The House Guest Read online

  The House Guest

  By Rosa Sophia

  The House Guest

  Copyright © 2015 by Rosa Sophia. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: June 2015

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-155-3

  ISBN-10: 1-68058-155-4

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Prologue

  Every dream is the same. Katherine walks into the empty hallway, stepping across the dusty wooden floors. The walls glimmer with sunshine, gossamer curtains parted at each window. The vision gives her a moment to collect herself, to stare in puzzlement at her surroundings. Once she’s become somewhat comfortable in this hallway of what can only be an old farmhouse, she hears footsteps.

  The woman comes up the stairway opposite her with both purpose and reluctance evident in her expression. She always wears the same drab outfit, a tan dress and matching flats, her arms muscled from chores around the homestead.

  She starts yelling, but there is total silence. The woman’s mouth moves soundlessly, and Katherine panics, wondering if she’s screaming at her. After a few moments, she knows she is not the subject of this woman’s fury. The dreamer tries to turn and find the culprit, but she never can.

  With the sunlight dancing against the paintings on the far side of the hallway and on the chiseled features of the subject of the dream, the spectator sees how beautiful this woman is. Is she in her late twenties or early thirties?

  Katherine has had this dream so many times that she has gotten used to its oddities. She waits for the woman to finish yelling, then watches as she rips away the wedding band on her finger, throwing it angrily to the ground. This woman is on the verge of tears now and Katherine wants to embrace her, tell her everything’s all right. For some reason, she feels as though she knows her, but she’s never seen this woman before.

  The vision makes her body heavy and she can’t move. Before she can utter words of reassurance, the woman turns and stalks back down the stairs. That’s when Katherine feels herself begin to wake up.

  And when she drags herself out of that deep slumber, she whispers to herself the same words each time:

  “Something horrible has happened…”

  Chapter 1

  The Woman From My Dream

  Jake and Katherine dated for a year after high school. Then it was her idea to embark on a road trip across Canada. It would be a long way; they both lived in the boondocks of Pennsylvania, surrounded by trees and trailers. Ever since Kat was little, she’d wanted to go everywhere. From the very corner of the state to the castle ruins in Europe. Her mama always told her that she should never head off on such a trip with just anyone. A partner had to be someone she felt comfortable with, someone she enjoyed being around. Jake was that person.

  The couple only fought once, and it was over the last cheese sandwich in the cooler, when they were both starving. People always envied them for their successful life together and Kat kept telling them the same thing: If you’re mellow as all hell, practically nothing can get to you.

  Jake proposed to her on the side of a highway, when they were changing one of the back tires. He didn’t like working on cars much, so Kat took care of it. Just as she had finished, he pulled her into his arms, dirt and all, told her how beautiful she was and asked her to marry him. She inquired as to whether or not this was because he had his own personal mechanic.

  He’d said, “That’s only part of it, baby,” cracked up laughing and revealed an engagement ring he’d had in his back pocket since they’d left home. After visiting Canada, they returned to their apartment in Souderton, Pennsylvania. They were engaged for several months before the dreams started.

  Plagued by the same recurring vision, Kat just wanted to leave their apartment and find somewhere nice in the country. Maybe then, that woman in her mind would leave her alone.

  Close to midday, while she stood in the kitchen with the sunlight washing over her body, she brought it up again, but Jake’s reply was always the same.

  “We can’t afford it right now, Kat. I know you want an old farmhouse somewhere, but we just can’t do it.” Jake pulled his head out of the fridge and revealed an old piece of pizza. “We barely have any food left.” He bit into the cold, undesirable meal and shrugged. “I’m tired of it too, but there’s nothing we can do. These times aren’t as carefree as they used to be. We can’t just drive across the country again, looking for your dream house.”

  “I know.” She walked across the kitchen, and fell into his arms.

  “We can’t even afford to get married,” Jake said, taking her hand and gently twirling the engagement ring on her finger.

  “That’s okay.” She leaned up and kissed him. “We don’t need to right now. Anyway, it’s not as if we’re going to have kids.” Kat had always said that her paintings were her children and she’d be damned if that’d ever change.

  “We could stay engaged forever,” Jake teased.

  “Hey, why the hell not?” It didn’t matter, as long as they were together.

  She brushed a tendril of blond hair out of her face, and pulled away from Jake in order to braid the mane that reached all the way down to her knees. People always thought of her as an eccentric person, but she had decided it was more because of her uncommonly long hair than her surrealist artwork.

  She pursed her lips while reaching her hands behind her head and winding the thick sections of hair together. A groan sounded from the next room, and she knew it was her best friend waking up on the couch. Corry had slept over, and enjoyed one too many sickly sweet alcoholic drinks the night before.

