AUTUMN SUN - FROM THE CORNER OF MY EYE

Autumn Sun currently resides in the UK where she has taught math and science in primary and secondary education for many years. She enjoys reading when she is able to grab a few moments to herself and hones her literary skills by writing, which she hopes will play a more substantial part in her life in a few years. She has been published in the Literary Yard, with her short story called, 'The Earth's Balm',  https://literaryyard.com/2020/11/25/the-earths-balm/ and is currently working on a number of fiction stories as well as non-fiction academic articles based on teaching and education.

From the Corner of my Eye
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​The children were asleep. I was in the bedroom alone thinking. What should I do when it’s late, and someone is rummaging around in the spare room.
Chapter 1 
We first moved in together in the last year of our university program. Our first rented accommodation was nothing like student digs: we were lucky, it was a converted house, a maisonette. It was high on the top of Underhill road in East Dulwich, in Southeast London; situated over three floors; carpeted throughout in soft grey. On the first floor the kitchen, second the sitting-room and bedroom, third floor was occupied solely by the bathroom. Our home was stunning and centrally situated along a tree lined road.
The first night, I sat quietly on the corner of the bed. Legs dangling over the edge. Sleep was elusive. The room was washed in a dark orange, courtesy of the streetlamp, and permitted entry by the ill-fitting drapes that hung slightly apart.  The room was fashioned with intricate coving and excessively high ceilings. It made this a home with plenty of character and conspicuous charm. In particular, a heavy door that stood guard at the entrance of our sitting room, which seemed out of place, as if the door should have been standing guard at the entrance of a house.  The top left hand corner of the room had drawn my eyes a few times. I knew from childhood that the darkest corners made hiding places for fear and tricked the eyes into seeing shadows dancing within shadow. Other times, it was not a trick of the eye.
The next night, unable to sleep I was back sitting at the edge of the bed. The bedroom door had been securely wedged shut, as we found that the breeze throughout the house cut deep, at night.  It was the same feeling as before: a need to be watchful of our home. I didn’t know if the watchfulness was created by my mind as it tried to make sense of all the changes to my life:  new house, new experience of living together, new way of balancing school and work, and it was constantly on alert for anything that would disrupt these changes in a negative way.  Then again, should I be watchful of what I couldn’t see but existed. 
I listened to the house as it slept. Straining to hear the cars as they passed. Straining to hear whispers as they emerged from sources I couldn’t place, and straining to hear if anyone was in the house.
 
Then it happened.
 
The door to our bedroom, painted off white, offered no doubt of its innateness. A ‘thing’ used to create a demarcation between two spaces. Yet, with the door wedge firmly in place, the door moved as if the obstacle was not there, trying not to be noticed, a surreptitious movement: a centimetre at a time. It moved as means and truths were created in this moment, heavy with the knowledge that it was presenting itself to me.  Slow, steady, concentrated. The brush of the bottom of the door against the carpet, was quiet, yet decisive, and the glare from the waning moonlight created an increasing arc of light with each movement, until it stopped. Open and wide. Inviting.  
I sat quiet. Eyes drawn to the empty space near the door. Someone had come, and, was wavering by the opening, observing.   
Many times, I would be in the kitchen, and would hear sounds from behind, the side, and in front of me. At times, noises would draw my eyes towards the ceiling. As if being viewed from all directions. Many times, I would cease my movements at the sudden rush of air around me. Other times, I would lock myself in the sitting room, place the table in front the door, and felt safer when the television was on a high volume. Safer from the possible noises, creaks and sounds that constantly plagued the house. At times, refusing to go to the toilet, as the bathroom was on the floor that never warmed. Accessed by the slim, twisting staircase that led to an area of discomfort.  I was grateful for the heavy sitting room door.
 
I understood its importance.
 
Now, in the darkness, I watched. Then it started its journey back, slowly, closing again. Their visit adjourned; their time in company coming to an end. And their clear intention stating, nothing would keep them out.
 
They are here.
 
We moved out soon after Darian had arrived home from work tired and ready to settle for the night. He headed to the shower after putting his suit jacket and trousers away.  While in the shower, he heard the front door open and I called to him, ‘Darian, I’m home’. He called back to me and said he would be down soon. He dried off and headed downstairs to an empty house. Darkness. But for the bright kitchen light that he never switched on, and no one in the house. I arrived home an hour later.
 
We planned our move that night. 
 
