The Roses of Rothwell

Once, I stuck my whole hand in boiling water. I didn’t want to, I was dared, and it was only for a second, but it earned me credit with kids at school. They started to come to me with other things, trying to stump me. Things like “Eat this entire thing of playdough” and “Run on the river in winter”. They are challenges I can’t say no to.

I wish I had said no to this one, though.

Sitting on top of a hill surrounded by trees with only one path to it, is a house on the edge of town: The Rothwell House.

The house is rotting, stairs collapsed and windows broken. The beige paint is chipped away to reveal the molded wood underneath.

Despite its deterioration, the gardens in the front and back are expertly taken care of; Lush green with beautiful flowers that never seem to die.

There’s light inside some nights, and old music that skips and repeats.

Nobody goes near it. An agreement among the people in town: leave the house alone and whatever inside will leave us alone.

A few kids from my class said I couldn’t last a whole night in The Rothwell House. I said I wasn’t a coward and that I could.

I am an idiot.

It is this impulsive stupidity that finds me standing at the top of the hill, in front of the old picket fence gate. A bag on my back and regrets in my mind.

With a deep inhale that smells vaguely of rain, I flick the latch on the fence gate and let myself in. I carefully close it behind me. Too much force might break it.

The garden is nice, but that I knew. It’s such a stark contrast to the house. Something so well-kept next to something literally falling apart from neglect. It’s beautiful, in a way, but deeply off-putting and makes me hold my backpack straps a little tighter.

My shoes click against the stone path. The anxiety swirling in my stomach grows stronger with each footstep.

For a moment, I swear I hear a second pair. It makes my heart stop, but when I stop and whip around nothing is there and I hear nothing but my heartbeat in my ears.

I can step over the three broken porch stairs with little difficulty, but the creaking porch doesn’t fill me with much confidence about its stability. The thought almost makes me turn around, save this challenge for another day when I’m braver, but I’ve already gotten this far and nothing bad has happened. So I push forward.

Just as I reach for the door handle, my left foot goes through the porch as the wood snaps. I recoil as My shoe touches something slippery under the porch. Deep reddish mud coats the bottom of my boot.

“Spoke too soon,” I mumble, shaking my foot to get the mud off. It looks a little too red, but I’m chalking that up to low light and paranoia.

With another deep, steadying breath, I place my hand on the cold metal of the door knob and turn it. It’s locked.

I groan. “Of course.”

There’s a window next to the door. It’s broken, like all the others: sharp shards of glass stick up like spikes designed to barr entrance. It’s enough of a warning, intentional or not, to keep me from climbing through it.

So, I knock.

A simple knock, knock, knock against the peeling white paint.

Click.

I freeze. My fist hovers over the door. My eyes going wide. My breath catches.

The door is unlocked. Something unlocked the door. How nice. Wonderful. It’s unlocked now. I can go in. It might even be an invitation. I was polite and now I can enter.

This is awful.

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay. It’s okay. Listen, it’s fine. It’s okay. Let’s do this. It’s fine. You got this, Ambrose. You got this.” I turn the handle, the chill of the metal climbing up my arm.

The door creaks when it opens, high pitched and bracing. If the unlocking door was just luck and the ghost didn’t know I was here before, it definitely does now.

Then again, doors don’t unlock because of luck.

I step into a dimly lit room. It’s almost completely empty, save for a single candle lit on the table next to a ruined armchair, tucked away next to a fireplace.

“Nice.” My hands feel sweaty and those nerves and regrets are becoming harder to ignore. This whole place is off.

The door creaks as I close it behind me. As soon as it shuts there's a click.

I try to twist the handle. It’s locked again.

“NICE.”

There is a thunk, like something falling, and I press my lips together tightly.

“Sorry. I’ll be quiet and I won’t touch anything. Just don’t kill me, please.”

The wind rustles the trees outside. There’s no reaction from the house.

The wind blows into the house through the broken windows and I shiver, realizing just how cold it’s become.

There’s no wood in the fireplace to keep me warm, so I take off my bag and begin to set up my sleeping bag on the chair next to the candle.

“It’s just one night. One night to prove I’m...not a coward?” I pace, worrying my lip with my teeth, trying to justify why I’m here in a way that doesn’t sound completely stupid.

“Ambrose, you gotta learn to say no,” I crawl in the sleeping bag and try to make myself comfortable as best I can.

Tonight is going to be long and terrible.

---

Sleep doesn’t come, no matter how tightly I wrap myself in my sleeping bag, or how many times I shut my eyes and repeat, “I’m okay,” under my breath. It doesn’t take me away to dreams or nightmares. Sleep abandons me here, in this creepy-ass house alone.

The wind has gotten rough and the rain I smelled earlier has started to fall. The leaves of the trees are shaking and the candle flame next to me is dangerously close to going out. My eyes are dry and my hands are shaking and I swear to god if that shape moving in the dark is actually there I will scream.

“Brrumph.”

“What the fuck.”

That shape I see in the dark, the one I hoped was just a trick of the light, starts to move closer. I see two circles that glint in the light of the candle as it approaches and, yes, those are eyes. It has eyes.

“Brrmph.”

