman drove away, Amelia tried again to wave to no effect.


    "Okay," she breathed. She finished dressing the lion on the left with a scarf. The final touch on each was a pink ribbon wrapped into a neat bow on the end of their tails.


    "Not so scary now, are you?"


    Surveying her work with her hands on her hips, she smiled despite the feeling that she had barely dented the feeling of repulsion that she felt in the lions¡¯ presence.


    She laughed at herself. Where was she getting these silly thoughts? It was obviously just a fixation that her mind had chosen as a distraction from the stress. A breakup, a car crash, a solo surprise mortgage that she''d thought her ex''s income would be contributing to. It was enough to test anybody¡¯s limits.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    She doubted she could make enough money to hire any but the most dubious contractors, but she still told herself that she would ask Gianna if she had any recommendations for someone to destroy those lions.


    Turning her back on them, she went back into the house and managed to take a nap until midmorning. She had the sensation upon waking that she''d had a bad dream, due to the fact that a slick film of sweat covered her entire body and her heart was pounding. But when she tried to think of what had caused such a response in her, it was like tuning in to static.


    The alarm on her phone went off shortly after she awoke like this, and she swiped the off button and groaned. It was already time to dress and get ready for Gianna to take her to the car rental place. Amelia¡¯s eyelids still felt heavy despite the nap. It felt like she¡¯d hardly slept at all, even though it had been several hours. She reasoned it must have been the influence of the bad dream.


    The late morning was quiet as she unpacked her tote bag of belongings. Her hairbrush, cell phone, and a few outfits were placed in the main bedroom next to her stack of blankets. She placed a protein bar and a bottle of water on the blue Formica countertop in the kitchen just to make it feel less empty. It was a nice enough place, even though it felt like it came from another century. Her eyes roamed the peeling edges of rabbit-print wallpaper in the north corner of the kitchen. She looked at a round stain on the ceiling and wondered how badly the roof would leak in the rain. The house needed some love, that was true. But every apartment she''d ever lived in had needed work also.


    And this time, she could fix it up herself. She owned this house. She could do what she wanted. She didn¡¯t need anybody¡¯s permission. She wasn¡¯t on anybody else¡¯s schedule but her own.


    For the first time, she felt an expansiveness in her chest at the idea of living alone. All her life, she''d lived either with her parents, a roommate, or her ex. She hadn''t been thrilled to be saddled with a mortgage on her own, but in the late morning light of her little galley kitchen, she found herself imagining the possibilities.


    She could go for a cottagecore look here. It was the perfect size for it. She could just see it now. Maybe she¡¯d get a social media account for her little life, wear peasant dresses, show off perfectly braided loaves of sourdough, and display what she bought at the farmer¡¯s market that week. Maybe she¡¯d get a dog.


    And the only person she''d have to answer to was herself. Herself and her meager budget, that was. There was something freeing in being on your own. Maybe it didn''t have to be terrifying at all. Maybe it could be an adventure.


    Still, it sucked that her ex had left her like this. It would have been better if she''d planned this particular adventure rather than having been thrust into it.


    She took off her clothes and headed for the shower, shivering as she imagined that those lions were somehow still watching through the walls. After stepping over the lip of the bathtub, her foot was immersed in a wet, gelatinous puddle that squelched and spread into the spaces between her toes. Touching the cold substance was so shocking that she twisted her ankle, plummeting back toward the yellowed linoleum.