  In the few moments of quiet, Kat thought again of the woman in her dream. Who was she, and what had happened to her? Kat turned to her boyfriend, who shoved the last piece of yesterday’s pizza into his mouth and wiped his hands on an old t-shirt. The heat of the day was making his black, spiked hair limp against his scalp. Kat rolled her eyes, but she must have looked worried, because Jake asked her what was wrong.

  “You really shouldn’t gel your hair during the summer. It’s gross. Actually, it’s kinda gross year-round,” she said.

  He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. The soft thumping sound of pillows being dropped on the floor emanated from the living room. Someone sighed heavily.

  “That’s not what’s bothering you. Did you think I was that stupid?” Jake asked.

  “I never said you were stupid.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She tried to swat at a mosquito that had gotten through the screen door. She missed. “Um.” She watched the insect migrate to the next room and frowned. “Remember that dream I told you about? The one that started years ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “
It still hasn’t stopped. I want to know who that woman is.” Kat finished braiding her hair and secured it with a hair band.

  “It’s probably no one. It’s just your subconscious, I don’t know.”

  “Then why was the hallway so detailed? Why do I feel like I know that woman?”

  Jake had nothing to say.

  She didn’t know what to make of it, and neither did he. Corry stepped into the kitchen and slumped against the doorframe, the palm of her left hand resting on her forehead. “Will you just call the lady already?”

  “What lady?” Kat asked, winding her braid over her shoulders. Corry swiped a business card off the kitchen table and shoved it in Kat’s hand.

  “Janis. She’s good, trust me. Just try it once, will you? Therapy could help you.”

  “Therapy, maybe, but not crackpot therapy.”

  “Kat, she’s a friend of mine. Think about it. Please?”

  “Okay,” Kat muttered, not bothering to conceal her reluctance.

  Pleased with her friend’s response, Corry slumped into one of the kitchen chairs and clasped her hands in her lap. “I never thought I could get such a huge headache from two drinks.”

  Kat spent the rest of the afternoon in the tiny backyard, trying to paint and pry bugs off her canvas at the same time. She finally gave up and sat down on the back stoop, kicking at the only defiant weeds that managed to shoot up from the rocky ground.

  She was an artist at heart and always would be, but sometimes she just didn’t have any inspiration. When that happened, she would retreat to her mind, where she became content with remembering the past and thinking about the future.

  Then, as she sat there on the steps, shoving her foot against the ravaged earth, the phone rang. She shot up from her seat, grateful for the mundane distraction.

  “Hello?”

  Jake stepped up behind her and kissed her on the neck, making her want to drop the receiver and drift into a passionate reverie. “Oh, hello, Mama,” Kat said, listening to the voice on the other line. A surge of guilt passed over her as Jake’s lips grazed her skin once more. She turned to smile at him, then slumped down onto one of their few pieces of furniture, an obnoxiously red beanbag chair beside the phone, which sat in its usual place on the olive green carpeting. “What’s up?”

  “Katherine, dear, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What?” Kat heard her mother sigh heavily.

  They had never been close, in part because her mother lived in Georgia, but it was also because they had never gotten along to begin with. After her father had died when Kat was sixteen, her relationship with her mother quickly declined. Although she felt badly about it, any attempt on Katherine’s part to repair things ended in long, drawn-out arguments that left them both exasperated and twenty times angrier. They talked on the phone several times a month, but that was all.

  Kat waited for her to reply, but her mother sighed again. Great, here comes another fight, Kat thought. This is probably about her wanting us to move to Georgia and be with her. I can see it now. ‘I don’t have much time left on this earth, Kat, blah, blah, blah. When are you and Jake going to get married? Blah, blah, blah.’ Dad wouldn’t have guilt-tripped me like that.

  “Well? Mama, what is it?”

  “Honey, do you remember when you were little and you asked me about your grandparents? You wanted to know what they were like and why they died in that car accident.”

  “Yeah, I remember. What about it?” The conversation was taking a strange turn, one Kat hadn’t expected. She leaned back and hugged her knees to her chest.

  “You remember I told you that it was just horrible and a little girl shouldn’t know those things?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I remember that. Jesus Christ, mother. You think I can’t handle death or something? I didn’t even know them.

  “Well,” her mother said, “the reason I didn’t tell you the details was because…” There was a long pause.

  “Will you just tell me already? I know it’s heavy for a kid, I know you were worried about me. But I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “That’s not it, Kat. The truth is, I lied to you.”

  When Kat heard her mother speak those words, she was dumbfounded. Not knowing how to respond, she just sat there, glancing around the room, her anxious stare falling on the blank walls and finally on Jake, who was sitting in the corner on a pillow, reading Shakespeare.

