That the street had been built over what used to be a park was well established.
The walls of a chain-pub in the town centre were adorned with reproduction antique photographs showing the area, the park and its small boating lake. But the lake, long since filled in, used to be what was now several streets away from this house, so even the residually high water-table did not explain why the cellar was so prone to flooding. Because the cellar would sometimes flood even when it wasn't raining. She had watched the water herself, seeping - even bubbling - up between the bricks in the floor.
Last August, she'd walked down the stone steps into two inches of water, six weeks into a heatwave-induced hosepipe ban. Insanity. The neighbours' basements were damp certainly, but the flooding itself didn't seem to affect them. Only here. The water authority had eventually checked their pipework and found nothing amiss. Their interest in the matter had ended there. And since a surveyor had reported no problems all these months down the line, there was nothing - legally - preventing her from selling the property.
That the street had been built over what used to be a park with a boating pond was well established. That the park had earlier been marshland, was not.
Oh, local records in the library and museum made mention of it, but this was hardly an unusual historic feature of coastal towns. Neither, sadly, was the smaller pool, located underneath what was now number 38 Park Road. The witching pool. Or more properly, the drowning pool.
She knew nothing of this, of course. Not that the knowledge would have helped her. Because while the water was a problem, it wasn't 'the' problem. No, that was more the crying, and the screaming. At first these emanated from the cellar, but after a while they moved up to the kitchen, too. And they never failed to shock. She'd lost count of the number of cups and glasses that had been dropped as the result of sudden, soul-piercing screams, emitted at full volume at all hours of the day and night.
The time she'd walked into the kitchen to be confronted by a crying girl of around eight years old? Well, that was an entire dropped tray, followed by staying at a friend's house for three nights.
The next was a young woman. That one had appeared halfway through the dishwashing; gibbered, sobbed and screamed for around five minutes then just as quickly vanished. She soon stopped counting each appearance. She'd even tried talking to them on occasion, but to no avail. Each of the women - even when they started appearing in small groups - looked straight through her, presumably unable to see where, or when, they now stood. But she didn't know why they were here, or how - even if - she could help. In fact, she couldn't help. Pain cannot be exorcised, cannot be undone. These were cries echoing down the years, their unfixable source buried in the past.
Her neighbours had put this down to her, of course. Why wouldn't they? Their kitchens weren't haunted. She was the just crazy lady from number 38. She knew this. So she'd stopped washing up. Stopped using dishes. Largely stopped using the kitchen, in fact. The shop at the end of the road sold things she could buy and then eat in the lounge. The bins were at the front of the house, so she didn't need to go into the kitchen to get rid of the rubbish.
It hadn't occurred to her that the reason she'd stopped washing and bathing herself could be down to a broader hydrophobia than the kitchen sink. That the guttural resonation which set her nerves on edge whenever the toilet flushed could be part of a larger, yet ultimately more acute, problem. But it wasn’t a problem because she’d mostly stopped doing that, too.
If she could only sleep properly, she'd have the energy to clean up and get the lounge tidied. Then the estate agent could come back and look round properly this time. Yes. Sleep first. Maybe clear tomorrow. That would be fine. After all, the kitchen had been quiet for, what, days now? Yes, almost. That's enough. That's almost enough. Almost quiet enough.
Almost quiet.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• Short stories © WorldOfBlackout.co.uk, all entries are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Y'know, mostly.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
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