The House

Chapter 55 - Day 6: The Lonely Bones

"Belle," David says when the scream finally echoes into oblivion, and I'm able to think again. "We need to get the police up here."

I don't like the sound of that, and rising from my crouched position, I walk towards him on shaky legs, afraid to see what he has uncovered.

"Maybe you shouldn't look," he tells me, stepping in my way, but I shake my head and rest a hand on his chest, startled to feel his heart beating wildly like a trapped bird. The woman and her scream came as a huge shock to him, and whatever he found in the enclosure definitely freaked him out.

"Honestly, David, it cannot be worse than the horrors going on in my mind. Is it worse than the woman you just saw?" I ask, and he frowns, shaking his head.

"I didn't see her clearly; I just heard her." He grimaces, clenching his teeth. "That was bad enough."

I don't resist when he pulls me into his arms, running his hand over my head, soothing me, and I can feel him trembling with pent-up emotions. This is the first time since all the weird things in this house started to happen that he is not calmly taking control. I can tell that he is really upset and needs comfort as much as he is giving it.

"I'm so sorry, Belle. Please forgive me for not believing you," he mutters into my hair.

"You didn't believe me?"

"I didn't know what to think," he admits, hugging me closer. "I believed that you believed seeing her, but I wanted to debunk it for you."

I step back to look up at him; my fingers curled in the fabric of the sweater he pulled on after taking a shower before we came up here. His face is filled with regret and compassion, and with a wobbly smile, I reach up to touch his cheek.

"You broke down a wall without believing me?"

"Belle, I will do anything I have to to set your mind at ease," he assures me, his eyes glittering earnestly.

"Even vandalise your own house?"

"Anything."

"That is the most romantic thing I've ever heard," I grin, relieved when David chuckles, his features releasing some of the tension pulling at them.

"Well, turns out, I cannot debunk it. I can only prove it," he says with a wince, and together we turn so I can see what he found. There's no strong smell. I would've expected the smell of putrification, but I guess that has come and gone long ago, leaving only mustiness behind, laced with the dust from David's demolition efforts.

He'd uncovered a tomb.

Calling it a room would be too generous. It's a narrow space, big enough for one person to lie down in. A person whose hair had once been black, judging by the strands of long, dry, dark hair covering patches of a skull, eaten clean by insects.

I recognise the dress - what's left of it – as the one the woman at the window was wearing. Torn black lace, with the fabric stiff and stained with blood and bodily fluids as she decomposed. I recognise the thick chain too. The ring was still around her neck when she was tossed in here to rot away in secret. Now, it's lying limply, the flesh keeping it in place all gone, and the bones no longer completely in place.

Did she break her neck?

I gasp in protest when David steps into the 'grave' and crouches to take a closer look at the terrible remains.

"What are you doing?" I ask, shocked by his inexplicable interest in something so macabre.

"I'm looking for some kind of clue to tell us who she was," he explains, and that does make sense, though, to be honest, I just want to get out of here and unsee this. My stomach feels tight and uncomfortable, and I can barely swallow due to the knot in my throat.