Eastern District School

Chapter 3 - A Secret Brewing

Rose had just dropped Tracey back home, she didn't live too far from the pub itself, in the centre of town. As she had already believed…Rose was glad that she had gone to lunch with her friend. They had eaten a lovely roast dinner at Penny's with no sign of the dark-haired stranger. In fact after a while, she had completely forgotten about him altogether. Even Cassandra had been nicer this time around to the point of even stretching to a couple of smiles too,  which made Rose think that Tracey was probably right about her as well. She was very young. There's always a story going on that you don't know about.

She turned the radio up and no sooner had she than the weather forecast was being reported. Apparently there was going to be rain tomorrow and the first part of the week. She never did go much on the weather really, especially as she would be a few hundred miles away, thus meaning different weather usually to where she was going. 

As she drove down her drive, she could see her mother's car almost straight away, it was parked alongside another car. She felt her shoulders hunch. Who could that be? Hopefully someone she did already know. She really didn't feel up to having to be introduced. It could be quite draining, and she wasn’t at all certain that her mother enjoyed it either. It was five o'clock now. She hoped too that it wasn't someone staying for dinner with them both, as she couldn't eat another bite after that scrumptious roast.

She pulled up and turned the engine off. She couldn't see anyone through the windows, unless they were out the back.  So getting out of the truck and bringing her packed lunch for tomorrow with her (which Penny had kindly provided, half the price too she had been informed), she walked towards the house and around to the back door. 

"Ma," she called out, closing the back door behind her. "I'm back!" 

"We are  in here," her mother's distant voice called out.

Rose went through into the kitchen and put her sandwich into the fridge. Her mind told her to hold back, to procrastinate and avoid having to go into the living room and find out just who we were, but realistically she had to go into the living room to go upstairs anyway. With a deep intake of air, she headed into the living room. There, she found her mother sitting on the sofa with Thomas Carter, Nevile's father. She was taken aback for a moment to find him sitting there, Rose’s eyes darted to the two full cups that were placed on the coffee table before them. It seemed a simple, innocent arrangement, yet Rose instantly felt uneasy. "Hi," she simply said, "I'm just gonna go run a bath, I’m feeling tired, it's been a long day." Then addressing Thomas Carter she added “Nice to see you again.”

"Oh, are you sure you can't join us for a cup of tea? I'm just about to make another." said her mother.

Rose just stared for a moment and blinked her eyes at her mother. Their eyes locked, she dared her eyes not to look away back to the coffee table to confirm that the tea was still steaming in their cups.  Why was she being so talkative and social after screaming at her this morning? She leaned against the wall for support, contemplating the fact that she was most likely dreaming.  Rose didn't answer her mother, but just kept staring.

Her mother turned to Thomas, quickly exchanging a look and turned back to face her daughter. Her mother had to repeat herself before Rose felt herself shaking her head, "No i'm gonna take a bath," she said in a hoarse whisper.

"Are you sure?" Thomas asked, turning around on the sofa to face her a bit more. "You can tell me all about your line of work, that your mother's told me a bit about."

Rose did not miss the look on her mother's face as she had turned again to face Thomas. What really was going on here? Her mind told her that she was walking into a trap. "Another time maybe Thomas," she said as she went to turn around. "I've had a long day and I have an early start. It was good to see you though. Goodnight ma." She turned around completely and headed towards the stairs, not giving her mother a chance to say anything else. 

"Rose!" her mother's voice was a little louder this time. Rose had her foot on the first stair, yet somehow her mother had caught up behind her. 

She turned slowly, really not sure what to expect from her mother this time. She didn't say anything, but just looked at her.

"You can't be so rude to Mr. Carter. He came here to see us, and you're just...?" her voice faded off.

"Ma, I have a headache, I'm so tired, I just wanna get a bath and some sleep, You know I have to leave at 4am. I just can't. Goodnight ma." She continued to walk up the stairs, feeling her mother's eyes boring into her back, and she didn't look back at her. She didn't stop until she was in her bedroom and had closed the door and leaned against it as though using her body to lock it. She closed her eyes and put a hand to her pulsing forehead. What was going on? Why was her mother downstairs with Thomas Carter? 

She flung her eyes open suddenly and pulled herself away from the door so abruptly that she nearly lost her balance and fell forward. Was she seeing him? Were her mother and Thomas Carter having a thing? That was something she wouldn't get her head around. Far too much nonsense had happened today, and she wanted that bath more than anything in the world right now.

She gathered her things from her room and went into the bathroom, which was a room  at the top of the stairs. As she was just about to open the bathroom door, she heard a voice obviously from Thomas Carter, even though it appeared he was trying to be quiet.

"If she's gonna find out, she will, there's nothing you can do about it!"

There was a pause.

"She would know right away, she was good friends with Nevile before."

Damn…her mother's voice was too soft for her to hear.

Well, who was she to eavesdrop, if they were going to tell her they would. In their own time, or perhaps not at all. Either way, why should she care? She made her way to the bathroom, and gently closed the door behind her, she didn’t want them to think she was trying to listen to them, once she turned the taps on there would be no worries of that happening anyway. She added some strawberry and cream bubble bath to the water, and sat on the lid of the toilet reading her book whilst the bath filled. It was a book that she was slowly working her way through, but usually added a good escape from the norm of life. However, once she had realised that she had been reading the same few lines over and over and hadn’t actually retained it, she realised that perhaps she should stop trying for now. They might as well have been written in Portuguese, for all she would notice. She closed the book with a thump and set it down.

She undressed and climbed into the bath, sinking down slowly as if she were washing her worries and thoughts of the day away with the water as it touched her skin. She tried her hardest to just focus on the water. What was that meditation all about? Oh yes, clear your mind Rose, she thought. Ha, like that was going to work!

As usual in the evening before falling asleep, Rose would set up a film on her laptop in hope that it would send her off to sleep. If it wasn't that, she would listen to some music on low. Tonight she picked a film that sounded really good but about half way through was turning into a real hidden romance. Still, she waited it out, and probably only missed the last ten minutes of the film. Her laptop switched itself off after 30 minutes of inactivity once the film ended. She had programmed it to do this, due to this particular habit.

So she slept…but not as well as she would have liked to. She dreamed of the dark haired stranger. He kept calling her "Rose...let me help you!" Her mind knew that his seductiveness was so dangerous. She felt a constant fight between running away from him and listening to him. Halfway through the dream (or perhaps it was another dream altogether, she couldn't be sure), the dark haired stranger turned into a snake at a wedding. It started increasing in size and eating all the guests, all the while she managed to outrun it somehow, but it wasn't until it had eaten most of the guests and started chasing after the Bride and Groom, that she realised who they were...Thomas Carter and her mother!

Suddenly an alarm was going off and the screams seemed to die out. But the alarm sounded still, until she suddenly realised it was coming from somewhere close by, and awoke to the sound of her alarm clock on her bedside table.