The Back Room

This is a precautionary tale. One that does not come lightly. If only i knew that before it all began...

It all started in 1845. This was a time of settlement for the British families who had left behind their comfortable lives to embark on a new journey in Australia. Some moved for the better business opportunity, some felt they had no other choice, but one family in particular wanted to start anew somewhere no one really quite knew them. "Why?" You may ask. Because this family had deep, dark, secrets...

Now I want to tell you all how I got caught up in centuries old 'family drama', you may call it. It wasn't as simple as "Don't go through that door." Or "Maybe you shouldn't take the old relic from a creepy old lady." But it was a situation where I found myself wondering how to make things right again.

You would think we'd have everything sorted out in this modern day but we don't and never will. "We learn better from our mistakes little Missy." My mum would always say after I did something incredibly stupid. My parents were the average loving mum and dad everyone knew them for, I mean, that's what people said so it must be true, right?...right?

In 1995, one day my dad suddenly told us we all had to leave. He had found a new job opportunity in Victoria, on the outskirts of Melbourne. He was a genius engineer while my mum stayed at home and looked after my baby sister and I. It had only been a few months since mum gave birth to Vivian, and I just turned 6 when we moved from our small queensland home to a decrepit old Victorian mansion in Melbourne. It was the only thing my dad could afford at the time and he thought it was a great investment opportunity as he could use his engineering skills to make the place great again. My mum on the other hand, wasn't so sure. Though when you put a 6 year old in such a vast amount of space with all kinds of new things to explore, my mum found that because I was happy, so was she and that gave her some solace at least.

Every day was a new adventure for me until I explored everything, or at least I thought I did. One night I heard a really loud thud, it scared me so a ran to my parents room but when I opened the door it was all different. I couldn't understand it, my parents weren't there and the room was like someone else's. I shut the door then as if by magic, as I looked around the hallway, there was freshly painted walls that had a floral pattern and sconces now covered up every hole along it. I could hear hushed adult voices coming from down the many stairs headed towards our foyer. As I tip toed towards the noise I looked down and saw the tiles had been cleaned and looked like new. The voices grew louder as I made my way down the foyer and through it, towards the kitchen. I peaked around the corner and saw a man and a woman I didn't recognise so I hid behind the wall and listened.

"Ruth, we can either run away again or kill her and dump the body!"

"But Marty, we just got this place~"

"Yeah, and the bobbies have already made a few visits since then!"

"I-I know Marty, I just hate that we had her, and she is making our lives a living hell"

"Well, you better figure out a way this all doesn't turn to shit woman!"

"Marty. The spare room. It's right at the back of the house behind that other room. Let's lock her in there and hide the room!"

I could feel myself curling into a ball and shutting my eyes tighter at every awful thing they were saying as if I couldn't get up and run away. Then suddenly I felt so sleepy.

When I opened my eyes it was morning and I was back in my bed. I ran downstairs towards the kitchen and slowly peaked around the corner to see my mum cooking breakfast, it was a relief to say the least. She spotted me and sweetly smiled. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

I quickly hugged her and balled my eyes out. Don't judge me, like I said, I was only 6 at the time. My mum hugged me back tightly and got me to settle down, albeit very confusingly. I babbled on and on about an evil Ruth and Marty and how they wanted to kill me. That part really threw her off because there had never been anything violent introduced to me before that night.