Chapter 2 
I was brought up in a family that embraced the unseen, the unexplained, without derision or judgement. My grandmother, mother, aunties and uncles all experienced, at some point in their lives, the itinerant visit from a loved one, or stranger.  Many stories passed down, about loved ones tending to their gardens, knocking on the front door of friend and family, and greeting you in the street asking you to ‘send regards to the family’. A fleeting interaction that sees them return after they have long passed.   At the age of 11, I was invited to spend the nights a friend’s home. That day, I had arrived earlier than the scheduled time. My friend wasn’t home yet after spending the Saturday with her father, so I spent time with her mother, until she returned that afternoon. I was watching television when her mother came running into the living room. Hands wringing, and her face a contorted sort of confused and scared look.
‘Would you come with me love,’ she said, as she took my arm and lifted me from the kneeling position in front of the television, before I had a chance to respond. She dragged me upstairs, then promptly shut and locked the door behind us; wedging her vanity chair under the handle of the door. 
She was breathing heavily.
‘Go sit on the bed sweetheart’ she said. 
We both kept silent, my auntie’s hand was covering her mouth, as she stared at the bottom of the door where the light from beneath was sporadically broken, like someone walking back and forth outside the door.   
 
I heard mumblings, from outside the door.  She looked at me, then eyes wide open. 
“Who is it” I whispered, knowing to keep my voice down.
She motioned with a finger over her lips to keep quiet. And we stayed like that until my friend and her father arrived home.  They let themselves in and called from downstairs.  Removing the barricade, my auntie and I went downstairs to meet them. I stayed in the sitting room catching up with my friend, my auntie talked vigorously with Uncle Charles.  I heard that when she was in the kitchen preparing the meal, and she was at the stove, one of the two chairs that were settled neatly under the table, was pulled out, and then she heard it creak with pressure, as something sat down on it.  She said she just ran out the kitchen and took me with her. She mentioned this had never happened before. Ever.  So, it must be something that was brought into the home.
 
I was never invited back again.
 
Chapter 3 
This home that Darian and I shared was newer; in a different neighbourhood then our previous home. Clean and newish. It was a two floored flat, and it was ours. Rent was manageable and it was a step in the right direction towards owning our own home.
 
But this house was no different than the rest.
 
The whispers that were just shy of a breeze. The sounds of pacing that could be easily confused with the settling of the floorboards. Or the rumbling sound that you would hear, you attribute to heavy traffic – somewhere.  Or maybe it was the missing things, stuff, non-sensical items.  But my first encounter in this home was clear and with intent.
I was in the bathroom, a big bathroom, which could accommodate a chair and large stand-alone bath, and a walk-in shower. It was that night that I had to finally admit that we again, had company.
After running the bath, and agitating the water to create a foam, turning on the music, which I tend to have music playing, and settling back the water, I rested for a while in that quiet moment, I had not really enjoyed for a while with work and studies.
I was disturbed by knocking on the bathroom door, which I don’t usually lock, but a gut feeling as I climbed the stairs to the bathroom, maybe think otherwise.  I thought it was Darian, so I called out, ‘give me a minute’ and I tried to manoeuvre myself out of the tub. Then I heard it, a voice, coarse and grainy, incoherent and upset.
 
It was not Darian.
 
I stopped having baths, unless Darian was around. But that did not alleviate the anxiety, because after a while, we started to noticed the consistency with which the lights blew in the house.   I think in the six months that we stayed, we spent more on light bulbs then food.
 
The final straw came when I made the ultimate mistake.
 
Passed down to my mother from hers, an old wives tale that wasn’t so much a tale, as a measure of protection.  If you’re in your home, on your own, and someone calls your name. You must not answer. Ever.  If you respond to the call of your name, you are giving permission for whomever passed to return. Allowing them to roam free within the confines of the establishment, be it a home or place of work. But it cannot leave the place of entrance unless a connection is made between the person and the dead energy. That means they are tethered to you.
Home early from work, I relaxed in the sitting room after less than a productive day, and lack lustre meeting at work, that had finished at around 7 o’clock. Darian had come home early I suspected, when the communal front door opened and closed, and the usual heavy feet, stopped at our flat front door, which I heard open. ‘Hey, baby, I’ll be up in a minute,’ he called.  
‘No worries, see you in a minute?’ I called after him, mind not really paying attention to anything other than the cooking show that I found remarkably fascinating.  He didn’t answer, but I figured he was probably talking to the neighbour he had become friends with. After about ten minutes doing nothing but laying on the sofa, I decided to head to the kitchen to see what he had brought home.  He tended to buy a few sweets at the local shops on the way home, and I was suddenly looking forward to something that came with chocolate. I walked calmly to the kitchen and popped my head in, as the light had been switched on, so I knew he was home.  At first glance, I didn’t see him or anything on the counter. I figured he was in the bathroom. So, I called out, ‘Dare’.
 
