Written By and Copyrighted to Lydia Stone AKA Twisty.
People ask me all the time about when I was a child, when my mother died in our family home. And all I can tell them is what I remember, which isn’t much, and what my father told me when I was old enough to hear.
The funny thing is, almost everyone has the same reaction to what I have to say, disappointment. You see, we were, for a while at least, local celebrities for what happened in that house. Not that either myself or my father wanted the attention.
I was nine when we moved into my Grandma’s home in the middle of the night, with nothing but the clothes we were wearing.
The first thing I recall from that fateful night was the sounds of my parents arguing. This was not something I heard often, in fact it was so rare that when it did happen, it would scare me.
It was always shocking to hear the usually happy pair shout. But that night was different, there was something desperate in both their voices.
My father was, and still is a strong man, in both body and soul. So to hear him sound so upset, so out of control was almost unimaginable to me. And my mother, a woman of grace and beauty. With the biggest heart I had ever known, shrieking and screaming like a feral animal, it churned something deep in my core even then, that let me know something was going horribly wrong.
See, there had always been two schools of thoughts on what happened to my mother in that house. The first being my father killed her, and the second being that she was possessed. Neither comes close to the truth, which will always be far more terrifying.
Our house, that house, was an old Victorian detached, three bedroomed monster. I had grown up in it and somehow still hated living there. According to father it had been cheap as they bought it at an auction, and at the time it had looked like it was about to cave in.
By the time I was born however, it looked like new, but it never really felt that way. Mother had spent a lot of time trying to make it a home, yet it had forever stayed just a house.
I stayed out as much as I could, opting to play in the garden, or with our neighbours. My father worked a lot so was only really there at night. Whereas mother worked from home and spent most of her time there.
This seemed to take its toll on mother, and over time she became less and less like herself. Becoming instead withdrawn, listless, and agitated.
Being so young at the time, I didn’t understand what was happening, and father couldn’t help, no matter what he did.
By the time she died, mother was little more than a shell of herself. But that night was different, she had got it into her head she needed to do something no mother would while in her right mind.
*
“I said let me go John!” I could hear my mother scream from downstairs, “I need to get rid of it!”
My heart was pounding in my chest as I slipped cautiously off my bed, trying not to step on the creaky floorboards that were scattered in my room like mines.
“Damnit John, I have to get rid of it!” My mother shrieked, I had no idea at that point what ‘it’ was, but she sounded desperate and scared.
Hearing her like that made me pause in my tracks, she just didn’t sound like my mother anymore. It was pitch black in my room, however, I was already adjusting to the darkness and could make out faint outlines of the furniture.
Part of me wanted to hide, while another part wanted to help my mother. I was torn in two, unsure of what the right thing was.
Shaking I eventually decided to try and help. This would prove to be my single regret in life. Slowly I manoeuvred through my room, feeling my way across to the door. I couldn’t tell you now what made me not want to turn on the light. Usually I despised the dark, yet that night it felt more like a safety net.
As gently as I could, I eased open the heavy wooden door and was bathed in a bright light coming from the downstairs landing. Instantly my eyes hurt and I wanted to recoil back into the security that the darkness had provided. Still I moved forward, listening intently to what was happening below me.
The yelling and screaming continued, along with muffled sounds of my father pleading with my mother. As carefully as I could, I descended the stairs. To my own dismay, I stepped on one of the creaky stairs. Sending a squeal through the house as if I had just stepped on a cats tail.
Everything fell silent after that. The rooms seemed to take on a claustrophobic atmosphere as the sound of nothing penetrated the air.
“Sweetheart?” My mother asked in an eerily calm and tender tone, that somehow felt devoid of any love.
I hadn’t moved since stepping down onto the noise mine of a stair, I still had one foot on the step above it. Hardly breathing I steadied myself on the banister and waited for her to forget she had heard anything. What I would do after that I still can’t say, as either way the stairs would have creaked again once I moved.
“Sweetheart, did we wake you?” Again my mother spoke, she sounded closer. And I could hear my father begging more fanatically now.
“Please Marie, don’t, we can do something, just not that.” My father sounded as if he was crying.
