Sticky Fingers 6 by J T Lawrence EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: J T Lawrence
- Language: English
- Genre: Horror Short Stories
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
EVERLAND
“WE MUST CHECK the sugar bowls for poison.”
Derek gazed at the narrow winding road, and I could tell he hadn’t
registered what I’d said. He’d heard my voice, but his thoughts were
elsewhere.
“Just kidding,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I was joking. I said we should check the sugar bowls for poison. The
Shirley Jackson novel, about the castle, you remember?” As the words left
my mouth, the castle—our castle—came into view.
Strictly speaking, Everland was a manor. Still, it had all the beautiful
features of gothic architecture with its grey stone and turrets, all kept safe
under the watchful eyes of the resident gargoyles. Derek laughed at me
when I called it a castle.
“We’ve bought a castle in the countryside,” I announced to our friends over
dinner, and Derek had guffawed.
“It’s a manor,” he had said, topping up our wine glasses.
I showed the pics of the building I had on my phone.
“Looks like a castle,” they all said, especially with the seemingly everpresent fog that shrouded the tops of the turrets. It had thrilled our son
Cameron; he couldn’t believe his luck. Five-year-olds are like that with
castles.
“You’ll miss your friends in the city,” I told him. “You’ll be homesick.
There’s no McDonald’s in the country.”
This did not deter him. Who needs a Happy Meal when you’ve got secret
rooms and attics to explore?
It was a sudden move, and I felt the whiplash. One week, Derek and I were
young professionals in the city, the next, we had sold our business and our
home.
“It’ll be good to get away from everything,” said Derek. I agreed. There
was a lot of ‘everything’ we needed to get away from. The city was crowded
with criminals and beggars and useless infrastructure. A hijacker shot our
neighbour in his driveway. A colleague and his whole family had been held
at gunpoint while a gang of five thugs invaded their house and ransacked it.
It wasn’t just the crime. There were other things, too; more personal things.
Darkness. We loved the city, but we had to think about our Cameron. He
was at such a beautiful, tender age.
While on a weekend break from the city we lost our phone signal and,
without a map, got hopelessly lost. But the misty path had led us to the
manor house; a FOR SALE sign staked on its front lawn. We were not
usually impulsive, but Derek and I felt strangely drawn to the house.
“It’ll be good for us,” Derek said. “Healthy.”
We traded a small neat backyard for sprawling green land populated by
squirrels and chickens. In the city we had high walls and electric fences; the
new property was hemmed in by fruit trees of every kind. There was no
WiFi, no processed food, no touchstones to trip us up every time we saw
something that reminded us of what we had lost. We could leave the
difficult memories behind.
“I like this one,” Cameron said, choosing the smallest, darkest room on the
ground floor.
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