It gets closer and my hands grab tighter at the edge of my sleeping bag, my breathing gets faster and I can hear my heart beat--

“Meow.”

It’s a cat. A fluffy black cat with bright green eyes.

“Oh. Heh - hello there. You scared the fuck outta me.”

It doesn’t answer, just brushes it’s side against the corner of the armchair, it’s tail touching the end of my sleeping bag.

“What are you doing here?”

It blinks.

“I guess you could ask me the same question, huh? I got dared to come here and I have a problem with saying no.”

There’s a hard breeze through the window and the flickering candle goes out. I can smell the smoke, but I can’t see it...or anything else except from the subtle glinting eyes of my new cat friend.

“Fuck.”

“Meow.”

The circles disappear.

“Wait, no- Cat? Kitty?”

The rain outside gets harder, slapping against the roof. There's a flash from out the broken windows that lights up the room for a split second.

BOOM.

There is a scream. It is mine.

I scramble to get out of the sleeping bag, thoroughly done with being in the dark, and take out my phone from my pocket. I turn on the flashlight. I had wanted to save the battery in case I was dying and needed to call someone, but it’s at 72%, and this is an emergency.

Something brushes up against my leg and I flick my flashlight in it’s direction so fast I nearly drop it.

It’s the cat.

“Hello. Please stop scaring me.”

“Mrrow?”

It tilts its head at me, adorably, and then begins to walk deeper into the house.

With more light, I can see a kitchen area down the hallway, and stairs next to it that my cat friend is climbing. I follow my cat friend. Kitchens are where murder happens.

“Where are we going?”

Kitty does not answer and just keeps climbing.

I climb up after Kitty, skipping steps. The fear of something dragging me back down nips at my heels and causes me to grip tightly to the rails.

I hope Kitty is not leading me to my death. That would be the greatest betrayal of my life and I am not in the mood to be heartbroken right now.

The floorboards creak as I get to the top of the stairs.

It’s a small hallway, with a door on each wall. All of them, except for the one to my left, are closed. It’s also...warmer up here. There is a nice rug on the ground and a small accent table with a vase of roses, neither of which have dust or blemishes. It’s kept, like it’s lived in and routinely cleaned.

“Mrrow?”

I turn to see my cat friend is brushing up against the open door and there is a moment when I accept that, yes, I am being led to my death by a cute grim reaper and I am okay with it.

I’m not, but saying I am makes me feel better.

I step into the room. A very fine queen-sized-bed with black blankets and tall posts and a canopy rests against the wall. Two bedside tables with vases of roses, another nice rug in the center of the room and a small cat bed at the foot of the bed.

There’s a glint to my right as I scan the room, and my flashlight lands on a desk. It has a vase of roses, a picture frame and a book sitting neatly on it, centered and straight.

I glance at Kitty, who is sitting on the bed, staring at me, before approaching the desk and picking up one of the pictures.

It looks really old. The photo is sepia-stained, and the clothes the person wears remind me of Victorian-esque fashion. Kitty is also in it, curled up in the person's arms. I can’t make out much of their face, as they have a wide-brimmed hat that shadows it all, save for their smile, which curls up and shows off unusually sharp teeth.

I am hoping it is an aesthetic picture and that Kitty isn’t a ghost. That can touch me.

I turn my attention to the book, a little black notebook with a smooth, hard cover.

I shouldn’t open it, as it is probably private.

I open it.

It’s filled with what looks like journal logs. A diary. I skim most of it, though the year of most entries does fill me with a terrible feeling in my stomach.

“1872, you say? How lovely.” I mutter, a frown set on my lips as I run my fingers over the rough paper. “Only a couple years old, then...scared I was dealing with the elderly.” I let out an ugly nervous laugh before focusing back on the book. This is not the time for sarcastic comments.

I flip through a few more pages, mostly reading the dates, because what the fuck this house is not that old--

“I thought you said you wouldn’t touch anything.”

There is a shriek and a book thrown, all of which is my fault, as I whip around to see...nothing.

The book is on the floor, with multiple $100 bills spilling out of it.

My eyes flicker around the room. Kitty is gone. it's significantly colder and darker and my flashlight on my phone is beginning to flicker -- which should NOT happen -- and I can’t breathe.

So, like every rational person would do in my situation, I pick up the book and shove all the bills back into it before bolting out of the room and down the stairs.

The front door is wide open and there is a slowly building kettle-like noise that I would rather not see the source of, so I completely abandon my sleeping bag and backpack and sprint out into the rain.

The door slams behind me and I scramble down the steps, skidding to a stop as soon as I reach the fence gate.

There is a breath on the shell of my ear, and a deep, soothing voice whispers to me.

“Leave the book.”

My mouth is dry and I see, sitting on the steps of the house, is Kitty, eyes glinting in the moonlight and tail flicking back and forth.

A warm light comes from the upper floor window and a figure stands, silhouetted in it, staring down at me.

The whisper returns, “You can keep what’s inside if you never return.”

A numbness falls over me, overwhelming terror under its surface, and I nod. My fingers flip through the pages of the book and gather the bills inside, counting them to distract me from how much my hands are shaking.

Gently, I place the book on the stone path, watching the figure watch me.

Then I run. $20,000 richer and alive.

I never go back.