There was no answer.
 
I called again, while resting my foot on the first step, looking up between the bannister. ‘Darian?’ It seemed as if the call had simply bounced around the spine of the house and disappeared somewhere in its upper region.  After entering the bathroom there was no running water, or toilet coming to the end of its flush cycle that could be attributed to someone having occupied it recently. The bathroom was empty.  I returned to the sitting room fairly quickly, closed the door and pushed the heavy centre table up against it.  I stayed there with the television on loud, until Darian arrived home. We talked about what had happened, and decided we needed to move. For some reason, for the first time, I was not comfortable, with what was going on. I was worried about the extent to which we were seeing and hearing things.  The subtleties that graced us in the early weeks of our stay had progressed to a definitive announcement of a presence. From hearing things fall on the floor and turning around to nothing. To hearing the toilet flush, and the lights being turned on and off, using the drawstring for the light in the bathroom.  We eventually left for a flat over a shop opposite Goldsmiths University; it was a nice place; clean, modern and small.  We weren’t happy, but we had somewhere to live that we could afford.  However, the banging on the communal front door in the early hours of the morning every night at around 3am, from the drunk teenagers from the local university was unacceptable.  We complained to the landlord who said that there was nothing he could do. Eventually, after someone had vomited on our doorstep for the eleventh time, we decided to move, and our exit was hastened by a dustbin that was thrown at our front door and smashed the glass door.  
Chapter 4 
 
We eventually found a house in outer London.  Though we had looked at a number of houses, this one stood out for me. It was old, late 1900s. It was a three bedroomed home, with a sitting room, dining room and open plan kitchen. And though the outside looked unhappy, it was warm and cosy inside.  The entire property needed updating, but its potential when finished, would reap the cost to complete the work that needed doing. When we went for a viewing the first time, there was a young woman with a child of about three months, along with her husband. They were both welcoming and very polite.
After the offer was accepted, we went to view the house again. The young woman, with baby in arms, answered the door.  At first, she seemed overly happy to see us. We both agreed that the overly friendly temperament, was because the offer had been accepted. At first when she offered us a drink, we thought she was just being hospitable. However, when we motioned to go, as we imposed on enough of her time, she seemed a little upset, and held her baby closer. She also insisted that we stay to try her food, ‘because we were already here, and there was more than enough for of all of us.’ She seemed relieved when we ended up staying over two hours.
We managed to say goodbye when her husband arrived and, he too seemed happy to know that we both were there with her. Unusual for a man arriving home to his wife and daughter entertaining strangers.
We moved in several months later, into a semi empty house. It was beautiful. We took a few weeks holiday from work to organise the house. I had taken a full month, unpaid, while Darian only took one week. The first night when we moved in the house was quiet, calm. And I was so happy. Didn’t feel anything untoward that night.
 
In the morning the bathroom light was on.
 
