CHAPTER 9: The Groundskeeper Who Won't Answer Questions
1239 Words
After the blood, the house grew quiet.
Not peaceful—never that—but subdued, like a predator that had eaten just enough to be patient again. The walls stopped pulsing. The heartbeat faded into something so faint I could almost convince myself I’d imagined it. Almost.
My grandmother disappeared sometime after sunrise. I didn’t see her leave. I just realized, all at once, that she was gone. The sitting room sat empty, her chair pushed neatly in, the fire cold and gray with old ash.
That frightened me more than her presence had.
I wandered the ground floor aimlessly, afraid to go upstairs, afraid not to. Every doorway felt like a decision I wasn’t ready to make. The house seemed to watch without urgency, confident I wasn’t going anywhere.
Hunger gnawed at me, sharp and sudden. Real hunger, not nausea. My body’s needs were cutting through the fog of fear with blunt insistence. I ate bread I didn’t remember seeing baked, drank water that tasted faintly of minerals and rust. My stomach settled, grudgingly satisfied.Outside, light filtered through the tall windows in a way that made the world beyond them look unreal—washed out, distant, like a painting left too long in the sun.
I needed air.
The front door opened this time.
That alone should have stopped me, but it didn’t. I stepped outside onto the wide stone porch, my breath catching as the cool air filled my lungs. The sky hung low and gray, clouds stretched thin like gauze over something bruised beneath.
The land surrounding the house rolled outward in uneven waves. Dead trees stood scattered across it, their branches twisted into grasping shapes. Paths cut through the grass—not neat or intentional, but worn by repetition.
And there, at the edge of the property, stood a man.
He was bent over, working the soil with slow, methodical movements. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in dark clothes stained with earth. His back was to me, but something about his presence tugged at my awareness, sharp and uncomfortable.
“Hello?” I called.
He didn’t turn.
I descended the porch steps carefully, gravel crunching beneath my shoes. With each step, the air seemed to thicken, the sounds dulling as if I were walking deeper into water.“I said hello,” I tried again, louder.
The man straightened.
He turned his head just enough that I could see the side of his face—weathered, deeply lined, skin like it had spent a lifetime exposed to wind and sun. His eyes flicked toward me briefly, assessing, then returned to the ground.
I stopped a few feet away. “Do you work here?”
“Yes,” he said.
His voice was low. Flat. Not unfriendly—but not inviting.
“What’s your name?”
He paused, shovel resting against the earth. “Names don’t matter much here.”
I frowned. “They matter to me.”
He looked at me then. Really looked.
The moment our eyes met, a sharp chill ran through me, like my blood had remembered something before I had. His gaze wasn’t curious. It wasn’t surprised.
It was resigned.
“You shouldn’t be outside alone,” he said.
“I shouldn’t be here at all,” I replied.
A corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile. “That’s what they all say.”
My stomach tightened. “All who?”
He drove the shovel back into the soil with a heavy, final motion. “Go back inside.”
“Not until you answer my questions.”
His jaw clenched. For a second, I thought he might refuse outright. Then he sighed, long and slow.
“You’re her granddaughter,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you’re pregnant.”
“Yes.”“That complicates things.”
“Everything complicates things,” I snapped. “I want to know what this place is. What it does. What it’s done.”
He wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving dark streaks behind. “You won’t like the answers.”
“I don’t like not knowing.”
He studied me again, gaze lingering briefly on my stomach before lifting back to my face.
“This land keeps what’s given to it,” he said. “Blood. Memory. People.”
My chest tightened. “Keeps them how?”
“By not letting them leave,” he replied simply.
I swallowed. “What about you?”
He hesitated.
“I’m what’s left,” he said.
A cold knot settled in my gut. “Left of what?”
He turned away, picking up his shovel again. “Go inside, Amara Bailey.”
The way he said my name made my skin prickle.
“You know me,” I said.
“I know of you.”
“Did you know my grandmother?”
His shoulders stiffened. “Yes.”
“Did she die?” I asked.
The shovel struck something solid beneath the soil with a dull thunk. He froze.
“Everyone dies here,” he said slowly. “Some just don’t stop.”I took a shaky breath. “What’s buried out here?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is my mother buried here?”
Silence.
“Is my brother?”
That did it.
He turned on me then, eyes sharp and suddenly furious. “You shouldn’t say that name.”
“I never said a name,” I shot back. “I don’t even know if he had one.”
The anger drained out of him just as quickly as it had come, leaving something hollow behind.
“He was never meant to be remembered separately,” he said quietly. “That was the mistake.”
“What mistake?” I demanded.
He looked past me—to the house looming behind us, watching.
“Yours,” he said.
Before I could respond, a sharp pain twisted low in my abdomen, sudden and breath-stealing. I cried out, instinctively clutching my stomach.
The groundskeeper’s expression changed instantly—from guarded to alarmed.
“You need to go inside,” he said urgently. “Now.”
“What’s happening to me?” I gasped.
“The house doesn’t like you asking questions,” he replied. “Especially the right ones.”
The pain eased slightly, enough for me to stand upright again. Tears blurred my vision, half fear, half rage.
“You’re all the same,” I said hoarsely. “You talk around the truth like it might bite.”
He met my gaze, something like regret flickering in his eyes.“It already has,” he said.
A low sound rolled across the land then—deep, resonant, unmistakable.
The house calling.
The groundskeeper stepped back, creating distance between us. “You belong to it now,” he said. “For better or worse.”
“I don’t belong to anything,” I snapped.
He shook his head slowly. “That’s what makes you dangerous.”
The pain flared once more, sharp enough to buckle my knees. I turned, staggering back toward the house, every instinct screaming at me to get inside.
Behind me, the groundskeeper spoke one last time.
“If you want answers,” he said, “start with the family tree.”
I didn’t look back.
The front door closed behind me with a heavy finality.
And somewhere deep within the house, something shifted—
as if it had heard its name spoken aloud.
- Writer
