The House By The River: A Paranormal Horror Novel

Chapter 9

Matt blinked several times just to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. But there it was, despite the occasional white noise and distortions, gory porn was showing on the television. It depicted a couple fucking with abandon, like crazed demons undulating while blood poured on them in abundance. Even with the curious distortions, being that the set was a forty-three inch digital TV, the details were easy to make out. It clearly featured an underaged male actor with physical defects.

“Jean!” he called out as he quickly approached, “Honey, stop watching.”

He looked at his daughter who turned to face him as he approached, a questioning look painted on her face.

“But dad! I still want to watch!” pleaded the little girl.

“Honey, it’s not appro-” Matt stopped mid-sentence.

There was no porn. There were no depictions of sexual acts or blood or anything remotely inappropriate that had clearly just seen seconds before. It was the same cartoons with the boxy characters. His brows furrowed. He felt stupid. It was the second time that day he had acted on something he thought he saw and found it was not what he thought it was.

The fuck is happening? He questioned himself.

“Alright honey, but we’ll go out in a bit to take care of the flowers, okay?”

“Yes, daddy,” agreed the little girl, grateful that she had was allowed to continue watching.

Matt lingered on the disturbing events. He is a truck driver. He drives half asleep cross country. Matt could not admit to himself that he would, on the same exact day, make the mistake of seeing things that didn’t exist. Not in that level of detail. Most baffling of all, he was well rested.

Although bothered, and although he was still not able to find an explanation, Matt still managed to finish his tasks before cartoons were replaced by a late afternoon drama show. Matt and Jean then went outside to tend to the plants.

~0~

The plants on the pots and flower boxes to the left side of the house were tended to first. While Matt watered with the garden hose, Jean delighted in pulling out weeds and wilted leaves and petals off them. He was amused with how Jean made use of the brown leaves and petals. She stuck the dried stems into the head of her favorite rag doll to make a semblance of a crown.

“So, what will you call Jessabelle when her crown is finished?” he asked, keeping with the child’s enthusiasm.

“Jessamine!” Jean corrected. “Princess Jessamine of course!” she exclaimed, raising the doll in the air and doing wide turns several times.

“Yeah? If she’s a princess, where’s her castle?”

“She lives in a tree.”

“A tree? A tree is not a castle.”

“No, no, no.” The girl corrected, “The trees are their gates. That’s how they go in and out.”

“They? Who’s they?”

“Princess Jessamine’s people. Her subjects,” the girl clarified.

“Oh!” Matt responded, pretending to be surprised, “She has servants?”

“Of course! All princesses have servants!”

“Really? I didn’t know that! What’s it like, you know, inside the trees? In Princess Jessablue’s castle.”

“Je-ssa-mine!” The girl corrected again. “It’s beautiful! They have very wide stone roads that are paved with many gems and the gems have different colors and they shine in the sun and it’s very smooth and they smell like perfume. Oh, and then there are rivers everywhere that goes under many bridges that are also made of gems and stones and the rivers have beautiful boats with many different colors that bring you anywhere you like!” Jean described.

“Wow! Really?” Matt asked, feigning surprise. “That sounds like a wonderful place but you can’t live there if they only have roads and bridges and boats and gems and rivers and stones.”

“They have big houses too! Like really, really big. But they only have one storey, not like our house.”

“Why can they only build houses with only one level?”

“Because only the Princess’ castle is allowed to have many storeys. Anyone can build as big a house as they like but they can’t make it have many levels.”

“What if they build one anyway? A house with more than one floor?”

“The Princess kicks them out of the trees.”

“That’s harsh, don’t you think? Where do they go?”

“To other trees, but not to the ones that lead to Princess Jessamine’s kingdom.”

“That sucks,” Matt said, “If I live there, I will build me a house that reaches the sky with a thousand levels! Each level will be better than the last!” Matt pressed, gesticulating wildly in the empty air.

“Princess Jessamine will not let you in. You can’t find a gate inside. It’s for good children only, she says, children that follow what she says.”

“But I’m good, right?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I’m your dad! I’ll always be good.”

“But you’re not a child hahaha,” the girl laughed at her father’s insistence, pointing at him with one hand while the other hand holding the doll rose up to her face, hiding her smile.

Matt was entertained by her daughter’s story. He took pride in her capacity to sew things together and stand her ground.

“You know what? I just thought of something.” He teased, raising and lowering his brows in quick succession while holding his eyes wide.

“What daddy?”

“We live in a house with two storeys. That means…” He let the sentence hang.

“I’m a princess!” Jean exclaimed with glee after a few seconds of consideration.

“No. It means I’m a king!”

“No, you’re not. There are no kings!”

“What do you mean there are no kings? How can there be princesses without kings, or queens?”

“Because! That’s just how it is. Princess Jessamine is the only ruler of the kingdom!”

“Yeah? Too bad.” Matt said after a pause. “You seem to know a real lot. How do you know these things?”

“Princess Jessamine is my friend you know.”

“Oh, I know that.” Matt answered, pretending to be confused. “Of course, I know that. For sure! What I mean is, she only told you. How do you know it’s true?”

“Because!” Exclaimed the little girl with a big smile plastered on her face. “Princess Jessamine showed me!”

~0~

Emmy read a book to pass the time. It was cheap fiction, something about a billionaire werewolf with vampire blood and his masochistic slaves which, for some absurd reason, were named after the pronunciation of the characters in the Greek alphabet. The writing was good, but the book would never see an award, nor grace the last place in any bestseller list. She knew that. She read it anyway. It was her guilty pleasure, and it passed the time. She was on edge and ready to bolt for the hospital should things take a turn for the worst. Reading helped her stay calm.

Emmy had been sitting by her daughter’s bed the entire time and reading helped her stay away. She attended to Gina’s every moan, every movement, and every whine. Emmy kept an eye on Gina’s budding chest. Whenever she missed, or thought she missed, seeing a rise or fall, Emmy would come close and put a hand against Gina’s nose to check her breathing.

Gina was constantly swinging between normal and feverish. While a veteran of high fevers up to this point, being that she was mostly alone when her children were sick, she could not understand the sudden onset of Gina’s fever, or it’s constant spiking. The morning’s episode was most baffling to her.

It was not that she wished it but her daughter, running that hot, should not even have been able to stand up, let alone scream her lungs out. Never mind the apparent hallucinations. But, Gina did. And for that, despite the chilling screams and apparent visions, Emmy was thankful. For all she knew, Gina’s fever could have spiked so high and triggered a convulsion without them knowing. She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if that were the case.

And so, as soon as the first sign came that Gina’s fever had broken, Emmy gathered everything she might need and kept it close. Cooling patches, medicine, stacks of hand towels, sets of extra clothes, and even menstrual pads. Gina started getting her periods when she was eleven. Emmy noted some spotting when she changed her clothes. Silently, she thanked her husband for being able to keep their younger daughter away or else there would have been questions.

The book provided some measure of calmness but Emmy could not shake the feeling of heaviness in the air. It felt oppressive at time. The book should have kept her calm, given that there were no additional incidents, but Emmy just felt afraid sometimes, for no reason.

When she felt it, her eyes would dart from corner to corner, she even wheeled around to check. Emmy would get up from where she sat and paced the room to checking and rechecking the drawers, the cabinets, and even the view outside the window. Not long after, the feeling would disappear, only to come back again some time later and Emmy would be pacing again.

She tried several times to examine what it was that she was feeling but aside from a feeling of the air being thick, she could not pinpoint the exact reason.