  “Mama, what are you talking about?” Kat finally asked. “What did you lie about?” Jake looked up and raised an eyebrow, silently conveying his own inquiries.

  “Katherine, your grandparents didn’t die. They’re still alive. Well, your grandfather is, anyway.”

  “What?” Kat growled, her eyes narrowing and her heart pounding furiously.

  “I just got a call from the family lawyer. Your Grandmother Julie’s will says that you’re to inherit their farmhouse. Grandpa can’t take care of the place anymore. He’s in a home in Silverdale, lost his mind apparently, though no one’s sure why. Anyway, I gave the lawyer your address, so you’ll get the details in the mail soon.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this, Mama? Are you nuts? You fucking lied about my grandparents dying?” She all but screamed, and Jake’s jaw dropped open.

  “Honey, there are some things that are kept secret for good reasons. I didn’t tell you about all this because, well, that family was strange, Kat. Your grandparents, Julie and Phillip, on your father’s side, they just weren’t good people. You were there once when you were little, and after that I realized they were a bad influence. I decided it was best you had no contact with them, and I lied for good reason. They were dead to me, anyway. We moved away, and I didn’t tell them where we went. Someday you’ll understand why I had to do that, honey. It was all to protect you.”

  “That was that memory, wasn’t it—of being taken back to the car?”

  “Yes, Kat. That was the last and first time you ever saw them.”

  “How could you do this?” Her voice began to crack in a sudden burst of fury. “How could you keep this from me for so many years? I’m twenty-four, mama! I mean, what the fuck were you thinking?”

  “Honey, please, it was for the best.”

  “Fuck you! Just go to fucking hell!”

  Kat slammed the phone down, severing the connection with her mother. Once again, their conversation had ended in pure anger. Kat curled up in the beanbag chair and wept, quickly joined by her fiancé, who wrapped his arms around her and kissed her wet skin until she was ready to tell him the puzzling truth.

  ***

  Katherine painted a picture of a little girl sitting in a Cadillac. She cocked her head and stared at the image. She retained a strange recollection of being taken down to a car, which was parked on a dirt driveway, and being pushed urgently into the vehicle. She couldn’t remember where she had been or what she had been doing there. All she knew was that it must have been important to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had such a vivid memory of it.

  Against her better judgment, Kat went to a hypnotist in an attempt to recall lost memories of that day. She began to lose hope when the hypnotist could accomplish nothing. The more time she spent with the man, the less she believed in his abilities. Something was buried in her past, but she couldn’t dig it up. Every time she thought of that day, the same scene repeated in her mind, the same memory that had nothing to it but her little-girl body being dragged somewhat annoyingly to a waiting automobile.

  Kat wanted to reach into her mind and shovel out whatever tiny bits had been repressed. But she couldn’t do it, no matter how much she concentrated on it, no matter how many therapists she went to and no matter how many times she thought about it before going to sleep, hoping that her dreams would reveal the memory she sought.

  All she dreamt about was that woman, her eyes filled with distress that Kat wanted so badly to understand. Every night was a failure. Every attempt to comfort her or ask her why she was there drained Kat’s energy. />
  Two weeks passed. She was forced to set aside her almost constant stream of confused thoughts for other tasks—searching aimlessly for a job, buying groceries, and painting. No matter what, the facts that her mother had finally imparted to her couldn’t be shoved from her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She conjured images of what her grandfather might look like. She could barely believe that he was still alive and part of her wanted to visit him, just to prove the truth.

  Kat wished she and her mother hadn’t fought during that conversation, but it couldn’t be helped. They always fought that way, regardless of whether it was over something as important as the supposed death of the grandparents or the apparent reasons why Kat should move out of her ‘dump of an apartment’ and into her mother’s house in Georgia.

  But when Kat got the details in the mail, just as her mother had promised, she allowed everything from their conversation to come back to her. She opened the letter and a photograph toppled out onto the kitchen table. The photo was old and in the letter, the lawyer had written that he’d been directed to send her this picture of the old house, one that was torn around the edges and faded slightly from a period of time in which it had been exposed to sunlight.

  It was black and white and showed a huge farmhouse, one that had been added onto several times over the years to accommodate a growing family. In the back, a thick row of trees was visible. A young couple stood before the house, both smiling. When Kat dropped the photo, gasping in surprise, Jake came to her aid.

  “What’s wrong, love?”

  Kat looked up at him, then down at the ground, where the photo lay discarded. When she spoke, the words were barely a whisper.

  “It’s her. The woman from my dream.”

  ***

  It had always been hard for Katherine to believe in the supernatural. For that reason, it had taken her a long time to decide whether or not to have a visit with that crackpot hypnotist. She eventually wished she hadn’t gone to him at all.