The White House - Book 6, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Elise woke early and lay curled up on her side, staring at the dim outline of the window and waiting for dawn to break. A silence as empty and cold as her heart wrapped itself around her she felt more alone than she ever had in her life. She burrowed deeper under the duvet and watched the weak winter sunlight eventually filter through the cream curtains. 

She got up at eight and showered until her tender skin was red again and she avoided looking at her reflection when she brushed her teeth. Her face was sore to the touch and she dreaded to think what it looked like. She didn’t want to see the result of what James had done…it was bad enough that she could feel it. She felt as if every part of her body was bruised and raw.

She dressed and sat on her bed, staring out at the grey sky and listening to the sound of life carrying on outside the deathly quiet white house. The noise of traffic driving through the village, people passing by and seagulls squawking and screeching; all of it so normal and yet she felt completely detached from it. It was a world without Val and a world in which she had to come to terms with what had happened to her and James.

She remembered the malice in his expression when he had held her down and violated her, and she shuddered, violently. There had been nothing except hate and rage in his eyes and she couldn’t help but think of what Kay had said and the horrible presence Elise had conversed with on the Ouija board.

‘Fuck you whore,’ it had said.

The same words James had uttered over and over again when he’d taken her so brutally.

She thought about Kay reiterating Val’s urgent warning that Elise and James were in danger if they stayed in the white house and she sighed, mournfully. “Oh Val, you always were right,” she whispered to herself.

The house was silent, but it was a different quietude to what she was used to. For the first time in weeks Elise felt as if she was truly alone in the house. She left her bedroom and stared up at the open doorway at the top of the attic stairs, remembering the horrendous rabid shrieking creaking noises the rocking horse had made the night before. She realised she didn’t care where Oliver was now or how he would feel if she left the white house. She knew she couldn’t stay there any longer and she owed nothing to him. The house had brought her nothing except misery and she had to leave before whatever else was there completely destroyed her. 

She went downstairs to the kitchen and made a coffee which she took out to the decking. She leant against the railing and stared out at the rise and swell of the tumultuous ocean, churning and smashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. She remembered how full of hope James had been the day they’d arrived and how she had dashed it so easily. Maybe she deserved everything that had happened to her. Perhaps, intrinsically, deep down she was a selfish person who didn’t deserve to be a wife or mother. She had torn apart her marriage and she had expected James to put them back together, alone.

Was it any wonder the malevolent presence had found his anger easy to tap into and manipulate? She had virtually gift wrapped and handed him to whatever lingered in the house with them.

The phone rang and she hurried into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. It was a nurse from the hospital in Newquay ringing to say that James Morgan had been involved in a collision on his bike and was being treated for concussion and a broken arm at the A&E. Elise thanked her and hung up without saying whether she going to meet him at the hospital or not.

She stood at the sink for a long time, staring out the window at the furious ocean and empty slate grey sky, but eventually she picked up her handbag and went out to her car. She felt in her pocket for her keys and pulled out the protection crystal that Kay had given her. She should have put it on, she thought, sadly, instead of leaving it in her jacket pocket. It was no use now and she hurled it, furiously, into the bushes before getting in her car.