“Let go of me.” Mother hissed at him, in a low tone, before shouting sweetly to me. “Come on Sweetheart, why don’t you come down here.”
“No, don’t come down!” Father yelped up to me, which startled me enough to force me back up the stairs another few steps. Sending another squeal through the house.
It fell silent again, all for a slight dragging noise. Father later told me that mother was trying to pull herself forward using the dining table, while he held on for dear life.
“You can’t keep me from it, I must get rid of it or I will never be free of this place!” Mother screamed in a hideous voice.
Fear shook through me like a lighting strike as I realised I was the ‘it’ mother was referring to.
My legs wouldn’t move, despite how desperately I wanted to run away. All I could do was stand there near the top of the stairs, looking down in horror at what was unfolding.
“Please listen to me Marie, we can get you away from the house, for as long as you want. You don’t have to hurt Abby.” Father said as calmly as he could muster.
“It won’t matter, I will still have to come back, unless it is gone.”
“Then we will move.” Father reasoned.
“It will still hold me hostage to somewhere new. It has stolen my life.” Mother shrieked.
Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I did everything I could to stop them, but when that didn’t work, I quietly sobbed, falling into a crouch where I stood.
“No, no Marie, don’t!” Father shouted followed by the sound of the draws rattling and father crying out in pain.
“You should have listened John, I didn’t want to hurt you.” I heard mother say as she gasped for breath.
I opened my eyes and saw her standing at the foot of the stairs, a kitchen knife in one hand. Her white nightdress, the one I had seen her in not a few hours before was now stained red. She looked wild and alert as she glowered up at me, ready to pounce.
Unable to move or break away from her gaze I was stuck. Once again, she spoke in that eerie tone.
“Hello sweetheart, you’re going to help me, aren’t you?”
Just as she took a step towards me, father ran in from the kitchen, hitting mother with all his weight from the right, forcing them both into the hallway wall.
“Run Abby!” He yelled as he struggled to keep mother on the ground. She kicked and screamed like a wild beast, throwing him around.
I bolted down the stairs and past them, turning into the kitchen where I was faced with a sight of complete destruction. Mother had destroyed, or thrown anything that wasn’t nailed to the floor or fastened to the wall. I picked my way through the debris as fast as I could, cutting myself on broken glass and plates. All the while trying hard not to make any noise as to draw mothers attention.
The living-room was by contrast intact, with only the bloody footprints I was leaving behind as evidence anything had happened.
When I reached the front door I stopped. It was the middle of the night and this was the first time I would have stepped outside the safety of the house at that time.
It took a loud wail of anger from my mother followed by someone charging through the kitchen to push me through the door.
Outside was bitter, the wind nipped at my legs, arms and neck as I marched towards our car. The only familiar thing I could think to move towards.
“Abby get in.” Father said as I heard the beeping, and saw as the car flashed to let me know it had been unlocked.
Hauling open the passenger side door in the front I clambered in and reached out to close it behind me, but it was just out of reach.
Father appeared next to me, looking dishevelled, with bruises all over his face and forearms, and blood on his torn T-shirt.
Smiling as much as he could he closed the door and ran to the other side slipping into the driver’s seat.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To Grandma’s.” Father replied and started the car. I could hear the front door to the house rattling behind us. Now I know he had locked mother in so she could not chase after us. He had thought at the time it would be safer for all three of us.
“What’s wrong with mother?”
“She is just feeling really upset at the moment.” Father replied as he pulled out of the street and made his way to Grandma’s.
*
For the longest time I thought mother was still in that house. We lived with my Grandma until she passed when I was sixteen. It was only then that my father told me that mother had killed herself that night.
He had called the Police to go and get her, but when they arrived they found her body on the sofa. It was completely drenched in blood.
The strange thing is, despite of how we ended up living with my Grandma, for the first time in my life I felt like I was home.
As I grew up I realised what had happened to my mother. Mental Health issues run in our family, and I am convinced she suffered from something. That night she was delusional and desperate, even terrified.
My father did what he could in that moment to try and save us both, and he lived with the guilt of my mother’s death until the day he died.
I grew up in my new home, and knew love, understanding and joy. But that night never left me, so I wanted to learn why. I am now a therapist, and I try to help those like my mother. In honour of both my parents.