haunting Adeline

Chapter 1 :The Manipulator

Sometimes I have very dark thoughts about my mother—thoughts no
sane daughter should ever have.
Sometimes, I’m not always sane.
“Addie, you’re being ridiculous,” Mom says through the speaker on my
phone. I glare at it in response, refusing to argue with her. When I have
nothing to say, she sighs loudly. I wrinkle my nose. It blows my mind that
this woman always called Nana dramatic yet can’t see her own flair for the
dramatics.

“Just because your grandparents gave you the house doesn’t mean you
have to actually live in it. It’s old and would be doing everyone in that city a
favor if it were torn down.”

I thump my head against the headrest, rolling my eyes upward and
trying to find patience weaved into the stained roof of my car.
How did I manage to get ketchup up there?

“And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t live in it,” I retort
dryly.

My mother is a bitch. Plain and simple. She’s always had a chip on her
shoulder, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

“You’ll be living an hour from us! That will be incredibly inconvenient for
you to come visit us, won’t it?”

Oh, how will I ever survive?
Pretty sure my gynecologist is an hour away, too, but I still make an effort
to see her once a year. And those visits are far more painful.

“Nope,” I reply, popping the P. I’m over this conversation. My patience
only lasts an entire sixty seconds talking to my mother. After that, I’m
running on fumes and have no desire to put in any more effort to keep the
conversation moving along If it’s not one thing, it’s the other.

She always manages to find something
to complain about. This time, it’s my choice to live in the house my
grandparents gave to me.

I grew up in Parsons Manor, running alongside
the ghosts in the halls and baking cookies with Nana. I have fond memories
here—memories I refuse to let go of just because Mom didn’t get along
with Nana.

I never understood the tension between them, but as I got older and
started to comprehend Mom’s snarkiness and underhanded insults for
what they were, it made sense.
Nana always had a positive, sunny outlook on life, viewing the world
through rose-colored glasses. She was always smiling and humming, while
Mom is cursed with a perpetual scowl on her face and looking at life like
her glasses got smashed when she was plunged out of Nana’s vagina.

I don’t know why her personality never developed past that of a porcupine
—she was never raised to be a prickly bitch.

Growing up, my mom and dad had a house only a mile away from
Parsons Manor. She could barely tolerate me, so I spent most of my
childhood in this house. It wasn’t until I left for college that Mom moved
out of town an hour away. When I quit college, I moved in with her until I
got back on my feet and my writing career took off.

And when it did, I decided to travel around the country, never really
settling in one place.
Nana died about a year ago, gifting me the house in her will, but my grief
hindered me from moving into Parsons Manor. Until now.

Mom sighs again through the phone. “I just wish you had more ambition
in life, instead of staying in the town you grew up in, sweetie.

Do something more with your life than waste away in that house like your
grandmother did. I don’t want you to become worthless like her.”
A snarl overtakes my face, fury tearing throughout my chest. “Hey,
Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Fuck off.”
I hang up the phone, angrily smashing my finger into the screen until I
hear the telltale chime that the call has ended.

How dare she speak of her own mother that way when she was nothing
but loved and cherished? Nana certainly didn’t treat her the way she treats me, that’s for damn sure.

I rip a page from Mom’s book and let loose a melodramatic sigh, turning
to look out my side window. Said house stands tall, the tip of the black roof
spearing through the gloomy clouds and looming over the vastly wooded
area as if to say you shall fear me.