I didn’t say anything more than, ‘you left the bathroom light on’, to Darian in passing. He thought about it for a moment and nodded. Yes, he may just have. The next morning the light was blazing as I came down in the dark. I decided that Darian had left the light on again. I still was not aware that something was home, in our house.  
One afternoon, I was tired from stripping wallpaper and grabbed a drink from the kitchen and then headed back upstairs to the half stripped bedroom.  I lay on the bed, and after a short time, fell asleep watching a show on the mounted television set.  Hovering between sleep and waking, I heard the cupboard doors opening and slamming shut. I was trying to force myself to wake from the dream state, but was getting pulled back to the dream state, again and again. Yet, the persistent opening and closing of the bathroom door, and the light being turned on and off, as the long string was pulled time and again, I couldn’t shake the dream.   I used all my energy to raise my head up, and lurch awake, snapping the connection between the two worlds.  Sitting up tentatively, I strained to hear anything that resembled what I had heard in my dream.  Nothing. I went downstairs and the house was quiet. It was bright outside, but as I walked towards the bathroom, I could see the light on. I hadn’t turned it on, as I didn’t need to in the middle of the day. And the bottom cupboard door was slightly ajar.
I spoke to Darian when he arrived home, about my dream and about the cupboard doors and the light, but we didn’t feel that we had to leave. On the contrary, we justified that ‘our visitors’ just wanted to see what we were doing with the house. Opening the cupboards to see what was inside and checking out the bathroom, which we were having gutted and redone. Our pragmatic outlook over the years, had taught us that being rationale in the face of irrationality, paid dividends with your consciousness. 
As the weeks went by, I realised that our inquisitive ‘lodgers’, were not the malevolent kind, but the nosey kind. Looking in pots by lifting the metal lids, while the pots lay quiet within the confines of the cupboard, clanging loudly during the night.  Sometimes, I could smell the distinct odour of smoke, when a ethereal smoker was standing next to me.
It must beknown that smelling flowers is a good sign. It means that the energy around you is positive, showering you with love. I figured it was the residual smell of whomever was wandering around my home at night.
About five months into being in our new home, we paved the driveway. During the dig, the excavator found an old second world war helmet, with a hole in the side where the forehead would be.  Several old bullets, and a few buttons and other items.  We realised that just maybe, this was one of the many who occupied our home. 
We also found out from the many other residents within the area that both the occupants who originally bought the house, had died in the bedroom upstairs. An elderly woman, whose husband went before her, in the second bedroom on the right. This was not surprising to us, as most of the noises where the boards creaked under a less substantive being, and footsteps seem to emanate from upstairs.
 
 This continued sparingly...until the children were born.
 
Chapter 5 
Bringing my son home the first night was wonderous.  Family and friends came to visit the first night, and my exhaustion did not permit me to stay too long in the waking world. However, the following night, after friends left, and Darian had taken one of them home, as she had travelled alone and it was dark outside, I was alone with my son.
As I sat with him in the carrycot, I noticed the ‘Welcome Home’ banner, moving slightly, swaying. I checked the heater by resting my hand on it, to check if it was on, as if it was it would explain the movement of the banner as hot air hit it due to convection.  But it wasn’t on. Then the control that was resting on the arm of the chair, fell to the floor. Then the chair in the dining room seemed to move slightly. This was the first time the activity was blatant around me. And I was scared.
          He had a cot, that we used to let him sleep in when he was about six months old, but I would always lay on the floor next to him, in his bedroom and hold his hand through the bars of the cot.  He had a little nightlight that would blow every night. In the end I disconnected it from the wall and replaced it with a free standing lamp.  
As he got older, sometimes he would cry at night, and I would stay in his room until he settled. This was the first time that I wondered if they were jealous of his presence or bothered by him.
One afternoon, my son was sitting on my lap watching a children’s programme. He was about eleven months old.  He was a bit grizzly with his teething and then, he stopped and looked towards the door to our sitting room, as if someone had just walked in and he was interested in who they were. He then looked up, as if guiding his eyes towards a face, above his head, and then started to smile. A big gummy dribbling smile. And then, he slowly started to follow whomever it was, turning his head as if watching them as they walked. Then his eyes settled on the seat opposite us, and he was laughing and gurgling away. Not taking his eyes from the unoccupied seat in this world, but, occupied and settled in another.  I wasn’t worried or afraid. I had felt the energy in the room change. It wasn’t malevolent, it was calm. Many nights, when we prepared for the birth of my son, the house would be in turmoil: items being moved, footsteps in the baby room. Maybe finally, I understood why the young lady with the baby was glad to have us in our home when she was with her child alone.
 
They were noisy, nosey and persistent.
 
One evening, after my son became older and could put together more words, he woke for the third time in one night, saying that he can’t get to sleep because of the talking. I remember going downstairs in the dark, straightening my back and standing in the centre of the dining room.  I had made it clear that if ‘they’ bothered my son again. I will get a priest and I will blast them into the light.
 
They never bothered him again.
 
Yet after years of living in this house. Understanding it’s noises, guests and place, it became home.   After being married, having children, paying bills and the kids growing, the house became ours fully, passing visitors and all.  And every now and then, when we would record ourselves singing happy birthday, or dancing around to a song, small circles of light would appear and dance around the kids as if joining in the fun.
 
We were fine with that.
 
The home remains warm, cosy and a lovely place to come back to. Like the guests that wander around. As I wait for my family to come home, I realise that time really does go by quickly. Kids getting tall, son handsome, daughter a princess and my husband, stoic and brave.  
 
I see them coming up the driveway, talking, laughing.  My family.
 
‘Dad,’ my son says, throwing his P.E kit on the floor, as he enters the house, ‘can you smell roses again?’
 
The End.